Category Archives: Op-eds

Phil Bennion MEP writes: It’s time we had a sensible, evidence-led debate on EU freedom of movement

By Phil Bennion | Thu 16th January 2014 - 11:45 am

Freedom of movement is one of the EU’s most cherished achievements. It has given millions of people the opportunity to work, study and retire across the continent and has brought huge economic and social gains.

But the recent debate has taken a serious turn for the worse. Both the Conservatives and Labour are dancing to the tune of UKIP.

It falls to Liberal Democrats to set the record straight and defend the benefits that freedom of movement brings, including for the 2 million or so British citizens who live across the EU. These are not just retirees in Spain or Portugal, but …

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Tagged eu, eu migration and european elections 2014 | 40 Comments

Opinion: Is Europe “falling behind” – or is it leading the way?

By Mike Biden | Thu 16th January 2014 - 9:43 am

Where did George Osborne get his figures from? Who writes his speeches?

A quick look at Wikipedia offers four sources of data for GDP per capita in 2012. The first and simplest comes from the IMF (as it omits odd places such as Monaco and Liechtenstein).

Of the top 30 no less than 14 are members of the EU, 7 are major oil producers, 3 are the great trading hubs of Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland and the remaining 6 are Australia, Canada, United States, Japan, Iceland, and Israel.

At 23^rd in the list the UK is …

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Tagged europe and george osborne | 13 Comments

Opinion: UKIP – let’s have a debate about low skills

By Helen Flynn | Tue 14th January 2014 - 5:04 pm

There has been an inconsistency between two highly prominent policy areas that has been niggling away at the back of my mind for quite some time now. UKIP needs to take note.

So, take two policy areas and also take into account the temperature (at least according to the Daily Mail, etc) of the voters.

The first area is education. Schools that do not match up to the floor levels at Key Stage 2 and at GCSE are pounced upon by Ofsted. They require improvement or are put into special measures. All children must get 5 good GCSEs. They must progress and they must aspire. Think of the slogans that populate the UK and US education policy discourse: “no child must be left behind; “every child matters”; and social mobility is regarded and upheld as a kind of rebalancing panacea to address all social ills and help narrow the gap.

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Tagged education, featured, immigration and ukip | 26 Comments

Opinion: Leaderless parties don’t make for good partners in hung Parliaments

By Mark Pack | Tue 14th January 2014 - 12:30 pm

The recent Twitter-flirtation between Nick Clegg and Ed Balls was in itself not hugely significant, even if it was a welcome burst of public banter taking the place of off-the-record briefings.

Politicians, after all, manage to be polite to each other far more often than Prime Minister’s Questions might suggest, and the ability to behave (occasionally) like a well-mannered, polite adult is part of what makes them politicians who get insulted in the comments on blogs rather than commenters who insult politicians in the comments on blogs.

However it is symptomatic also …

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Tagged labour | 16 Comments

The three dimensions to Alistair Carmichael’s speech: positive vision of UK, incoherent nationalist ideas and future powers

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 13th January 2014 - 4:54 pm

Alistair Carmichael’s keynote speech and subsequent question and answer session in Stirling today touched three different dimensions of the constitutional debate, the last of which should cheer any Liberal Democrat heart. Up until now, roughly, the nationalist campaign has been all about painting a pretty picture of how all our problems would disappear if we controlled our own destiny, and in dismissing all searching for detail and questioning as scaremongering. The pro UK campaign has been about robust analysis of the SNP positions, but it hasn’t even made my heart sing and I’m voting for them. It’s been all head and fact and evidence based and worthy, but it’s not appealed to the emotions. The parts of Carmichael’s speech trailed overnight heavily emphasised what Scotland gains as being part of the UK, though. Were we about to see a change of emphasis?

The positive vision for the UK

It’s not just about money, said Alistair. It’s about what the 4 nations of the UK have built together. He said Scotland gets more out than it puts in which will no doubt have the nationalists in a tailspin of indignation – but the same is the case for all the countries which make up the UK, greater than the sum of their parts.

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Tagged Alistair Carmichael, featured, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 5 Comments

Guy Verhofstadt writes… 2014 European elections and the challenge for Liberals

By Guy Verhofstadt | Mon 13th January 2014 - 12:38 pm

This year’s European elections are bound to be a tough fight. Eurosceptics such as UKIP and the French National Front are determined to turn back the clock and tear down the internal market, stoking xenophobia and putting millions of jobs at risk. In the UK context, the Conservatives appear to want to throw in the towel and leave the EU, whilst Labour are still sitting uncomfortably on the fence. Only Lib Dems are clear where they stand as the party of In.

Being the main pro-European party, across the EU, though does not mean defending the status quo. As Liberals we …

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Tagged civil liberties, crime, european elections 2014, jobs and single market | 27 Comments

Opinion: Why I backed the lobbying bill

By David Boyle | Mon 13th January 2014 - 9:12 am

Sarah Teather’s interview in the Guardian over the Christmas period talked about the way the political system tends to invent simple issues, in order to give the impression of solving them.

She is clearly right. Because governments are beset by global issues, by phenomenally complex systems, and they fear upsetting their key compromises – then it must sometimes seem easier to stick to the purely symbolic.

What Sarah didn’t say is that oppositions and campaign groups are almost as guilty. They create symbolic issues over proposed legislation which they can campaign on. They win, nothing changes, and everyone stays …

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Tagged lobbying bill | 27 Comments

Opinion: as Labour and the Conservatives play “Find the Lady” on immigration, what are we to do?

By Mark Valladares | Sun 12th January 2014 - 11:45 am

I must admit that the whole immigration debate bemuses me. As Labour and the Conservatives compete for the prize of being ‘not quite as tough on migrants as UKIP want to be’, some of my fellow Liberal Democrats respond by only talking of the benefits of migration, making the mistake of assuming that there is a rational debate to be had there.

The problem is that there isn’t – not now, at least. Instead, I suggest a different approach – holding the other three parties to account over their proposals. You see, I have concluded that most of the proposals will …

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Tagged conservatives, labour, migration policy and ukip | 28 Comments

Danny Alexander MP writes: We shouldn’t fritter away our EU influence when we can lead drive for jobs and growth

By Danny Alexander MP | Fri 10th January 2014 - 7:57 pm

As the House of Lords debates the EU Referendum Bill, you may be forgiven for thinking that the Coalition Government has already legislated for a referendum. In fact we did – in 2011 Parliament passed the EU Act which holds that there will be a referendum if there is a transfer of powers from the UK to the EU. This is a sensible approach which means that the British people will get their say in a referendum when our terms of membership change.

At the time, Conservative Ministers strongly supported the EU Act and rejected attempts by their own backbenchers to …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged conservatives, eu, eu referendum and featured | 22 Comments

The Independent View: Lobbying Bill protects multinational corporate interests at expense of charity campaigns

By Richard Carr | Fri 10th January 2014 - 8:55 am

The Robin Hood Tax campaign is facing a tough opponent – not just from the usual source of the financial sector and their allies, but from legislation currently going through the House of Lords.

The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill is due to go to its report stage next week. The Robin Hood Tax campaign cannot support it for a number of reasons, and we urge peers of all political colours not to rush the bill through just to get it passed in time for the 2015 election. The legislation would hamper our campaigning abilities whilst empowering …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged house of lords and lobbying bill | 16 Comments

Opinion: Son of Plan A – why are we supporting?

By Bill le Breton | Thu 9th January 2014 - 3:56 pm

Economic policy is always a mixture of fiscal, monetary and political policy.

“Nick, George has come up with another of his jolly good wheezes. You remember that Plan A malarkey ..?”

Well, dear reader, you do remember Plan A, don’t you?

Eliminate the deficit by 2015; keep fingers crossed Expansionary Fiscal Contraction (EFC) works; use a 20:80 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts; provide monetary stimulus; flush out the Labour Party, and keep Vince and the ‘SDPers’ in their box.

Well, it put a spanner in the recovery-works and, with no sign of EFC or King’s stimulus working, it was pretty soon shelved …

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Tagged deficit reduction and economy | 29 Comments

Lord Roger Roberts writes…Focussing attention on the humanitarian cost of the Syrian civil war

By Lord Roger Roberts | Thu 9th January 2014 - 12:32 pm

This afternoon, the House of Lords will discuss the tragedy of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Syria. Lord Roberts secured the debate, and here he sets out his views exclusively for LDV.

The crisis in Syria, which the UN has described as ‘the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of modern times’ is now reaching overwhelming levels. The total number of Syrian refugees is now estimated to be 2.3 million, of whom 0.5% – around 12,000 souls – are spread across the whole continent of Europe. Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest country, is bearing the brunt of this: an estimated 100 Syrians enter Bulgaria daily, many of them illegally. The country simply cannot cope.

The United Nations and its non-governmental organisation and local government partners in the region face many pressures. These organisations are fighting to ensure social stability. In Lebanon, in light of extraordinary population growth, essential resources, space, and labour are all causes of significant social tension. In East Lebanon, a makeshift refugee camp providing shelter for hundreds was burnt down last month, and the Lebanese town of Tripoli saw bloodshed mirroring the Syrian conflict in the latter months of 2013. Alarmingly, car bombs in Beirut are once again headline news. The spread of violence will continue, threatening to destabilise the whole region, unless practical and immediate measures are taken to relieve the pressure on Syria’s generous but inundated neighbours.

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Tagged featured, house of lords and syria | 3 Comments

Should MPs be allowed to take their babies into the voting lobby?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 9th January 2014 - 11:28 am

There’s been a bit of controversy over the issue of breastfeeding in the House of Commons and taking babies into the voting lobby sparked by comments by Jo Swinson, who gave birth to her son Andrew on 22 December. The argument goes that you can take a sword into the Commons voting lobby, but not a baby. On face value, it sounds like yet another way in which Westminster needs to be dragged into the 21st century.

Jo said to the Guardian:

“I think it’s been lovely the way people have been really supportive in parliament of my pregnancy,” she said. ” I think some of the structures of the institutions of the House of Commons probably don’t make it as easy as it could be, in particular that you don’t get maternity cover. As a minister, I get cover for my work … but nobody else will be being the MP for East Dunbartonshire.”

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Tagged breastfeeding, david steel, featured, jenny willott, Jo Swinson and Parliament | 29 Comments

Opinion: 1914, 1973 and the lessons for an EU exit?

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 9th January 2014 - 10:13 am

The hundredth anniversary of the start of World War One has led to historians tortuously drawing parallels with the global rivalries of today. For Britain, the useful lessons from WW1 lie in European policy – and the rather lame campaign to stay in the EU.

After decades of anti-EU vignettes in UK newspapers, often with scant basis in fact, much of the British public have become emotionally negative towards ‘Europe’. There is receptiveness to the EU being blamed for all manner of problems; from perceived ‘illegal immigration’ to bureaucratic over-regulation.

The anti-EU camp has achieved an astonishing supplementary victory – confining the debate about the negative consequences of EU exit to a few ‘economic technicalities’. Investment curtailed? A million jobs lost? Claim and counter-claim fudge public perceptions on the possible economic downsides of EU exit.

What is surprising is that the in/out debate is conducted as if we were Iceland or Liechtenstein weighing up joining EFTA or the EU. It is also conducted as if it was still 1973 (when the UK joined), there were only 6 members, and we have 14 days to cancel.

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Tagged europe and ww1 | 30 Comments

Liberal Democrats end year with historic membership growth – but we must keep up the good work

By Austin Rathe | Wed 8th January 2014 - 11:29 am

The Liberal Democrats ended 2013 with 43,451 members, nearly 1000 more than we had at the start of the year.

This is historic for two reasons. Firstly, we’re the only party in recent history to increase their membership during a year in Government. Secondly, the party’s membership has dropped every year for the last decade (excluding a couple of bumps before general elections), so getting back to a position of growth in the middle of the electoral cycle is a significant achievement.

Underlying this headline is some more good news. The party’s retention of members is now just under 90%, which is …

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Tagged liberal democrats and membership | 14 Comments

Opinion: Farage: The Nostradamus of Politics

By Stuart Bonar | Wed 8th January 2014 - 8:44 am

Fear is a powerful motivator. Take, for example, its use in two political campaigns, one from each side of the Atlantic: the Daisy Girl ad, used in the re-election campaign of US president Lyndon Johnson in 1964; and the Labour tax bombshell broadcast, from our own Conservatives in 1992.

One made American voters ask, “Do I really want Barry Goldwater – a man who joked about lobbing a nuclear bomb at the Kremlin – to have his finger hovering over the red button?” The other made British voters ask, “Do I really want Labour to …

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Tagged immigration, nigel farage and ukip | 18 Comments

Opinion: The Immigration Trap

By David Allen | Tue 7th January 2014 - 5:33 pm

For liberal fundamentalists, open-door immigration policy exerts a fatal attraction. Right-wing economic liberals advocate the freedom to recruit cheap labour on the global market and make British business more profitable and competitive. Traditional centre-left liberals advocate anti-racism and individual freedom to migrate. Thus, immigration is one of those special issues which can be claimed to bring Left and Right together, and thereby supersede these “outdated” political concepts with an all-conquering philosophy of Liberalism.

Joe Public will have none of this. Joe believes it is bonkers to import shiploads of foreign labour while millions of natives

…

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Tagged immigration | 76 Comments

Opinion: Politicians should keep out of history debates

By Paul Stocker | Tue 7th January 2014 - 4:03 pm

Michael Gove’s intervention into the complex historical debate over the First World War was as bizarre as it was ignorant. Gove attacked ‘left wing historians’ for promoting the Blackadder (a satirical sitcom, not, unless I am mistaken, a documentary) viewpoint that thousands of young Brits were consigned to an early grave by an out of touch elite. The issue with Gove’s comments weren’t his interpretation of history, which is certainly arguable, but the idea that history and commemoration should be used to score political points.

It is the diversity of opinions and interpretations within historical scholarship which makes it such an interesting and enriching subject. One does not have to be a Marxist politically to appreciate the contribution Marxist historians have made to historical study, rather, these historians make up a small part of a multiplicity of opinions based on rigorous historical research.

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Tagged history and michael gove | 77 Comments

Norman Lamb writes… managing offenders with mental illness

By Norman Lamb MP | Mon 6th January 2014 - 1:06 pm

It is a really disturbing fact that 1 in 4 members of the prison population has a severe mental illness. Addressing this is one of the big social reforms which has not yet happened.

Far too often these conditions are diagnosed for the first time in prison. In many cases, their mental illness will have been a significant factor contributing to their criminal behaviour. If these people had been properly diagnosed when they first came into contact with police, and they had been provided with appropriate support and therapy, their offending actions might have been averted.

Identifying offenders with mental …

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Tagged crime and mental health | 3 Comments

Julian Huppert writes… an end to the chilling effects of libel action on free speech

By Julian Huppert | Mon 6th January 2014 - 12:03 pm

As we start a New Year, we always tend to look back on the past, as well as think to the future – and we do have a bad tendency to focus on the problems, not the successes.

But for a change, let’s celebrate another achievement – another manifesto commitment delivered, as the Defamation Act 2013 came into effect on New Year’s Day. This will hopefully mark an end to libel tourism, an end to the abuse of libel law by companies, and an end to the chilling effect threats of libel …

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Tagged defamation bill, featured and libel reform | 2 Comments

How can we do politics better?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 4th January 2014 - 9:59 am

There’s been a spate of articles and comments by Liberal Democrat politicians which, at a guess, isn’t co-ordinated, but they all address the same themes – the problems with the way that we do politics and lack of trust in politicians and institutions.

Paddy Ashdown told the Times (£), reported also for free in the Guardian that public faith in British institutions was “crumbling into dust” with some very harsh words for the BBC and NHS:

The BBC is revealed as an organisation which can’t manage its own affairs, misspends public money and seems to have been complicit in aggrandising

…

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Tagged featured, mark valladares, paddy ashdown, politics, sarah teather, tessa munt, the guardian, the mirror and the times | 46 Comments

Opinion: Going it alone

By John Knox | Fri 3rd January 2014 - 12:39 pm

As the new year dawns there’s much press speculation about when the Liberal Democrats are going to cut and run from the Coalition and start campaigning for the next election. At some point, of course, we are going to have to do this but having given an undertaking that we would work with the Tories for five years, that point I think should be quite late. But what we can do now is much more exciting.

We should declare that at the end of this coalition we shall not be entering into any further coalitions, either with the Tories or with Labour. And we should do this as soon as possible. We need to end this single-question politics of which way will the Liberal Democrats jump after the next election. This would allow us to get on with explaining our policies and winning back our support.

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Tagged coalition and general election 2015 | 59 Comments

Lord Roberts writes: It is time to open our doors to some of the most vulnerable people in the world

By Lord Roger Roberts | Fri 3rd January 2014 - 8:46 am

As 2013 drew to a close, politicians from across the political spectrum came to the same conclusion: that the UK should offer shelter to (at least) a small number of the two million refugees who have fled the war in Syria. Even scaremongerer-in-chief, Nigel Farage MEP, called upon the UK to honour its obligations under international law. Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP, told BBC Radio 4’s The World this Weekend that ‘clearly we can’t take all the refugees, but we should play our part as an open-hearted, compassionate country’. The Labour Party …

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Tagged Liberal democrats for seekers of sanctuary, sarah teather and syria | 3 Comments

Opinion: Emerging markets could mean the end of the elephant, but it’s not too late

By Richard Kilpatrick | Thu 2nd January 2014 - 5:54 pm

For some years I have been sponsoring an African Elephant called Grace. It was a birthday present that I have never had the heart to cancel. She is fortunate enough to live in a conservation area in Kenya. Grace is one of approximately 400,000 African Elephants still alive in the world, their population having been slashed by 50% since 1989, driven predominantly by the ivory trade. Despite an increasing shift in western attitudes very little has changed. Ever expanding globalisation and the economic crisis has resulted in several fluctuations in ivory demand, perpetuated by international ivory trade deals that have …

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Tagged africa, elephants and european union | 2 Comments

Opinion: Vince is wrong about London

By Simon McGrath | Thu 2nd January 2014 - 12:59 pm

One of the oddest statements made by a Lib Dem in 2013 was surely Vince Cable saying that London was “draining the life out of the rest of the country”’.

Odd not just because Vince is MP for a London constituency but because he was so clearly wrong – far from draining the life out of the rest of the UK, London is a huge contributor. The most obvious way is financially: London subsidises other parts of the UK which would have higher taxes or less public spending without the benefits of the London …

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Tagged economy, london and vince cable | 47 Comments

Opinion: 2014 – What’s next?

By Bill le Breton | Thu 2nd January 2014 - 10:32 am

Steve Richards suggests Nick Clegg, as a pluralist in the Blair tradition and as a sincere and patriotic person, will be open to an agreement with either the Tories or Labour if a balanced Parliament results in 2015.

Clegg is a pluralist, a pragmatic, a believer in good management as good politics and as such sincerely believes that Liberal Democrats in Government are beneficial to the county’s future.

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Tagged nick clegg and vince cable | 30 Comments

New Year reflections from Charles Kennedy: 2014 is not for the politically timid

By Charles Kennedy | Wed 1st January 2014 - 12:00 pm

Locally and nationally 2014 is going to be a decisive one – not just for us Liberal Democrats but for Scotland, the UK and the European Union as a whole.

It is going to be the most overwhelmingly political calendar year in the experience of most political participants. I believe that we are about to live through a period quite without precedent since 1974 – the year which saw two general elections. And its impact will be even more far reaching.

Both the European elections and the Scottish independence referendum offer us Liberal Democrats two pivotal platforms upon which to convey what, …

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Also posted in News | Tagged charles kennedy, eu, featured, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 18 Comments

Opinion: Managing the NHS

By Rob Parsons | Mon 30th December 2013 - 4:50 pm

I agree with Norman Tebbit. There, I’ve said it. The antique rottweiler was writing in the Telegraph in response to a number of intemperate comments made on another column about the service received from staff at the NHS. He said, among other things, “when things go wrong, as they have often done in the NHS, I believe it is right to blame the officers, especially the more senior ones, rather than the troops”. I agree with him whole heartedly on that point, though not on …

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Tagged NHS | 7 Comments

Deserving poor, undeserving poor and welfare reform – can you have one without considering the others?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 30th December 2013 - 2:50 pm

Like many people, I often hear about welfare reform in terms of finding ways to cut spending in difficult times with a degree of nervousness. Experience tells me that, at one extreme, dozens, nay thousands, will suffer horribly, whereas at the other, the public are apparently horrified by the number of alleged skivers. But to even suggest that there might be deserving and undeserving poor is anathema to those who believe in greater state action in challenging poverty.

And yet, without using such phrases, the debate seems to have swung towards making such distinctions. For example, EU migrants without work are …

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Tagged welfare reform | 42 Comments

Opinion: e-voting coming back to life?

By Mark Pack | Mon 30th December 2013 - 10:36 am

The announcement last month by House of Commons Speaker John Bercow of a commission on digital democracy has kicked the debate over e-voting back to life in the UK.

For many years it has been a rather odd debate in the UK because, all too rarely, this is an area where (back when Labour was in power) large sums of money were spent on extensive pilot schemes before, based on the evidence gathered, the idea was dropped. It is how policymaking should work: have an idea, test it and then make a decision based on the evidence.

Yet the …

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Tagged electronic voting | 16 Comments