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Category Archives: Op-eds

The weirdest evening I’ve ever had at taxpayers’ expense

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 27th June 2014 - 9:52 am

Well, last night was a weird evening. And I know what weird is. I go to the Glee Club a wild, rude, drunken end of Liberal Democrat Conference singalong and Doctor Who conventions.

This, though, was the Scotland’s Future taxpayer funded Scottish Government independence event in Livingston, held in a local hotel. It was hosted by Training and Youth Employment Cabinet Minister and local MSP Angela Constance who was lovely, as she always is. She also had that clever political talent of under-promisng and over-delivering. She said …

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Tagged angela constance, kenny macaskill, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 6 Comments

To OBR or not to OBR? That’s the manifesto audit question

By Stephen Tall | Thu 26th June 2014 - 5:45 pm

Ed Balls wants it. Danny Alexander seems pretty keen on it, too. What is ‘it’? Asking the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to audit the manifestos of political parties.

On the face of it, that’s a good idea. Transparency’s a good thing and surely the public deserve to know as much as possible before we cast our once-in-five-years ballot which decides the next government? The case in favour is persuasively put by Giles Wilkes, until recently a special adviser to Vince Cable who has seen the …

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Also posted in News | Tagged Danny Alexander, ed balls, giles wilkes, institute of economic affairs, Institute of Fiscal Studies, office for budget responsibility, philip booth and ryan bourne | 11 Comments

Opinion: How the “extras” of school life can raise attainment

By Barry Holliday | Thu 26th June 2014 - 2:22 pm

I recently wrote this article about staffing in our schools. To follow on from that I’m moving on to some elements of school ‘life’. These ‘extras’ to the daily job of educating our children are all too often seen as not important, but in my experience they have a HUGE impact on the achievements and wellbeing of our children. (For info – I personally work in a secondary Academy, years 7-11).

Liberal Democrats need to strive to improve the life chances of our most vulnerable children, this can be done by:

Free …

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Tagged education | 10 Comments

Lord Monroe Palmer writes…Armed Forces Bill is a step towards a fairer society

By Monroe Palmer | Wed 25th June 2014 - 4:15 pm

This week saw the Second Reading in The Lords of a Bill welcomed by the Liberal Democrats. It bears the unattractive title ‘Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill’ but builds towards our manifesto pledge to create a fair deal for our service personnel. A promise that has particular significance ahead of Armed Forces Day on Saturday.

The Bill deals with three matters: the creation of a Service Complaints Ombudsman; the reform of the service complaints system; and ensuring financial assistance to charities and other organisations which support the Armed Forces …

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Tagged armed forces bill and house of lords | 9 Comments

Opinion: “Orange Bookers” are the boldest thinkers in the party. They need also to be the most progressive

By Andrew Chamberlain | Wed 25th June 2014 - 11:44 am

“No return to soggy socialism” was the message that David Laws chose to end his keynote address to Centre Forum’s Orange Book Ten Years On conference yesterday.

It’s a message that is bound to antagonise people in the party who define themselves in opposition to the Orange Book and its endorsement of liberal economics. However much Laws and his co-editor Paul Marshall emphasised that their support for economic liberalism was predicated on the belief that it would promote progressive ends there will still …

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Tagged centre forum orange book 10 years on, david laws, masjid nawaz and paul marshall | 55 Comments

Fairer Society part 3: Making hard choices to end poverty

By George Potter | Wed 25th June 2014 - 10:15 am

This is the third and final article in my series on why and how Liberal Democrats can claim the social justice agenda which has been abandoned by both Labour and the Conservatives. The first part is here and the second here. I argued we should abandon the notion of helping only the “deserving” poor, which defines our current welfare system, in favour of two new principles to define our approach to welfare:

The role of the welfare state is to guarantee for every person

…

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Tagged Fairer Society series, minimum income and welfare | 55 Comments

Opinion: Why changing leader now WILL save the party in 2015 and beyond.

By Jonathan Pile | Tue 24th June 2014 - 4:09 pm

A debate is still raging in the party 5 weeks after the disastrous Local, Euro and Newark byelection results which saw the party slump to 6.9% and to 2.6% at Newark. Numerous opinion polls also point to a historic disaster facing the party on May 7^th 2015.

In my own local party Wakefield just this week a letter went out to party members to ask the question about Nick Clegg’s continuing leadership. Across the party it is reported that some 30 local parties have tabled …

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Tagged libdem fightback, libdems4change and nick clegg | 365 Comments

Opinion: What’s going on in Brussels? Nominations to the European Commission

By Matt McLaren | Tue 24th June 2014 - 3:00 pm

Following on from my post last week on post-election developments in Brussels, here’s the second of two updates. Whilst yesterday’s focused on developments concerning the formation of political groups in the Parliament itself, today’s will address issues regarding nominations to the European Commission.

It now looks likely that at its meeting later this week (from 26^th to 27^th June), the European Council (made up of the Heads of Government from all 28 EU countries) will nominate the Parliament’s preferred candidate for the …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged european commission, european people's party, featured and Jean-Claude Juncker | 26 Comments

Jenny Willott on action to get more girls into science and technology based careers

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 23rd June 2014 - 3:45 pm

Today is the first National Women in Engineering Day. This BBC story tells of both the success of apprenticeships (the expansion of which was personally championed by Nick Clegg, and how women are establishing successful engineering careers. Earlier this month, Equalities Minister Jenny Willott launched a project, Opening Doors, aimed at getting more girls into science based careers. The aim is to get women with successful careers into schools to inspire girls to take science subjects and follow them through into university and, …

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Tagged equality, jenny willott and women into stem subjects | 20 Comments

Opinion: What’s going on in Brussels? Political groupings in the European Parliament

By Matt McLaren | Mon 23rd June 2014 - 2:12 pm

Following on from my post last week on post-election developments in Brussels, here’s the first of two updates. Today’s will focus on developments concerning the formation of political groups in the Parliament itself whilst tomorrow’s will address issues regarding nominations to the European Commission.

Political parties have until tomorrow, June 24^th to form their European Parliamentary groups. In order to qualify as a group, you not only need at least 25 MEPs but these must be drawn from at least 7 EU countries represented in the Parliament.

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged ALDE and european parliament | 24 Comments

Adrian Sanders MP writes…New global parliamentary Diabetes network will ensure vital action is taken across the world

By Adrian Sanders | Mon 23rd June 2014 - 12:59 pm

On 2nd December 2013 at the first Parliamentary Diabetes Global Network (PDGN) meeting in Melbourne, Australia, attended by invited parliamentarians representing 50 countries, a declaration on Diabetes was agreed and signed.

Meeting in the Victoria State Parliament building MPs from across the globe reported on the state of Diabetes care in their countries, discussed how to raise the profile of the condition and agreed a declaration calling for urgent action to address the diabetes pandemic, committing the signatories to work across parliaments to help prevent the incidence of diabetes, ensure …

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Tagged diabetes, featured and Melbourne Declaration | Leave a comment

Fairer Society Part 2: Goodbye Mr Beveridge

By George Potter | Mon 23rd June 2014 - 11:12 am

In my article on Saturday, I talked about how Ed Miliband’s ‘youth tax’ shows that Labour have abandoned any claim they ever had to be a party that cared about social justice or a fairer society. And the Conservatives have never even cared about a fairer society as they are ably demonstrating with their plan to cut £20 billion from the £79 billion (e.g. not including pensions) welfare budget if they are in government in the next parliament.

Therefore the Liberal Democrats, the party of Beveridge, are now the only …

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Tagged fairer society and welfare reform | 55 Comments

What’s on in our Parliaments this week?

By The Voice | Mon 23rd June 2014 - 9:15 am

What are our MPs, MSPs and AM’s going to be talking about this coming week?

Holyrood

It’s the last week of term for the Scottish Parliament this week until an earlier than usual return, on 3 August. MSPs will sit for 3 weeks before taking a further 4 week break for the Referendum.

One of the last items to be discussed in the Chamber this session will be a motion from Liberal Democrat MSP Alison McInnes, not on her usual justice portfolio, but on the BMA’s Your GP cares campaign. Her motion …

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Also posted in Parliament | Leave a comment

Caron’s Sunday Selection: Must-read articles from the Sunday papers

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 22nd June 2014 - 9:22 am

Here is my selection of articles to inform, inspire and infuriate from this week’s Sunday newspapers.

First of all, the Observer reports on a Mumsnet survey which finds that most women who responded think that Parliament is sexist, out of date and masculine. 97% think the political culture is sexist. The site’s founder, Justine Roberts, said:

People are so fed up. We know that the reason there is a lack of female representation in parliament isn’t just down to sexism at the point of selection; there just aren’t enough women prepared to put themselves forward. This is confirmation of how they feel and how strongly they feel. Things like the long hours and being ‘on show’ is rolled into the idea that it’s all a bit male and shouty, but even male MPs have complained about the hours. The hours seem to revolve more around 50-year-old men who want to socialise than even among thirtysomething men who are dads and might like to have a family life.

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4 Comments

Book Review: The Cruel Victory: The French Resistance, D-Day and the Battle for the Vercors 1944 by Paddy Ashdown

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 21st June 2014 - 1:20 pm

It is not like me to read books about wars and battles, but after being so moved and angered by Paddy Ashdown’s excellent portrayal of the inaugural mission of the Special Boat Service, A Brilliant Little Operation, I knew that I had to buy his next book.

The Cruel Victory tells the story of the brave Resistance fighters who briefly controlled the Vercors plateau in south-east France in the Summer of 1944. The original plan was for the Vercors to be secured to help an Allied invasion from the south, but for various reasons, the support that the fighters on the ground needed was not forthcoming. If people had been smarter in their decision making, at least some of it could have been and lives could have been saved.

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Tagged book reviews, featured, paddy ashdown and The Cruel Victory | 7 Comments

Fairer Society Part 1: Only the Liberal Democrats are left to stand up for fairness

By George Potter | Sat 21st June 2014 - 9:55 am

On Thursday we saw Ed Miliband deliver his big policy speech on welfare, introducing his ‘youth tax’ in an attempt to be tougher on the Tories than welfare. In the process he proved that Labour, not content with failing to manage the economy properly in their last time in government, have given up on any idea of fairness or social justice for their next time in government.

Interestingly, the policy he announced had been reported on twice already by newspapers, the Sun and the Telegraph, over the course of the past year …

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Tagged Fairer Society series and welfare | 28 Comments

Opinion: We need unqualified teachers and assistants to become qualified

By Barry Holliday | Fri 20th June 2014 - 3:33 pm

We’ve just launched our parent guarantee about ensuring that all state funded schools should only use qualified teaching staff. A great idea, of course we want all teachers to hold a subject related degree and their post-grad certificate in education (PGCE) and their QTS (Qualified Teacher Status). But what about those unqualified teachers already in a teaching role? What about the other staff which support and help educate our children?

I personally work in a secondary Academy (years 7-11) which has some non-QTS staff. Most are excellent educators of children …

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Tagged teaching | 15 Comments

Yes Scotland is a bit late to realise that Wings over Scotland is bad news.

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 20th June 2014 - 2:56 pm

About two years too late, the Yes Scotland campaign has started to distance itself from controversial pro-independence blog Wings over Scotland, run by a Bath based individual who describes himself as “Rev” Stuart Campbell.

The Courier reports that Yes Scotland has asked its Edinburgh Group to stop distributing leaflet that invites people to look at Wings.

This is not just an Edinburgh thing though. I don’t live in Edinburgh and I had a Yes newspaper delivered with this leaflet

…

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Tagged Scotland, Scottish independence referendum and wings over scotland | 28 Comments

Opinion: Was there ever a child who started a war?

By Maelo Manning | Fri 20th June 2014 - 1:38 pm

I attended the conference to ‘End Sexual Violence in Conflict’ (ESVC) and I was horrified by the true life testimonies of how babies as young as 8 months are raped. I approached the War Child staff at the conference and asked about getting involved in their work. Today is National Refugee Day 2014. The purpose of this post is to raise awareness among Lib Dems and to urge you to factor the unspeakable horrors that children suffer into any part of your work or volunteering or fund raising opportunities. It could be that you come into contact with refugee children even in the UK.

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Tagged featured | 1 Comment

Why we need Liberal Democrats: Consensual Stop and search of under 12s in Scotland halted

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 20th June 2014 - 10:30 am

The Scottish Liberal Democrats aren’t in Government at the moment. Despite that, the small Parliamentary group has had quite an impact in the past 3 years. Willie Rennie has had Salmond squirming at First Minister’s Questions over his associations with Rupert Murdoch and has been pivotal in securing extra funds for colleges, childcare and free school meals.

Back in January, it came to light that 500 children under 10 had been stopped and searched by Police in 2010. That’s bad enough. Last year that figure was just 88 …

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Tagged alison mcinnes, justice, kenny macaskill, police scotland, Scotland and stop and search | 6 Comments

Tim Farron disagrees with Nick on minority Government

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 19th June 2014 - 3:04 pm

Nick Clegg has been saying a lot recently that it’s coalition or nothing – the Liberal Democrats aren’t interested in propping up a minority Government because we’d get all the blame and none of the chance to do any actual good.

I can see the logic to that point of view, certainly. However, Tim Farron, in an interview with the New Statesman has directly contradicted Nick, saying that we shouldn’t rule anything out:

When you go into negotiations with another party you have to believe,

…

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Tagged matthew oakeshott, new statesman and tim farron | 32 Comments

Principle and Realpolitik: why the Lib Dems should back an EU in/out referendum

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th June 2014 - 4:30 pm

My co-editor Caron Lindsay has asked the following question, amid reports senior Lib Dems want the party to commit to an in/out EU referendum in the next parliament: “What do you think? Stay as we are or shift our position?”

My own view is the party has nothing to lose by offering a referendum in the 2015 manifesto. As I’ve pointed out before, the Lib Dem line on an EU referendum has been remarkably consistent over the last few years – far more so than the Tories (remember David Cameron’s cast-iron guarantee?) or Labour (remember 2004 EU referendum U-turn prior to their 2008 U-turn?).

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged caron lindsay and eu referendum | 42 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats’ principled decision gives civil servants continued workplace protection they need

By Janice Turner | Wed 18th June 2014 - 3:43 pm

One of the announcements at Nick Clegg’s press conference on Monday was his categorical rejection of Tory ministers’ attempts to abolish check-off across government.

What’s check-off? This isn’t a Michael Gove attempt to ban a celebrated Russian playwright, it’s a mundane administrative convenience which allows members of trade unions to pay their union subscription by getting their employer to deduct it from their wage packet and send it on for them.

Union members like check-off because it’s the easiest way to keep their subs up to date. Trade unions like it because …

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Tagged check-off, Danny Alexander, nick clegg, simon hughes, trade unions and vince cable | 6 Comments

Is Nick Clegg about to change position on an EU Referendum?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 18th June 2014 - 1:37 pm

Today’s Times reports that Nick Clegg may be about to change his position on the circumstances on which a referendum on EU membership could be held. The Coalition has legislated for a referendum if there is any further Treaty change. The Times (£) suggests that this could be altered to a “material change”:

Liberal Democrat MPs were due to meet last night to discuss whether to shift their position of holding a vote only if there is a “material change”

…

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Tagged eu referendum | 33 Comments

Opinion: A radical, liberal vision

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Wed 18th June 2014 - 11:59 am

Nick Clegg has set out his Liberal vision and I think it is inadequate as I see his vision as mainly about pursuing less pure liberal economic policies and education. Education policy has been a big part of our appeal. A penny on income tax for improvements to education was a good policy. It resulted in the Labour government putting a penny on National Insurance to pay for improvements to education. The pupil premium in 2010 has been implemented by the Coalition government. However we shouldn’t reply on education policy …

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Tagged citizens income and future strategy | 20 Comments

Julian Huppert MP writes: We need effective action on knife crime

By Julian Huppert | Wed 18th June 2014 - 10:30 am

There is a problem with knife crime. Too many of our fellow citizens suffer from knife attacks, and even more live in fear of being attacked with a knife. Even though fewer people are carrying knives, too many still are.

The Tory response to this, backed by Labour, has been to rush into legislation forcing judges to impose a mandatory jail sentence for anyone who is found in possession of a knife twice.

To deal effectively with the problem we should try to understand why people are carrying them.

Most of …

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Tagged knife crime | 7 Comments

Opinion: Cabinet Collective Responsibility and why we need to reform it

By Daniel Henry | Tue 17th June 2014 - 5:05 pm

A lot has been written over the last few weeks about the coalition, how it has damaged our poll ratings and what we need to do to turn things around. I’d like to put the spotlight on Cabinet Collective Responsibility and how it’s not only damaged our party’s identity but has also helped damage the public’s view of coalitions in general.

Cabinet Collective Responsibility is the convention that members of the government, i.e. ministers, all have to suspend their own opinions and collectively hold the government line. If they want to publicly disagree with the government then they’re expected to resign. This may have made sense when one party ran the government but with a government formed from two different parties, with very differing views and identities, this has predictably caused a number of problems.

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Tagged collective cabinet responsibility and nick clegg | 14 Comments

Mike Storey writes: Qualified teachers and a national curriculum

By Mike Storey | Tue 17th June 2014 - 3:08 pm

“We are, and always will, be the party of education”. So Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said in his speech at Bloomberg last Monday. This is indeed what the Liberal Democrats stand for, and it’s not just an empty sound bite. The policies we pledge to adopt will be to ensure that school pupils will have the right to be taught by qualified teachers and taught a core curriculum – a truly national curriculum.

The recent ‘Trojan Horse’ controversy has shocked the national conscience. It highlighted that some schools ran a risk of depriving children of an all-rounded and fair education. Academies and free schools are based on the concept of autonomy, but this should not mean that children should suffer because of particular interests. Some schools that did have discretion over their curriculum were abusing that by stripping back the curriculum and narrowing the experience of schooling for every young child. Action needs to be taken to ensure children’s futures are not put at risk.

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Tagged education, national curriculum, parental guarantee, schools and teachers | 48 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

Mick Taylor
@TristanWard. I have never been Mike my entire life. Please don’t take it upon yourself to unilaterally change my name...
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Delighted to have contributed to the win in Almondbury by making several hundred phone calls to voters. Winning Here!...
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