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Category Archives: Op-eds

From the reading pile: Alan Beith’s year of three elections

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 17th May 2014 - 9:34 am

I have this massive and growing pile of stuff I want to read but don’t have time for at the moment. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.

Yesterday, though, a spell in a hospital waiting room gave me the opportunity to catch up with this article from February’s Total Politics. Alan Beith was interviewed about first becoming MP for Berwick. He won the by-election in November 1973 and then had to defend the seat twice within the space of a year.

He described his disappointment at contesting …

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2 Comments

Opinion: The General Election is near – are we ready?

By John Coburn | Fri 16th May 2014 - 9:12 am

Having taken a break from frontline campaigning in recent months it’s given me time to observe the party as a voter, if not an impartial one. The European and local elections are undoubtedly important, but the big challenge is a year away and we still have time to make the Liberal Democrat case.

I’m instinctively pro-coalition and Nick Clegg and the leadership have to take great credit on what has been achieved on area such as tax, the pupil premium, pensions and gay marriage. Without our party in coalition, there would …

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27 Comments

Are the Liberal Democrats any closer to embracing all-women shortlists?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 15th May 2014 - 3:50 pm

It’s nearly 31 years since I joined the SDP. When I was first involved, a hot topic of conversation was how to improve the representation of women in the House of Commons. At that point, there were just 23 female MPs, or 3.5% of the total. We are still having these discussions today. Now there are 22%, but the total has only risen by 4% in the last 3 elections. The biggest leap we have ever had came in 1997 when the numbers doubled from 60-120, with more than half …

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Tagged all-women shortlists, gender balance, lndsay northover, sarah brown and shirley williams | 132 Comments

The Independent View: The innovation revolution: How small banks and building societies are playing a significant part in creating competition through innovation.

By Adrian Kamellard | Thu 15th May 2014 - 12:30 pm

Up and down the country there are small but significant banks and building societies playing an important part in the day-to-day lives of customers and businesses. Yet they are not only helping customers locally, they are also changing the way we bank. The Cumberland Building Society will be familiar to Westmorland and Lonsdale’s Tim Farron MP, and despite a relatively small customer base compared to the traditional big banks, it is leading from the front when it comes to payments innovation and technology, offering …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged innovation, paym and payments council | 4 Comments

Lord Roger Roberts writes…We must unite against the scaremongering of the far right

By Lord Roger Roberts | Wed 14th May 2014 - 7:00 pm

This week the BNP released its party political broadcast in the run-up to May’s local council and European elections. The BNP youth has also made its own poisonous contribution to the debate. The BNP have released a hurriedly edited version following complaints from the BBC that the broadcast did not meet its editorial guidelines, which state that such broadcasts have:

An obligation to observe the law (for example on libel, copyright and incitement to racial hatred and violence) and the BBC Editorial Guidelines on harm and

…

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Tagged bnp and european elections 2014 | 12 Comments

New Liberal Democrat campaign video: Powerful stuff, but we need Part 2 – why you should vote Liberal Democrat

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th May 2014 - 3:58 pm

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Tagged campaign strategy, eu and european elections 2014 | 53 Comments

Revenge porn: A modern, legal form of abuse

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th May 2014 - 2:23 pm

Imagine you’re in a loving relationship with someone. In the context of that relationship, you allowed some personal, intimate photographs to be taken that were only for your private enjoyment. Then you split up and, to your horror, find that those private photographs have been put up on the internet for all to see as an act of revenge by your former lover.

That’s got to be illegal, right? Effectively, it’s a form of abuse perpetrated mainly but not exclusively) by men against women, after all. Actually, …

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Tagged pornography, revenge porn and sexual abuse | 17 Comments

Greg Mulholland MP writes…Support my gruelling 20,000 ft climb to raise £10k for Royal British Legion rehabilitation centre

By Greg Mulholland MP | Wed 14th May 2014 - 1:31 pm

At the end of May, I am joining serving and former soldiers and two other MPs in trying to tackle one of the world’s highest volcanoes, Cotopaxi in Ecuador at 19,347 feet. I am taking on this tough challenge to raise awareness of the Royal British Legion Battle Back Centre, the national rehabilitation centre which provides adaptive sports and adventurous training for injured servicemen and women.

The Battle Back Centre helps achieve the best possible recovery and either return to service duty or make a smooth transition to …

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Tagged greg mulholland and royal british legion | Leave a comment

The Independent View: Scotland, vote no and let’s all move towards a Federal UK

By Toby Fenwick | Wed 14th May 2014 - 11:50 am

As an outsider, analysis about September’s Scottish Independence Referendum is something of a minefield. There is space to constructively critique the SNP’s proposals, but needs to recognise that I don’t have a vote, and that Lord Robertson-style hyperbole about a Scottish “cataclysm” is not just offensive – and for unionists, counterproductive – it is inaccurate, too.

So let me begin by making clear that in my CentreForum paper analysing Scottish independence published today, I believe that Scotland is perfectly capable of becoming an …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged centreforum, federalism, menzies campbell, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 24 Comments

Michael Moore MP’s Road to Referendum: “A mutual meeting point between two nations, rather than an international border point separating two states”

By Michael Moore | Wed 14th May 2014 - 9:32 am

There was cross-party agreement last week in the House of Commons after I, alongside Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border Rory Stewart, made the case for United Kingdom cross-border unity at Scottish Questions. Alongside Mr Stewart, I asked specifically about what independence would mean for Border constituencies.

The future shape of Scotland, and the very existence of the United Kingdom, is at stake in the forthcoming referendum. If Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom, the Border constituencies would be the first to feel the effects of …

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Tagged road to referendum michael moore mp | 6 Comments

Opinion: Small plus small plus small equals BIG

By David Boyle | Tue 13th May 2014 - 5:22 pm

In the heady days of the Thatcher government, when the hideous mistakes of Big Bang were being forged and coming to fruition, I used to run an excellent magazine called Town & Country Planning. In those days, we were extremely exercised by the idea of the huge and mounting cost of rundown private sector homes. Who was going to repair them?

We don’t talk about that problem any more. This is not because it was ever exactly solved, but because of one of the more benevolent effect of rising house prices, before the oligarchs came in, was that it made a bit of DIY worthwhile. Instead of the government shelling out to repair all those privately-owned dwellings, the young owners went down to B&Q and bought a paintbrush.

It was a lesson to me that neither the conventional public sector nor the conventional private sector may be best placed to tackle the really intractable problems. And it makes me wonder whether the great unanswered questions about rebalancing the economy might eventually be answered – not by the long night of the soul as we wait for the Treasury, but by the places themselves.

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Tagged economics and ultra-micro economics | 5 Comments

Norman Lamb writes … we must fight for mental health to get the recognition it needs

By Norman Lamb MP | Tue 13th May 2014 - 12:52 pm

In my time as Mental Health minister, I have written here several times about the unacceptable disparity between mental health and physical health in our health system. For far too long, physical health has been prioritised over mental health.

Perhaps the most stark difference is in terms of what happens when you suffer a mental health crisis. If you break your arm or suffer a stroke, you know that you will be taken to A&E, where you will get access to the expertise you need.

It’s very different in mental health. You may end up in a police cell or you may get sent a long way away from home to get a bed in a mental health unit. This would never be tolerated in physical health so why should it be acceptable in mental health?

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Tagged Crisis Care Concordat, featured and mental health | 10 Comments

The Independent View: Harnessing the “BuzzFeed” effect to boost turnout in the Euro elections

By Pete Mills | Tue 13th May 2014 - 11:50 am

Only 26% are certain to vote in the European elections, and 77% say they know less about the issues in a European election than a general election, according to the Hansard Society. At Unlock Democracy, we’ve been looking at new techniques to combat low turnout and the worrying lack of political knowledge about European institutions.

For the European elections, we worked with organisations from 14 countries across the EU to produce Vote Match Europe, an online quiz app which matches user to the parties that best represent their views in the European elections, based on the issues which they select as …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged european elections 2014 and votematch | 13 Comments

Opinion: Get your voters out electronically

By Mark Pack | Tue 13th May 2014 - 10:25 am

It’s not a surprise to say far more people use social media now than when I first learnt political campaigning because Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the whole lot didn’t even exist back then. Nor even did (glory be, you might think) Internet Explorer. Back when a beta version of Netscape was cutting edge, the scope for successful online political campaigning was tiny compared to now, when there are more people on the electoral register who use social media than will vote next week.

But the story of the last few decades isn’t just about the rise of the online world. It’s also about the increasing problems with traditional ways of communicating with voters on the ground. Fewer phone numbers are in the phone book; fewer households have someone in when you call round; and fewer properties have accessible individual letterboxes.

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Tagged campaigning, elections, gotv, graphics and Mark Pack | 2 Comments

Devo 15: Lord Jim Wallace writes.. Next 15 years represents inspiring opportunity to build on devolution success

By Jim Wallace | Tue 13th May 2014 - 8:29 am

Before going in to address a class of first year law students at Aberdeen University, last November, the head of the Law School took me aside and said, “Just to be aware. Most of your audience can’t remember a Scotland without a Scottish Parliament.” And, of course, these students were only about four years old, when the first elections to that Parliament were held fifteen years ago last week.

To those of us who campaigned so long and hard to create the Parliament, it doesn’t seem so long ago.

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Tagged devo 15, devolution, jim wallace and Scotland | 4 Comments

Danny Alexander speaks out against use of armed and mounted Police in the Highlands

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 12th May 2014 - 3:45 pm

In February, I reported that Danny Alexander had spoken out about the use of Police horses in his Highland constituency. As a native of Inverness I shared his sense of horror that anti-riot policing techniques were being used in the peaceable and safe Highland capital.

Danny had written to the Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to express his concern about such unprecedented, heavy-handed policing, to to mention the cost of bringing the horses up from Ayrshire at a time when the service is closing local control rooms. He’s …

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Tagged armed police, Danny Alexander, inverness, mounted police, police scotland and Scotland | 4 Comments

Opinion: Hamas and the collapse of Palestine/Israel Peace Negotiations

By John Kelly | Mon 12th May 2014 - 1:00 pm

Two weeks ago the Israeli Cabinet declared that the peace negotiations over Palestine were halted in view of the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. The fact that the Cabinet Meeting took six hours perhaps suggests that this was not a unanimous decision. Was it a reasonable decision?

Background on Hamas can be found here. The essentials are that it was founded with the aim of liberating Palestine from Israel and had an armed wing that has indulged in terrorism. (Sound like Sinn Fein and the IRA?) Nonetheless it won Parliamentary elections …

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Tagged eu, israel and palestine | 32 Comments

Opinion: All Europe liked Conchita: what Eurovision tells us

By Stuart Bonar | Mon 12th May 2014 - 10:20 am

Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst’s smiling face beamed out from my TV late on Saturday, and like so many people I thought her victory was great. As Lib Dem Voice’s own Caron Lindsay put it shortly after the show had ended, the Austrian’s song

might not have been the best on offer tonight, but her personality, her embodiment of liberalism and authenticity, combined with a pan-European desire to stick two fingers up to the illiberal east triumphed in Copenhagen…

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Tagged conchita wurst, eu and eurovision | 5 Comments

Opinion: A European manifesto of hope

By Antony Hook | Mon 12th May 2014 - 8:55 am

For me and many other people, being a Liberal is about politics based on hope.

One of my favourite definition of hope is that it stands for “Helping Other People Evolve”.

Helping, not forcing.

Evolving, because almost everyone can see some scope for change for the better in their life.

We are not talking about forcing people to change their lives against their will.

Nor do we say, “each to their own, I’ll sort out my life and if you have no chance of a better future that is not my problem.”

Liberal leadership, based on hope, is about giving people a chance to fulfil their potential.

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Tagged eu and european elections 2014 | 2 Comments

Opinion: Liberalism and tolerance win the Eurovision Song Contest

By Giles Goodall | Sun 11th May 2014 - 7:57 pm

There’ll no doubt be a lot of the usual ‘why do they hate us’ headlines in the UK following our disappointing showing in last night’s Eurovision Song Contest. 17^th place was indeed below par for one our strongest songs in years and a polished performance on the night by 27-year old Mollie Smitten-Downes.

But such introspection – rather typically for Britain on matters European – misses the bigger point. Far more interesting was the winner: a gay, bearded transvestite from Austria called Conchita …

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Tagged conchita wurst, eu, european parliament elections 2014 and eurovision | 22 Comments

Opinion: The “Bedroom Tax”: a great socialist policy?

By Patrick McAuley | Sun 11th May 2014 - 3:00 pm

One thing escapes most political commentators when critiquing the merits of the Bedroom Tax. It is, of course, a great socialist policy.

Of course most commentators accept New Labour introduced the Bedroom Tax through the Local Housing Allowance policy from 2003 to 2008. The mistake commentators make is that they believe LHA to be an ideologically compassionate conservative policy, instead of democratic socialist one.

The argument has two parts. The first is relatively straight forward. For a socialist common ownership (of which …

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Tagged bedroom tax, housing and labour | 39 Comments

Opinion: Yes, Labour really has given up on winning votes from the Conservatives

By Mark Pack | Sun 11th May 2014 - 12:00 pm

I’m not fully signed up to the mockery for Labour’s recent TV and online films mocking Nick Clegg. Why? Because for all the naff content themselves, the broad message of them has been massively reported in the media, reaching a much wider audience than the films themselves.

I doubt that was a deliberate strategy as you can’t count on calibrating something to be just bad enough to get lots of coverage but not so bad as to sink under it. It’s a handy silver lining, however, especially as it diverted …

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Tagged general election 2015, labour and the incredible shrinking man | 34 Comments

Opinion: The irony of Labour’s “shrinking man” Party Election Broadcast

By Ed Stradling | Sat 10th May 2014 - 3:05 pm

Labour’s Party Election Broadcast has attracted plenty of attention since its launch on Wednesday, with its comedy portrayal of Nick “Claggy” as the un-credible shrinking man.

Much has already been made of the PEB’s negativity, and its silence on the question of Labour’s actual policy relating the EU (or indeed anything else) which, since the party receives public funding to develop such policy, might be considered unfortunate.

All might have been forgiven if viewers had dissolved into laughter upon watching the film, but aside from “can we hunt him?” …

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Tagged labour and party election broadcasts | 17 Comments

Libby Local Episode 18: Standing up for Demsbury

By Libby Local | Sat 10th May 2014 - 10:56 am

“Hey Libby. Are you standing? I’ll vote for you!”

I was puzzled by the shout and thought I had not heard it correctly. I was struggling to concentrate on anything after the events of the morning, else. I waved and walked on.

I was angry, almost in tears as I dragged my way up Crow Hill. I was very grateful when the bus stopped and the driver invited me on board his overcrowded bus.

“You look exhausted, Libby,” he said …

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Tagged featured | 3 Comments

“Label the behaviour not the person”: why we shouldn’t call Ukip a racist party

By Stephen Tall | Sat 10th May 2014 - 8:15 am

For once I’m going to agree with Nigel Farage. Speaking at a rally this week, he pleaded with the media and public, “from this moment on please do not ever call us a racist party. We are not a racist party.”

As rallying cries go, it’s not the most ambitious. But, then, Ukip’s not an ambitious party. As Farage himself happily boasts, it has just two policies: withdrawal from the EU and bringing back grammar schools. It doesn’t really matter, though. Ukip is defined by what it’s against, not …

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Tagged british future, featured, nigel farage, racism, sunder katwala and ukip | 107 Comments

Opinion: The Debt Trap

By Linda Jack | Fri 9th May 2014 - 5:20 pm

Yesterday I attended the launch of the Children’s Society‘s ‘The Debt Trap’ campaign, coinciding with the publication of their accompanying report, produced with Step Change, the free debt charity. Some of its findings are truly shocking and should give us all pause for thought. In one of the richest countries in the world 2.4 million of our children are living in homes with problem debt with an additional 2.9 million families with dependent children having struggled to pay their bills over the past 12 months. …

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18 Comments

Opinion: Why do UKIP and the ONS ignore my son?

By Mike Biden | Fri 9th May 2014 - 2:55 pm

Absolutely fed up with UKIP quoting only one side of the story – they have done it for years over the cost of the EU without taking into account the cash returns through the CAP, research grants etc.- I decided last night to check the immigration statistics.

Latest figures appear to be 27th February 2014 from the ONS. The ONS, like UKIP, conveniently forgets that Britain is IN the EU. British migrants, such as my son who went to work in Paris two and half years ago …

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11 Comments

Opinion: Getting a better deal for consumers from nuclear power

By Toby Fenwick | Thu 8th May 2014 - 12:56 pm

Following the vote at last September’s conference, the party now supports new-build nuclear power. This has been a hard road for many, but ultimately the UK needs to replace the 82% of UK nuclear generation capacity that is due to decommission by 2023. This is fully 51% of all UK low-carbon generating capacity, and unlike renewables today, nuclear can provide baseload generation.

It is this combination of baseload capability, capacity at lower cost than the cheapest renewables means that nuclear …

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Tagged featured and nuclear power | 27 Comments

Opinion: Scrap Sunday trading laws to boost the high street and the economy

By Gareth Wilson | Thu 8th May 2014 - 10:41 am

After yet another mad dash with the family around the shops last Sunday afternoon I read with great interest that members of the All Party Parliamentary Retail Group have recently tabled amendments to the Deregulation Bill currently going through Parliament to remove restrictions on Sunday trading and the launch of a new consumer-led campaign group to lobby MP’s to support these proposals.

Introduced in 1994, the limited Sunday opening hours for shops over 280 square metres were designed to protect local convenience shops from the bigger supermarkets. Fast forward 20 …

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Tagged sunday trading | 61 Comments

John Pugh MP writes…Why MPs should be interested in the protest vote

By John Pugh | Wed 7th May 2014 - 4:15 pm

Grown up politicians are supposed to be be bit sniffy about the protest vote. It’s a common axiom at the moment is to say the Lib Dems have lost the ‘protest vote’.

‘Protest’ voters are considered to be unthinking souls who don’t like what they see but have no coherent view of what should be in its place and thus are doomed to be unhappy with whoever is in power. A party can secure the support of these unreasonable people so long as they are not in power and …

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Tagged political engagement and protest voters | 28 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

Scottish Lib Dems defeat SNP on Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill (Caron Lindsay)
How housebuilding can tackle the cost of living crisis and boost growth (Rob Blackie)
The Independent View: Nobody falls in love with a manifesto (James Bradford)
Bridges Matter (Francis Chubb)
For disabled people, a simple game of football comes with a terrifying price tag: their benefits (Jean-François Burford)

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