Category Archives: Op-eds

Opinion: Suggestions for the 2015 manifesto – how we can do more for low paid working people than Labour

By Iain Donaldson | Sat 31st May 2014 - 10:41 am

This article was orgininally, mistakenly attributed to Obhi Chatterjee.

I have just registered for conference, and that got me thinking about our 2015 Manifesto.

When he first became leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg defined our target audience as being ‘alarm clock Britain’, a demographic that was derided at the time as being undefined and totally incomprehensible.

Had he defined our target demographic as being ‘people aspiring to improve their situation who are in work on low to middle incomes’ would he have meant the same target group, and what have …

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Tagged manifesto 2015 | 98 Comments

Opinion: In and Better

By Matt Burrows | Sat 31st May 2014 - 9:09 am

Well, that was grim. The results for the Liberal Democrats from the European Elections were awful and there’s no varnishing over it. For sure there will be a review of the European aspect of the campaign as well as for the locals.

Despite what the results show, as a party we were right to make the positive case for being IN. Who else was going to do it? We are a liberal and internationalist party and we showed we had the stomach to …

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Tagged catherine barder and eu | 26 Comments

Opinion: Is anyone listening?

By Elwyn Watkins | Fri 30th May 2014 - 6:57 pm

My perspective comes from being born and bred in Rochdale, part of the ‘urban North’. This is my community. I don’t have to conduct focus groups or opinion polls to know what people think. Partly because I am a ‘local lad’ and partly because of the by-election people are very happy to tell me directly. I always take this as a positive sign – if people want to have a go then they must be wanting to …

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Tagged welfare reform | 34 Comments

Opinion: Our radical edge

By Adam Killeya | Fri 30th May 2014 - 4:04 pm

Amongst the many issues raised by our performance in the European Elections one that troubles me greatly is the loss of young voters to the Green party. Amongst 18-25s of my acquaintance who might be considered centre-left and politically aware, and having taught Politics A Level for 9 years and kept in touch with most of my students this is a reasonable number, many more voted Green than Lib Dem. This trend was somewhat masked by a slight overall drop in Green votes, which can partly be ascribed to …

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28 Comments

Opinion: Defining ourselves will heal the fractions

By Richard Kilpatrick | Fri 30th May 2014 - 12:21 pm

Understanding the European and local elections is important to how we heal as a party. It has been the hardest election defeat to take for various reasons. Firstly that the Liberal Democrat MEP team were truly incredible; hard working and respected across Europe for delivering the most they can for their regions. Secondly because of how the grass roots reacted to the results. Finally, and most lamentably, we lost our MEPs to the politics of fear, hatred and blame.

I am unapologetically pro-coalition and a strong supporter of Clegg’s leadership. He has …

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Tagged ukip | 48 Comments

Opinion: Stand with Anna

By Ian Butler | Fri 30th May 2014 - 11:25 am

A story is breaking in Northern Ireland where an extremist pastor has dubbed Islam as “satanic” That is reprehensible in itself but he has received support from some Unionist politicians and in particular Peter Robinson the First Minister. The Guardian reported

…Robinson, who sometimes attends McConnell’s mega-church on the shores of Belfast Lough, was quoted in the Irish News on Wednesday as describing the pastor as “someone who preaches the gospel”.

The Democratic Unionist party leader said he would continue to visit McConnell’s church.

He then went on to …

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Tagged islamophobia | 69 Comments

Kirsty Williams AM writes… Welsh Liberal Democrats oppose Labour’s e-cigarette ban

By Kirsty Williams AM | Thu 29th May 2014 - 4:52 pm

As a liberal I’m deeply sceptical of knee-jerk reactions to issues of public importance, especially when there’s a severe lack of evidence to support your claim. This was a view I thought I shared with the Welsh Labour Health Minister, Mark Drakeford, after he said in the debate on my minimum nurse staffing levels bill that “in pursuing public policy, legislation should almost always be a last, rather than a first resort.”

You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when the Welsh Labour Government announced plans to ban the use of electronic cigarettes in public places, along the same lines as the current smoking ban.

I called Welsh Labour’s plans into question as I led a debate in the Senedd on this matter earlier this month, asking the Health Minister to produce the evidence that he had to support this ban. Despite assuring me and other Assembly Members that there was “mounting evidence” which he’d make available to me “immediately after the debate”, it was two weeks until I received anything from him. This amounted to one single paper.

I’d hardly call that “mounting evidence”.

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Tagged e-cigarettes, featured, Wales, welsh labour party and welsh liberal democrats | 42 Comments

Opinion: Lessons from the Netherlands on Lib Dem strategy

By Henk van Klaveren | Thu 29th May 2014 - 9:36 am

A few months after the UK Coalition Government formed in 2010, the Dutch Christian Democrats (CDA) formed a minority government with our sister party, the liberal VVD. To get a majority agreement, the VVD-CDA coalition made a confidence and supply agreement with right-wing Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV), which set out a number of policy concession to Wilders, e.g. on immigration. That was a decision with huge impact: the PVV was about as toxic as it could get for many CDA and VVD supporters. The fall-out …

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Tagged coalition, holland, Mark Rutte and vvd | 53 Comments

How to rally your team in the wake of defeat

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 28th May 2014 - 10:00 pm

The north London wipeout in the local elections meant that the Camden team were decimated. Only one councillor remained in the borough. Maajid Nawaz, their PPC sent them an email in which he grieved with them and looked forward to better days, immediately taking tangible action to motivate them again.

Here are some highlights:

When I was first selected as your candidate, I had little clue how our local party machinery works. I had little appreciation for why you took such pride in your achievements

…

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Tagged camden and maajid nawaz | 38 Comments

Opinion: The final frontier of the electorate

By Guy Russo | Wed 28th May 2014 - 6:30 pm

At the core of the problems we’ve faced over the last few days is the daunting realisation that something has to change. But in the ensuing skirmish over what to change, it has become apparent that it is not the leadership. The #libdems4change movement has not provided a political coup in the party. But it has provided a mental one, a revolution of hearts and minds. Not towards a new way of thinking, but towards a new vigour in pursuing our cause. In many ways, it had to happen.

I …

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Tagged internet and political campaigning | 12 Comments

Opinion: Why I joined the Liberal Democrat Phoenix, not the Liberal Democrat Titanic

By Wayne Chadburn | Wed 28th May 2014 - 5:49 pm

No-one can deny that this has been a horrible week electorally for the Liberal Democrats. It might also be argued that to join the Liberal Democrats at this time is akin to landing on the Titanic prior to it hitting the iceberg. At least that is what has been said to me but to no avail. A few weeks ago I resigned my membership of the Labour party and joined the Liberal Democrats. Whilst the events of the last few days have saddened me and caused me considerable angst, not for …

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35 Comments

Opinion: Setting the record straight

By Helen Flynn | Wed 28th May 2014 - 4:48 pm

I was misquoted on BBC radio 4 on Monday. They said I had asked for Nick Clegg’s resignation. Would that it were as simple as asking for a leader to resign–as if that would change everything. But it isn’t. And I don’t feel in any way that I am being evasive or woolly by not asking for a change of leadership. What I am asking for is a root and branch review of our campaign strategy.

Let’s examine the facts.

We have just suffered a disastrous set …

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Tagged future party, leadership and radio 4 | 24 Comments

Opinion: What does the evidence tell us about our strategy should be?

By David Howarth | Wed 28th May 2014 - 3:40 pm

As a party committed to evidence-based policy, we should be asking what the evidence tells us about the questions of strategy and leadership we now face. The discussion is currently impressionistic and getting fixated on the past. We need instead to stick to the evidence and to what it suggests we should do in the future. There are many examples one could give about the leadership issue, but here is one about strategy.

Nick Clegg has explained the party’s strategy like this: ”

We said in 2010 we were going

…

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Tagged coalition, economy and party strategy | 56 Comments

Opinion: We need discipline and compromise from both leadership and members

By Paul Rowen | Wed 28th May 2014 - 2:42 pm

Last week’s local and European elections were truly awful.

Those of us who joined the Liberal Party back in the dark days of the 1970s remember the many false dawns and disappointments that followed local and General Elections.

We built our base bite by bite from the bottom up and fighting Labour it was tooth and nail.

The loss of all our Councillors in Manchester or seeing Liverpool reduced to just three Councillors or in my own Rochdale where we have gone from 33 to …

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Tagged european elections 2014, leadership, lynne featherstone and nick clegg | 54 Comments

Opinion: No more casual flings

By Simon de Deney | Wed 28th May 2014 - 1:46 pm

One of our candidates, telling last Thursday, was told by his Green party counterpart that this particular ward, Clissold, was the Green Party’s one target in the whole of London. They had volunteers coming to Hackney from places as far flung as Orpington and Grimsby. So, how did they do? Well, they didn’t beat Labour, but they pushed us into third place. Clearly where they work, they win. Well, come second, anyway.

Only here’s the thing. Apart from the one ward, Cazenove, in which we kept all our councillors, the Green …

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Tagged day of light, future party strategy and hackney | 28 Comments

Opinion: I’m fed up with process stories. Let’s work out how to win in 2015

By Allan Knox | Wed 28th May 2014 - 12:55 pm

Dear Liberal Democrats on Twitter, Facebook and Liberal Democrat Voice,

I am tired of process stories.

I don’t need another analysis of Annette Brookes’ email, Nick saying where we work we win, Lib Dems 4 Change setting up a website on 22 May or Matthew Oakshotte’s self-indulgent polling.

The simple truth is this. In the euro elections we lost 10 out of 11 seats and got 6% of the vote, the same as in 1989 when we had all just discovered we were Democrats. In addition we lost a wealth of MEP …

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Tagged future party strategy and general election 2015 | 21 Comments

A day of light and ideas

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 28th May 2014 - 9:51 am

These last five days have been among the worst I have known in my almost 31 years of being a part of this wonderful party. I’d pretty much prepared myself for winning only a couple of MEPs. Even those limited ambitions proved to be wildly optimistic. Seeing massive Labour fiefdoms recreated in London and Manchester. t’s been bruising, brutal and fraught. Seeing friends and colleagues lose their jobs and seats through no fault of their own is heartbreaking. And to lose them to wrecking, scapegoating UKIP types …

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Tagged day of light, european elections 2014 and local elections 2014 | 52 Comments

Opinion: A change of leader will make no difference. A change of heart and pride just might.

By Ben Nicholls | Tue 27th May 2014 - 5:33 pm

As a young, recently-selected Lib Dem candidate for next year’s general election and in a winnable marginal seat, I’m rather more interested in what my fellow voters think – over 70,000 of them in my area – than a small number of disaffected Party members looking for a scapegoat after recent election results.

Standing in an area which includes smart middle-class patches as well as tougher urban ones, I’ve spent the past few weeks meeting hundreds of constituents. The words ‘Nick Clegg’ have been mentioned about three times. Nobody I’ve met really seems to mind who the leader is. They DO mind that the Lib Dems are no longer clear enough about what we stand for and that we once appeared human but increasingly sound like political robots.

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Tagged coalition and romsey and southampton north | 36 Comments

Opinion: Where we work we get a pasting

By Nick Perry | Tue 27th May 2014 - 3:08 pm

After another bruising local government election in Hastings & Rye – a parliamentary target back in 1997 – the Liberal Democrats remain without any councillors on Hastings Borough Council and notched up a pallid 7% of the vote across the town.

This is pretty much a re-run of the 2012 result. Once again, targeting just one Council ward, we achieved a swing from Labour to Lib Dem, but did not come close to a gain.

This is one of the foremost bellweather constituencies of the South East, and is already a key Tory-Labour battleground for the 2015 General Election.

We have a functional local party here, with committed folk, many of whom have been members for a very long time.

I know that we have worked like stink for as long as I have lived down here (since 2007, when I was first selected as PPC) trusting in the leadership and the old slogan of ‘Where we work, we win’. Except it’s not true.

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Tagged hastings and local elections 2014 | 23 Comments

Paul Burstow writes … How can we achieve the home care workforce that we all deserve?

By Paul Burstow | Tue 27th May 2014 - 1:35 pm

A couple of weeks ago the diary of a home care worker shone a light on highs and frankly far too many lows that care workers all around the country face, day in, day out.

When we have all heard too many shocking stories of neglectful, malicious, taunting “carers” which now dominate perceptions of social care, this is the antidote. It was been truly inspiring to read the dedication, compassion, and genuine care motivating this fantastic woman.

But it is also deeply depressing …

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Tagged careworkers | 7 Comments

Opinion: Six reasons why Lib Dems need to support the leader

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 27th May 2014 - 12:20 pm

(Warning. This is not comfortable reading)

The decline in popular support for the Lib Dems since 2010 has been painful, culminating in Sunday’s near-wipeout in the European elections – and being beaten in the popular vote by the Greens.

We are a year away from the general election. The improving economy and Lib Dem policy successes like the Pupil Premium and larger tax allowances have not fed, so far, into electoral success. Can and should anything be done to recover the situation in the coming year ? Is ‘holding one’s nerve’ (or as critics might say, ‘doing nothing different’) a viable option ?

There have been a few calls for the leader to resign. Uncomfortable though the reasons are, here are six why the leader should stay beyond the general election:

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Tagged nick clegg | 44 Comments

Opinion: we lead when we’re brave

By John Abrams | Tue 27th May 2014 - 10:47 am

Like many others I was a sub-agent for the European Elections. My ‘chosen’ borough was Tameside where we stood precisely zero candidates at the local elections. A bizarre contrast compared to Lib Dem led Stockport just down the road where I live.

It will come as no surprise from the North West results that one of my samples was devoid of any Lib Dem votes at all – a first after 30 years in politics. (Luckily there were samples that were a bit rosier!)

Once proceedings were complete something troubled me: there were Labour, Green and Conservative sub-agents and little old me. What was missing: ah yes, good old UKIP. I wonder if this is a sign of how they’ll be acting in the European Parliament? For a party who came second to absent themselves at a count so as not to represent the democratic process let alone their own voters is baffling and perhaps a little alarming.

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Tagged european elections 2014, libdems4change and ukip | 39 Comments

Opinion: The messenger or the message?

By Mike Biden | Tue 27th May 2014 - 10:07 am

Coalition government is very tough on the junior party. No surprise there. The prize, in our case, was lots of our favourite policies implemented – something we haven’t achieved for 100 years. The downside is a massive amount of negative media coverage.

Your coalition allies hate you because they see you as imposing policies on them. The opposition see it as an open goal, a chance to squeeze you out of the next election. It is a two party nut-cracker with the potential to crush us. The voracious appetite of the press pack has a constant supply of stories.

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Tagged coalition | 37 Comments

Opinion: A perspective on the 2014 European elections

By Andrew Garratt | Tue 27th May 2014 - 9:13 am

The Lib Dems have suffered their worst European election performance for 25 years.

In 1989, that election was fought by six parties – Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem (as SLD), Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru – which also fought the 2014 election.

Of those six parties, five got fewer votes in 2014 than they got in 1989. One got more. Can you guess which one?

Let’s look at the figures:

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Tagged european elections 2014 | 54 Comments

Opinion: We need to stop helping the other parties and change our message

By Iain Roberts | Mon 26th May 2014 - 7:03 pm

The Liberal Democrats have achieved many good things in Government and stopped the Tories doing many bad things. As with every government, there have been mistakes and much that could have been done better, but with fewer than one in ten MPs the party has punched well above its weight and, as a result, many good Liberal Democrat policies are now being put into practise.

And yet the party is being hammered in the polls and we’ve just seen a disastrous set of local and European elections with the Liberal Democrats down to just a single MEP.

What’s gone wrong, above all …

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40 Comments

Opinion: Political scalps grow back

By David Schmitz | Mon 26th May 2014 - 5:34 pm

Until Friday, I was a Lib Dem Councillor in the London Borough of Haringey, where I enjoyed a reputation as an effective local representative. As one constituent put it

I have never been able to fathom why for example, people express their anger at the government in Westminster by voting out of office the guy in the next street who gets your drains unblocked or your broken windows fixed. And the same here is true of David. I hope that when election time comes around, people

…

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Tagged leadership, local elections 2014 and nick clegg | 16 Comments

Opinion: An open letter to Nick Clegg

By Benjamin Mathis | Mon 26th May 2014 - 4:16 pm

Dear Nick,

When I joined the party in 2006, one of the first things I did was to hit the streets of Dudley, my hometown, delivering Focus and canvassing voters. I’ve been an active, campaigning party member ever since.

Another of the first things I did was to locate and read a copy of the Orange Book. And I liked it. I agreed with a lot of it, and “Orange Booker” has been a badge I have worn with slightly perverse pride ever since.

I like what you’re doing, Nick – and I like …

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Tagged leadership and nick clegg | 73 Comments

Some quick questions for LibDems4Change

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 26th May 2014 - 1:44 pm

In the interests of transparency, a key Liberal Democrat value, it would be good if a representative of LibDems4Change could answer the following questions about their campaign:

1. Who registered for and paid for the domain name and website?

The website was registered either late on Thursday evening/early Friday morning, but who set it up and who financed it?

2. Where did you get the email addresses from? Which email lists did you use and what are the Data Protection implications of this?

In 2012, I signed up to the No to Secret Courts campaign. I expected to receive correspondence on that campaign, not …

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Tagged libdems4change | 151 Comments

Ouch. My first thoughts on the European election results for the four main parties

By Stephen Tall | Mon 26th May 2014 - 11:55 am

The results are all but in (Scotland will formal declare later today) and the scores on the doors make depressing reading for the Lib Dems – here’s the BBC’s breakdown:

Here are 5 quick points:

1) A good night for Ukip

Fair do’s to Farage: he inverted the usual expectations management game by vowing Ukip would top the poll, and they did. Their share of the vote, 27.5%, means they become the first party since 1906 to beat both the Conservatives and Labour. They’ve gained at least 10 MEPs, and may …

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62 Comments