Category Archives: Op-eds

Cara Jenkinson

Opinion: Are we transforming rehabilitation?

By Cara Jenkinson | Thu 12th February 2015 - 3:26 pm

On Tuesday the London ‘Standard’ had the depressing headline “Rioters in new crime wave”. According to official statistics 1593 of the 3914 people charged or cautioned by the Met following the riots in August 2011 have since reoffended.

At our Autumn Conference in the month following the riots, I raised concerns as a Haringey magistrate that a knee-jerk approach was being taken to sentencing, with courts sitting overnight, dishing out custodial sentences as fast as they could. Prisons became overcrowded, sometimes with three prisoners sharing a cell meant for one; and precious little rehabilitation was going on.

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Nick Harvey

Nick Harvey MP writes… We mustn’t let eurosceptics spoil useful defence co-operation with our EU partners

By Nick Harvey | Thu 12th February 2015 - 1:50 pm

Today in London the UK’s foreign and defence secretaries, Philip Hammond and Michael Fallon, will meet their French counterparts, Laurent Fabius and Jean-Yves Le Drian. Of course, there is nothing particularly out of the ordinary about this meeting: in reality, UK and French Ministers meet frequently at various EU and NATO summits.

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Gareth Epps

Opinion: Pubs matter so why not protect them in planning law?

By Gareth Epps | Thu 12th February 2015 - 12:41 pm

Today has seen the third House of Commons debate on pubs in less than three months: rather like the proverbial London Bus. But with the rate of pub closures in the UK still running at 29 a week, a marginal decline from 31 a year ago, communities’ cries for help have been coming along rather faster.  There is a growing issue with pubs being converted to supermarkets in particular.  With long-awaited reform of the industry grinding its way through the House of Lords (where the resistance of Tory peer and former pubco director Lord Hodgson, sometimes rather distasteful, is thankfully proving futile), the focus is now on planning.

The Coalition has for the first time recognised pubs as community assets in national planning law, albeit weakly, and has introduced the Assets of Community Value process which is starting to let a few communities buy their pubs.  A fortnight ago, Lib Dem Minister Stephen Williams announced some additional protection for communities who get pubs listed as an ACV by removing permitted development rights.  But an amendment by Conservative Charlotte Leslie MP, backed by Lib Dem Pub Champion Greg Mulholland, narrowly failed to remove the much-exploited loophole that allows pubcos to sell or lease pubs to Tesco (formerly) and the Co-Op (principally at present) for supermarket conversion that sees often successful pubs close forever.  That amendment reflected Lib Dem policy.

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Caron Lindsay

Why the front page of our manifesto reminds me of 50 Shades of Grey

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 12th February 2015 - 10:55 am

Manifesto_Covers_2015So, it’s out. The front page of the Liberal Democrat manifesto gives five key policy priorities. These things are a negotiation in themselves and the version released is substantially zingier than the version initially presented to the Federal Policy Committee on Monday night. By way of example, I understand that the Five Green Laws point was initially described as a “Nature Law.” Why that makes me think of the Glee Club song “English Country Garden”, I can’t imagine.

Now, every single Liberal Democrat, being the
unique bunch that we are, will think that we could have worded these priorities much better, or we would have chosen something else. I certainly could. I’d have had housing in there and I sure as hell would not have put balancing the books as the first thing on the list. I’m not convinced of the need to do so in the next Parliament, even if I recognise that we can’t go back to the Days of Deficit Central while the economy is growing. The reason it is there, though, is because the economy, jobs and continued recovery feature highly in every survey of voters’ priorities.

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Simon Foster

Opinion: What might happen after May 7th

By Simon Foster | Thu 12th February 2015 - 9:25 am

This article appeared earlier as a comment on our “Electoral fruit machine” post and is reproduced here with permission from the author.

(After May 7th) I believe the Lib Dems will have more than 20 seats and less than 40, with many polls and commentators going for somewhere around the 30 mark, at the moment. From all the qualitative data I’ve seen so far that seems a fair estimate in political science. Anything less than 20 would be a shock, as Lord Ashcroft’s polling indicates that this is not going to happen.

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Judy Abel

Opinion: Mental health – is prevention a potential solution?

By Judy Abel | Wed 11th February 2015 - 2:55 pm

Just as public health experts develop strategies to tackle binge drinking, smoking and obesity, do we need to develop a more comprehensive approach to preventing mental ill health? With youth depression, alone, having doubled in the last 20 years, maybe it’s time to look again at ways to prevent mental health problems from taking their toll at different stages in our lives. It’s complicated, but here are just some thoughts on what might help.

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Paul Walter

Easing the trauma of care home finance

By Paul Walter | Wed 11th February 2015 - 11:04 am

Last week the government started a consultation, flowing from the Care Act 2014, on the draft regulations and guidance to implement the “care cap” and policy proposals for a new appeals system for care and support. You can read the consultation document here.

That may sound as dry as toast, but, trust me, these things are really important. I happen to believe that the Care Act 2014 is one of the most significant pieces of legislation we’ve seen for many years. It goes a very significant way towards easing the human trauma of self-funding care home provision.

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes… Climate change must be the pressing issue for liberals

By Tim Farron MP | Tue 10th February 2015 - 2:30 pm

It is human nature that the immediate threats are those that grab our attention. More longer-term dangers – like climate change can appear to be – are harder to keep high on the agenda. Come another crisis, it too easily slips off. So it might seem strange, especially in the wake of recent events, to say that climate change is the biggest threat to Liberalism. This is what Duncan Brack, Neil Stockley and I argue in Centreforum’s publication of “The Challenges Facing Contemporary Liberalism: 2015 -2025,” published this week here:
centreforum.org/index.php/mainpublications/716-economic-liberalism-climate-change-green-growth

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The Voice

Lib Dem Spin Doctor feels ‘Disenfranchised’

By The Voice | Mon 9th February 2015 - 6:19 pm

Dominic Raab MP by the Freedom AssociationWe have been asked to publish this post, unedited, by Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP for Esher and Walton (pictured right).

On Sunday morning, I was made aware of a blog-post by Roisin Miller on Liberal Democrat Voice, an independent website for Lib Dem supporters, entitled: ‘An MP who takes me for granted has left me feeling disenfranchised’. What followed was a nebulous – but direct – attack on me as an MP, saying that I took my so-called ’safe seat’ for granted. In particular, apparently my responses to Ms Miller’s communiqués were ‘half-hearted’, I’m not ‘a particularly good MP’, she hasn’t received any literature from me in 3 years, and locally Conservatives are failing to ‘engage with the electorate’. I think Ms Miller deserves a response.

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James King

Opinion: The case against Coalition 2.0

By James King | Mon 9th February 2015 - 11:55 am

House of Commons. Crown Copyright applies to this photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/4642915654/Hung Parliaments have become rather like buses for Lib Dems. For election after election we longed for one to come along. Now it seems a second one will turn up rather sooner than we might want it.

Another hung parliament doesn’t automatically mean another coalition involving the Lib Dems. And despite having been a firm advocate of coalition in 2010, I am very sceptical that Coalition 2.0 is in the interests of the party or liberalism.

I should state at the outset that while I’m predicting that the Tories will again have the largest number of seats – and probably Tory + Lib Dem MPs will make up a (slim) majority – most of my arguments are just as relevant to scenarios where Labour is in the lead.

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Caron Lindsay

Campaigners flock to Gordon to help Christine Jardine

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th February 2015 - 11:55 am

Christine Jardine canvassing selfieI wasn’t surprised to see Alex Salmond ahead in the Ashcroft poll on Gordon. After all, he’s been everywhere at the moment. He has even, entirely coincidentally, of course, started a regular column in one of the local papers.

The thing is, Christine Jardine and her campaign team have always known that they faced a challenge. She doesn’t have the benefit of incumbency, apart from anything else. That’s why they have been working so hard in the year since she was selected to fight the seat. What the Ashcroft poll put beyond doubt was that she has firmly established herself as the clear challenger to Salmond and the SNP. If you are an undecided voter in Gordon who doesn’t want Salmond or the SNP to win, the poll makes it clear that you need to vote for Christine.

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Roisin Miller

Opinion: An MP who takes me for granted has left me feeling disenfranchised

By Roisin Miller | Sun 8th February 2015 - 8:59 am

Confession time. I’m a political activist and I’m not currently registered to vote. I have dropped off thanks to individual voter registration and I haven’t sought to redress it.

This is something which I find reprehensible, yet I am lacking the motivation to correct it.

I live in Esher and Walton which since 1906 has only ever returned a conservative MP. The lowest majority was in the 1930s, it was 16%. Dominic Raab got 58% of the vote in 2010, a majority of around 18,000.

I’ve written to Raab on a number of occasions and always got a reply. Often quite half hearted but it’s always come.

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Guy Burton

Opinion: Pressing Israel

By Guy Burton | Sat 7th February 2015 - 2:00 pm

Six months ago Israel was engaged in action which Nick Clegg described as ‘deliberately disproportionate’, killing over 2000 Palestinians – many of them women and children – and the lives of 70 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

During the war Nick said that nothing would be solved without talking.  And now’s a good time to remind Israel’s PM Benyamin Netanyahu about that, especially given events since then.

Like Britain, Israel will have elections, in March.  The parties are trying to outdo each other on security.  Recently the right-wing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said that “A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable.”  With views like that, the likelihood of negotiations being restarted – let alone a peace deal being achieved – is extremely remote.

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Sally Hamwee

Baroness Sally Hamwee writes…”Pesky Lib Dem” Lords win crucial civil liberties changes to Counter Terrorism Bill

By Sally Hamwee | Sat 7th February 2015 - 9:25 am

David Pickett photo Scooby Doo gang PEsky LIbDems legoThey call it the heavy lifting, or – less physical, more forensic – using a fine-tooth comb.  The second chamber is where detailed and precise scrutiny of legislation occurs.  For Bills which raise vital questions about civil liberties, such as the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill this is all the more important.  It was therefore to the surprise of Lib Dems in the Lords that it was, aside from a misplaced attempt to reintroduce the so-called “Snooper’s Charter”, almost exclusively Lib Dem peers doing the heavy lifting .  At one point I passed a note to Brian Paddick and Sarah Ludford, the team with me on the entirety of it: A lot of people want to talk about the issues we’ve raised but they couldn’t be ****d (complete to taste) to write their own amendments.

Our concern, really to make sure that this sort of legislation is fit for purpose and balances the need to protect the public with precious civil liberties, is often derided.  It is important to get every dot and comma right.  It is therefore a badge of honour to be accused by Norman Tebbit of “dancing around on pins” or, in Michael Howard’s words, “the pesky Lib Dems”.

The Bill that came to the Lords was very different from when it was first trailed by the Prime Minister, speaking to the Australian Parliament about “excluding” people from the UK.  Lib Dems in Government ensured that such claims, made for electoral reasons, were not reflected in the legislation that was finally published.  This is not to say it came to the Lords in a perfect state and our work has ensured that checks and balances on the State have been increased.

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Christopher Hall

Opinion: Tech should disrupt markets, not destroy values

By Christopher Hall | Fri 6th February 2015 - 3:00 pm

TAXI SPOTTech should disrupt markets, not destroy values: taxis should be seen as a testbed for the future of digital regulation.

Tech companies can be categorised in two ways. There are those whose principle objectives are based on finance and market share. While they may be selling technology developed in the 21st Century, their ideological heritage is rooted in the 1980s – more Gordon Gekko than Jimmy Wales. These companies don’t take no for an answer, even from politicians. Silicon Valley can be so macho, right?

The second group is more big society, than big business. These companies are driven as much by a desire to make things better, as they are to make more money. And they understand that social returns and financial returns don’t have to be exclusive.

In reality, there are many companies in between. But for those interested in policymaking, this distinction has become more important over the last year, as European regulators sought to push back against many famous names from Silicon Valley.

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood writes … Much more than a number

By Martin Horwood | Fri 6th February 2015 - 1:33 pm

School visit re FGM

Baroness Lindsay Northover, Baroness Jenny Randerson and Lynne Featherstone MP at a school visit to talk about FGM

As the only UK party with internationalism at our heart, Lib Dems should be very proud of being part of the first government to spend 0.7% of national income on helping the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, a target set by the international community forty years ago and one that many politicians over the years have disregarded as unobtainable.

Irate Tory rightwingers often criticise it as a number plucked out of the air.  It’s not true.  0.72% was proposed to the UN in 1968 by the Dutch economist Jan Tinbergen, who shortly afterwards won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his pioneering work in macroeconomic modelling. It was later refined to 0.70%.

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David Grace

Opinion: Tax more and spend less

By David Grace | Fri 6th February 2015 - 12:00 pm

Nick Clegg with 2010 manifesto at Glasgow 2014 by Liberal Democrats

The 2010 election was notable for the failure of the three main parties to spell out clearly how they would reduce the budget deficit.  No-one wanted to scare the voters away.

2015 is already proving different. Nick Clegg has announced that Liberal Democrats would increase taxes by at least £8 billion and bring in a further £6 billion by tackling tax avoidance. There would still be up to £16 billion cut from  expenditure, £12 billion from government departments and £4 billion from welfare. Whilst not exactly a return to Keynesian economics, this is nevertheless a huge step away from the Tory approach which seemed to have dominated coalition fiscal policy. The balance between expenditure cuts and tax increases under Tory plans for the next parliament would be 98:2 whereas we will be proposing 60:40.

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Opinion: Cancer stresses me out #timetotalk

By Sanjay Samani | Thu 5th February 2015 - 11:52 pm

Jupiter ArtlandTime to talk 2015Over the last 15 years, my wife and I have supported family members through 10 rounds of cancer.  My mother had ovarian cancer, with relapses and recurrences 4 times over 8 years before it took her.  My father had lung cancer twice before it took him.  My mother-in-law had pancreatic cancer and passed away in under a year.  A month before she passed away, her boyfriend started complaining of headaches and weeks afterwards was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed away within 6 months.  My wife’s grandfather was treated for a stomach tumor and is now doing really well, celebrating his 85th birthday tomorrow.

And 18 months ago, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, but fortunately has had an amazing response to the wonder drug Herceptin and has been given the all clear and is steadily getting back to full strength.

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Holly Matthies

Opinion: How the UK immigration system damaged my mental health #timetotalk

By Holly Matthies | Thu 5th February 2015 - 10:17 pm

Time to talk 2015I wanted to talk a bit about how immigrating to the UK has affected my mental health, because both mental health and immigration are subjects on which I ‎look to the Lib Dems to support me with, via good policies and campaigning.

I’ve been in the UK nine years now, but when I’m standing in that non-EU passports line (I’ve long been eligible for citizenship but I can’t afford the application fees), I can’t help but hear similar interrogations going on to the ones I remember when I first came here and was interrogated by a big scary scouser for two hours– how long are you staying? how much money have you got with you? — I can’t help but think “that’s how it started…”

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Nick Sutton

My struggle with depression #timetotalk

By Nick Sutton | Thu 5th February 2015 - 8:29 pm

Time to talk 2015University, for many, is a truly liberating, exciting experience. University gives you a chance to be independent for the first time, to get away from home, to meet new people from a range of backgrounds and a chance to throw yourself into new experiences in a new place in a different part of the country.

However, for many to start with, myself included, it can also be extremely daunting. I still remember seeing all of my belongings sitting in my front room ready to be carted off. Before then, I had been putting it off in my mind that I had to go and had not considered what it would be like to be leaving. I had a happy, settled home life, with a close group of friends, a great girlfriend and a loving family. Suddenly, I had to leave. My whole life had to be put into the boot of a car and moved 200 miles away. My friends, my family and my girlfriend, would all be scattered across the country and I was going to have to make a new start in a different place away from them. Although for some this is an exciting prospect, for me it was one that filled me with worry and trepidation.

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Kevin McNamara

Opinion: It’s #timetotalk day today

By Kevin McNamara | Thu 5th February 2015 - 7:30 pm

Time to talk 2015What is that? It’s a day aimed at de-stigmatising mental health issues. As we’ve heard from Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb, as many as 1 in 4 people suffer from mental health issues. Most people are too afraid to mention them to anyone – they are afraid it will jeopardise their relationships, lead to their employers firing them (as happened to one worker), or make things worse and make them feel judged by colleagues or friends.

No-one would feel embarrassed and refuse to deal with or acknowledge a broken wrist, an upset stomach or a migraine – so what makes mental health different? The only way we can deal with stigma is to open up about our mental health experiences, so I will open up about mine.

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Sarah Brown

Opinion: Don’t tell me to cheer up

By Sarah Brown | Thu 5th February 2015 - 6:30 pm

Time to talk 2015My name is Sarah and I am diagnosed with depression. I guess the diagnosis didn’t come as a surprise, I’ve always felt, well, kinda sad. I have been on medication now for over a year and sometimes I wonder if I will ever beat this thing.

It makes me angry when people tell me to “cheer up”, or “get over it” yeah how about you try “getting over” diabetes or a broken arm. My illness might not always have physical symptoms and it might be “all in my head” but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

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Gary Fuller

Opinion: The worst day of my life #timetotalk

By Gary Fuller | Thu 5th February 2015 - 5:45 pm

Time to talk 2015The worst day of my life was January 12th 2012. I got up in the morning feeling nervous like every day for months on end. I had been prescribed Citalopram for depression, but it wasn’t really cutting it and I was terrible at taking it anyway.

I went into work as normal. My job was to teach 15 year olds who had been expelled from school. I taught at a Further Education College in Kent. I was due to be moved to another department soon because I had said I wasn’t coping.

My manager had spotted the self harm scars on my arms and had asked me to cover up. That along with the disciplinary issues, and feeling like I had no support, had led to the depression and the planned move to another department.

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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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