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Category Archives: Op-eds

Paul Burstow MP writes… Making the pursuit of happiness as important as GDP

By Paul Burstow | Tue 8th July 2014 - 7:44 pm

Over the past 12 months I have been working with mental health experts and the think-tank CentreForum, grappling with the challenge of how we can improve mental health care.

Today sees the publication of our final report, The pursuit of happiness: a new ambition for our mental health. It reflects the expertise of many, makes a number of recommendations to transform not just health services, but the mental health of the nation, and it has one overarching call – that the pursuit of happiness should be a priority …

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Tagged centreforum, featured, health, mental health and NHS | 13 Comments

Opinion: An end to OFSTED

By Barry Holliday | Tue 8th July 2014 - 12:41 pm

The dissolution of OFSTED is a policy we as Liberal Democrats need to support and implement to ensure our young students are being offered the best education possible.

I am not saying that schools shouldn’t be inspected and checked.The public needs to have confidence in the school system. Parents have the right to be informed about teachers abilities and performance. Most of all we must be able to ensure that teaching meets the needs of our children.

OFSTED for too long has been nothing but a political football. School inspections should be …

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Tagged education and ofsted | 39 Comments

Inequality “narrows” due to Liberal Democrat policies

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 7th July 2014 - 9:45 am

An interesting report (£) in the Sunday Times yesterday tells how official figures show that the gap between the richest and poorest is narrowing.

While most people have suffered a squeeze on incomes since Britain was plunged into recession six years ago — and only now is the economy getting back to pre-crisis levels — those on lower incomes have done relatively better than those at the top. Households Below Average Income, an official report published last week, showed income inequality, measured after taking into account housing costs, had fallen to

…

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Tagged child poverty, featured, inequality, liberal democrat achieve and poverty | 15 Comments

Launching ASD Liberal Democrats

By Matthew Casey | Mon 7th July 2014 - 8:55 am

Following on from my article a couple of weeks ago, Autism – Challenges on entering the workplace, I have had several members contact me regarding difficulties that they faced within the party and expressing a desire that there should be a support network for themselves and for Local Parties and Council groups, in order for people to remain as effective local Councillors.

As a result I am pleased to announce that ASD Lib Dems has been created to help serve the Autistic community both within the party and to the wider ASD Community.

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Tagged asd, asd lib dems and autism | 7 Comments

Why 40% is the magic number in the Scottish referendum

By Stephen Tall | Sun 6th July 2014 - 10:00 am

For some reason, 40% is a figure which has long exerted political significance.

That devolution for Scotland wasn’t introduced in 1979 wasn’t because a majority of those who voted didn’t want it: by 52% to 48% the Scottish voted in favour of establishing a Scottish parliament. However, a Labour MP, George Cunningham, introduced an amendment to the Scotland Act (1978) specifying a minimum turnout threshold of 40% of the electorate. The actual turnout of 33% meant Scottish devolution had to wait a further two decades.

I was reminded of …

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Tagged alex salmond, av referendum, featured, george cunningham and scotland independence referendum | 41 Comments

Jenny Willott MP writes… Historic milestone for women on company boards

By Jenny Willott | Sun 6th July 2014 - 8:15 am

On Thursday, 26th June, 2014, I was delighted to hear the news that the mining and commodities trader Glencore Xstrata had appointed Patrice Merrin, a Canadian former mining executive, as an independent non-executive director.

This decision means there are no longer any all-male boards amongst the UK’s top companies. In 2011, 21 of the FTSE100 companies had no women on their boards, and now there are none. This is an important step forward and one which Liberal Democrats can be proud of helping to make happen. …

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Tagged featured, gender equality, glencore xtrata, patrice merrin and women in business | 35 Comments

Lord Dick Newby writes…Action on employee ownership shows Liberal Democrat values in action

By Dick Newby | Sat 5th July 2014 - 10:30 am

I’ve just returned from the second of two events marking Employee Ownership Day. Employee ownership is one of those worthy but rather dull sounding policy ideas which has been in our Manifestos from time immemorial, but like motherhood and apple pie, has a comforting rather than inspiring air.

What this Government has done about employee ownership however, deserves rather more attention. In 2012 Norman Lamb appointed Graeme Nuttall,

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Tagged employee ownership | 15 Comments

Opinion: Making property tax fairer

By Cara Jenkinson | Fri 4th July 2014 - 4:06 pm

One of the issues that we heard frequently on the doorstep in Haringey in the run-up to the Council elections was fear over the mansion tax. Many of our wards are in nice leafy areas, where the ridiculous rises in house prices over the last year have left some relatively modest family homes pushing up to the £2m barrier. A retired builder who had bought his home for under £50,000 forty years ago told me that he would never vote for us …

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Tagged mansion tax | 35 Comments

5 things Nick Clegg could do next

By Stephen Tall | Fri 4th July 2014 - 11:30 am

My last piece of advice to Nick Clegg was to stand down as Lib Dem leader. He didn’t, and it’s pretty clear now that Nick will lead us into the next general election.

Two problems remain, though, and we need to find ways of addressing them. First, morale in the party has dipped since the May elections. Secondly, support for the party has also dipped in the polls. Yes, Lib Dem MPs benefit from the incumbency effect but that only stretches so far – we also need to start winning the air war, or at the very least avoid being ignored. As it stands, what Nick says just isn’t getting a listening. However unfair, it’s a reality we need to deal with.

Here are five suggestions from me for ways in which Nick Clegg could help restore party morale and maybe get himself a hearing from the media and public…

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Tagged beyond westminster, Danny Alexander, featured, hung parliament, Jo Swinson, nick clegg, nigel farage, paddy ashdown, PMQs, tim farron and vince cable | 52 Comments

Opinion: We are enablers not dictators

By Karen Wilkinson | Fri 4th July 2014 - 10:16 am

My brother has been battling cancer for just over a year, I asked for a week last October to take my children out of school as while he was having a break from his long going chemo treatment as we wanted to go as a family, it was denied even with the detailed letter attached , sadly my amazing wonderful 26 year old brother died this April , thanks to the stupid government rules I will never get to go on holiday with my brother again

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Also posted in News | 38 Comments

Paul Burstow MP writes..Carer’s Bonus is only the first new policy to help carers

By Paul Burstow | Thu 3rd July 2014 - 12:30 pm

Just as public services, communities and workplaces have seen a shift in how families are supported to balance childcare responsibilities with busy working lives, we now need a similar shift to meet the care needs of a rapidly growing older population too.

Thanks to the Liberal Democrats the Care Act and Children and Families Act have both extended the rights of Carers of all ages, but there is still much more to be done to recognise the hidden treasure that are Carers.

Caring responsibilities can come at any time in a person’s life …

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Tagged carers, carers bonus, featured and liberal democrat manifesto 2015 | 13 Comments

Opinion: It is time for those who believe that violence doesn’t work to stand up

By Leon Duveen | Thu 3rd July 2014 - 10:38 am

Last October, I wrote a piece for LDV called “Time to do away with LD Friends of Israel & Friends of Palestine” and other pieces on the subject on my own irregular blog.

After the tragic events of the last three weeks, with the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers being found murdered and now a Palestinian youth having been killed in Jerusalem, seemingly in “revenge”, I feel I need to speak out, even it is to “state the obvious”.

In addition to the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdair, the Israeli reaction to the kidnapping and killing of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach has cost at least six other deaths of Palestinians on the West Bank & yet unknown numbers of lives in Gaza. We here in the UK need to be strident in the commendation of the extremists on both sides who, through their rhetoric, have encouraged the violence.

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Tagged israel and palestine | 13 Comments

The Independent View: Ending female genital mutilation and early marriage will also help tackle HIV

By Helen Parry | Wed 2nd July 2014 - 1:15 pm

The leadership shown by the UK government – and in particular the Liberal Democrats and Lynne Featherstone MP – on ending female genital cutting or mutilation (FGC/M) in a generation has been ground breaking and inspiring. The upcoming Girl Summit is a timely opportunity, hot on the heels of the recent Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, to promote girls’ and women’s rights to live free from violence and discrimination and achieve their potential.

There’s no doubt that ending child, early and forced marriage and female …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged forced marriage, girl summit, hiv/aids, lynne featherstone and violence against women and girls | 5 Comments

Lord Paul Tyler writes…A fairer way of redrawing constituency boundaries

By Paul Tyler | Wed 2nd July 2014 - 11:59 am

In those heady 5 Days in May back in 2010, our negotiators agreed with the Conservative Party that there should be “fewer, more equal” constituencies returning MPs to the House of Commons. It formed part of a package, coupled with the referendum on Alternative Vote, and placed alongside fixed-term Parliaments (delivered), greater localism (partially delivered), and House of Lords reform (not delivered).

Whatever your views on whether there should be fewer MPs, more, or just the same as now, the principle that parliamentary constituencies should contain …

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Tagged constituency boundaries, featured and political reform | 12 Comments

Opinion: Why it is wrong to enshrine the “triple lock” in law

By Gareth Epps | Wed 2nd July 2014 - 10:29 am

One of the now regular flow of “policy announcements” from the leadership calls for the 2010 ‘triple lock’ to be enshrined in law. Passing for a moment over the fact that these “announcements” are of course nothing of the sort and discourteous to Conference which passes policy, (though, to be fair, as Mark Pack and others have pointed out, Steve Webb has been careful to avoid language some others have used that suggests these policies have been agreed without the party having a say), I think it’s the wrong idea.

Why? …

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Tagged featured, pensions, steve webb and triple lock | 32 Comments

Catherine Bearder writes … Back to work in the European Parliament

By Catherine Bearder | Tue 1st July 2014 - 4:58 pm

In May’s European elections, it was liberals across the EU who stood up against the growing tide of nationalists, anti-Europeans and populists. Today, the newly elected MEPs met for the first time in Strasbourg to officially open the 8^th European Parliament.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the political group with which Liberal Democrats sit in the European Parliament, took a big hit when we lost all of my hardworking Lib Dem colleagues and nine German FDP MEPs. But it is not all doom and gloom. Liberals topped the polls in the Netherlands, and our numbers have been boosted by new liberal parties from Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic, meaning we are still the fourth largest group with 68 MEPs.

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Tagged european parliament | 16 Comments

Michael Moore MP writes…Securing the UK’s commitment to international development

By Michael Moore | Tue 1st July 2014 - 11:59 am

I am pretty sure I have taken every chance available to enter the ballot for a Private Member’s Bill since being elected to the House of Commons in 1997.

What is certain is that I have never succeeded in securing one of the highly coveted slots that give backbench MPs a chance to pilot legislation through Parliament – until now, that is.

In the old days I am sure that those lucky enough to emerge in the “top 20” of the ballot would have learned of their good fortune by letter or maybe even messenger. By contrast, I became aware of securing the second slot by text messages and a sudden spate of social media ‘notifications’. The letter duly followed.

In the weeks since, I have had many enquiries asking which issue I would choose and have had just as many (mostly) helpful suggestions – my thanks to all who took the trouble.

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Tagged featured, international development and private members bills | 8 Comments

Opinion: New school curriculum

By Barry Holliday | Tue 1st July 2014 - 10:49 am

I have recently written a couple of articles on Liberal Democrat Voice around changes to schools (here and here). Please read them, as they go with this one. To follow on from them I believe we also need Lib Dems to get behind changes to the curriculum in secondary schools.

The National Curriculum in England gives standards for each subject, but not which subjects (beyond the core subjects of Maths, English and Science) must be taught. If a mainstream school offers History they must follow the History national curriculum standards, but if they don’t have a History teacher then they don’t have to offer it, that needs to change. We need a balanced curriculum for all students, irrespective of which school or local authority are students attend.

The changes we should bring are that all secondary schools (including academies or free schools) to offer the following GCSE options (options being subjects that are not core subjects):

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Tagged education, national curriculum and schools | 16 Comments

Opinion: Britain is the mother of parliamentary democracy, yet on Friday its Prime Minister voted against it

By Sean O'Curneen | Tue 1st July 2014 - 8:55 am

For political historians, the 27 June 2014 may go down in history as the day a British Prime Minister voted against parliamentary democracy. For that is what the Juncker nomination was really all about, and which many commentators in the UK fail to understand. Comments such as “two-faced EU leaders”, “Europeans fed up with the UK”, etc, as read in several articles this weekend, reveal a lack of understanding of the process that has been building up in the EU in the past two years.

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Tagged david cameron, european union and featured | 139 Comments

Opinion: How about a cross-party declaration on an EU renegotiation and referendum?

By Ed Wilson | Mon 30th June 2014 - 3:45 pm

One way or another, there’s going to be an EU referendum, and we must not just let it happen.

Pressure is mounting on David Cameron to move before 2017 and on Ed Miliband to shift from a perfectly clear position to one which is more “acceptable” to the sceptical groundswell. I’ve seen Tim Montgomerie suggesting that the spitzenkandidat system is a transfer of power to Brussels and might therefore trigger the referendum lock. Unfortunately for him, the legally enshrined vote is an in/in decision, and there’s no formal move – treaty …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged eu and referendum | 35 Comments

The Gender Agenda #1 Why have women only training? What’s so special about women?

By Alice Thomas | Mon 30th June 2014 - 10:30 am

On May 7th, I wrote my first article for Liberal Democrat Voice.

It wasn’t exactly ground-breaking. It was promo for an internal SAO, written in a hurry by a first-time candidate (me), a couple of weeks out from one of the toughest elections we’ve ever seen. It was less than five hundred words of innocuous fluff.

You would never have guessed it from the reaction.

Within a few hours, it had over seventy comments, and it hovered on the Most Read list for days. Why? Because it was about Liberal Democrat Women, …

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Tagged the gender agenda and women only training | 141 Comments

Opinion: Tackling Housing Benefit reform

By Joe Bourke | Mon 30th June 2014 - 8:49 am

The Liberal Democrat policy paper on housing notes that the primary driver of growing housing benefit and Local Housing Allowance bills has been the shortage of housing, leading to higher rents, and increasing number of people unable either to buy or to access social housing. The paper focused on the most pressing issues:

Building more homes – providing environmentally sustainable homes where people need them, creating jobs and kick starting the economy.
Giving tenants more power and security – making social landlords more accountable and improving standards and security in the rapidly

…

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Tagged housing and housing benefit | 39 Comments

For-profit schools: some evidence of why I’m far from convinced

By Stephen Tall | Sun 29th June 2014 - 10:15 am

Labour’s shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, this week called on Michael Gove to rule out profit-making schools, arguing “Beyond 2015, whether it admits it or not, the Conservative Party intends to introduce the profit motive into English education”.

The Tories have sidestepped the issue and instead invited Labour to turn its fire on the Lib Dems: they claim that Nick Clegg’s advisers Julian Astle and Richard Reeves were behind-the-scenes cheerleaders for profit-making schools. The mercurial Dominic Cummings, Gove’s former special adviser, has made the same allegation. This may very …

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Tagged dominic cummings, education, featured, for-profit schools, jeremy browne, michael gve, nuffield foundation, oxford university, schools and tristram hunt | 26 Comments

Steve Webb writes… Lib Dems will write the pensions ‘triple lock’ guarantee into law

By Steve Webb MP | Sun 29th June 2014 - 8:30 am

For decades, successive Labour and Conservative governments allowed the state pension to decline after Margaret Thatcher broke the ‘earnings link’ in 1980. The nadir of this was in the Labour years, when Gordon Brown increased the state pension by just 75p a week.

I was determined that the Liberal Democrats would do something about this appalling situation. In our manifesto in 2010 we campaigned on a ‘triple lock’ guarantee. This was a commitment that the pension would rise by whichever rating was highest in each year – by earnings, prices …

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Tagged featured, pensions and triple lock | 24 Comments

When is someone going to do something about football culture?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th June 2014 - 3:17 pm

There’s so much going on in the world at the moment, yet much of the media are obsessed with Luis Suarez. Even Question Time and yesterday’s Radio Scotland’s Big Debate had questions about the Uruguayan player who is now serving a 4 month ban for biting a fellow player in a match the other night.

This is far from the first time that footballers have behaved badly on the pitch. I remember watching in horror as David Beckham was sent off during the 1998 World Cup? …

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Also posted in News | Tagged big debate, featured, football and luis suarez | 18 Comments

The Independent View: Pierre Trudeau and the Just Society – lessons for Canadian liberals today

By Vittorio Trevitt | Sat 28th June 2014 - 2:15 pm

The general election expected to be held in Canada next year will be a decisive one for the Lib Dem’s Canadian counterpart, the Liberal Party of Canada, as it faces the prospect of returning to office after more than eight years in the political wilderness.

With a recent poll showing the governing Conservatives trailing behind the Liberals, the party’s leader Justin Trudeau stands a good chance of becoming the first Canadian Liberal prime minister since 2006.

However, if Justin Trudeau …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged canada, Justin Trudeau and Liberal Party of Canada | 6 Comments

Willie Rennie vs Tommy Sheridan and an angry mob

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th June 2014 - 9:08 am

I wrote yesterday about my experience at what was for all intents and purposes a taxpayer funded rally for the Yes campaign for independence. The Yes supporters were very nice when they told me that “No” voters were stupid.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie was not so lucky the other night when he turned up to a meeting in Abbeyview, Dunfermline this week to debate the pros and cons of independence with Tommy Sheridan, the former Socialist MSP. All Willie knew from the invitation was that it had been organised as a debate for undecided voters. This is the (imprintless) flyer advertising it:

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Tagged Scottish independence referendum, tommy sheridan and willie rennie | 8 Comments

Ros Scott writes… The spirit of philanthropy

By Baroness Ros Scott | Fri 27th June 2014 - 12:47 pm

Three hours passed in the House of Lords yesterday without a single party political point made by any of the 21 speakers taking part in the discussion. The occasion for this unusual occurrence was my debate on the contribution made to society by the voluntary and charitable sector, held as one of three Liberal Democrat sponsored debates taking place yesterday.

Charitable giving from the public has held up remarkably well despite the long recession, although we should all be concerned that what my colleague Baroness Claire Tyler …

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Tagged charity, claire tyler, featured and philanthropy | 5 Comments

Cameron pre-announces failure in Europe

By Joe Otten | Fri 27th June 2014 - 11:05 am

In a display of perverse pride, David Cameron has been spinning today that he will lose a vote on the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission. You might expect such a failure of (megaphone) diplomacy to be a source of shame, but I suppose failure is what the Brexit agenda demands, and hang the national interest.

In doing this he is, we are told standing up for the principle that the heads of government, not the European Parliament appoint the commission and that the …

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33 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

Politics at School (Geoff Reid)
Zack Polanski on the Fringe (Caron Lindsay)
Enough is enough: Women and girls deserve better (Lib Dem Women)
To paraphrase Shakespeare’ ‘something is rotten in the state of Britain’ (Judy Abel)
Born to be a Refugee… (Dalila Henniche Maali)

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Recent Comments

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