Author Archives: The Voice

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 8th February 2015 - 1:30 pm

Many thanks to the 15,800 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Oops! 15 Scottish Ashcroft polls published early by mistake (82 comments) by Paul Walter

LibLink: Vince Cable – Why is Labour planning changes to tuition fees that benefit higher earning graduates before lower earners? (189 comments) by Paul Walter

Electoral forecast puts Lib Dems on 48 seats (43 comments) by The Voice

Posted in Site news | 5 Comments

Thank you for your contributions to the #timetotalk theme yesterday

By The Voice | Fri 6th February 2015 - 10:35 am

Thank you to everyone who wrote on the #timetotalk theme yesterday. We published 14 posts on the subject, with others added to the comments. You gave us some amazing contributions, some of which must have been really difficult to write.

Time to Talk was an opportunity to give a human face to mental health, so that some of the taboos and myths could be knocked on the head. It was particularly appropriate this year, given that the Liberal Democrats are giving such a high prominence to mental health in our manifesto and election campaign. So we were pleased that Norman Lamb, the Health Minister, gave us his own relections and Paul Burstow provided some background about mental health services for children and young people.

Posted in News | Tagged #timetotalk | 4 Comments

After the Rose Garden: Nick Harvey’s lessons from coalition

By The Voice | Tue 3rd February 2015 - 3:51 pm

The Institute for Government launches today former Lib Dem defence minister Nick Harvey’s report After the Rose Garden, on the workings of the coalition and lessons to draw for the future,

Some of these issues have been debated on Lib Dem Voice before. Nick observes that more “bums on seats”, even at the expense of policies in the coalition agreement may have had greater impact.

Posted in News | Tagged lessons of coalition | 18 Comments

LibLink: Tim Farron on Chilcot

By The Voice | Tue 3rd February 2015 - 1:52 pm

At the Huffington Post, Tim Farron is decrying the delay to the Chilcot report into the Iraq war.

The publication of the Chilcot report is crucial and the delays are unacceptable – we cannot afford to continue walking in the dark.

The underlying issue which we need to understand and question is the alignment of British foreign policy with American priorities. Has Blair and Thatcher’s determination to maintain “the special relationship” benefitted our country? Should we continue in this vein? The Chilcot report, when it is eventually published, must force us to learn lessons for the years ahead: at the moment we are in limbo. In a year when the country will decide who rules for the next five, this is unacceptable.

Posted in LibLink | Tagged afghanistan, defence and iraq war | 3 Comments

Electoral forecast puts Lib Dems on 48 seats

By The Voice | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 3:40 pm

The Guardian reports the predictions of Prof Paul Whiteley of the University of Essex. His study forecasts Labour with 291 seats, Conservatives 281, Lib Dems 48 and others 30. The study is based on a model used by the British Election Study which came up with some pretty accurate predictions for 2005 and 2010.

The article explains:

The Essex forecasting model works by combining the number of seats won by parties in the previous election with voting intentions data from polls conducted six months prior to the election.

Posted in News | Tagged 2015 general election, british election study and featured | 46 Comments

Nick Clegg on Sky News Ask the Leaders event today

By The Voice | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 10:09 am

Update: After some confusion it seems that Nick will now be appearing later. David Cameron has also agreed to appear later today.

Sky News is running an Ask the Leaders event today, with young people asking the questions. The Q&A sessions with each leader (Miliband, Clegg and Bennett, but not Cameron, it seems) will be shown live on Sky News for 30 minutes followed by 15 minutes on Facebook. Nick Clegg’s turn comes at 12 noon.

You can watch live updates or get involved on #AskTheLeaders or on the Stand Up Be Counted …

Posted in News | Tagged nick clegg and sky news | 4 Comments

Today’s workers, tomorrow’s retirement problem

By The Voice | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 9:32 am

View image | gettyimages.com

Here at LDV Towers we’ve received an invitation to an event organised by the Resolution Foundation on Wednesday 11th February, when Steve Webb will be speaking. Most of us are unable to attend, so we are passing the invitation on to you, our dear readers.

Posted in News | Tagged steve webb and the resolution foundation | 5 Comments

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 1st February 2015 - 4:30 pm

Many thanks to the 16,800 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Surely it’s time for the Liberal Democrats to part company with Alex Carlile (100 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Clegg on The Last Leg – first thoughts (14 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Open Doors: All 3 versions of the first Lib Dem broadcast of the year (71 comments) by The Voice

Posted in Site news | 5 Comments

Lib Dems raise £50k for General Election in just one day

By The Voice | Sun 1st February 2015 - 1:30 pm

Good news from Lib Dem Chief Exec Tim Gordon in our inbox this morning. Yesterday, the party raised £50,000 in just one day from members and supporters. That’s half as much as it raised during the whole of January. Nick Clegg’s appearance on The Last Leg may well have stimulated a good old shot in the bank balance for the party.

What’s particularly good is that the £150,000 raised from members and supporters will be matched by major donors, giving the campaign a £300,000 boost.

This news, combined with the recent news that Liberal Democrat membership rose for the sixth quarter in a row shows steady progress.

Posted in News | Tagged campaigning, fundraising, general election 2015 and liberal democrats | 9 Comments

Lib Dem campaigners in the snow #2

By The Voice | Sun 1st February 2015 - 10:25 am

Following on from our post on Thursday night, here are some more pictures of Liberal Democrats campaigning in the snow. Keep sending them in.

Danny Alexander went for a walk (remember #dannyswalks) in the streets of Aviemore:

Canvassing in snowy aviemore this afternoon pic.twitter.com/ek2QDxTlXe

— Danny Alexander (@dannyalexander) January 30, 2015

Posted in News | Tagged campaigning, general election 2015, joe otten, judith bunting, layla moran, paddy ashdown, paul walter and snow | 3 Comments

Edgbaston PPC Lee Dargue takes part in debate with Birmingham University students

By The Voice | Sat 31st January 2015 - 9:20 am

Lee Dargue, Lib Dem PPC for Edgbaston, recently met students from the University of Birmingham to discuss the party’s policies and their concerns. The student website Redbrick described him as an MP. We can but wish. It would not be a bad thing to have the chair of the Lib Dem Mental Health Association in Parliament.

It was inevitable that tuition fees would come up:

Dargue stated, ‘It has caused us a lot of damage.’ He did highlight the fact that ‘not all Lib Dem MPs voted in favour of the tuition fee rise.’ However, he stressed the positive realities of the new system, comparing it to a ‘Graduate Tax’ and reminded students that these loans are ‘no longer tied to your credit rating.’

To continue the discussion, a student asked what the Lib Dems believe is the greatest student problem. In response, Dargue stated that ‘Tuition fees are a red herring.’ He added that his party were more concerned about ‘the cost of student accommodation and transport’ since these are more immediate factors that affect students.

Redbrick also has a report of the event as it happened. Lee said he wanted to see 16 year olds and prisoners have the right to vote, he questioned the need for LGBT only schools, saying:

Posted in News | Tagged edgbaston, general election 2015 and lee dargue | 8 Comments

A first glance at the agenda for Spring Conference

By The Voice | Thu 29th January 2015 - 5:20 pm

The outline agenda for the Liberal Democrats’ Spring Conference in Liverpool has been published.

On Friday, a series of policy consultations, and a consultation on the plans to take forward One Member One Vote take up the afternoon before the rally.

On Saturday, there are speeches by Danny Alexander, Vince Cable and Jo Swinson with a question and answer session with Nick Clegg. Policy debates include mental health, the manifesto (surprisingly titled Stronger Economy and Fairer Society), green laws and workforce rights.

Posted in News | 4 Comments

Open Doors: All 3 versions of the first Lib Dem broadcast of the year

By The Voice | Wed 28th January 2015 - 5:55 pm

The Liberal Democrats’ first crack at the General Election broadcasts is being shown as you read this.

With the theme of Open Doors, it’s about listening to voters and majors on how the Liberal Democrats would make a difference compared to Labour and the Conservatives.You may not be surprised to find that the phrases “stronger economy”, “fairer society” and “opportunity for everyone” feature.

Here is the English version. The Scottish and Welsh will follow below when they are available.

Posted in News | Tagged general election 2015, kirsty wiliams, nick clegg, party political broadcasts and willie rennie | 74 Comments

100 Days until polling day

By The Voice | Tue 27th January 2015 - 8:36 am

Today, 100 days before polling day, sees a new poster launched by the Liberal Democrats, offering a straight road between the reckless borrowing offered by Labour and the reckless cuts of the Conservatives.

Posted in News | 63 Comments

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 25th January 2015 - 3:37 pm

Many thanks to the 15,800 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

The Greens: The Lib Dem fightback begins (178 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Britain’s greenest party, the Green Party and environmentalism (99 comments) by Simon Oliver

The Green Party: should we be panicking? (22 comments) by Paul Walter

Posted in Site news | 1 Comment

Shirley Williams on A life in politics

By The Voice | Sat 24th January 2015 - 8:55 am

The Daily Politics has been running a series of interviews with political figures in their A Life in Politics series.

This week it was Shirley Williams talking about her varied career and personal life. Look back not he formation of the SDP, her passion for education reform and the prospects for the Liberal Democrats in the election, saying “we’re bound to be a main factor in another coalition.” Oh, and don’t call her indecisive.

Posted in News | Tagged daily politics and shirley williams | 11 Comments

Welsh Lib Dems get good media coverage for new website launch

By The Voice | Fri 23rd January 2015 - 4:15 pm

“New websites put Welsh Lib Dems at forefront of web campaigning” screams the headline on Wales Online. Not bad coverage for the launch of a website, albeit one using the new .wales and .cymru domain names.

Kirsty Williams is quoted as saying:

Posted in News | Tagged digital campaigning, Wales and welsh liberal democrats | 5 Comments

Brent Central’s Ibrahim Taguri appointed as Liberal Democrat Race Equality Champion

By The Voice | Fri 23rd January 2015 - 8:35 am

Ibrahim Taguri was born and raised in Brent not far from the office he wants to take over from Sarah Teather in May. Last Summer he wrote of his ambition for the area:

Yet I was lucky. My mother was single minded when it came to our education as children. That was our route out of poverty. I was also lucky in many ways, so when I had opportunities I was able to make the most of them. That’s why when Sarah Teather announced she was standing down as MP, I knew I had to take the opportunity to represent my community. My job as an MP will be to challenge those structural barriers that prevent people getting on in life as well as to support the most vulnerable in our society on a day to day basis, helping them to escape a cycle of despair.

That’s why, if I’m fortunate enough to be elected, I will be dedicating my first term in parliament to eradicating child poverty in the UK by 2020. A goal set out but the last administration and continued by the coalition. Yet the target is in serious danger of being missed as political parties continue to embroil themselves in blame games and semantics.

I believe that focusing on this issue we can tackle many of the great challenges of our time; improving life chances no matter where someone was born, integrating physical and mental health services; increasing housing stock to not uproot families; providing more educational opportunities and making work pay.

Posted in News | Tagged bame equality and ibrahim taguri | 10 Comments

Nick Clegg tells Chilcot: People will think your report is being “sexed down”

By The Voice | Tue 20th January 2015 - 11:07 pm

Following tonight’s news about the further delay in the publication of the Chilcot Report until after the election, Nick Clegg has written to Sir John Chilcott to ask him to get on with it.

Here’s his letter in full

Posted in News | Tagged chilcot report, featured, nick clegg and sir john chilcot | 24 Comments

Now, about those secret party elections we told you about the other week…

By The Voice | Tue 20th January 2015 - 3:10 pm

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about those important party elections, details of which were hidden in an obscure corner of the party website. Well, our stirring did generate a few nominations which meant that there were a good few contested positions.

Federal Executive members voted over last weekend and the results were declared last night. Here they are in full:

Posted in News | Tagged internal party elections | 7 Comments

“What I need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing” says Labour’s Peter Mandelson on Mansion Tax

By The Voice | Tue 20th January 2015 - 10:31 am

Well, well. Who would have thought Peter Mandelson of all people would back a Liberal Democrat policy over a Labour one?

The Guardian has the story:

Speaking on Newsnight on BBC2, Mandelson said he favoured finding new ways of taxing property in Britain. But he added: “I don’t happen to think that the mansion tax is the right policy response to that. I think it’s sort of crude, it’s sort of short-termist.

“What we need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing and that is the introduction of further bands that relate to different values of property within the council tax system. That’s what I would like to see. It will take longer to introduce, that’s true, but it will be more effective and efficient in the longer term than simply clobbering people with a rather sort of crude short term mansion tax.”

Mandelson is the latest senior Labour figure to criticise the party’s plan to impose a tax on properties worth more than £2m to help raise £1.2bn towards the £2.5bn costs of a new “Time to Care” NHS fund. This is designed to support 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs and 5,000 more care workers by 2020.

Posted in News | Tagged mansion tax, peter mandelson and wealth taxes | 52 Comments

Nick Clegg’s speech today on mental health

By The Voice | Mon 19th January 2015 - 4:52 pm

This is the full text of the speech Nick Clegg gave today at the Mental Health Conference that he co-hosted with Norman Lamb. You can see a video of part of the speech here.

Imagine breaking your leg, only to be told that your nearest care facility was half way across the country, with a long waiting list and no guarantees about when you’ll actually get the help you need. Or developing diabetes but being too scared to tell your family, friends and your boss about what’s happening, because you’re worried about how they might react and possibly losing your job.

If any of these things happened to someone with a serious physical health condition in our country, there would quite rightly be outrage. It would be on the front page of every national newspaper and dominate Prime Minister’s Questions every week. People would be out on the streets calling for reform. But this is exactly the kind of second-class treatment that people with mental health issues have had to endure for decades.

Posted in News | Tagged mental health and nick clegg | 12 Comments

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

By The Voice | Sun 18th January 2015 - 2:35 pm

Many thanks to the 17100 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

Could we have a better leader? (57 comments) by Stephen Phillips

The Greens: the Lib Dem fightback begins (74 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Êtes-vous Charlie? (133 comments) by The Voice

Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Sun 18th January 2015 - 11:25 am

The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are four simple ways:

Posted in Site news | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg pledges to end illiteracy by 2025 by ensuring every child leaves Primary School able to read

By The Voice | Sun 18th January 2015 - 9:01 am

Nick Clegg has unveiled a key manifesto commitment for the Liberal Democrats this morning:

The plans mean that every child born in 2014, who will leave primary school in 2025 will be able to read and write at a standard identified to lead to success in secondary school and beyond.

Nick Clegg explained why this is so important to Liberal Democrats:

I am proud of the scale of our ambition. We are raising the bar on what children should be able to achieve by the age of eleven and want all children to get over the bar by 2025.

The Coalition Government has

…

Posted in News | Tagged education, illiteracy and nick clegg | 31 Comments

Nick Clegg to be pelted with space hoppers?

By The Voice | Sat 17th January 2015 - 6:34 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

Nick Clegg has set himself up for a potential pounding with space hoppers by agreeing to appear on Channel 4’s The Last Leg programme to convince presenter Alex Brooker that it’s worth voting.

From the Independent:

The Deputy Prime Minister said he would happily face being pelted with space hoppers as part of the Channel 4 comedy show.

He was the only politician to respond to a challenge to poll presenter Alex Brooker but the video he initially sent in was not enough.

Mr Clegg appealed to the presenter to vote in May’s general election to “celebrate democracy” and hold politicians to account.

Posted in News | Tagged nick clegg and the last leg | 3 Comments

Two deadlines all Scottish members and all Council campaign teams should be aware of

By The Voice | Sat 17th January 2015 - 5:30 pm

Be very aware that there are two deadlines rapidly hurtling towards us. The first is tomorrow, so you really need to get a move on.

It’s for ALDC’s postal voter mailing, the details of which you can find here.

As they say:

Turnout of supporters who receive literature and are contacted during a campaign exceeds 80%, far higher than the turnout proportion of our polling day Shuttleworth. This underlines the importance of getting known supporters onto postal votes, as it will help both our local and national results next May and could be the crucial difference.

Posted in News | Tagged aldc and scottish conference | Leave a comment

Call Clegg 15 January 15: The Cleggster goes cold on Carlile

By The Voice | Thu 15th January 2015 - 7:00 pm

Today’s Call Clegg was another lively affair. A bit of froideur towards a Lib Dem peer, a lot of distance put between Nick and David Ward and, of course, those debates.

The first question was about freedom of speech. The caller asked if there wasn’t a double standard between people getting away with insulting Mohammed but Muslims burning poppies were convicted. Nick was right to pick up that the second case was not the same thing. It was more causing a disturbance at an event and getting in the way of others expressing their views.

He made an interesting little barb about Alex Carlile the Lib Dem peer who was the independent overseer of terrorism laws under Labour governments over the snoopers’ charter .”He hasn’t agreed with the Lib Dems on this for years and years and years,” said Nick, “He’s not the touchstone of liberal thinking.” Ouch.

Posted in News | Tagged call clegg | 14 Comments

WATCH: How Lynne Featherstone secured an extra £23.5 million in NHS funding for local health services

By The Voice | Thu 15th January 2015 - 4:15 pm

This video shows how Lynne Featherstone went about remedying an inequality in NHS funding which meant that health services in Haringey received less in terms of funding than other areas of London. We love the bit where Lynne says:

If I see something that’s unfair, I want it made fair.

That’s very her.

She’s continuing her campaign because although the funding boost has enabled better facilities and staffing, it’s still not on an equal footing with other boroughs. Enjoy.

Posted in News | Tagged haringey, horsey and wood green, lynne featherstone and NHS | 3 Comments

Lord Roger Roberts: May’s Counter-Terror powers could enable her to ban liberalism

By The Voice | Thu 15th January 2015 - 2:45 pm

Lord Roger Roberts gave the following speech expressing his concerns about the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill in the House of Lords at its Second Reading on Tuesday:

I was delighted that Lord Carlile mentioned, in his contribution to the debate, the four Albanians—two Muslims and two Christians—who walked together in the demonstration in Paris

Multi-faith groups exist in many places and people are able to say, “My brother, my sister, my family; we are one family”. We could really tackle a lot of these stresses before they become threatening. There is an opportunity in some way or another to encourage it.

However, the world is full of uncertainties. I am not the only one who remembers the time when it was better to be red than dead—so some said. Others said that it was better to be dead than red. Today it is the difference, between security and liberty. We are trying to see where is the line that needs to be drawn. This Bill seeks to draw that line. I sometimes measure our civilisation by Alan Paton’s (the author of Cry, the Beloved Country) values. In a lecture in 1953, he declared himself a liberal and defined the term thus:

Posted in News | Tagged counter-terrorism and security bill, house of lords and roger roberts | 5 Comments

Op-eds

The government’s £1bn school sports revamp talks a good game on SEND inclusion. So why are disabled children being benched? (Jean-François Burford)
Don’t slam the brakes on Britain’s EV revolution (Mark Hofman)
“How will you pay for it?” – The reply I’d love to hear Ed Davey give (Jamie Dalzell)
The Lib Dems created the triple lock – we should be the ones to set the terms for its end (Adam Shaw)
We are being held hostage by the Tory voters who have lent us their vote (Theo Rodwell)

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Actually, this Summer of Strategy could be quite good…

Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

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What’s going on with party strategy?

Author Archives: The Voice

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

Thank you for your contributions to the #timetotalk theme yesterday

After the Rose Garden: Nick Harvey’s lessons from coalition

LibLink: Tim Farron on Chilcot

Electoral forecast puts Lib Dems on 48 seats

Nick Clegg on Sky News Ask the Leaders event today

Today’s workers, tomorrow’s retirement problem

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

Lib Dems raise £50k for General Election in just one day

Lib Dem campaigners in the snow #2

Edgbaston PPC Lee Dargue takes part in debate with Birmingham University students

A first glance at the agenda for Spring Conference

Open Doors: All 3 versions of the first Lib Dem broadcast of the year

100 Days until polling day

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

Shirley Williams on A life in politics

Welsh Lib Dems get good media coverage for new website launch

Brent Central’s Ibrahim Taguri appointed as Liberal Democrat Race Equality Champion

Nick Clegg tells Chilcot: People will think your report is being “sexed down”

Now, about those secret party elections we told you about the other week…

“What I need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing” says Labour’s Peter Mandelson on Mansion Tax

Nick Clegg’s speech today on mental health

LDV’s Sunday Best: our 7 most-read articles this week

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

Nick Clegg pledges to end illiteracy by 2025 by ensuring every child leaves Primary School able to read

Nick Clegg to be pelted with space hoppers?

Two deadlines all Scottish members and all Council campaign teams should be aware of

Call Clegg 15 January 15: The Cleggster goes cold on Carlile

WATCH: How Lynne Featherstone secured an extra £23.5 million in NHS funding for local health services

Lord Roger Roberts: May’s Counter-Terror powers could enable her to ban liberalism

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Actually, this Summer of Strategy could be quite good…

Josh Babarinde writes…The Lib Dem Summer of Strategy

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What’s going on with party strategy?

Author Archives: The Voice

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