Category Archives: Op-eds

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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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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