Author Archives: The Voice

The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Sarah Teather on those flipping MPs

By The Voice | Tue 12th May 2009 - 12:08 pm

Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East, writes passionately in today’s Guardian on the lack of reform in MPs’ expenses:

Every time I hear an MP found out for “flipping”, tax avoidance or profiteering argue they were just following the rules and that the rules now need to change I find myself yelling at the television: “Where were you when we had a chance to change the rules last summer? You were voting in the other lobby!”

The rules were (and still are) so vague that all manner of personal wealth creation on the public purse was perfectly possible. Believe it or

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – Arthur, Delia and another rotten bubble

By The Voice | Mon 11th May 2009 - 6:14 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable examines the disconnect between the have-nots and the ‘haves and have-yachts’ in the sporting world, and asks if ‘The Storm’ will close the gap:

First it was debt, then property. Now I sense another bubble waiting to burst. While some of Britain’s key wealth-generating activities – construction, manufacturing, finance – are in terrible shape, one industry sails serenely on apparently oblivious to the recession: football’s Premier League. Britain’s leading banks may have bitten the dust but our top clubs dominate Europe and, arguably, the world. …

I can’t see this party

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Norman Baker triple bill on MPs’ expenses

By The Voice | Mon 11th May 2009 - 11:30 am

The Lib Dems’ very own sleazebusting terrier Norman Baker (who daylights as our shadow transport secretary) has three – count ’em – articles on MPs’ expenses in the papers. Excerpts as follows:

Never in my 20 years in politics have I seen the public as angry as today (Daily Mail)

Little did I know, when I submitted a Freedom of Information request back in 2005, what a Pandora’s Box was opening up. That modest request, simply asking for a breakdown of MPs’ travel costs by mode of transport, was fought tooth and nail by the senior MPs who comprise the House

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Caroline Pidgeon – Boris Johnson’s first year is no cause for celebration

By The Voice | Tue 5th May 2009 - 9:01 pm

Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson on the London Assembly, writes in today’s Guardian on Boris Johnson’s first year as Mayor of London.

She says that although Johnson has promised much, he has failed to deliver on most of it:

On transport alone there has been a long list of broken promises.

Johnson pledged to establish a new express bus service that would orbit outer London. A year after being elected, not one orbital bus route has even been planned.

The mayor promised to convene an “emergency summit” of the train operating companies to tackle overcrowding and exorbitant fares. A year on,

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The Voice

Ros Scott’s party president report, April 2009

By The Voice | Mon 4th May 2009 - 8:56 pm

Those of you wishing to find out what Lib Dem party president Baroness Ros Scott has been up to in the past month (or so) can sate your curiosity over at her Because Baronesses are people too blog. Here’s an excerpt to entice you:

I’ve been working with Jeremy Hargreaves (Vice Chair Federal Policy Committee) and a group of his colleagues to look at how members might be more involved in policy making. We have a number of new initiatives which you should see being rolled out during the summer. This should be a major step forward in providing more

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The Voice

Want to hear Chris Huhne speak on ‘Threats to Civil Liberties’?

By The Voice | Mon 4th May 2009 - 7:29 am

If you’re answer is yes, the the following notice will be of interest to you:


British Institute of Human Rights Lunchtime Lecture
Tuesday 5 May, 1 -2 pm
Threats to Civil Liberties
Chris Huhne MP, Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department

Chris Huhne MP will present the Liberal Democrats’ perspective on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and discuss their own Freedom Bill. Lecture to be followed by a Q&A.

Venue: Mander Hall, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9DB

Booking information: There is no charge to attend our lectures, but it is necessary

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The Voice

As if swine ‘flu weren’t bad enough…

By The Voice | Thu 30th April 2009 - 9:45 am

Lib Dem shadow health secretary Norman Lamb has warned that diseases such as whooping cough and scarlet fever are making a “dramatic comeback”. The Health Service Journal reports:

Cases of whooping cough have almost trebled since 2003, from 386 to 1,071 a year in 2008. The number of cases of scarlet fever has risen from 2,121 in 2003 to 2,845 in 2008.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: “It is shocking that diseases which should belong to a bygone era are making a dramatic comeback. Ministers have ‘failed in their duty’

“Many of these illnesses can be prevented with a

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – I like optimists, but I don’t buy Mr Darling’s miracle

By The Voice | Thu 30th April 2009 - 8:45 am

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable delivers his robust verdict on Alistair Darling’s 2009 budget. Here’s an excerpt:

I argued the main requirement was an honest statement, without spin, of the country’s problems. Darling was candid enough about the scale of the budget deficit – which will be a staggering 12 per cent of GDP this year and next, forcing the Government to borrow unprecedented sums to cover the collapse of revenue from financial services and the falling housing market. …

Darling was less honest about the prospects for recovery. He cheerfully assumed growth will return soon.

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Ming Campbell – Gurkhas undaunted, Brown defeated

By The Voice | Wed 29th April 2009 - 10:42 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, former Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell explains how today’s Commons defeat of the policy to restrict Gurkhas’ right to settle in the UK is another crack in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s authority:

What the government failed to appreciate was the extent of feeling within the Commons and the enormous public affection outside. The Gurkhas hold a special place in British hearts and, for once, public opinion was in favour of immigration rather than against it. …

It is wise to remember the government hasn’t fallen. But this defeat adds to the woes of a

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The Voice

Sarah Teather on sex and politics

By The Voice | Wed 29th April 2009 - 10:20 pm

Today’s Times asked five female MPs for their perspectives – here’s what Sarah Teather had to say about the difference sex makes to how women are treated in politics:

I never would have imagined myself doing this job. I speak to female researchers who are brilliant, confident and articulate and they say that they’ve never thought of being an MP. They see people working in the building and think, ‘That’s not for me – I want a life.’

“The qualities that are prized in the Westminster village are quite male. The “yah, boo” politician, the big hitter; inevitably that means aggressive and

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV

By The Voice | Sat 25th April 2009 - 11:44 am

Vince Cable has a budget special piece in yesterday’s Independent:

This is a time for grown-up debate. The deficit is too big and the public is too cynical of politicians to be taken in by vague, unspecific, promises. The only way forward is to identify, explicitly, areas of government activity which will have to be cut right back. My party has already identified several specific cuts – like the ID card scheme; the NHS IT project; “baby bonds”; refusing unlimited taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power. We believe that there now has to be a serious debate about how to scale

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The Voice

Laws on the Sats’ fiasco: “The issue now is whether ministerial heads should be rolling”

By The Voice | Wed 22nd April 2009 - 12:03 pm

Ken Boston, former exam chief for England, has not minced his words when giving evidence to a committee of MPs on last summer’s Sats’ marking fiasco. The BBC reports:

Dr Boston, former head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, described ministers’ version of what happened as “fiction”. The marking of more than a million test papers taken by 11-year-olds was delayed for months when the company contracted to run the marking – ETS Europe – ran into problems. It later lost the contract. Results of the controversial tests are used to draw up the primary school league tables. Last year’s

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – My Budget to revive Britain’s ailing economy

By The Voice | Mon 20th April 2009 - 12:37 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader and shadow chancellor Vince Cable oultines his plans to get the British economy back on track. Here’s an excerpt:

What can the Government do in the Budget to help avert an unemployment crisis? The panicky VAT cut, designed to get consumers spending again, was not a success and very expensive for the Government.

It would be better now to redirect the remaining £8.5billion set aside to public works projects which provide jobs and leave taxpayers with a useful asset at the end of it.

The obvious priority is affordable housing. Private house building has

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The Voice

Huhne attacks RIPA snoopers’ charter: “the Government’s surveillance society has got out of hand”

By The Voice | Fri 17th April 2009 - 12:55 pm

Today’s Times reports:

Councils are to have their powers to snoop on the public severely curtailed. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, will signal government plans today to reverse the expansion of the surveillance society amid growing alarm at the extent of official spying.

And not before time, for as the paper reports elsewhere:

A survey by the Liberal Democrats found that 182 of the 475 local authorities in England and Wales had authorised the use of Ripa powers on 10,288 occasions in the past five years.

It found that 1,615 council staff have the power to authorise their use

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The Voice

Vince calls for investigation into FSA’s “appallingly bad job”

By The Voice | Fri 17th April 2009 - 9:48 am

The Times reports:

The Financial Services Authority was accused last night by one of its former supervisors of complacency in its past regulation of building societies.

The unnamed whistleblower, who approached Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats Treasury spokesman, said that the FSA ignored a warning three years ago that risky self-certified loans had been packaged and sold to building societies that thought they were conventional loans.

Mr Cable has written to Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, the FSA chairman, asking him to investigate. “This man experienced first hand the appallingly bad job the FSA did of supervising the building societies,” Mr

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The Voice

Huhne on Green arrest: “monumental shambles” by senior civil servants

By The Voice | Thu 16th April 2009 - 2:28 pm

Tory MP Damien Green will not face criminal charges for his alleged role in leaking confidential home office documents, the Crown Prosecutions Service has announced. Menawhile the home affairs parliamentary select committee has found that civil servants exaggerated the seriousness of the leaks, claiming they had caused ‘considerable damage to national security’.

Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne has not minced his words:

This is a monumental shambles. It is astonishing that ministers were not consulted, if the Home Affairs Select Committee is right, as they should have realised the political consequences of being seen to harass an

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: David Howarth – Who are the police protecting?

By The Voice | Thu 16th April 2009 - 11:11 am

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free, Lib Dem shadow justice secretary David Howarth asks if police interference in the right to protest is designed only to protect the political and economic status quo. Here’s an excerpt:

The arrest of more than one hundred climate protesters alleged to have been planning to disrupt the operation of the Ratcliffe coal-fired power station is, I am glad to see, raising questions about undue interference in the right to protest. Prior restraint of protest, especially in the form of preventive arrest, is difficult to justify. Adding restrictive conditions to the protesters’ bail makes the

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Jonathan Fryer – What Hope for the Middle East?

By The Voice | Wed 15th April 2009 - 6:30 pm

Over at Society Today, Lib Dem blogger and London candidate for the European Parliament Jonathan Fryer examines the prospects for peace in the troubled region. Here’s an excerpt:

… the prognosis for the future need not necessarily be as grim as the pessimists fear. First and foremost, the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House should provide a whole new dynamic to the Washington-Tel Aviv axis. In the past, US administrations – including that of George W Bush – have allowed Israel to get away with murder, literally and figuratively. That has included the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements in

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Nick Clegg – A greater test is to come

By The Voice | Wed 15th April 2009 - 9:21 am

Over at The Guardian, Nick Clegg highlights that expense abuses are just one symptom of a bankrupt political culture, and argues that Britain deserves real change. Here’s an excerpt:

Britain’s MPs are facing a summer of reckoning. All 700,000 pages of their expense claims are going to be published in July. It’s an investigative journalist’s dream – reams of fodder to mock and hound the political establishment.

Many of the revelations will be relatively minor, but taken together they are significant. Last year I began publishing my expense claims voluntarily. People wrote to me asking questions about individual domestic items. Quite right

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The Voice

Ros Scott’s party president report, March 2009

By The Voice | Tue 14th April 2009 - 5:55 pm

Those of you wishing to find out what Lib Dem party president Baroness Ros Scott has been up to in the past month (or so) can sate your curiosity over at her Because Baronesses are people too blog. Here’s an excerpt to entice you:

March was dominated by my first Federal Conference as President and, whilst I didn’t have a setpiece speech to give – that will have to wait until September – I was still pretty busy. Opening and closing Conference, giving the Federal Executive Report, chairing Kirsty Williams’ speech (and wasn’t that a barnstormer?) plus handing out the

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The Voice

“Reform MPs’ pay once and for all, says Clegg”

By The Voice | Tue 14th April 2009 - 10:21 am

From today’s Independent,

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg demanded yesterday that Gordon Brown swiftly set a date to discuss MPs’ expenses.

The Prime Minister said last week that the system of pay and perks must be sorted out “once and for all, adding that he was happy to discuss the issue with fellow party leaders.

But Mr Clegg said the email scandal engulfing No 10 had heightened the need for reforms. He said a meeting should be held “without delay to come up with a fair and open way of meeting MPs’ costs”.

He said: “As the events of the Easter weekend have

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – All aboard the 7.15 cattle truck to Westminster

By The Voice | Mon 13th April 2009 - 12:06 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable delivers his Easter message, examining the vexed issue of MPs’ expenses. Here’s an excerpt:

This may be a time of national economic peril, but the Home Secretary’s patio heater and the Transport Secretary’s three homes dominate the news. It is now essential that this running sore is dealt with. MPs have to move quickly and decisively to introduce a system that is clear and clean and gives taxpayers value for money.

I was pulled up short when I saw a newspaper headline ‘MPs: They’re all at it’. My first reaction was

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The Voice

Walk with Brian for equality

By The Voice | Sun 12th April 2009 - 3:06 pm

An email drops into The Voice’s inbox from Brighton & Hove Lib Dems, which we are very happy to share:

Liberal Democrats in Brighton and Hove are calling on colleagues from across the South East to join Brian Paddick as he leads the Stonewall Equality Walk. The annual 10km walk takes place on Sunday 3rd May from 1pm meeting at the Royal Pavilion grounds. Last year Lib Dem campaigners raised over £1,200 for Stonewall.

Lib Dem Council Group Leader Paul Elgood said: ‘Come to Brighton and help support Brian as he leads the Stonewall Equality Walk. It’ll be an enjoyable day for

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Brian Paddick – Police leaders must regain control of their subordinates

By The Voice | Sat 11th April 2009 - 12:25 pm

Over at The Independent, former Lib Dem London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner at the Metroplitan Police, examines the force’s mounting problems. Here’s an excerpt:

Seeing the video of Ian Tomlinson being assaulted by a police officer during the G20 protests – an apparently innocent man being subjected to what appeared to be an unjustified assault by a police officer – provoked in me an immediate desire for the perpetrator to be suspended, tried and punished.

On the other hand, having been the victim of “trial by media” myself, I realised the need for an independent investigation, the outcome

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The Voice

Liverpool Lib Dem loses election law breach appeal

By The Voice | Thu 9th April 2009 - 11:19 pm

The Liverpool Echo reports:

A LIVERPOOL councillor failed to have his conviction for breaching election law upheld . Lib Dem Steve Hurst was found guilty in December of delivering a leaflet entitled “Walton Scab”. It attacked sitting Labour councillor Pauline Walton and her firefighter husband in the May 2007 council elections.

But his appeal was dismissed after a three-day hearing at Liverpool Crown Court.

Judge Mark Brown said: “This sort of conduct brings considerable discredit on his party and local politicians in general, at a time when politicians are under the spotlight as never before. This was dirty tactics of the worst

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The Voice

Clegg: make MPs sell second homes to benefit taxpayer

By The Voice | Thu 9th April 2009 - 12:01 am

The Times’s Sam Coates has the story:

MPs should be forced to sell their second homes and return most of the profits to the taxpayer, under plans to be put forward by the Liberal Democrat leader. Nick Clegg moves to outflank both Gordon Brown and David Cameron today with the toughest suggestions to date in the effort to end the damaging row over MPs’ perks and allowances.

Under Mr Clegg’s proposals, to be put forward at a meeting with the Labour and Conservative leaders, MPs would no longer be able to claim mortgage interest payments on expenses and would be compensated

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The Voice

Lib Dems demand criminal inquiry into Tomlinson death

By The Voice | Wed 8th April 2009 - 9:39 am

The BBC reports:

The Liberal Democrats are demanding a criminal inquiry after video footage of the G20 protest showed a police officer pushing over a man who later died.

Newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, 47, who was walking home from work, suffered a heart attack afterwards outside the Bank of England in central London.

Lib Dem justice spokesman David Howarth said the footage showed a “sickening and unprovoked attack” by police.

The IPCC is investigating and said it would examine the footage.

Here’s Lib Dem shadow justice secretary David Howarth’s statement on the Guardian video showing a policeman attacking Mr Tomlinson shortly …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable bumper catch-up edition

By The Voice | Tue 7th April 2009 - 9:52 am

If only The Voice more regularly perused the pages of the Daily Mail, we would not have missed Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable’s most recent two articles for the paper. (Then again, if The Voice more regularly perused the pages of the Daily Mail we would most likely end up supporting flogging for immigrants, worrying about Facebook giving us cancer, and cheering on the Blackshirts). Anyway, Vince has penned two articles for the paper examining the impact of the economic crisis. Excerpts below – clcik on the headline to read in full:

We’re not going bust, but Gordon has …

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The Voice

Miriam attacks stem cell waste

By The Voice | Mon 6th April 2009 - 1:12 pm

The Independent has the full story:

The wife of the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has criticised the financial and bureaucratic barriers that prevent British mothers from donating discarded umbilical cords to a national tissue bank.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, who married Mr Clegg in 2000, said she wanted to donate the cord blood cells of her third child, Miguel, to a national tissue bank but was told it was impossible.

Cord blood contains stem cells that can be used in transplant operations to treat a range of disorders relating to the blood and immune system, such as leukaemia and anaemia.

The Government has

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The Voice

Taking action on RIPA – what Oldham has done

By The Voice | Fri 3rd April 2009 - 9:20 am

From their press release:

STATEMENT RE: COUNCIL USE OF SURVEILLANCE LAWS

Councillor Howard Sykes, leader of Oldham Council said: “Following a recent review of the council’s use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, elected members are now consulted before the act is used in Oldham. This gives the council an additional level of oversight, something that most other council’s in the country do not do …

“During an inspection on 1 January 2009, by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners, the government body appointed to oversee those allowed to commission surveillance, all of the council’s authorizations for surveillance were lawful.

“We will

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