Category Archives: Op-eds

Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes…Thanks for talking #timetotalk

By Norman Lamb MP | Thu 5th February 2015 - 5:12 pm

Time to talk 2015Regular readers will be used to me banging my drum on these pages about the work that Lib Dems are doing in government on mental health.

Mental health has been disadvantaged within the NHS for far too long, and changes like legislating for equality for mental health, introducing the first access and waiting time standards, and – in particular – confronting the poor state of children’s mental health services in many places are all incredibly important.

But something just as important has been happening here on Lib Dem Voice today.

I wrote here about Time to Talk a year ago, saying that contributions from fellow members had reinforced for me, powerfully, why I am a Liberal Democrat. Tackling mental health stigma is fundamentally about freedom – freedom from poverty, ignorance, and conformity.

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Eddie Sammon

Opinion: It’s #timetotalk about mental health and to act too

By Eddie Sammon | Thu 5th February 2015 - 4:30 pm

Time to talk 2015I am a Lib Dem supporter (most of the time), who has been commenting below the line on Lib Dem Voice for a few years and I have suffered from severe anxiety and depression. I still have anxieties that affect me every day, but they are reducing and I find that doing something new, even a small act such as submitting an article on here, helps me to recover and move on.

It is hard to talk about mental health, but perhaps you will find that there are more people willing to listen than you think. Help is always available from the NHS or charities such as Mind,  Rethink Mental Illness  and Samaritans.

I am so used to commenting below the line that I feel ready to finish my article after only 150 words ☺. I will begin to wrap up, as I don’t want to try to do too much, but before I finish I just want to highlight the good work that Lib Dems such as Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb have been doing in this area.

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes…We must transform mental health services for young people #timetotalk

By Paul Burstow | Thu 5th February 2015 - 3:00 pm

Time to talk 2015From day one of this government, Lib Dems have prioritised mental health, so long neglected and overlooked by previous governments. In 2011, I published the Coalition Government’s mental health strategy, No Health Without Mental Health. Four years on, that strategy has been translated into action by a succession of initiatives. Investing in expanding the adult talking therapies (IAPT) programme, building from scratch a children’s IAPT programme, putting in place liaison and diversion services investing in liaison psychiatry, the first ever waiting time standards for mental health and Nick’s announcement of an ambition for zero-suicides across the NHS.

Achieving parity of esteem is never going to be a quick win, we are making real progress and helping to set the agenda for any future government. Thanks to the Lib Dems there is now a challenge on mental health, and, with the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Task Force established by Norman Lamb reporting in March, there is an opportunity to establish a roadmap for real reform for children and young people in the next parliament.

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Vikki Slade

Opinion: Sharing my story about mental health #timetotalk

By Vikki Slade | Thu 5th February 2015 - 1:30 pm

Time to talk 2015I’ve always been a really healthy person, well on the outside anyway!

During my adult life there has probably only been half a dozen years when I haven’t either been under the care of the community mental health team, receiving some sort of talking therapy or taking medication for mental health conditions.

As a child I was always the one who struggled with emotions, my dad was the same and two of my daughters display similar traits.  It turns out that we have a chemical imbalance in our brain which makes coping with stress a bit tricky and when combined with other factors in life can send you completely over the edge.  Add in a new baby, financial crisis, bereavement or family breakup and you’re well on the way to a nervous breakdown.

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Alisdair Calder McGregor

Opinion: Rotherham would be an ideal place to hold England’s first STV elections

By Alisdair Calder McGregor | Thu 5th February 2015 - 12:01 pm

The problems caused by one-party states are many, but the behaviour of Rotherham Labour in failing to their residents by running a council that was simply “not fit for purpose” shows one of the worst possible examples.

The lack of political challenge to Rotherham Labour resulted in a council that lacked even the basic ability to serve local people. It stands as one of the clearest examples of the failure of the current English council elections system.

Eric Pickles has already announced that Rotherham will move to all-up elections from 2016, but this is insufficient to change the underlying problem of the lack of political challenge in Rotherham.

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Paul Walter

It was a Monday in November 2000…#timetotalk

By Paul Walter | Thu 5th February 2015 - 11:20 am

Time to talk 2015It was a Monday in November 2000 around 11am at work. My boss put his head round the corner:

“Have you got a moment, please Paul?”

“Yes, sure”, I replied.

I followed my manager, another Paul, to a room where a member of our Human Resources group was sitting. The long and the short of it was that they wanted me to take a week off work as paid leave and arrange for free counselling for me. I agreed. Boss Paul, bless him, drove me home in his posh BMW and waited around for my wife to come home so he could explain the situation to her, so she wasn’t “spooked”. (Her first reaction was that I was being sacked, but fortunately he was able to reassure her).

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Maria Pretzler

Opinion: Mental health problems in the workplace: prevention is better than cure #timetotalk

By Maria Pretzler | Thu 5th February 2015 - 8:56 am

Time to talk 2015It is good to see that increased openness about mental health issues is leading employers to become more accommodating towards people who have such issues. However, there is one policy issue which needs more consideration, and that is the question of how we prevent working conditions and management practices which cause mental health issues in the first place.

Stress and anxiety are some of the most common triggers of mental health problems: the demands of many jobs and detrimental management practices, sometimes combined with an unhealthy work-life (im-)balance, are often a trigger for such problems. What always amazes me is that we can have health and safety regimes concerning physical health which have now gone so far that people joke about them – (but which really have made the world of work much safer), while many employers still seem to take little notice of working conditions which have a detrimental impact on workers’ mental wellbeing.

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Caron Lindsay

An introduction to #timetotalk day

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 5th February 2015 - 8:36 am

Time to talk 2015As I said last night, we are marking the Time to Change campaign’s #timetotalk day today to encourage all our readers to take 5 minutes out of their day to have a conversation about mental health. We have a series of thought provoking articles and it may be that, like last year, some more come in on the day.

I’m going to kick off with a brief post along the lines of that covering the themes suggested by the Time to Change campaign.

My name is Caron and I have experienced Depression and Anxiety on and off since I was a child. I’m currently in the middle of the worst episode of Depression I’ve had in 12 years.

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Caron Lindsay

Three moments from today’s PMQs

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th February 2015 - 6:58 pm

I’ve taken to avoiding Prime Minister’s Questions. However today, I had no choice. At the moment it feels like a particularly angry and vindictive goat has stuffed my sinuses full of bits of cardboard box and is now kicking me in the head. I couldn’t even muster up the energy to get up from the sofa, where I was lying feeling sorry for myself, to find the remote control to switch it off.

The impending election doesn’t seem to have persuaded MPs to behave in a more grown-up fashion. I don’t think anything will change until Speaker John Bercow actually starts throwing people out. It’s nasty, shouty, brawly and hideously unpleasant and it’s all most people see of the work of the Mother of Parliaments. In fact, much goes on that is consensual, professional and pleasant from people of all parties.

Anyway, here are three moments in the half hour which were noteworthy.

Cameron takes credit for Liberal Democrat policy klaxon

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Ruth Bright

Opinion: Hoping for more women presenting election coverage

By Ruth Bright | Wed 4th February 2015 - 2:58 pm

Wading through some 1960s election coverage (yes, I should get out more) I was taken aback by a comment from the presenter Cliff Michelmore as he passed onto a colleague: “The girls are much prettier than last time.” He was referring to the typists. The main role of women on these election programmes was to type out the results. Tappy tap tap they went in the background; but theirs was not to speak because it all had to be interpreted by important people – funnily enough all men.

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Joe Otten

Commons to vote on 2.001 parent babies

By Joe Otten | Tue 3rd February 2015 - 12:03 pm

A free vote is due this afternoon in the House of Commons on whether to allow a process of transplanting a nucleus into an ovum or embryo with healthy mitochondria so that parents may have their own (99.9%) genetic child while preventing mitochondrial disease in that child. Details on the BBC.

Calling a child born following this process a ‘3 parent’ baby is a little hyperbolic, and helps to add oil to the flames of the “ethical” debate surrounding every kind of intervention in the embryo or germ line. I believe that mitochondrial disease is a bad thing and preventing it is a good thing and that ethics demands unequivocal support for this process, but I do recognise there is a debate to be had.

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Mohsin Khan

Opinion: Mental health is a hot topic again – and rightly so

By Mohsin Khan | Tue 3rd February 2015 - 8:39 am

Our Ministers have done much to rectify the shameful situation under Labour where mental health was a poor cousin to physical health – something Labour’s policies still haven’t addressed.

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Caron Lindsay

Clegg’s #asktheleader session

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 10:28 pm

Sky News have put all their Stand up and be Counted #AsktheLeaders sessions on their website. Nick Clegg’s is here.

I felt he was best at making it more like a conversation with the young people, listening to what she had to say. He was also much more confident on the facts and details on all the issues, particularly housing and the NHS.

As for the others, Natalie Bennett’s heart is in the right place but her party’s policies are not well thought through and I didn’t need to listen to her for half an hour to find out that she’d push for action on the environment and climate change in a hung parliament. I suspect every woman in the country was briefly on her side when she described how being denied a bike at the age of 5 because she was a girl made her a feminist.

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Iain Roberts

Opinion: Labour’s Tuition Fees policy is a tax cut for the rich, paid for by the poor

By Iain Roberts | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 4:27 pm

University of the West of England, laboratory, science. Some rights reserved by JiscEd Miliband is announcing that a Labour government would cut university tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000. It’s more of a re-announcement as the policy’s been knocking around for a while – and you can understand why. On the surface it sounds good.

In reality, Labour want a tax hike for the poor and a tax cut for the rich.

The Coalition’s Tuition Fees policy cut the cost of university for poorer graduates (but increased it substantially for the wealthiest) and has seen not only record numbers going to university, but also the highest ever number of young people from poorer backgrounds signing up. And yes, not the Lib Dems finest hour with the pledge and all that – no doubt commentators below the line will find new and interesting things to say on that topic that no-one’s thought of in the last four-and-a-bit years.

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David Boyle

Opinion: The future isn’t so much local, it is small

By David Boyle | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 12:27 pm

people powered prosperityDanny Alexander started all this.  He asked me, back one day in 2012, about how local economies could find levers to regenerate themselves – rather than waiting around hopelessly for outside investment that never came (that isn’t how he put it).

The result was a dialogue between the Treasury and the local economic regeneration activists – local bankers, local energy organisers, local procurement advocates, local currencies – which revealed, it’s fair to say, something of a gulf between them.

As a result, and thanks to some funding from the Friends Provident Foundation, I have been organising a project to translate between the two – so that they at least understand each other.

I hope it will also form a narrative, once cities and places have more power, which can support their own economic efforts.  If you devolve powers from Whitehall, it makes no sense for them to carry on handling your whole economic destiny on your behalf.

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Kirsten Johnson

Opinion: Valuing Carers and Respecting Older People

By Kirsten Johnson | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 11:00 am

 

I think valuing carers and respecting older people go hand-in-hand.  Do you know that there is a ‘Respect for the Aged Day’ in Japan each year in September?  It is a national holiday (Keirō no hi) – can you imagine devoting one of our Bank Holidays to celebrating older people?  I think it would be a good idea, and raise awareness of the value and contribution older people have made and continue to make in society.

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Annette Brooke MP

Annette Brooke MP writes…Choice at the end of life is vital – free social care can make that happen

By Annette Brooke MP | Sun 1st February 2015 - 8:55 am

Annette BrookeThere are no dress rehearsals when it comes to where we are and who we are with when we die – so it’s crucial that people have as much choice and control over the situation as possible.  This is important not only to the person who is at the end of their life, but also those close to them. A person’s last days will stay with family and friends forever, so it is important that they should be left with a lasting, positive memory of their loved one receiving good quality care in a place of their choice.

What is not acceptable is for someone to end their days against their wishes in an expensive hospital bed, purely because they did not have the right support to die at home. Sadly, we know far too many people currently do not die in a place of their choosing. Macmillan Cancer Support found that 36,000 people with cancer who wanted to die at home died in hospital in England in 2012. In fact, 73 per cent of people living with cancer would prefer to die at home, but figures show only 30 per cent are currently able to do so. We cannot continue to have final experiences and enduring memories shaped by the absence of choice for people at the end of life.

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Caron Lindsay

How does Clegg build on the success of The Last Leg?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 31st January 2015 - 11:40 am

Nick Clegg on The Last Leg 6I’m so glad I hadn’t watched The Last Leg ahead of Nick Clegg’s appearance last night. It would not have been good for my health because I’d have been worrying about how he’d fare in that pretty brutal, blokey environment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hilarious, but a massive risk for a politician. Even the next morning, in the light of day and the absence of red wine goggles, I still think, as I did last night, that he did very well.

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Caron Lindsay

Clegg on the Last Leg – first thoughts

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 30th January 2015 - 11:55 pm

Nick Clegg on the Last Leg2Well, I’d never seen The Last Leg before. I’ll be watching it again, though. It was very, very funny. And it’s not only trending on Twitter in the UK, it’s number 3 in the World.

There are two contradictory truths about Nick Clegg’s appearance on the show. His natural manner and willingness to engage in the banter while holding on (just) to his dignity has won him a lot of friends but I predict acres of snooty, disapproving newsprint tomorrow from people using words like “unbecoming for a Deputy Prime Minister.” Quentin Letts will probably have worked himself up into  a frenzy. I think the Cleggster has done himself a few favours though. A quick look down the #cleggleg thread on Twitter showed that he had impressed:

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Ibrahim Taguri

Opinion: MPs’ pay rises

By Ibrahim Taguri | Fri 30th January 2015 - 5:42 pm

The country is going through a painful and difficult adjustment as we seek to rebalance our economy.

For politicians to make the case about being underpaid is inappropriate given the sacrifices being asked of the British public and its work force.

Let’s not forget it is because of the actions of the last Labour government that the country is in the state it finds itself in. How anyone can therefore justify that politicians should be entitled to a larger salary is beyond me. Regardless of whether they caused the crash or are fixing the mess, it is outrageous to think they should be awarded a hefty pay rise at this time.

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Sam Phripp

Opinion: Open doors and open minds

By Sam Phripp | Fri 30th January 2015 - 11:00 am

yellow door ppb

So then, we all saw it, did we? The starting gun for the Liberal Democrats election campaign was well and truly fired on Wednesday with the airing of three different versions of a very similar Party Political Broadcast.

‘Open Doors’ puts a focus on the LibDems as a campaigning force, but importantly for me, it also makes a very clear point about how we operate as a party – we listen to our communities, and we work with them to achieve change. Rather than it being Nick standing around …

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Catherine Royce

Opinion: Time to dump the 4 hour A & E target

By Catherine Royce | Thu 29th January 2015 - 3:49 pm

To be frank, as a doctor, I have been underwhelmed by our Liberal Democrat offering on health issues over the years; certainly we are not as strong on health as we should be.

The almost daily drip feed from the right wing press on NHS shortcomings and failures is demoralising to staff and frightening to patients and designed to be so. It serves no-one except those who want to undermine the public’s confidence in the NHS. The service treats three quarters of a million patients every day of the year, and for most people there is no alternative.

So I am  relieved that at last we have something distinctive to offer with Norman Lamb’s ideas on mental health; parity of access and delivery, more  research and funding. This is important, and we need to ‘own’ it as Liberal Democrat policy.

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Chris White

Opinion: Housing – yes, we can

By Chris White | Thu 29th January 2015 - 12:58 pm

It is probably (I am sticking my neck out here) the belief of most councillors that the power to build council houses was abolished by Margaret Thatcher. This, coupled with right to buy, has led to a crisis in social housing which governments fail to tackle and councils can’t.

But a report commissioned by the Government as part of the Autumn Statement in 2013 has challenged local councils to have more confidence in what they can already do.

The Elphicke-House Report (pdf) published earlier this week, following a review by Natalie Elphicke, chair of Million Homes, Million Lives, and Keith House, Leader of Eastleigh Borough Council, contains 30 recommendations to both Government and Councils.

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Cara Jenkinson

Opinion: Insulation not fossil fuel subsidies

By Cara Jenkinson | Thu 29th January 2015 - 10:38 am

Earlier this week parliament overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill calling for a moratorium on fracking.

The challenge that the UK faces is that we are particularly dependent on natural gas. The vast majority of us have gas boilers and heating makes up much of the gas used in the UK. Weaning ourselves off gas boilers isn’t easy. There are renewable alternatives such as heat pumps but these only work in very well insulated homes. And there’s the rub. Around 70% of homes in the UK are still not well insulated, and a good portion of those have solid walls which are difficult and expensive to insulate.

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Adrian Pellas-Rice

Opinion: Achievable electoral reform for 2015

By Adrian Pellas-Rice | Wed 28th January 2015 - 1:05 pm

Securing an initial cross-party agreement is rarely enough to deliver constitutional reform. The dilemma for proponents of proportional voting is that such a fundamental change will always require a lengthy period of consultation. This time is a boon for the backroom operators in the big parties looking to backpedal, backstab, and poison the water. Ask Labour or the Tories for proper voting reform and what you will get is a long-term commitment that is lukewarm and effectively worthless.

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Lord William Wallace

Lord William Wallace writes… Make national voter registration day part of your campaign

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 28th January 2015 - 10:49 am

February 5th will be Bite The Ballot‘s 2nd ‘National voter registration day’. Last year this NGO, with a number of companies and schools in support, succeeded in sharply raising the number of young people registering. This year, in the run-up to the general election, they aim to add more than 250,000 to the register. You will find details of what they plan, and how they plan to manage it, here.

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Stephen Phillips

Opinion: A good reason to vote LibDem in May

By Stephen Phillips | Wed 28th January 2015 - 9:25 am

This post is reserved for new and infrequent commenters. “Infrequent” is defined as having post less than five comments in the last month.

Following the start of the 100+ day election campaign, I cannot help wondering what it is the Lib Dems need to do to recover what appears to be a significant dip in popular support. The problem is that we do not appear to be benefitting in the opinion polls from our many achievements in government. This is a shame, because there are so many of them; despite some comments on Lib Dem Voice, which could easily have been written by our political opponents in an attempt to demoralise supporters.

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Paul Walter

A quiet word in defence of Alex Carlile

By Paul Walter | Wed 28th January 2015 - 8:05 am

alex carlile2 from bells yard
I fully support the decision of my friend and colleague Caron Lindsay, Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, to initiate a debate on the actions of Lord Carlile in connection with the Counter Terrorism Bill and an amendment (which apparently is still hanging over parliament like the sword of Damocles) which would effectively bring in the Communications Data Bill (or “Snoopers’ Charter”) by a back door/shoe-horn.

I strongly disapprove of those actions, taken by Lord Carlile and a few other peers.

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Catherine Bearder

Catherine Bearder writes… 100 days to stop the Tories or Labour neglecting the environment

By Catherine Bearder | Tue 27th January 2015 - 8:03 pm

The countdown starts today. Just 100 days left to ensure that any future government has a strong Liberal voice in it. That means a strong voice for social justice and economic responsibility, ensuring that we finish the recovery and do so fairly. But it also means a voice that will continue to stand up for a radical approach on issues like drugs policy, indiscriminate snooping and constitutional reform. Crucial issues, but ones that both Conservatives and Labour would happily sweep under the carpet and forget about altogether if they were given the chance.

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert writes… Clamping down on Tax Dodging

By Julian Huppert | Tue 27th January 2015 - 4:27 pm

Tax dodging is plain wrong. There can be absolutely no justification for the wealthy not paying what they owe.

More than any other party, we know how important it is to have a fair tax system. Before the last elections, we pledged to lift the income tax threshold to £10,000. We have surpassed this by raising it to £10,600, lifting more than 3 million low earners out of paying income tax altogether.

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