Author Archives: The Voice

The Voice

Alistair Carmichael’s New Year Message – Let 2015 be a year of unity

By The Voice | Mon 29th December 2014 - 5:59 pm
Alistair Carmichael, Secretary of State for Scotland, calls for healing and unity in 2015. He commits himself the delivery of the Smith Agreement and hopes to secure enough parliamentary support to implement votes for 16 and 17 year olds for all elections:
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The Voice

The 12 most-read LDV posts of 2014 (Day 5)

By The Voice | Mon 29th December 2014 - 2:45 pm

Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we’re bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here’s today’s offering…

Opinion: Why changing leader now WILL save the party in 2015 and beyond – Jonathan Pile | Tue 24th June 2014

Could ditching Clegg this summer really help the party? Absolutely Yes. It would signal that we have listened to the voters – a fundamental requirement for a party that calls itself democratic. A new leader – be it Vince Cable, Tim Farron or anyone else known by the public to have agonised with the choices forced on

…

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The Voice

Five posts to sum up March 2014

By The Voice | Mon 29th December 2014 - 9:30 am

We continue our saunter through the year in the eyes of Liberal Democrat Voice authors and contributors. In March we had our Spring Conference in York and the build-up to Nick vs Nigel intensified.

But first, we had to deal with someone behind the scenes briefing against both Tim Farron and party activists. By and large, this party has been pretty together given he challenges that presented themselves over the last few years with little public sniping. Caron Lindsay just wanted everyone to play nice.

I don’t want to over-egg the pudding, because, by and large, members of the party have been pretty civilised, wherever they stand on the Coalition. Compared to Labour’s toxic factionalism and the hatred of Cameron in some areas of the Conservative party, we are a bunch of cuddly teddy bears in comparison. But when the instinct to show our claws takes hold, we really need to quash it. Nobody should be talking about anyone to the media in these terms. Our energy needs to go into winning elections, not fighting petty, internal battles on the pages of the media.

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The Voice

Gareth Wilson selected to stand for Liberal Democrats against George Osborne

By The Voice | Sun 28th December 2014 - 4:37 pm

Gareth Wilson and Paddy AshdownOccasional Liberal Democrat Voice contributor Gareth Wilson has been selected to fight George Osborne in his home constituency of Tatton in May. He is seen here with Paddy Ashdown at Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow.

Gareth lives in Mobberley in the constituency and recently successfully led a campaign which defeated an attempt to build an unsustainable large housing development.

On his selection, Gareth said:

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The Voice

The 12 most-read LDV posts of 2014 (Day 4)

By The Voice | Sun 28th December 2014 - 2:45 pm

Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we’re bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here’s today’s offering…

Rochester & Strood by-election: Ukip win, Lib Dems lose 11th deposit – Stephen Tall | Fri 21st November 2014

For the Lib Dems… well, we’ve been here before, haven’t we? Ten times before, to be precise: that’s the number of lost deposits we’ve racked up so far. At £500 a pop it’s one other way the Lib Dems are slowly helping to slow down the spiralling national debt.

We were never serious players in this by-election. Everyone knew it,

…

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 28th December 2014 - 12:54 pm

7 ver 4 fullMany thanks to the 13,600 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

 Jo Swinson attacks gender stereotyping of toys and is attacked by Jeremy Browne (90 comments) by Caron Lindsay

What does Alex Salmond think he’s playing at? (31 comments) by Caron Lindsay

The polls in 2014: what they show with 133 days left til 7 May 2015 (27 comments) by Stephen Tall

Study shows that voters in Liberal Democrat seats trust their MPs more (41 comments) by The Voice

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The Voice

Five posts to sum up February 2014

By The Voice | Sun 28th December 2014 - 9:26 am

Over the next few days, we are looking month by month at the year that’s coming to an end. What were we all thinking about in February?

6th February saw #timetotalk, an initiative by Time to Change to get everyone talking about mental health. Liberal Democrat Voice took part with a series of moving and powerful posts as people shared their own experience. Eleanor Draycott wrote about what it’s like to live with Bi-Polar Disorder and the pain inaccurate assumptions about her illness causes her:

One of the most common misconceptions about people with Bi-polar, as with any other mental health problem, is that they are a danger to other people. Nothing makes me more angry than when I’m watching a film or television programme and they announce that the serial killer, murderer etc is Bi-polar and just leave it at that – like that explains everything. It doesn’t. Of course it can happen, and it does, but assuming that a person with a mental health issue such as mine is automatically going to go on a killing spree is like assuming anyone with a gun is going to go out and shoot someone in the head, or that anyone who drinks alcohol is going to become and alcoholic. The world just doesn’t work that way. Even at my worst times I have always been more of a danger to myself than to anyone else, which isn’t ideal, but I’d rather hurt myself than harm another being, be that man, woman, child, animal or “other”.

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The Voice

The 12 most-read LDV posts of 2014 (Day 3)

By The Voice | Sat 27th December 2014 - 2:45 pm

Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we’re bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here’s today’s offering…

Clegg opposes ban on halal and kosher slaughter; now we need to hear his reasons – Nick Thornsby | Thu 6th March 2014

This issue is a classic liberal dilemma, requiring us to consider competing rights: on the one hand the right of animals not to be caused unnecessary pain and of society to impose regulations to ensure this; on the other the right of religious observants to cause pain to animals that, on their interpretation, religious texts require.

Given

…

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The Voice

What Theresa May didn’t want you to see: Norman Baker reveals all on drugs report

By The Voice | Sat 27th December 2014 - 12:41 pm

Norman Baker has revealed that the report into effective ways of tackling drugs policy commissioned by Liberal Democrats in Governemnt had some of its conclusions removed by Theresa May, presumably for fear of upsetting the Daily Mail.

From the Guardian:

He said that drugs policy should be based “on evidence, not dogma” and that, although the Conservatives were opposed to liberalisation, they were losing the argument on the issue.

Under pressure from the Lib Dems, the Home Office commissioned a report looking at the international evidence on the impact of legislation on drug use. Theresa May, the home secretary, made no secret of the fact that she had no enthusiasm for the project, and when it was published in October, with Baker taking the lead in publicising it, Conservative ministers signalled that they would ignore it.

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The Voice

The 12 most-read LDV posts of 2014 (Day 2)

By The Voice | Fri 26th December 2014 - 2:45 pm

Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we’re bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here’s today’s offering…

Time for Nick Clegg to ditch the “Great Britain not Little England” line – Stephen Tall | Sun 30th March 2014

I realise that what Nick Clegg refers to as ‘Little England’ is a catch-all term for the right’s “inward-looking and defensive agenda”. But, to many voters listening, it will more likely appear that their identity is simply being belittled by one of those Westminster elite politicians they feel so detached from. It’s the kind of language that fuels

…

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The Voice

The 12 most-read LDV posts of 2014 (Day 1)

By The Voice | Thu 25th December 2014 - 2:45 pm

Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we’re bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here’s today’s offering…

Newark by-election: Tories win well, Ukip falls short, Labour dips, Lib Dems collapse – Stephen Tall | Fri 6th June 2014

And then there’s the Lib Dems… It was another dire night, to cap a dire fortnight. We didn’t just lose our deposit, we came sixth. Our vote collapsed. Four years ago, 10,246 Newark voters marked a ‘X’ beside the Lib Dem box. Yesterday, just 1,004 did so. In contrast to the Tories, not a single Lib Dem MP

…

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The Voice

Merry Christmas to all our readers

By The Voice | Thu 25th December 2014 - 12:00 am

christmas

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The Voice

Willie Rennie’s Christmas message 2014

By The Voice | Wed 24th December 2014 - 8:55 am

Willie leader launch in front of Rail Bridge

Willie issued his Christmas message in the wake of the horrific tragedy in Glasgow on Monday:

Our thoughts are with those affected by the tragedy in Glasgow. And we will stand with them as they deal with their pain and grief in the time ahead.

2014 was a year like no other.  The Games, the golf and the big vote. This year Scotland rose to the challenge and we did well. We showed that we are a sporting and welcoming nation.  And we showed that democracy matters with the silent majority winning the day.  As the late Arthur Montford would often say there was a “stramash” – but Scotland won.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg’s Christmas message 2014

By The Voice | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 4:05 pm

It has cute children, Nick doing what for him is fairly sophisticated cookery and a message of Christmas that unites everyone.

The text in full follows:

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The Voice

Kirsty Williams’ Christmas Message 2014

By The Voice | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 2:38 pm

rally kirsty williams 1In her Christmas and New Year message, Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Kirsty Williams has challenged the other parties to make a “strong commitment” to bringing more powers closer to the people of Wales.

Kirsty also spoke of her hope for the passing of her More Nurses Bill, which will go through the Welsh Assembly scrutiny process in 2015, saying that it has the potential to be the “good news story” that the Welsh NHS needs.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg’s message for Hanukkah 2014

By The Voice | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 8:55 am

Hanukkah 2014 ends tomorrow Here’s Nick Clegg’s message, in video and text, to mark the 8 day festival:

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The Voice

Last-minute Christmas present ideas from the LDV team

By The Voice | Mon 22nd December 2014 - 8:28 pm

There are just two shopping days left ’til Christmas, so if you’re still scrambling round for a last-minute pressie for a politico, here are a handful of ideas from Stephen Tall, Caron Lindsay and Paul Walter to help…

Stephen Tall

Stephen Tall - resized - small - H&S

Liberalism: The Life of an Idea – Edmund Fawcett
There are lots of books around about liberalism as an idea: this one focuses on liberalism as reality, and how it’s decisively shaped the past 200 years of American and European history. In the wrong hands, this could be scholarly but dry, important yet dull. As it is, Fawcett’s touch is both light and incisive (eg, ‘At times the liberal state tamed the market. At others, the liberal market tamed the liberal state.’). Highly recommended.

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The Voice

Study shows that voters in Liberal Democrat seats trust their MPs more

By The Voice | Sun 21st December 2014 - 5:55 pm

Mike Smithson at Political Betting talks about data from the British Election Study that shows how well thought of MPs are in their own constituencies. Liberal Democrat MPs come out well on top, being much more liked even among opponents than their Tory and Labour counterparts. His graph illustrates thus:

LD MPs wider respected

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The Voice

Norman Lamb: Fixing dysfunctional mental health services takes time

By The Voice | Sat 20th December 2014 - 2:00 pm

Nobody could ever accuse Norman Lamb of political spin. He’s been in his ministerial job for 2.5 years and he’s totally honest about the still poor state of mental health services, particularly for young people. He says what he’s trying to fix it, but the pace of change must be frustratingly slow for him. He (and Paul Burstow before him) and Nick Clegg have done a massive amount in recent years to transform and improve mental health services but it’s more than a one-term job.

Norman has been talking to the Bournemouth Daily Echo about what he’s done and what he has set in progress. It’s clear that the effects of his changes will be felt for many years to come.

First of all, he talked about tackling stigma and getting people to talk about mental health more – partly because that then opens the way to a properly funded service:

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The Voice

Helena Morrissey evaluates party’s progress on her recommendations

By The Voice | Thu 18th December 2014 - 4:30 pm

Last year, Helena Morrissey published her Report into the Processes and Culture of the Liberal Democrats and made 9 recommendations for change. Here are Stephen Tall’s and Caron Lindsay’s thoughts on it from then.

It was always intended that Helena would come back and evaluate the party’s progress on implementing her recommendations. Her progress report is published today and can be seen here.

This is what she has written in the foreword:

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The Voice

Vince’s Royal Mail privatisation: independent report concludes “the right decisions were made”

By The Voice | Thu 18th December 2014 - 7:35 am

An independent report by Lord Myners published today has concluded Vince Cable and the Government made “the right decisions” during the process of selling off Royal Mail.

royal mail sell off

The BBC explains the background:

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The Voice

LibLink: Tim Farron – CIA report shows we should fight even harder for liberal Britain

By The Voice | Wed 17th December 2014 - 4:15 pm

Writing in New Statesman, Tim Farron argues that liberalism is not a given, is under threat and we should fight for it:

We cannot continue to take liberalism for granted. We need to articulate our liberal values loudly and clearly to stop a creep into authoritarianism built on a currency of fear.

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The Voice

Two Liberal Democrats win European awards

By The Voice | Tue 16th December 2014 - 3:40 pm

Its awards season at the moment and last week the focus shifted to Europe where the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe held its annual LeaDeR (Liberal Democrat Regional and Local Politicians) Awards. Two British Liberal Democrats were successful.

David TuttThe first was Cllr David Tutt, Lib Dem group leader of East Sussex County Council and leader of Eastbourne Borough Council who had been nominated for the Achievements in Government prize by MEP Catherine Bearder. He won for:

…his visible leadership in having put core liberal values of innovation, forward-thinking and opportunity into action in transforming what was officially the worst Council in the south-east of England into one widely recognised as among the very best in the country.

Catherine explained why she nominated David:

David has worked tirelessly in Eastbourne to ensure the town continues to go from strength to strength and when I heard about the awards I was delighted to put David’s name forward as I know the huge impact his work is having on the Eastbourne community.

 David is now a winner, just as he’s made Eastbourne a winner.

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The Voice

Clegg: senior Labour ex-ministers should give evidence to UK torture inquiry

By The Voice | Tue 16th December 2014 - 8:55 am

Nick Clegg Q&A 12Last week came the revelations from the US Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

It immediately promoted questions about what the then Labour Government knew about what was happening on the watch of its closest ally. Nick Clegg has called for senior ex-ministers to give evidence to Parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) on what they knew about torture conducted by UK or US intelligence agencies in Iraq or Afghanistan, as The Guardian reports:

The deputy prime minister said

…

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The Voice

Vince Cable on the Tories’ “extreme ideology”

By The Voice | Mon 15th December 2014 - 4:11 pm

As we reported yesterday,, on the Andrew Marr show Vince Cable said:

We are committed to financial discipline but we’re not veering off to the kind of extreme ideology that the Tories seem to want.

Here is a video clip:

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Sun 14th December 2014 - 12:30 pm

7 ver 4 fullMany thanks to the 15600  visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…

 Reasons to be careful about new analysis suggesting Lib Dems “set to lose several more seats than national polls with uniform swing would predict” (77 comments) by Stephen Tall

Game on in Gordon! Liberal Democrat Christine Jardine has to defend seat against former First Minister Salmond (25 comments) by Caron Lindsay

Clegg’s letter to Burnham: “you may have inadvertently misled” Commons on Labour’s NHS privatisation record (31 comments) by The Voice

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The Voice

Vince speaks out against “devastating and ideologically driven” Tory spending cuts plan

By The Voice | Sun 14th December 2014 - 11:00 am

Vince Cable Social Liberal Forum conference Jul 19 2014 Photo by Paul WalterThe Tories have been “well behaved” over the past few years because the Liberal Democrats have kept them on a tight leash, apparently. So said Vince Cable on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. He said that we were now getting a glimpse of what they would be like without that leash, adding that the consequences of their spending decisions would be that there would be around half as much money to spend on Police, defence, local government and social care.

He highlighted the differences between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat approaches to the economy and what a vote for each would mean:

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The Voice

Clegg: No country can prosper without basic freedoms

By The Voice | Sun 14th December 2014 - 9:04 am

From earlier this week, here’s Nick Clegg’s message for Human Rights Day:

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The Voice

Julian Huppert: Commons should debate ban on fisting and watersports porn

By The Voice | Fri 12th December 2014 - 8:50 pm

Julian Huppert MPPinkNews reports:

A ban on the production of certain types of porn in the UK will be the subject of a debate in the House of Commons, if a Lib Dem MP who opposes it gets his way.

Brought in by the Audiovisual Media Services regulation 2014 last week, the ban states that any online paid-for porn such as Video on Demand (VoD) must adhere to the same rules set out for those producing DVDs. Those rules are set out by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), and ban

…

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The Voice

Stephen Lloyd resigns as PPS over underinvestment in A27

By The Voice | Fri 12th December 2014 - 2:27 pm

The Eastbourne Herald is reporting that Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd has resigned as PPS to Ed Davey over the £75m proposed for investment in the A27 in the Autumn statement.

Stephen is quoted

After all the work and cross-community effort by so many local residents and businesses in Eastbourne and Willingdon, I am profoundly disappointed by the proposal put forward by the Department of Transport. Instead, there is a vague promise for some time in the future. This isn’t jam tomorrow, but more like the possibility of jam sometime, if we’re lucky, in a few years.

…

He said, “Ever since I

…

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