Category Archives: LibLink

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

The Voice

LibLink … Vince Cable: Economic recovery? It’s vanished into a yawning gap between a rich capital and the rest of the country

By The Voice | Sun 25th October 2009 - 12:04 pm

Over at the Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable examines the “trickiest problem” facing Government: “to rein in public borrowing without making recession worse or damaging the useful things government does”. Here’s an excerpt:

The grim news that the economy is still in recession makes this dilemma more acute. It also reminds us that Britain is a deeply divided country. In the inflated metropolitan bubble of the City, there is a lot of excited talk about recovery based on a bounce-back in the stock market, city bonuses and rising house prices in posher parts of London.

This is a different world

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The Voice

LibLink … Chris Huhne: Griffin is trying to peddle hatred against Muslims

By The Voice | Fri 23rd October 2009 - 3:55 pm

Over in the Independent, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne writes about his experiences on last night’s BBC Question Time as a fellow panellist alongside BNP leader Nick Griffin. Here’s an excerpt:

The key method of Griffin was on display: pretend to be moderate and reasonable in order to garner support which would be revolted if it knew his real agenda. He was confronted with quotes from YouTube, in which he told David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan that the BNP had to move softly because the British people were not yet ready for talk of racial purity, so

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The Voice

LibLink … Paddy Ashdown: Afghanistan’s future lies in strengthening its tribal structures, not in its corrupt government

By The Voice | Wed 21st October 2009 - 6:14 pm

Over at The Independent, former Lib Dem leader Lord (Paddy) Ashdown assesses the situation in Afghanistan in the light of President Karzai’s belated acceptance of the need for new, legitimate elections. Here’s an excerpt:

… no one should be in any doubt what the new vote will cost, not just in treasure but in blood. A new election may do something for President Karzai’s legitimacy, but it won’t alter the problem he poses if, as Mrs Clinton at least seems to expect, he is re-elected. What then?

Some say that Karzai II must be very different from Karzai I and the international

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The Voice

LibLink … Chris Huhne: Why I will debate with Nick Griffin

By The Voice | Wed 21st October 2009 - 9:45 am

Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne – who will be appearing alonsgide BNP leader Nick Griffin on Thursday night’s BBC1 Question Time – argues that it is time for liberals to challenge the fascists head-on. Here’s an excerpt:

The BBC has judged that two MEPs in a nation-wide election entitles the BNP to a voice on Question Time, just as previously a similar threshold elevated Ukip and the Greens. The BBC’s duty of impartiality is too important to have broadcasting executives decide that some opinions are acceptable and others are not, providing

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The Voice

LibLink … Vince Cable: Flash a red light on reckless lending

By The Voice | Tue 20th October 2009 - 6:20 pm

Over at The Times, the Lib Dems’ shadow chancellor Vince Cable argues that the Financial Services Authority’s review on mortgages doesn’t go far enough to prevent a return to banks’ wild excesses. Here’s an excerpt:

Some of the more aggressive banks, seeking to expand their market share, are relaxing their offerings in terms of loan-to-value ratios. Any eagerness to return to former lending practices should be a source of concern. The housing market has not adjusted, at least yet, to realistic levels. Historical trends show a cyclical pattern of boom and bust, lasting roughly 15 to 20 years, going back to

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The Voice

LibLink … Vince Cable: Loaded, yet STILL bankers are not doing their job lending to help businesses expand

By The Voice | Mon 19th October 2009 - 5:55 pm

Writing in the Mail yesterday (yes, the Mail: the newspaper which last week published the most complained-about article in British history) Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable contrasts two of the big stories of the last week: the investment bankers, announcing record bonuses, alongside the news of another big rise in unemployment. Here’s an excerpt:

A year after the collapse and rescue of the banking system by the taxpayer, the number of British workers without full-time jobs is still rising: 120,000 more in the three months to August.

But the big international banks – mainly US-owned but major players in

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Chris Huhne: The implicit media prejudice against the Lib Dems

By The Voice | Mon 19th October 2009 - 10:20 am

Over at the Independent, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues that the real bias at broadcasters is not against the Conservatives, but the Liberal Democrats. Here’s an excerpt:

The evidence of such bias is compelling and persistent. Broadcasters repeatedly ignore a third view on matters of the day. Even where Labour and Conservative views are nearly identical – such as on crime, Afghanistan or Iraq – news organisations evidently feel they can eliminate the Liberal Democrat viewpoint in the interests of simple, adversarial debate. The idea that there might be more than two points of view in an argument is normal in other European democracies, but not here.

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Nick Clegg: Sir Thomas Legg must re-open MPs’ expenses files

By The Voice | Wed 14th October 2009 - 2:30 pm

Over at the Daily Telegraph, Nick Clegg urges Sir Thomas Legg – heading the Parliamentary inquiry into MPs’ expenses – to go further than he has to date, and “take on the biggest abusers of the expenses regime”. Here’s an excerpt:

’ve instructed Liberal Democrat MPs to cooperate fully with Sir Thomas’ investigations, and abide by any reasonable requests for repayments. But when the Legg process was first announced, I think most people expected the worst offences to come under the toughest scrutiny – MPs who avoided Capital Gains Tax, claimed cash for mortgages that didn’t exist or ‘flipped’ their second home so they could claim for renovations on house after house. Legg’s review, which is still ongoing, will simply not be credible if it doesn’t do all it can to investigate these offences.

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV … An Evan Harris double-bill: embryon research and BNP teacher ban

By Stephen Tall | Mon 5th October 2009 - 5:40 pm

It’s not only Vince Cable who’s been all over the papers – the Lib Dems’ science spokesman Evan Harris also has his say today on two very different issues.

First up, in today’s Independent, animal-human hybrid embryo research which, says Evan equires three things to prosper: legal permission, good scientists and more funding. Here’s an excerpt from his article:

Those of us involved in campaigning for human-animal embryo research to be legal during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill always knew that this was a controversial area of research. But we also knew it was a

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV … A Vince double-bill – ‘Osbornomics’ and single mothers

By Stephen Tall | Mon 5th October 2009 - 1:25 pm

Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable’s path has gone beyond mere sainthood – to his financial omniscience we can now add his media omnipresence. In today’s Independent, he delivers a withering attack on what he terms ‘Osbornomics’ in, erm, honour of the Tories’ shadow chancellor.

First, Vince tries to pin down Boy George’s guiding economic philosophy:

The last Conservative government was led by people who had a clear sense of ideological direction and conviction. Mrs Thatcher was clearly influenced, directly or indirectly, by the ideas of Hayek – rolling back “the serfdom of the state”. Sir Geoffrey Howe and rising stars like Nigel Lawson had developed a response to the inflationary 1970s through the monetarist ideas of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. It is very difficult to see any clear or consistent thread this time round.

However, he acknowledges Mr Osborne has publicly lauded one philosopher, one Adam Smith:

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Vince Cable: I stirred up a hornets’ nest, but my Mansion Tax is fair

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 2:25 pm

The debate has raged now for a week, ever since Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announced his wish that the Lib Dems adopt the so-called ‘mansion tax’, a levy of 0.5% on households living in homes worth more than £1m. (You can vote on the issue over at LDV’s current poll). Was he right, or was he wrong?

Well, Vince has heard both sides of the argument now – including from his Lib Dem shadow cabinet colleagues – and has come out fighting in favour of his ‘mansion tax’, using his regular column in the Daily Mail to make his points. First of all, he points out, no tax is ever popular, but it’s going to be necessary:

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV… #ldconf special bumper edition

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 7:35 pm

Alix Mortimer of the LDV parish rounded up some of the best commentary on the Lib Dem conference here on Sunday – let me try and bring the story up-to-date …

First up, James Graham has had an active conference, popping up a couple of times at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog. One was penned jointly with Neal Lawson of Compass – A camp site not a big tent – and made an unabashed pitch for social liberals and liberal socialists – whether they count themselves as Lib Dems, Labour, Greens or even nationalists – to come together in a progressive alliance. Here’s the mission statement:

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: Scotland needs to dare to be different

By The Voice | Mon 14th September 2009 - 1:20 pm

Over at Scotland on Sunday, Nick Clegg has an article arguing that “It’s the Liberal Democrats who have the record, the strength and the vision to change politics for good”. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s liberals who invented the state pension and the NHS, liberals who were first to campaign to protect the environment and liberals who first put concern for human rights into our foreign affairs. The Liberal Democrats are a pioneering party – the party of Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell, who stood up against jeers and derision to campaign against the illegal invasion of Iraq. We led calls for

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Peter Black: Wales needs a holistic approach to mental health

By The Voice | Mon 31st August 2009 - 2:45 pm

Over at Wales Online, Lib Dem Welsh assembly member Peter Black, the party’s health spokesman, explains why an holistic approach to health-care is so vital. Here’s an excerpt:

Mental health and wellbeing services have historically been under-resourced in Wales and throughout the UK. Such a position is surprising given the incidence of debilitating mental health problems among the population. The figures are striking – one in four of us will suffer from a mental illness at some point in our lives, and one in seven will suffer to a sufficient degree to warrant therapeutic intervention at some level.

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV… James Graham: Nick Clegg – where have you been?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 30th August 2009 - 1:30 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, Lib Dem blogger James Graham has a pop at the Lib Dem leader for squandering the political opportunity presented by a quiet August. Here’s an excerpt:

Where was Nick Clegg when #welovetheNHS kicked off? He did, in fairness, manage to fire off a single tweet – 24 hours late – but the party made no attempt to use this as an opportunity to carve out its own distinctive agenda on health. Four days after his return to Libya, Clegg did manage to squeeze out a press release about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi but while criticising Gordon Brown for not making his own position clear declined to do likewise. Considering Clegg was calling for the summer recess to be cancelled just a couple of months ago, this does smack somewhat of dropping the ball. …

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Helen Duffett

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Norman Lamb on NHS parking charges

By Helen Duffett | Wed 19th August 2009 - 2:02 pm

Liberal Democrat Health spokesman Norman Lamb says the NHS is using car parking charges as a “tax on the sick.”

From the Telegraph:

Every year the NHS in England makes over £100 million from parking charges. While these charges do generate some much-needed income for the NHS, they can also cause real hardship for patients and their families. Patients are often faced with eye-wateringly high parking costs, but poor public transport links means that they sometimes have little alternative but to pay up. This is a scandalous and unfair situation: it needs to change.

However, I do not believe that we

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Alex Foster

Jo Swinson’s Indy Q&A

By Alex Foster | Mon 17th August 2009 - 11:13 am

The Lib Dem MP for Dunbartonshire East has submitted herself to a gruelling grilling at the hands of the readers of the Independent.

Among the questions – such taxing ones “that thing you just did, isn’t it a huge waste of time?” – “no”; “don’t you think you were too young to be an MP?” – “no”; and “who’s your bestest friend in all the Lib Dems?” – I will leave you to visit the story yourself to see the thrilling answer.

Amongst the questions there are some better thought out ones and some interesting answers, so it’s well worth five …

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Mark Pack

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable on the surveillance state

By Mark Pack | Sun 16th August 2009 - 12:50 pm

Vince Cable’s latest column for the Mail on Sunday is out and this time it’s about civil liberties:

A quarter of a century has passed since 1984, the titular year of George Orwell’s novel which described a world constantly spied upon by an all-powerful dictator, the fearsome Big Brother.

It never happened. Orwell’s nightmarish vision was realised, for a while, in communist Eastern Europe but the Stasi and similar agencies have now gone.

And yet in a quiet, insidious way our own democratic society is producing a surveillance state that Big Brother would have been proud to call his own.

You can read …

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Alex Foster

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable doesn’t know when the economy will recover

By Alex Foster | Mon 10th August 2009 - 3:55 pm

Our Vince penned a piece for the Daily Mail yesterday with the  delicious title “The economy is now sitting up and showing signs of recovery”

In it, Vince made the startling admission that he is not, in fact, an all-seeing mage with black powers over the future of the economy:

I am often asked to play the part of Nostradamus. Since I had been a reasonably successful prophet of doom, I am now assumed to know when the economy will turn round. I don’t. No one knows.

It does seem likely, however, that a major disaster has been averted. We are no

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Chris Huhne: While we need to clarify the rules for obtaining British citizenship, curtailing people’s freedom of expression is a big mistake

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th August 2009 - 10:00 am

Over at The Guardian, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues that, while we need to clarify the rules for obtaining British citizenship, curtailing people’s freedom of expression is a big mistake. Here’s an excerpt:

There is the germ of a good idea in the government’s proposals for a points-based test for citizenship. It is reasonable to expect people who want to become British citizens to have worked, paid taxes, speak the language and not to have engaged in criminal acts. It is also reasonable to suggest that people who go the extra mile and volunteer in their local community

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Vince Cable: Banks pay up for their ‘crimes’, so why not rapists?

By The Voice | Mon 3rd August 2009 - 5:15 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable argues that Britain’s system of compensation awards is “mad”. Here’s an excerpt:

… The real scandal, however, is the meanness of the criminal injuries and military compensation system. The Armed Forces scheme is now being, belatedly, reviewed. But criminal injury awards seem likely to remain not only pitifully small but severely restricted and tardy. I had to write angry letters to the Government agency dealing with criminal injuries when a constituent – an innocent bystander who had been attacked by gangsters throwing acid in a pub – had been waiting

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: If they drag McKinnon to America, he will never come back

By The Voice | Sat 1st August 2009 - 5:30 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Nick Clegg mounts an impassioned attack against the decision to allow Gary McKinnon – the man with Asperger’s Syndrome who has admitted to being an amateur computer-hacker – to be extradited to the USA. Here’s an excerpt:

If he boards the plane to the U.S., it is almost certain he will never set foot on British soil again, doomed to pass out the rest of his days in shackles on a foreign shore. This is nothing short of a disgrace – and yet there is still one tiny glimmer of hope. Even now the courts have

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: Don’t leave the Liberal Democrats out of it

By The Voice | Fri 31st July 2009 - 5:45 pm

Over at The Independent, Nick Clegg (under a slightly unfortunately whiny headline not of his creating) puts the case for a televised debate between the leaders of the main political parties. Here’s an excerpt:

A debate wouldn’t advantage a party; it would advantage the people. It would be the voters’ opportunity to see the leaders competing to be Prime Minister promoting their policies and answering difficult questions about how they’d change the country. It would bring in a wider audience than leaders could reach otherwise, giving more people the opportunity to make up their own minds based on the facts.

If Gordon

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Greg Stone: It’s time for the next Great Reform Act

By The Voice | Thu 30th July 2009 - 4:00 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free’s ‘A New Politics’ strand, Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Newcastle East Greg Stone argues that we need to restore the health of our democracy by delivering fair voting to those dispossessed by a rotten system. You can read an excerpt here:

… while there may not be fevered discussion about AV+, STV, or d’Hondt, there is an almost universal cry for political change from the voters I speak to. The view that two-party politics and a winner-takes-all electoral system are a fundamental part of the problem is at last becoming widespread. …

Electoral reform would

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… James Graham: We need a harder line on voting reform

By The Voice | Wed 29th July 2009 - 8:10 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free’s ‘A New Politics’ strand Lib Dem blogger James Graham argues that if Gordon Brown is serious about electoral reform Lib Dems should support him – but we must be wary of any proposed referendum. Here’s an excerpt:

Moving to the alternative vote system might be an improvement but it is a baby step, hardly worth having a referendum over at all. Even the Jenkins-designed alternative vote plus is not without its problems. Developed 10 years ago in a failed attempt to appease Tony Blair, it is a classic example of triangulation politics. As such

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Terry Stacy: Councils must be transparent and accountable about surveillance

By The Voice | Mon 27th July 2009 - 8:55 pm

Well, it’s not quite an op-ed article, but there’s a detailed letter from Lib Dem leader of Islington Council, Cllr Terry Stacy, urges all councils to follow Islington’s example, and reject the local use of surveillance powers. Here’s an excerpt:

… local government really is on the frontline of Britain’s expanding surveillance state – councillors and council leaders need to be held accountable for their decisions. Councillors must decide whether they embrace the surveillance society, or reject it and introduce checks and balances and public democratic oversight of the local use of surveillance powers, as the Liberal Democrats have done

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Vince Cable: Silver Power, the force that could save us

By The Voice | Sun 26th July 2009 - 3:00 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable argues that the British economy needs older workers. Here’s an excerpt:

Since 2007, for the first time in British history, there have been more people over pension age than children. Every year there is a growth in the number of elderly people relative to the number of younger working people supporting them. Every Election there is an increase in the numbers of older voters relative to younger voters.

These changes are of revolutionary importance. But whenever the subject of an ageing population is discussed, it is usually in pessimistic terms. Older

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… John Shipley: Our record in power shows that we have vision and ambition

By The Voice | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 7:00 pm

Over at The Guardian today, Councillor John Shipley, Lib Dem leader of Newcastle city council, writes a robust response to Tristram Hunt’s partial (in every sense) attack on the Lib Dems’ record in local government. Here’s an excerpt:

Tristram Hunt’s claim that the many cities and urban councils now run by Liberal Democrats lack the leadership and vision of Labour authorities such as Manchester and Glasgow is nonsense. … He fails to mention Newcastle upon Tyne at all. Lost by Labour to the Lib Dems in 2004, civic leadership flourishes here with a new £40m city library and investment in cultural

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Alix Mortimer – Why is Clegg picking this quarrel now?

By The Voice | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 4:34 pm

Lib Dem blogger and LDV-editor-on-sabbatical Alix Mortimer writes for CiF about tuition fees and the Lib Dems.

I wish people would let go of this idea that the pre-tuition fees era was some sort of egalitarian utopia. No system ever is.

Even so, Nick Clegg’s suggestion that scrapping tuition fees be downgraded from a firm Lib Dem policy commitment to an “aspiration” makes me uneasy, and not just because of the Labour-flavoured wording. I cannot imagine why he thinks this particular quarrel is worth picking now.

Read the piece here.

Alix says: “Please note that the headline and byline are, as customary with …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: MPs’ holiday betrayal

By The Voice | Wed 22nd July 2009 - 5:31 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Nick Clegg argues that a Westminster stitch-up has seen both main parties dodge reform demands in the dash for the recess door. Here’s an excerpt:

If someone had told me two months ago, in the middle of the expenses scandal, that MPs would go on their summer break without having rewritten the rules of British politics, I wouldn’t have believed it. I thought the public demand for change was, for once, overwhelming. Yet, scandalously, that’s what’s happened. …

It is easy to understand the resistance to reform from the Conservatives. Maintenance of the status

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