Category Archives: LibLink

For highlighting articles by Lib Dems that have appeared elsewhere in the media.

NewsHound

LibLink: Cllr Richard Kemp on the Lib Dem Local Government conference

By NewsHound | Mon 21st June 2010 - 1:07 pm

Lib Dem councillors had their annual conference this week within the confines of Local Government House in Smith Square, London. Co-hosted by ALDC and the Lib Dem LGA group, the conference pulls together colleagues from across the country with our parliamentary team. This year, of course, our parliamentary colleagues have joined many thousands of Lib Dem councillors in actually being in charge of running things. Normally our councillors are more experienced at holding the reins of power than our MPs.

Cllr Richard Kemp has written a review for Total Politics:

Nick pulled no punches in telling us how difficult the decisions

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NewsHound

LibLink: of Tebbit, c*nts and Clegg

By NewsHound | Thu 17th June 2010 - 5:59 pm

Another great blog post from former Tory MP Jerry Hayes over at Think Politics.

Jerry touches on the way the Conservative blue rinse brigade have been a little left behind

It will be some time before the Colonel and Mrs Mads who run the coffee mornings and shepherd’s pie evenings in the Shires will fully come to terms with it all

Then pops up with a rather nice Norman Tebbit anecdote

”You, you little cu*t. I saw you on tv last night asking the government to spend more on pensioners and the Health Service”.

And finishes it off with some remarkably kind …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg – Why it’s time for families to come first

By NewsHound | Thu 17th June 2010 - 12:20 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg writes of the ways in which the coalition government will support families to try and ensure children get the best possible start in life. Here’s an excerpt:

Obsessed with micromanaging daily life from the centre, the last government forgot what families really need. They never understood that it isn’t just parents who raise a child – it’s the whole family, the whole street, the whole neighbourhood. Why they wanted to vet anyone working with children – including parents taking it in turns to collect each others children

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NewsHound

LibLink: Richard Grayson – Lib Dems must dare to be different over prisoners’ voting rights

By NewsHound | Thu 10th June 2010 - 10:10 pm

Over at The Guardian, Richard Grayson, a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate and former director of policy for the party, argues that the Council of Europe ruling against the UK ban on prisoners voting offers the Lib Dems a chance to seize the initiative. Here’s an excerpt:

While Liberal Democrats have consistently made it clear that they understand the need to punish crimes (despite the way the party has been characterised as “soft on crime” by both Labour and the Conservatives), the party is generally most interested in stopping crime in the first place. One way to do that is to transform

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NewsHound

LibLink: David Laws – This is a little longer than usual

By NewsHound | Thu 10th June 2010 - 7:45 pm

Over at the Yeovil Liberal Democrats website, David Laws has posted an article explaining to his constituents his resignation as Chief Secretary, and the reasons behind it. Here’s an excerpt:

… the root cause of my difficulties has been a decision I took long ago, which logic has never succeeded in changing – the decision to cover up my sexuality.

No one person or institution is in any way responsible for my decision to keep my sexuality secret. It is just that when I grew up – just a decade or so after homosexuality was decriminalized in this country – you would

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – Telegraph’s attack on Danny Alexander is rich

By NewsHound | Fri 4th June 2010 - 6:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, LDV Co-Editor Mark Pack notes that the behaviour of the new Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury, Danny Alexander, wasn’t a patch on the sort of tax avoidance measures the Telegraph repeatedly recommends. Here’s an excerpt:

… a piece by Ian Cowie, from May 2010, lays out in detail how Telegraph readers can avoid paying capital gains tax. It even says: “Do as MPs do and ‘flip’ your home … large potential CGT liabilities can be avoided quite legally in this way.” The story goes on to urge a full exploitation of expenses

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NewsHound

LibLink: Tim Leunig – Was David Laws’s resignation necessary?

By NewsHound | Tue 1st June 2010 - 7:10 pm

Over at The Guardian, Dr Tim Leunig, a Lib Dem member and economist, argues for speedy due process to determine any future MPs’ expenses controversies to avoid unnecessary ministerial resignations driven by the demands of rolling news:

The public need the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards, John Lyon, to judge MPs’ conduct. But the public also need the best people in government. Rules must apply to ministers, but we need the parliamentary commissioner to act expeditiously when a minister is referred. … When the facts are clear, should it really take more than 24 hours to make a decision? … If

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – Why do we demand such high standards of politicians?

By NewsHound | Tue 1st June 2010 - 11:30 am

Over at The Independent, Lib Dem Voice Co-Editor Mark Pack takes a look at the Telegraph’s pursuit of David Laws and Danny Alexander.

On David, Mark notes:

… for me, the dividing line between reprimand and resignation in matters of personal financial affairs should be whether or not you have personally gained from a breach of the rules. … in this ironic situation where a politician gets into trouble for claiming less money than he could have done, I regret that he has decided to resign.

And on Danny, he writes:

It’s an odd form of morality to criticise someone for paying no

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NewsHound

LibLink: Daisy Cross – For better or worse, they’re getting used to the limelight

By NewsHound | Mon 17th May 2010 - 10:40 pm

Over at The Independent, Daisy Cross gives a first-hand account of the Lib Dem special conference in Birmingham, and captures some of the sense of the unreality felt by many who were there:

The ambience was similar to that of a very successful village fete; many had brought their own sandwiches, some had brought their babies, but everyone was focused centre-stage, the odd gleeful glance sideways or incredulous nudge asking: “Are we really here?” Apart from one councillor, who declared the party had “made a pact with the devil” to awkward applause, there was hardly a word uttered against the new

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Helen Duffett

LibLink: Mark Pack – Lib Dems revel in a share of power

By Helen Duffett | Mon 17th May 2010 - 1:30 pm

At Comment is Free, Mark Pack shares his impressions of the Liberal Democrat Special (not-so-secret) Conference held yesterday in Birmingham.

In an atmosphere I described yesterday as “more wedding than wake” more than a thousand party members met to debate the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition agreement.

Mark captures the mood of a party who now have their hands on the levers of power:

Travelling by train to the Liberal Democrat conference yesterday, I did what I usually do on my way to party conferences – read through the agenda and background policy information.

Except this time there was one key difference. I

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NewsHound

LibLink: Chris Huhne – This is a crisis. A coalition is the only way

By NewsHound | Mon 17th May 2010 - 9:40 am

Over at The Independent yesterday, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, Chris Huhne, argued that a half-hearted deal between the Lib Dems and Tories would have appeared fragile and short-term. Our economic problems, he argues, call for tough decisions and certainty. And the constituional changes the Lib Dems have negotiated will endure:

… we face a prolonged period when we will be relying on the financial markets to lend the Government the money to bridge the largest peacetime gap between taxes and spending in our history. A fiscal problem of this scale is not resolved overnight. Indeed, no

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Stephen Tall

LibLink: Charles Kennedy – Why I couldn’t support Clegg’s deal with the Tories

By Stephen Tall | Sun 16th May 2010 - 8:20 pm

In The Observer today, former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has highlighted his unease at the Lib-Con coalition government, and explains he would have preferred to explore the possibilities of an alliance with Labour:

… drive a strategic coach and horses through the long-nurtured “realignment of the centre-left” to which leaders in the Liberal tradition, this one included, have all subscribed since the Jo Grimond era. It is hardly surprising that, for some of us at least, our political compass currently feels confused. And that really encapsulates the reasons why I felt personally unable to vote for this outcome when

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NewsHound

LibLink: David Steel – Why we must make this coalition work

By NewsHound | Sun 16th May 2010 - 12:03 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, former Liberal party leader Lord (David) Steel offers his reasons for supporting the coalition government of Lib Dems and Conservatives:

We have successfully injected parts of the Lib Dem manifesto into the government programme and outlawed parts of the Tory manifesto, most notably bringing tax reductions to the poor rather than the rich and allowing the electorate itself to improve the voting system in future elections. … Nick Clegg had only one other option as leader – to sit in opposition, watch a minority Tory government struggling with declining sterling and share indices,

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NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg – Don’t take offence at our coalition. Its aims are liberal

By NewsHound | Sat 15th May 2010 - 8:15 am

Over at Comment is Free, Nick Clegg explains the shared aims of the Lib-Con coalition:

The third runway at Heathrow has been cancelled. ID cards have been scrapped. There will be no more child detention. And reform is now under way to make taxes fair for millions of ordinary people.

These are some of the early achievements of a government that had its first cabinet meeting just two days ago. A new government but, more important, a new kind of government: plural, diverse; a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition that defies the rules of old politics.

I know the birth of this coalition has

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NewsHound

LibLink: Shirley Williams – The new politics is pragmatic

By NewsHound | Fri 14th May 2010 - 8:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, Lib Dem peer Baroness Shirley Williams offers a realistic lament-cum-appraisal of the opportunities and risks facing the coalition government:

So now we embark on a new politics. The generation I belong to, steeped in ideology and partisan commitment, is passing away. My own vision was one of equality and social justice advanced by state action. The new politics is pragmatic, innovative, suspicious of state power, and holds to values rather than dogmas. … out of the intense negotiations, brilliantly conducted by Nick Clegg and his team, has come a shared commitment: a new

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NewsHound

LibLink: Ashdown – The coalition between David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be difficult, but it is the best start

By NewsHound | Thu 13th May 2010 - 10:57 pm

Over in the Daily Telegraph Paddy Ashdown writes:

For many of us in the Liberal Democrats, this is a rather unexpected moment. And a somewhat nerve-racking one, too.

For decades, our party worked towards a realignment of the Left; an alliance with Labour that would reshape politics and bring in a new and more modern form of government. Now we find ourselves in coalition not with the centre-Left, but with the centre-Right. What happened? And can it work?…

A deal with the Labour Party would have been easier, more comfortable and far more consistent with our strategy of realignment – and it was

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NewsHound

LibLink: Hughes – Liberal Democrat party stronger than ever

By NewsHound | Thu 13th May 2010 - 3:22 pm

Simon Hughes has an upbeat piece in the Independent today. On the left of the party, is Simon worried at a coalition with the Conservatives? Not a bit of it.

Whatever the difficulties of leading Britain out of the recession, reducing the deficit, growing our economy and reversing our headstrong irresponsibility as stewards of our planet, our philosophy, traditions, principles and values remain rock solid. Political parties do not exist to debate or advise; they exist to implement, to deliver and to change. Thirteen years of Labour and 65 years of red/blue politics has left Britain with too few

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – We Lib Dems are pragmatic about how our policies get delivered

By NewsHound | Tue 11th May 2010 - 2:30 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Mark Pack notes how united the Lib Dem membership has been, at least so far, in nervously watching and waiting to see how the balanced parliament negotiations develop.

There’s general recognition that Nick Clegg and the party face the toughest of choices – but also a determination to see electoral reform brought in. Here’s an extract:

Many have an instinctive preference or aversion to one of the other main parties, but what they all have in common is a commitment to the Liberal Democrats. Those in principle who would never touch

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NewsHound

David Steel on the last time there was a hung parliament

By NewsHound | Fri 7th May 2010 - 6:45 pm

Lord (David) Steel recalled his involvement in the various negotiations during the 1970s, the last time there was an election which produced a hung parliament, in a letter to The Times during the campaign – it seemed worth dusting down in the current circumstances …

Sir,

Your leader today on hung parliaments contained a number of dubious assertions.

First, you say that in February 1974 Mr Heath’s offer of coalition foundered on his refusal to include electoral reform. As a survivor of those discussions I have to say that this was not the most determining factor. One was that even with the

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NewsHound

LibLink: James Graham – A cruel result for the Lib Dems

By NewsHound | Fri 7th May 2010 - 4:05 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, Lib Dem blogger James Graham looks at what the results mean for the party:

What can I say about this result? I’m bereft. It isn’t even a result so awful that the Lib Dems could sit by the sidelines and let everyone else sort out the mess the country is in. That, at least, would be easy. In fact, just to make things even more galling, we seem to have actually increased our share of the vote to a level that we would have been delighted with a month ago. What a cruel

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Stephen Tall

LibLink: Mark Pack – Liberal Democrats: the seats to watch

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th May 2010 - 5:55 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Mark Pack, until last year working at the heart of Lib Dem HQ, picks out his ten must-watch seats to find out how the party is faring.

They range from northern seats where the main challenger is Labour (eg, Leeds North West and Durham) to southern seats where the tussle is with the Tories (eg, Eastleigh and Guildford). Scotland is represented by

Dunfermline and Fife West (2am)

Held after his byelection victory by Willie Rennie, this Scottish seat will throw light on not only how the Lib Dem-Labour battle in Scotland

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Stephen Tall

The New York Times lauds Nick Clegg’s “central role” in election race

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th May 2010 - 11:35 am

One of the most amazing – and welcome – aspects of this election campaign has been how Nick Clegg has completely stolen the show, as Jonathan Freedland noted in his Guardian article yesterday. But it’s not just at home that ‘Cleggmania’ has been in evidence: the foreign press in particular have been fascinated by his rise without trace.

Here, for example, is how a major feature in the New York Times begins:

LIVERPOOL, England — Chris Garlick arrived a skeptic, but departed a convert.

“I think he’s refreshing,” Mr. Garlick said of Nick Clegg, the earnest, fresh-faced leader of the newly

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Also posted in General Election | Tagged and | 2 Comments
NewsHound

Not yet sure yet whether to vote Lib Dem? Read this first

By NewsHound | Thu 6th May 2010 - 10:55 am

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, author and historian Timothy Garton Ash delivers a passionate call for public to ignore any thought of tactical voting, and vote Lib Dem today to compel the real change Britain needs. Here’s an excerpt:

This time, vote Liberal Democrat. Vote Liberal wherever you can. Vote Liberal as if your life depended on it. Vote Liberal if you want a transformed politics and a modern, free country with a realistic view of its place in the world. No matter if you didn’t last time; no matter if you won’t next time. This time: seize

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NewsHound

LibLink: Jonathan Freedland – Trust me, I’m Nick Clegg: How the also-ran stole the show

By NewsHound | Wed 5th May 2010 - 2:10 pm

There’s a fascinating on-the-campaign-trail profile of Nick Clegg by Jonathan Freedland in today’s Guardian highlighting quite how extraordinary has been the Lib Dem leader’s breakthrough in the 2010 general election, completely outshining both Gordon Brown and David Cameron:

In little over three short weeks, Clegg has gone from a face barely recognised outside the Westminster village to a phenomenon. Where once his party had to beg for attention, he now has to fend off questions not just from a British press pack at last treating the Lib Dems with respect, but from CNN and a clutch of other foreign reporters, who

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NewsHound

LibLink: Vince Cable on one liners, air rifles, and Alesha Dixon

By NewsHound | Wed 5th May 2010 - 12:20 pm

Over at ShortList.com, there’s an interview with Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable, which notes that his winning appearance on Channel 4’s Ask the Chancellors helped start the Lib Dems’ 2010 election bandwagon. Here are just a couple of the questions asked and answers given:

So, did you enjoy the first chancellors’ debate?
I didn’t enjoy it – that’s not the word I’d use. I felt increasingly confident as it went on. I felt I had the right arguments and the audience was on my side. It is quite tricky, trying to concentrate on the other two and what they’re saying and

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NewsHound

LibLink: Vince Cable – The Gaffe: it’s a spectre that haunts us all

By NewsHound | Tue 4th May 2010 - 2:05 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable takes a look at the hard reality of being a politician during a gruelling election campaign. Here’s an excerpt:

Mostly elections are a punishing schedule of interviews, meetings, encounters with voters and lots of travel. I am often asked if I enjoy it. It seems ungracious to say no but enjoy is not the word I would choose. Perhaps there is a parallel with extreme sports, the same combination of adrenaline and the knowledge that disaster is potentially just seconds away.

Vince then gives us an insight into his last …

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Also posted in General Election | Tagged | 2 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Andrew Duff – Europe gripped by UK election

By NewsHound | Tue 4th May 2010 - 8:45 am

Over at the Financial Times, Lib Dem MEP Andrew Duff offers a European perspective on the UK’s general election – and finds the continent as gripped as the rest of us by Thursday’s national poll:

In Brussels and across Europe there has been a surge of interest in the British general election campaign. People had more or less accepted that David Cameron would form a Conservative government, probably with a large majority, but now the outcome looks far from certain. …

Yet the thing that has galvanised continental political interest is the exposure of the iniquity of British electoral procedure. That Mr

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 3 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: HIV – heterosexuals get it too

By NewsHound | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 3:22 pm

Chris Ward, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Guildford, makes his Comment is Free début with a piece tackling Julian Lewis’s irresponsible assumptions that AIDS is a solely gay disease.

In every year since 1999, most new diagnoses of HIV have been through heterosexual contact. Although many point out that a good chunk of these infections are believed to have been contracted abroad, statistically meaning that in the UK you are still less likely to be infected if you engage in heterosexual activities, the numbers are still very chilling. It proves convincingly that many heterosexuals do not consider HIV to be

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NewsHound

LibLink: Want to know who Nick Clegg’s hero is?

By NewsHound | Sat 1st May 2010 - 12:20 pm

Nick Clegg – who clearly isn’t campaigning hard enough, apparently having time to spare to read literature! – has the following to say about which avant-garde writer C.20th dramatist and writer:

His appeal lies in his directness – the sparse, unembellished prose that can make his meticulous stage directions unexpected. He leaves you with a sense that you knew what he meant, even if explaining it back would leave you lost for words. Direct and disturbing – it is impossible to grow tired of X.

Who is X? Find out here.

2 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Edward McMillan-Scott – David Cameron has to come round on electoral reform

By NewsHound | Tue 27th April 2010 - 4:50 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, the former Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, who defected to the Lib Dems earlier this year, argues that both principle and practicality dictate that Conservatives must rethink their stubborn opposition to proportional representation. Here’s an excerpt:

David Cameron talks irrationally about the power to sack a government, when, in reality, the only voters properly enfranchised in the UK are those in marginal seats – and these have been bought, he hopes, with Lord Ashcroft’s millions. …

Having chaired numerous observer missions, often organised through the EU’s Democracy Instrument, which I founded in 1990, I would

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