It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with an science fiction meets ukulele musical extra.
2 Big Stories
English Defence League takes to streets, violence follows
Perhaps someone should tell the English Defence League that the best way for them to defend the values they claim to stand up for would be to wind themselves up given how little of that traditional English value of tolerance its members display. But in the meantime, here’s the latest news:
More than 40 people have been arrested during two political demonstrations in Manchester city centre.
At least 2,000 people attended the protests, by the English Defence League (EDL) and members of Unite Against Fascism (UAF) on Saturday afternoon.
Witnesses said “ugly scenes” broke out between rival protestors and police.
Forty-eight people have been arrested, four among them were held on suspicion of affray. Most of the other arrests were for public order offences. (BBC)
Widely questioned as being rather premature, and merited more by vision than achievements so far, President Obama’s award is making the headlines this morning: Barack Obama wins 2009 Nobel peace prize (Telegraph)
Less than a year after taking office, Mr Obama won the prestigious award after calling for worldwide disarmament.
He had also worked to restart the stalled Middle East peace process since taking office in January.
In an announcement in Oslo, he was honoured “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland said.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as (Mr) Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.
“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
The committee said it attached special importance to Mr Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Royal Mail strike – Christmas come early?
And not in a good way…
Welcome to Daily View on this, Independence Day in Croatia, the anniversary of the death of German Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt, and the birthday of DJ Q Ball from the Bloodhound Gang. So, while he’s doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel, let’s get on with our selections.
Cuts are in the air this conference season, but none of the parties are calling for these ones. The BBC reports that British Airways is cutting 1,700 jobs and introducing a two-year pay freeze for cabin crew. Evidently asking employees to work for free, as the airline did a few months ago, didn’t do the trick.
Meanwhile, the Daily Express reports that little seems safe from the Conservatives attempts to out-cut Labour and the Lib Dems. Ministers’ pay to be cut. MPs’ jobs to go. All but the lowest paid civil servants to have their pay frozen. …
The freeze in effect represents a pay cut. And by targeting the richest public-sector figures, it will be seen as a sign that the broadest shoulders must carry the heaviest burden.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne would raise the state pension age from 65 to 66 from 2016 if the Tories win the next election to help tackle the UK’s debts.
2 Must-read Posts
Cllr Daisy Benson gave her readers a story about the human stories behind the unemployment statistics:
Tory conference opens, and it’s time to party like it’s 1994
A few thousand Tories are converging on Manchester today, with two issues dominating discussion: Europe and welfare cuts. Ah, and there we were thinking The Major Years were but a distant memory.
On a more positive note, the Tories will be singing today from the localism song-book, with Caroline Spelman championing the party’s conversion to local control of local services – an interesting about-turn for an MP who opposed Scottish and Welsh devolution, and believes central government should impose council tax freezes from Whitehall.
It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with an election night special.
2 Big Stories
David Cameron stalls on Europe
David Cameron bravely stuck his neck out by, er…, insisting that the Tories “could only have one policy at once”. Not multitaskers then:
David Cameron has refused to give an unequivocal commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, after Irish voters delivered a 67% “Yes” vote.
The Tory leader promised a vote on the treaty should his party win the election – but only if it had not been ratified by all EU member states.
He said the Tories “could only have one policy at once”, and he did not want to prejudice decisions in other countries. (BBC)
Report says Iran has data to make atom bomb
A confidential analysis by staff of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has concluded that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce” an atom bomb. (Reuters)
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
Mark Valladares on “Human rights, but not necessarily as we know them…”
Jane Watkinson on “Women object to being treated as objects”
Sunday Bonus
Now this is how election night coverage should be done:
BAE faces criminal charges over deals
The FT reports on a high-stakes court battle between BAE Systems and the Serious Fraud Office after corruption investigators decided to press for criminal charges against the arms manufacturer over its dealings in Eastern Europe, South Africa and Tanzania.
Welcome to a belated Daily View on this fine first day of the month. 1st October marks the 166th anniversary of the News of the World; the anniversary of the death of Ned Sherrin; and we say happy birthday to comedian Harry Hill.
A second powerful earthquake has hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a day after the first devastating quake left more than 500 dead, thousands of people buried in rubble and a major city cut off from the outside world.
Today’s quake, of magnitude 6.9, struck in the early hours about 180
In a determined 59-minute speech to the party’s autumn conference in Brighton, the prime minister said the Conservatives had faced the “economic call of the century” and had called it wrong.
Polanski arrested
Roman Polanski had sex with a 13 year old girl 32 years ago, so is …
Germany is on course for its first centre-right government in 11 years after voters gave chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and her Free Democratic allies a majority in parliament.
The victory of the conservative-liberal alliance – which had campaigned for tax cuts and a return to nuclear energy, but also social justice and tougher rules for finance – in Sunday’s poll ends four years of awkward co-operation between the CDU and its rival Social Democratic party in a grand coalition. …
It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with a special sing-a-long political ad that makes current politics look not so bad really.
2 Big Stories
Speedier tests for cancer planned
Skipping past the utterly predictable stories (senior Labour figures aren’t all happy, shock horror and Baroness Scotland didn’t check paperwork properly, shock horror) we get to this from the BBC:
Patients will get key tests within two weeks of seeing their GP, will tell the Labour Party conference on Tuesday.
It will mean faster reassurance for patients and could save thousands of lives by picking up cancers earlier, he is expected to say.
Late diagnosis has been blamed for poorer cancer survival in the UK.
By Helen Duffett
| Fri 25th September 2009 - 10:12 am
Loyal readers, I’d like to start this morning with a quick reminder to complete this online survey – it’s designed to explore the views and activities of the users of four UK Party-related websites – LabourHome, Labour List, ConservativeHome and Lib Dem Voice. The overall goal of the project is “to better understand how and why party members, supporters and voters in general are using the web and blogs to engage with politics and political organisations.”
It’s being conducted by the Hansard Society in association with researchers at the University of Manchester and University of Salford.
By Alex Foster
| Thu 24th September 2009 - 8:00 am
Good morning. I trust your jouney home from conference, if you were making one, was uneventful. Today’s birthday boy is Jack Dee, who is 47 today.
Two big stories
It was noticeable on the radio news going home last night that Nick Clegg’s speech had been bumped below the radio equivalent of the fold to various global issues, including Obama and Brown addressing the UN, and the leaked, unconfirmed news of the state visit of the Pope, to happen next year.
But todays’ key stories: Both the Telegraph and the Guardian lead with poor relations between Brown and Obama:
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg faced a major test of his authority tonight as his own frontbenchers stepped up criticism of his plans for public spending cuts.
One senior Lib Dem MP even suggested Mr Clegg had still to prove himself as leader and needed to listen more to activists’ concerns.
The British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh, will unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2050. In a bid to seize the initiative from environmental groups clamouring for higher taxes on the industry, the plan will be presented to world leaders at the United Nations forum on climate change in New York.
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 21st September 2009 - 9:00 am
Welcome to the start of this week’s LDV Daily Views, coming to you today, live, from a hotel room somewhere in Bournemouth …
2 Must-Read Stories
Lib Dem plan for £1m-property tax
As LDV’s Alix Mortimer hinted last night, today will see Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announce plans to the party conference for a tax on owners of £1m-plus homes, using the proceeds to help low-paid workers. Here’s the BBC report:
Treasury spokesman Vince Cable will announce plans for a 0.5% annual levy on the most expensive homes, raising £1bn, at the party conference later. He told the BBC it would
By Helen Duffett
| Fri 18th September 2009 - 8:42 am
2 big stories
Star Wars – the end?
The Guardian and the Times both lead with the news that President Barack Obama has decided to scrap US plans to build missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is seen by Republicans as an attempt to “appease” the Kremlin, which had objected that a missile shield so close to Russia’s borders would threaten its own defences.
President Obama justified the change of plan by citing new intelligence that shows Iran’s long-range missile programme to be far less advanced than previously thought. Instead of being close to developing missiles capable of
By Alex Foster
| Thu 17th September 2009 - 8:00 am
Good morning. Today we remember the deaths of Hildegard von Bingen, and, centuries later, Laura Ashley; and today’s birthday girl is Tessa Jowell.
Two big stories
A surprising number of newspapers seem to be leading with a story about how soon, we will all have the right to register with any GP we choose. I struggle to see why that’s made so many front pages.
Instead, my picks are the Independent’s story about racism in the US, with President Carter weighing in on opposition to President Obama’s current policy platform:
After lurking near the surface of political discourse in America
By Alex Foster
| Wed 16th September 2009 - 8:00 am
Welcome to Daily View. Today is the anniversary of Black Wednesday, and bunny hops for today’s birthday boys: Henry V and Russ Abbot.
2 Big News Stories
Wor Vince has fleshed out Lib Dem policy on how to respond to the parlous state of public finance – and Michael White approves.
Number crunchers at the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose own estimate of the required squeeze will be published tomorrow, call his nine suggestions a “state-of-the-art shopping list”. As so often with Lib Dem ideas, it includes some which bigger parties are closing in on: trimming
The BBC is leading with news that the Prime Minister will use the ‘C’ word for the first time!
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to admit for the first time that spending cuts will be needed, the BBC understands.
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said Mr Brown would make his most explicit comments yet on spending choices in a speech to union leaders on Tuesday.
Deliver us from Gordon
Meanwhile, The Times reports that almost half of voters would replace Mr. Brown with… well, anyone:
Almost half of voters think that anyone would do a better
Executives at Britain’s top companies saw their basic salaries leap 10% last year, despite the onset of the worst global recession in decades, in which their companies lost almost a third of their value amid a record decline in the FTSE.
The Guardian’s annual survey of boardroom pay reveals that the full- and part-time directors of the FTSE 100, the premier league of British business, shared between them more than £1bn.
Bonus payouts were lower, but the basic salary hikes were more than three times the 3.1% average pay rise for ordinary workers in the private sector. The big rise in directors’ basic pay – more than double the rate of inflation last year – came as many of their companies were imposing pay freezes on staff and starting huge redundancy programmes to slash costs.
The paper quotes Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable:
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 13th September 2009 - 10:05 am
Welcome to the Sunday edition of LDV’s Daily View. And as Mark Pack of this e-parish is (apparently) forraging for chocolate in Bristol, it falls to me to bring you today’s supplement with extra multimedia entertainment.
2 Big Stories
NSPCC and Nick criticise new Government regulations for parent helpers
Ministers are under intense pressure to scale back plans for a “big brother” child protection database which will force millions of parents to undergo paedophile and criminal checks. In a major blow for the Government, Britain’s largest children’s charity, the NSPCC, criticised the regulations for parent helpers which it said threatened “perfectly safe and normal activities” and risked alienating the public.
The paper also quotes Nick Clegg’s condemnation of Labour’s proposals:
This scheme is wildly over the top. How are we supposed to create a country fit for our children if we regard every adult looking after children as a potential threat?”
Independent broadcasters will be allowed to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows. The change is intended to bring in extra funds for commercial broadcasters. Experts believe it could raise up to £100m a year.
There are currently strict rules against product placement and this ban would remain in place on BBC shows. Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is expected to announce a three-month consultation on the changes in a speech to the Royal Television Society next week.
The move will not apply to the BBC, and children’s programmes will remain product-placement free. A long-overdue acceptance of commercial reality? Or a retrogade intrusion into public broadcasting space?
After about an hour or so of having my knuckles scraped by ridiculously snappy letterboxes, and falling over on uneven paths, and generally feeling pretty battered and bruised and grumpy, I got to a house where a skinhead with no shirt on and a BNP tattoo set his dog on me. … I suspect that this is a big part of the reason political parties are haemorrhaging membership. The expectation that people risk their own personal safety for nothing on a regular basis is not a rewarding experience for the activist.
… the whole point of blogging is that it is interactive, or it is nothing. If most committee members don’t blog, don’t engage with the blogosphere, in short, have lives, and do not respond immediately, or even at all, will they be criticised? You bet they will and, like I did, would probably withdraw back into their collective shells.
Sunday Bonus track
You may have noticed a chap called Derren on the telly this week attracting a lot of attention. Here’s a reminder of him at his best:
Parents who regularly ferry groups of children on behalf of sports or social clubs such as the Scouts will have to undergo criminal record checks — or face fines of up to £5,000, it was disclosed today.
They will fall under the scope of the government’s new vetting and barring scheme, which is aimed at stopping paedophiles getting access to children.
Failure to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority, the Home Office agency that administers the scheme, could lead to criminal prosecution and a court fine.
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said that the Tories would cut the rate at which NHS spending was increasing.
The health service would have to “tighten its belt” and accept small increases in its budget, he added.
Afghanistan Rescue Mission Debated
Meanwhile, questions emerged overnight as to the British military intervention to rescue journalist Stephen Farrell:
Military officials tonight defended the decision to launch a dramatic raid to rescue a British journalist from the Taliban, in which his Afghan assistant and a soldier were killed, against angry criticism in
The Guardian and the Telegraph both lead with a declaration of an end of recession. So that’s OK then. From the Telegraph:
The National Institute for Economic and Social Research, one of the foremost independent economic forecasters, estimated that Britain had seen economic growth in the three months
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 7th September 2009 - 9:45 am
2 Big Stories
Government’s Libya policy: confusion reigns
The mounting government confusion over its policy towards Libya continues today.
First we had the Prime Minister’s refusal to make a comment on the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi; then it emerged that Gordon Brown had let it be known he agreed with the Scottish executive’s decision; over the weekend Justice Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged the obvious – that government policy was strongly influenced by trade and oil.
And now it emerges that Mr Brown is stepping up British attempts to win compensation for the victims of the bombing:
Welcome to the Sunday edition of The Voice’s Daily View. And as it’s a Sunday, it’s also time for a multimedia chocolate extra. But first…
Big Stories
Straw admits Lockerbie trade link
Trade and oil played a part in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer deal, Jack Straw has admitted.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the UK justice secretary said trade was “a very big part” of the 2007 talks that led to the prisoner deal with Libya.
However, Mr Straw’s spokesman accused the press of “outrageous” innuendo. (BBC)
G20 papers over cracks on bank capital, pay
The G20 made progress on Saturday in toughening up financial rules but vague compromises over bank capital and pay curbs indicate that fundamental issues remain unresolved.
The crash of Lehman Bros that brought the world’s financial system to its knees last September was uppermost in minds at the April G20 meeting, which adopted pledges to make it harder for banks to mess up economies in future.
Translating pledges into concrete action is proving to be more painstaking as vested national interests emerge and economic recovery takes the heat out of pressures to reform.
Still, the mood music at Saturday’s meeting contrasted with the tense summit five months ago when fear stalked the corridors of governments and banks were on tenterhooks as to their fate.
(Both of these posts have been selected from those which appeared on Lib Dem Blogs on Saturday. To read more from other Liberal Democrat blogs, take a look at the Lib Dem Blogs website and to see what Lib Dems have been saying on Twitter, take a look at Liberal Tweets.)
Sunday Bonus
Men eating chocolate. It’s what YouTube was invented for.
expats @theakes 8th Jun '26 - 12:20pm... We simple have to accept there will always be a level of inequality, it is in the human psyche....
Most families DON'T have...
Peter Davies @Peter Wrigley: You will be glad to know that the wealth ratio between the richest and poorest is already much lower than 10:1. It is in fact negative. There wi...
Nigel Jones @Mick Taylor, I agree we must be concerned about income inequality in current circumstances, though overcoming this is about taxing the rich, better public serv...
Nigel Jones @Mick Taylor, you are right to focus on strategy since we have plenty of policy, but i think we also need a vision and better messaging. It is easy to have stro...
Nigel Jones The New Deal graphic is very helpful but of course not perfect. As to preventing Reform from winning, we need to be an anti-establishment party as Chris Bowers ...
Report says Iran has data to make atom bomb
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Should Labour reconsider the Brexit red lines?
Raising a flap about letterboxes
Arriving at one of East Finchley's ghost platforms
Restrained
Chase Park fair photos
expats 
Peter Davies 
Nigel Jones 