Category Archives: The Independent View

Alison Garnham

The Independent View: There are now two main government narratives about child poverty

By Alison Garnham | Mon 12th December 2011 - 2:26 pm

It’s been said that Margaret Thatcher’s governments did two things for poverty. First they increased it. Then they pretended it did not exist. As Alan Milburn prepares to makes his first speech as the Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty on Tuesday, his task will be to help the Coalition avoid a similar, devastating, legacy.

The last government’s record was far from perfect, but Milburn should advise the Coalition to recognise the very real progress made and learn from the successes just as much as from the failings.

Some Ministers, including Lib Dems, have bizarrely trashed the last government’s

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Kate Hudson

The Independent View: MoD suppresses Lib Dem review and spending information on Trident ahead of Parliamentary decision

By Kate Hudson | Thu 8th December 2011 - 9:28 am

Liberal Democrats can be rightly proud of their record on challenging like-for-like Trident replacement and keeping Britain’s nuclear weapons near the top of the political agenda – certainly during the last general election campaign. But now it looks as though their coalition partners are moving to stifle the gains they have made. Not only has the Defence Secretary announced the suppression of the Lib Dem-led Trident Alternatives Review. He is also making a mockery of the delayed Trident replacement decision – scheduled for 2016 – by committing to spend £6 billion before that decision date. This is hardly fair play …

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James Baker

The Independent View: Selling our NHS data is not putting us in control of our health records

By James Baker | Mon 5th December 2011 - 2:55 pm

Back in 2010 there was a wave of optimism amongst civil liberties campaigners, especially those of us concerned with protecting privacy from an over-bearing database state. Not only did the coalition agreement set out a promise to scrap ID cards and its associated population register, there were other promises too: “We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason” and then on page 25 of the coalition agreement the statement that “We will put patients in charge of making decisions about their care, including control of their health records”.

In our briefing document ‘Privacy Under Threat’ …

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The Independent View | Peter Tatchell writes… Lib Dems should stick to their principles and urge Lynne not to renege on equality pledge

By Peter Tatchell | Sun 4th December 2011 - 11:45 am

Bravo to the Liberal Democrat party conference. Two years ago, party members voted overwhelmingly to end the twin legal bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. They committed a future Lib Dem government to scrap sexual orientation discrimination in marriage and partnership law. Well done. Thank you

Sadly, the Lib Dem Equality Minister, Lynne Featherstone, apparently with the support of the Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, is now actively backing discrimination. She plans to keep unequal laws, contrary to the Lib Dem’s election pledges.

Specifically, Lynne is vowing to retain the prohibition on heterosexual civil …

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Ben Norman

The Independent View: Autumn Statement makes the best of a bad situation

By Ben Norman | Tue 29th November 2011 - 5:53 pm

How did George do then? The Chancellor needs to walk the line between providing stimulus on the one hand and protecting Britain from the bond markets on the other. It really isn’t easy to decide which side he should err on.

The bond markets are currently a ravenous pack of hyenas who have tasted blood in Greece, Italy and Portugal. Although they’re currently distracted by Belgium, Spain and now France even the slightest hint of weakness on Britain’s part will draw their perilous attention our way.

That said, protecting Britain from a bond market savaging must not be done at the expense …

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Tony Dolphin

The Independent View: 10 ways to promote growth

By Tony Dolphin | Fri 25th November 2011 - 3:48 pm

Ahead of every recent budget and autumn statement, the right-of-centre think tanks have come out with a set of recommendations that support the broad thrust of government policy and argue for more of the same. True to form, earlier this week Reform made the case for sticking to Plan A on deficit reduction, abolishing the 50p tax rate and cutting workers’ employment rights.

But, with the economy having grown by just 0.5 per cent over the last year, and the Prime Minister hinting in a recent speech to the CBI that the government’s deficit reduction plan is being blown off course, …

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Will Tanner

The Independent View: Next Tuesday, the Chancellor’s greatest currency is consistency

By Will Tanner | Fri 25th November 2011 - 12:20 pm

As next week’s Autumn Statement fast approaches, the siren calls for the Chancellor to “do something” to revive growth are growing louder. Yet George Osborne must resist the 10-point plans and shopping lists of eye-catching initiatives that promise instant economic alleviation and instead hold his nerve in the face of weaker-than-expected growth.

As Reform’s new report, The long game, argues, the economic recovery was always going to be difficult. All of the evidence shows that fiscal crises originating from financial crises are protracted and severe. The levels of debt in the economy prior to the recession had reached unsustainable proportions, …

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Manmeet Kaur

The Independent View: 1 in 7 people go hungry every day. But you can help. Here’s how…

By Manmeet Kaur | Thu 24th November 2011 - 9:17 am

It is a shocking fact that whilst enough food is produced globally to feed everyone, one in seven people go hungry every day. Around half a billion of these hungry people are smallholder farmers who struggle to grow enough food from their land to feed themselves and their families. So Concern Worldwide has launched a campaign action for you to use your influence to help tackle hunger.

World leaders of the Group of 20 leading economies met in Cannes in November 2011 and promised to address the issue of hunger. However, despite some progress, the issue was largely …

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Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart

The Independent View: And then there was one… (Unmasked! The only backbench Lib Dem MP 100% loyal to the Coalition)

By Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart | Fri 18th November 2011 - 9:45 am

When a quarter of the parliamentary Conservative party rebels, everyone sits up and takes notice. On 24 October, 2011, 81 Conservative MPs defied a three-line whip to vote in favour of an EU referendum: cue a blaze of negative publicity for David Cameron and the Tory party whips.

But a week or so later one-quarter of Lib Dem MPs rebelled, and (almost) no one noticed. In nine separate votes on 1 and 2 November, a total of 14 Lib Dem MPs voted against various aspects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. The largest …

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Nick Pickles

The Independent View: The Coalition needs to get serious about protecting citizens’ privacy

By Nick Pickles | Fri 11th November 2011 - 11:02 am

Slowly, we are waking up to the enormous risk to personal privacy posed by the misuse of personal information.

Big Brother Watch’s report into the data protection breaches in the NHS highlighted a number of harrowing individual cases. However, the wider cultural question is the one which should be of greatest concern.

In an age when ever more personal information is collected as a matter of routine by both the public and private sector, how that information is held and protected is of critical importance. When that information is of the kind of sensitive details found in medical records, …

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Brett Wigdortz

The Independent View: Educational disadvantage is one of the most unjust and pervasive problems

By Brett Wigdortz | Mon 7th November 2011 - 9:35 am

The link between family income and educational attainment is greater in the UK than in almost any other developed country. We must all be concerned with a situation where 96% of young people educated in independent schools progress to university, but only 16% of pupils eligible for free school meals make the same progression. This statistic should be hugely troubling to anyone who believes in a society of equal opportunities.

The evidence shows that even when children start school at age five on a reasonably even footing, those from disadvantaged backgrounds begin to diverge dramatically from their peers in terms of attainment.

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The Independent View: Slashing early years spending contradicts the desire to improve social mobility

By Chris Paterson | Thu 3rd November 2011 - 1:45 pm

In its Social Mobility strategy launched last April, the government made clear the dual priorities shaping its agenda:

“Tackling the financial deficit is the Coalition’s most immediate task. But tackling the opportunity deficit – creating an open, socially mobile society – is our guiding purpose.”

These are strong words indeed, marking an unequivocal commitment to improving the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. At a very minimum, they indicate a clear intention to manage the necessary public spending cuts in a way that recognises this laudable goal.

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Henry Gruijters

The Independent View: Labour is a puppet of the unions – Lib Dems must stand up for non-unionised workers

By Henry Gruijters | Thu 3rd November 2011 - 10:45 am

As a member of the Dutch liberal party the VVD who was studying in the UK during the last election, I was pleased that the Lib Dems formed a coalition with the Conservatives. Yet I feel that a strategy that distinguishes the party from Labour is just as important as one that distinguishes the Lib Dems from the Tories.

Instead of stressing coalition differences, the Lib Dems have the opportunity to show that they are a true alternative to Labour. The Lib Dems should stress that, unlike Labour, they protect ordinary workers by deregulating the labour market, and do not …

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Jonathan Clifton

The Independent View: Coalition’s social mobility strategy failing

By Jonathan Clifton | Fri 28th October 2011 - 9:54 am

The government’s plan to improve social mobility has been dealt a series of blows over the past week. New education data show that trends towards a more ‘socially mobile’ Britain are pointing in the wrong direction.

Nick Clegg launched the government’s social mobility strategy last April, promising to ‘open the doors of opportunity’ to children from disadvantaged homes as they move into adulthood. Children from poor homes are half as likely to achieve five good GCSEs as their better off peers, and they account for less than one in a hundred Oxbridge students. Clegg rightly pointed out that …

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Greg Muttitt

The Independent View: Feeding cars or people? The case for food sovereignty

By Greg Muttitt | Mon 24th October 2011 - 10:22 am

Zero-carbon energy from plants might sound like a good idea. But that’s not the view of Luis Muchanga, a peasant leader from Mozambique, who spoke at a seminar on the global food crisis in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Mozambique, Luis pointed out, ought to be well placed to feed its people, with 70% of the population living in rural areas and practising subsistence agriculture. In reality though, around 35% of families go hungry, as the government prioritises export agriculture. And an increasing proportion of this export production is devoted to feeding the appetite of the rich world’s cars and …

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The Independent View: Local government, social media and what the public really wants

By Rob Dale | Thu 20th October 2011 - 2:53 pm

To many, social media seems the ideal way for government – especially local government –  to engage in more dialogue with communities in a way that is low cost, time-efficient and allows a two way (or indeed a multidirectional) relationship.

But how many normal people follow their council on Twitter? Research done by the LGiU found that in the vast majority of cases it is about 1% of the constituency.

Social media has the potential to play a huge role In engaging people with political system whilst saving cash. Examples like the BwD Winter  page – which Blackburn with Darwent …

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Peter Facey

The Independent View: Lib Dem peers kill local referendums

By Peter Facey | Tue 18th October 2011 - 9:25 am

On the 10th of October the House of Lords killed off the prospect of voters getting the power to initiate referendums on local issues. Up until then the Localism Bill had contained a modest proposal to give local people in England the power to call non-binding referendums on local issues if 5% of their fellow voters supported them. The proposal was hedged in with safeguards and protections to ensure that it did not contravene national laws or go beyond the powers of the local authority.

But the hopes that this could see revival of local democracy with citizens being given the …

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Andy Atkins

The Independent View: Final Demand – it’s time to end the power of the Big Six

By Andy Atkins | Mon 17th October 2011 - 1:50 pm

News last week that the Big Six energy firms are raking in bumper profits while the nation struggles with soaring fuel bills was just the latest electric shock to hit cash-strapped families.

Ofgem’s revelation that energy firm profit margins have risen to £125 per customer per year, from £15 in June, will crank up pressure on the Government to act – and rightly so.

But if Ministers really want to get to grips with soaring fuel bills we must also tackle the root cause – our nation’s reliance on increasingly expensive gas, coal and oil and the failure of the Big Six

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Carl Miller

The Independent View | ‘Truth, Lies & the Internet’ – how we need to educate our children for the digital age

By Carl Miller | Sun 16th October 2011 - 2:20 pm

The Internet can be a hugely liberating force. Bypassing the traditional gatekeepers — publicists and editors — the ‘public sphere 2.0’ empowers pressure groups, citizen journalists and researchers to hold the powerful and the responsible to account, armed with far more specialist expertise, analysis and facts at our fingertips than ever before.

But the Internet can also trap and snare. Now that the floodgates of self-published and user-generated content have opened, there is also an unprecedented amount of utter nonsense floating around in the digital aether: from genuine mistakes to selective half-truths, hidden bias and outright, naked …

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Jamie Hewitt

The Independent View: World Arthritis Day

By Jamie Hewitt | Sun 16th October 2011 - 11:50 am

I suspect few of you know this, but Wednesday was actually World Arthritis Day. For charities in the musculoskeletal sector this can be a pretty big deal, as we jostle to publish new research and try and ensnare policy makers in dialogue.

And so it proved to be when NRAS participated in a live webchat with the Health Minister, Paul Burstow MP, the man with responsibility for long-term conditions, like Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).

Needless to say we were cock-a-hoop that the Minister agreed to participate. He could have quite easily cancelled on us due to all the palaver surrounding the passage of

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The Independent View: Evidence that candidates make a difference

By Jo Silvester | Fri 14th October 2011 - 10:23 am

The Liberal Democrats in England took an important step in 2007 when they decided to review the approval process for parliamentary candidates. The aim was to develop a modern system capable of identifying, supporting and developing the best possible political talent in order to ensure the Party could field candidates with the qualities, skills and values needed to build public support and win seats.

Although change can take a long time in politics, four years on it is hard not to be impressed at what the Party has achieved.

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The Independent View | Women: Achieving a New Kind of Leadership

By Caroline Watson | Thu 13th October 2011 - 3:55 pm

There’s still a shocking absence of women from the top in politics and leadership roles across society. We can all see that for ourselves.

Progressive Women set out to bring women together to discuss issues of inequality, and to network. In the two years since we were established it’s become blatant to us that we need to do more than just talk.

That’s why Progressive Women are taking practical action to help and support potential future women leaders. That’s why we are launching our leadership development series of workshops, tailored specifically to enable women to develop the requisite tools …

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The Independent View: Lib Dems need to champion new ideas for tackling child poverty

By Laura Bradley | Wed 12th October 2011 - 12:25 pm

Figures released this week by the IFS show that the UK will witness a severe and sustained increase in child poverty over the coming decade, with almost a quarter of British children set to be living in relative poverty by 2020, compared to one fifth in 2009/10. This is despite a projected 7 per cent reduction in real terms median income over the next three years, reducing the amount of income it takes to cross the poverty line.

These figures highlight the growing gulf between the targets set out under the Child Poverty Act, which require the government to reduce …

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Simon Parker

The Independent View: Why it’s time for Nick Clegg to really end child detention

By Simon Parker | Tue 4th October 2011 - 3:50 pm

Among the Liberal Democrat policy gains that Nick Clegg attributed to the coalition government in his party conference speech last month was the ending of child detention. The same claim was made in the Liberal Democrat ‘List of Achievements’ and in a speech at the National Liberal Club summing up the party’s record one year into the coalition government.

The only problem with this claim is that it is not true. Child detention has not ended in the United Kingdom.

According to the Migration Observatory, more than 400 children were detained by the UK Border Agency in 2010. Certainly …

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Maurice Wren

The Independent View: The Coalition’s approach to the UK’s asylum system

By Maurice Wren | Mon 3rd October 2011 - 10:45 am

A new Chief Executive at the UK Border Agency takes office this week. The fairness and effectiveness of our asylum system will fall squarely within Rob Whiteman’s responsibility. It seems an appropriate moment, then, to look at the way the Coalition has approached this dysfunctional area of public policy.

When politicians talk about asylum, they invariably remind their audience that the UK has a proud historical record protecting people who have fled chilling human rights abuses abroad. Polls consistently show substantial public support for ensuring protection for those who need it. And these were the opening notes …

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David Merlin-Jones

The Independent View: One of Vince Cable’s greatest actions to date

By David Merlin-Jones | Sat 24th September 2011 - 2:50 pm

Sunday saw some good news. It was announced that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is to set up a new engine plant factory in the West Midlands, creating up to 750 jobs. This coup was delivered in no small part thanks to the Business Secretary Vince Cable plucking up the courage to intervene directly and offer JLR government money. It could even be argued that this is one of his greatest actions to date.

What part did Cable play? He helped JLR secure a £10 million grant for the plant. Clearly, this was not the be all and end all of …

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The Voice

The Independent View: Sorry ActionAid – it’s time to put people in charge of their own development

By The Voice | Tue 20th September 2011 - 11:27 am

This is a response article to ‘The Independent View: Centre Forum is wrong about aid – UK aid makes a difference’ by Centre Forum’s Pauline Dixon and Paul Marshall

Failure to allocate international aid more effectively on a rising budget will lead to a rapid decline in public support for it. This is what the CentreForum paper ‘International aid and educating the poorest’ seeks to address, and this is why ActionAid’s concerns about our paper, set out last week on Lib Dem Voice, are misplaced.

We are not opposed to international aid (ActionAid comes close to implying we are). Nor do we oppose …

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Kayte Lawton

The Independent View: Lib Dems should look beyond the tax system to help low-to-middle income families

By Kayte Lawton | Tue 20th September 2011 - 8:05 am

The Liberal Democrat conference has seen the party reiterate its commitment to using increases in the income tax personal allowance to raise the incomes of low-to-middle income families. Senior party figures have used conference to stress their long-term ambition to work towards an allowance of £12,500, roughly equivalent to the earnings of a full-time worker on the minimum wage.

This would be a significant tax cut that the Institute for Public Policy Research estimates would cost around £24 billion if implemented today. The Liberal Democrats argue that raising the allowance demonstrates ‘fairness’ by removing many low wage workers from income …

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Lucia Fry

The Independent View: Centre Forum is wrong about aid – UK aid makes a difference

By Lucia Fry | Wed 14th September 2011 - 2:56 pm

At a time of economic difficulties, it is welcome that the Coalition Government is retaining its commitment to the UK overseas aid budget. Indeed, UK aid is demonstrating great value for money, and making a real difference in the lives of the poorest. Which is why CentreForum’s recent paper by Pauline Dixon and Paul Marshall ‘International aid and educating the poorest’ is so puzzling. The report paints an alarming – but highly partial – picture of aid doing little to help reduce poverty, promote growth or achieve progress in education, and everything to line the pockets of corrupt elites. …

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Rachel Gladwin

The Independent View: Coerced, bullied and fighting back: living with Multiple Sclerosis and Welfare Reform

By Rachel Gladwin | Mon 12th September 2011 - 3:53 pm

I am a 54 year old woman who has had Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis for around 6 years. It involves increasing pain and loss of mobility and, as there is no remission, only progression, it takes me all of my energies to manage.

After the legion of neurological symptoms forced me to give up work I have had to endure the trauma of an Employment and Support Allowance “medical assessment” by ATOS Healthcare (a French private contractor), I have struggled to attend the mandatory Work Related Activity Group, which was not a safe place in my worsening condition.

I waited months for an appeal and won, but live in fear of the brown Department of Work & Pensions envelope that indicates that the whole sorry process will start again, as appears to be the case for many who win their appeals.

If the Welfare Reform Bill is agreed this week, I face the same stress and anxiety in yet another assessment, to test for an already proven condition, in order to retain high rate mobility Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in its new guise as Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

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