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Category Archives: Op-eds

Opinion: Ukraine – Next Steps

By Toby Fenwick | Tue 4th March 2014 - 12:27 pm

An international affairs policy wonk could be forgiven for thinking that April Fools’ Day had come early. After all, the last 72 hours have seen the Russian Federation occupy Ukraine’s Crimea, and apparently threaten to attack Ukrainian forces in Crimea if they don’t surrender. Such an action is in direct violation of the 1994 Bucharest Memorandum, the OSCE’s Helsinki Final Act, and Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

The use of force without the explicit authorisation of the UN Security Council has a very specific name: aggression. The Nuremburg Tribunal described aggression as the “supreme international crime”: aggression starts wars, destroys lives and is a visceral attack on the international rule of law.

Simply, aggression is international gangsterism of the highest order.

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Tagged featured, putin, russia and ukraine | 70 Comments

Opinion: How to balance the UK economy

By David Boyle | Tue 4th March 2014 - 10:41 am

I was a bit flummoxed after being taken to task on Lib Dem Voice last week for being anti-business. What had I done? I had been criticising payday loan companies for hoovering up money away from local companies.

There are two underlying problems here, confusions which muddy the political debate on business.

The first is the misleading idea that somehow all business is always on the same side. Organisations like the CBI claim to speak for business while actually promoting the interests of the biggest. It isn’t the way the world is.

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Tagged banks | 7 Comments

Have you downloaded your Spring Conference app yet?

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 3rd March 2014 - 1:01 pm

The new Liberal Democrat conference app is now available on both Google Play and Apple’s app store. The instructions for downloading it in the Conference agenda are not ever so clear as they don’t tell you what its called – Lib Dem Spring Conf 2014.

If you have a Blackberry or a Windows phone, you need to go here.

I downloaded mine this morning with more than a little apprehension. You see, it’s never worked for me before. I have always had problems getting the “My Schedule” part of it to work. To me, that part is the whole point. …

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Tagged apps, liberal democrats spring conference 2014 and technology | 16 Comments

Opinion: Pubs v Pubcos, which side are you on, Mr Cameron?

By Gareth Epps | Mon 3rd March 2014 - 9:57 am

Dear Dave,

The last time we spoke was in the Tite Inn at Chadlington, a great village pub with a landlord who I and others helped get rate relief for to keep the last pub in the village going. We know you appreciate pubs – when the phone-hacking scandal was rife, you bolted to Charlbury Beer Festival, though you needed practice at Aunt Sally. Maybe you’ll have more time to do that soon.

Fast forward a decade or so and you have a big decision in front of you. With over 100 pubs a month closing due largely to the overpricing …

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Tagged fair deal for your local, liberal democrats spring conference 2014 and pubco | 19 Comments

Farron: It’s Lib Dems v UKIP in European elections

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd March 2014 - 9:43 am

Last year on the eve of Spring Conference, we reported Tim Farron’s controversial interview in House magazine in which he described activists as cockroaches and said the party was in a critical state. He certainly got into a bit of trouble from Them Indoors, but, as Stephen Tall pointed out:

The language is colourful: that’s Tim for you. He could give dull, measured interviews that are risk-free. But it’s not his way. And I don’t think many activists would want him to be anything other than himself. It is precisely because Tim is un-spun, a straight-talker who takes his role

…

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Tagged independent on sunday, local elections and tim farron | 10 Comments

Can everyone please just play nice? Briefing against other Liberal Democrats and insulting party activists is never going to help.

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 1st March 2014 - 4:33 pm

We’ve had some pretty strange and random articles appearing all over the place about who might replace Nick Clegg. The least strange and random was of course this by my co-editor Stephen Tall.

People who know Graeme Littlejohn have generally been laughing their heads off at the notion that he’s been brought in as Danny Alexander’s Head of Office as some Machiavelli who’s going to win him the leadership. That’s been in a couple of papers now and I’m just wondering who on earth is spreading this stuff. Actually, I do have some ideas, but these are better kept to myself for the time being.

Yesterday, it was the turn of Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael to get the Leadership Speculation Treatment, by Thomas Byrne over at the New Statesman.:

Carmichael has managed to avoid falling prey to the left/right divide emerging more clearly in the party as it gets used to power. “He could be a compromise candidate… post-coalition we need someone to hold the party together. Alistair might be the guy,” one Lib Dem told me. As chief whip for the Lib Dems before becoming Scottish Secretary, he will know where the bodies are buried. Not only did this position make building a relationship with all the MPs in the party compulsory, it also meant he commanded their respect. Don’t mess with Carmichael.

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Tagged Alistair Carmichael, benjamin franklin, Danny Alexander, graeme littlejohn, party unity, tim farron and vince cable | 35 Comments

Opinion: Do people not care about civil liberties?

By Stuart Bonar | Sat 1st March 2014 - 10:54 am

It is inevitable that amongst the images of more than 1.8 million Yahoo! users hoovered up by GCHQ there are photos of children, and surely – given the scale of it – of children in their bedrooms. Yet where is the outcry?This latest discovery from the Snowden files is not simply the next chapter in the story of how every aspect of our online lives has been monitored over recent years. It also blows apart the standard defence used so far that only metadata – who called who when, but not the content – has been gathered up and …

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Tagged civil liberties, edward snowden, privacy and surveillance | 28 Comments

Opinion: On child poverty targets, on which I agree with David Laws

By Prateek Buch | Sat 1st March 2014 - 9:16 am

“A fair, free and open society, in which… no one shall be enslaved by poverty.”

The fundamental basis of our party’s constitution – its very soul – is the elimination of poverty. We may disagree amongst us on how best to achieve this ambitious goal, but there’s little dissent on having it as a goal, particularly when it comes to the blight of children growing up in poverty.

As Caron made clear, we find ourselves in government with a party that doesn’t share many of our values – rarely is this crystallised as starkly as this week’s battle over child poverty …

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Tagged child poverty and david laws | 14 Comments

Liberal Youth seeks your views on improving further education

By LY Working Group on Further Education | Fri 28th February 2014 - 11:25 am

Yesterday Nick Clegg made an announcement on Further Education. This is a response from members of Liberal Youth’s working group on Further Education.

Nick Clegg’s announcement yesterday was largely focussed on improving careers advice, severely damaged as a result of the scrapping of Connexions, and giving those who haven’t gone to Higher Education an equal chance to those who have. Nick talked about creating a ‘one stop shop’ website for 16 year olds to help them plan their next move, similar to UCAS but will include information about apprenticeships, …

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Tagged further education and liberal youth | 7 Comments

David Laws challenges Tories on child poverty

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 28th February 2014 - 9:28 am

The frustrations of being in government with the Tories are no greater than when they are concerned with issues of poverty and vulnerability. Many Liberal Democrats have ongoing concerns about welfare reforms which remove support from people who need it. However much we might try to console ourselves with the fact that we are making a difference with things like free school meals, the raising of the tax threshold, extra childcare for the poorest, an early start to education for the poorest 2 year olds and making sure that the whole country enjoys the benefits of the economic recovery and …

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Tagged child poverty, david laws and iain duncan smith | 9 Comments

My work placement with Chris Davies MEP

By Louise Furness | Thu 27th February 2014 - 1:18 pm

Louise Furness recently spent a week on a work placement with North West MEP Chris Davies. Here she tells us about her insight into life in Brussels.

Monday: Walking into the European Parliament for the first time is quite something. It is an impressive complex and a hive of activity – and this is supposedly a quieter period as fewer proposals are put to Parliament and MEPs spend more time in their constituencies in the run-up to the elections. The week began with a team meeting, during which Chris discussed his diary with Carly and Joana from his office. This …

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Tagged chris davies and european parliament | Leave a comment

So what’s happening at Conference? Part 2: The Training

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 26th February 2014 - 4:45 pm

Part 2 of my quick guide to Conference features the training programme that’s on offer on Saturday. You can read Part 1 on the debates here.

The biggest problem with Conference is that there simply isn’t enough time to do everything you want. There aren’t enough hours in the day, even if you dispense with sleeping to catch up with friends and go to all the debates and fine meetings and training sessions you want. That’s not just because many of the things you want to go …

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Tagged liberal democrats spring conference 2014 and training | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg and Vince Cable highlight Liberal Democrat achievements in higher education

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 25th February 2014 - 9:47 pm

When I went to speak in the St Andrew’s University debate last week, I did a bit of what I described as getting the tin opener and the worm can perilously close to each other, but pointed out that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were twice as likely to go to university as they were 10 years ago. I also pointed out that those graduates on the lowest incomes would be paying much less than they were under Labour.

I was greatly assisted in preparing my remarks by Stephen Tall’s piece in January on the latest data in which …

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Tagged featured, higher education, nick clegg, vince cable and young people | 27 Comments

Opinion: Reflections on the new Party website

By Iain Donaldson | Tue 25th February 2014 - 12:12 pm

The first thing you notice on the new party website is the new logo. There is a history in the Liberal Democrats of changing the logo to reflect a change in the Leader and as this new logo appears to be being rolled out over several months one wonders if this is a pre-emptive strike by the grey suits in Lib Dem HQ? As a part of that change we appear to have again opted for an expensive bespoke typeface that will be beyond the budget of most local parties and will create the impression of disconnect between the team on the ground and the team at LDHQ. There is nothing wrong with Calibri or Cambria, guys.

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Tagged party website | 16 Comments

Opinion: Lib Dems should get behind renaming of National Insurance

By Adam Corlett | Tue 25th February 2014 - 9:07 am

Tory MP Ben Gummer is today introducing a 10-minute rule bill “to make provision for National Insurance to be known as Earnings Tax”. It’s a very simple renaming proposal. But branding is important, not least in politics. The Chancellor is “said to be attracted to the idea”, so if Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg were to support it, the change could make it into the Budget.

It’s well known that National Insurance is an extra income tax in all but name. As far back as 1994, Lib Dem policy was “to abolish national insurance contributions and create an integrated tax …

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Tagged centreforum, earnings tax and national insurance | 31 Comments

Opinion: Are payday loans impoverishing our neighbourhoods?

By David Boyle | Mon 24th February 2014 - 5:21 pm

There is a central moral conundrum at the heart of the payday loan phenomenon.

It is that payday loan companies are designed to help people through what are intended to be unusual and temporary periods of financial difficulty. Long-term and repeated use of payday loans is seriously expensive.

Yet – and here’s the rub – the business plans of most payday loan companies envisage growth. Their business purpose, and the purpose of their investors, is to maximise their profits – and this is bound to be at the expense of some of the poorest families and the most vulnerable places.

My report for …

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Tagged economy, payday loans and poverty | 25 Comments

Clash of the Cabinets: A wasted opportunity

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 24th February 2014 - 2:51 pm

I’m feeling a bit disgruntled today. My two governments are in the news. The Scottish and UK Cabinets have set up rival camps, glowering at each other with the City of Aberdeen providing an unwitting No Man’s Land.

How very different it could have been.

Given that these governments share responsibility in really important areas like employment, climate change, transport and energy, I think it would have been so constructive if they’d been able to organise a joint session to discuss these issues. Youth unemployment, for example, is a significant issue north of the border and it’s something that both governments are …

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Tagged alex salmond, david cameron, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 12 Comments

Opinion: Nick, Nigel and the Hokey Cokey party

By Adam Killeya | Mon 24th February 2014 - 1:28 pm

In common with many Lib Dem activists I have ambivalent feeling about Nick Clegg. I don’t feel that there is a strong case to either say that that no good had come from the coalition or from his leadership, or alternatively that it’s all been peachy. In my view it’s actually a case of what you think the balance has been between successes and disappointments, a debate where I sit roughly in the middle.

However Nick’s latest move – challenging Nigel Farage to a public debate on Europe – has my unbridled admiration, both morally and politically. Morally not only because …

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Tagged conservatives, david cameron, eu, nick clegg, nickvnigel, nigel farage and ukip | 21 Comments

Opinion: Let individuals control who uses their health information

By Mohsin Khan | Mon 24th February 2014 - 9:05 am

Alongside pizza flyers and estate agent adverts, you may have received a leaflet on Care.data.

This April, GP surgeries were going to upload data from GP records onto a national HSCIC database – unless you opted-out. The leaflet had no opt-out form or Freepost return address.

If you don’t opt-out, medical data, including prescriptions and your conditions, will leave the surgery and go to HSCIC. HSCIC then centrally pseudo-anonymise it – removing your name. Your birthdate and postcode stays.

HSCIC’s own risk assessment warns patients could be identified if the pseudo-anonymised data was joined up with other easily-available data. And centrally …

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Tagged data protection and NHS | 23 Comments

Who’s afraid of Scottish independence?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 23rd February 2014 - 2:00 pm

The last month has seen the ‘Yes Scotland’ independence campaign take a battering.

First, Mark Carney raised doubts about Alex Salmond’s plans for a post-independence currency union between Scotland and the remainder of the UK.

This warning was echoed when, with more naked partisanship, George Osborne, Danny Alexander and Ed Balls teamed up to state they would each refuse to form such a currency union.

And then last Sunday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hammered in …

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Also posted in Scotland | Tagged alex salmond, Danny Alexander, ed balls, featured, george osborne, josé manuel barroso, ludovic kennedy and scottish independence | 33 Comments

My first foray into the world of student debating…

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd February 2014 - 3:10 pm

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I had an email from the President of the St Andrew’s University Debating Society inviting me to take part in their annual Parliamentary Debate on the subject “This House has no faith in Her Majesty’s Government.”

I was heavily encouraged by my co-editor Stephen Tall (who had taken part last year) and others to accept, despite my reservations. It had been a long time since I’d been at a university debate and I’d never spoken in one, not even from the floor. They key thing for me is that I write, I don’t speak. My gob is not equipped with the advantage of a backspace key. Nor can I tell jokes or do all the theatrical stuff. I allowed myself to be talked into it, though. By the morning of the debate on Thursday, I was alternately hyperventilating and mewling into a pillow, wondering why on earth I’d put myself in this situation. I had no alternative, though, but to embrace the fear and get on with it.

My satnav took me on the scariest route possible to North East Fife. I had thought of defying her, but she gets incredibly passive aggressive if you do so. I joined members of the Debating Society’s Board of 10 for a pre-debate meal. Unusually, I was the only speaker there. Chatting to them and finding out about the university and the society really helped settle my nerves. They were very lovely and hospitable.

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Tagged debates, ldv team at play and st andrews university debating society | 2 Comments

On Demonisation

By Joe Otten | Fri 21st February 2014 - 5:55 pm

A fellow councillor recently retweeted in a spirit of irony, something about ‘evil’ public sector workers. After a short exchange it became clear that the issue was the ‘demonisation’ of public sector workers by the government.

Now it almost has the status of received wisdom that Michael Gove hates teachers, Jeremy Hunt hates nurses, Eric Pickles hates local government workers, all Tories hate welfare recipients, that this hatred leads to demonisation, and the Liberal Democrats, while perhaps not directly involved, are quite comfortable with all this.

I was reluctant to get involved, as I disagree often with Michael Gove, and have no …

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79 Comments

Opinion: Professionalisation vs Professionals in early years

By Patrick McAuley | Fri 21st February 2014 - 4:03 pm

The Liberal Democrat Education Association Conference 2014 was a thoroughly enjoyable event with friendly people and some fantastic debate. One such debate was the emphasis placed on professionals teaching in early years education.

It is important to note, governance relationships within the modern welfare-state has evolved from its top-down centralised roots to a system of partnerships, networks and stakeholders. Equally, the philosophy of state-interventionism has moved away from the notion that education professionals exist in isolation from other stakeholders such as parents as well as other areas of welfare such as health. Therefore to direct ones faith in …

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Tagged early years education and surestart | 2 Comments

Caroline Pidgeon writes… Power to the people – why conference paper has my backing

By Caroline Pidgeon | Fri 21st February 2014 - 11:59 am

Last July I wrote a piece for Lib Dem Voice about devolving powers to London and other large cities. My article was drawing attention to a report published last summer called Raising the Capital (pdf). This report had been produced by the London Finance Commission, an authoritative and wide ranging group of experts from both inside and outside politics, and crucially including experts from Birmingham and Manchester and chaired by the highly respected Professor Travers of the London School of Economics.

The report highlighted that barely seven per cent of all the tax paid by …

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Tagged devolution, electoral reform, political reform and votes at 16 | 12 Comments

Norman Lamb writes… Working together for better mental health crisis care

By Norman Lamb MP | Fri 21st February 2014 - 9:47 am

When someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, it essential that they feel able to access the help they need – and quickly. They will probably be in a state of extreme distress and confusion. Without help, people may be at risk of causing harm to themselves and those around them (cases of injury to others are actually very rare). They often end up in police cells – completely inappropriately. They may even commit suicide – and all too often, I hear tragic cases of suicide after someone has repeatedly been unable to access mental …

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Tagged featured, health, mental health and NHS | 2 Comments

Opinion: A real answer to the ‘English Question’

By George Potter | Thu 20th February 2014 - 5:30 pm

One of the more interesting policy papers to be debated at Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in York is ‘Power to the People’ which sets out with the aim of providing a blueprint for a federal UK. In almost all areas it is a brilliant paper which offers a clear, radical, liberal vision of the future of our country.

However, there is one flaw in this paper. And that is the embarrassing fudge which it offers when it comes to English Devolution.

It proposes that England use Single Transferable Vote proportional representation for local elections – so far so good – but then …

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Tagged political reform | 42 Comments

Yes, food poverty is real – but the situation is complex and solutions are not straightforward

By Nick T | Thu 20th February 2014 - 2:30 pm

Food poverty, it seems to me, is a slightly odd term, but its apparent necessity is, I think, a reflection of the tortuous treatment imposed on the word “poverty”. Poverty now, in common usage (at least among experts in such issues), means “relative poverty”, which essentially means inequality. So when we actually want to refer to poverty as the word would historically have been understood (as being unable to satisfy one’s basic needs) we have to apply a prefix: fuel poverty, food poverty etc.

While Britain clearly has its share of poverty on the relative definition, in theory there ought to be no such thing as food poverty. A generously funded social security system should mean that anyone in danger of being in such a situation (whether in work or not) ought to be caught by the state’s safety net.

I think most can agree, though, that this theoretical scenario is not always the case in practice.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t think the agreement goes any further, particularly when we look at levels of food poverty and its causes.

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Tagged featured and food poverty | 97 Comments

Julian Huppert MP writes: Lib Dem immigration policy paper is strong, balanced and compassionate

By Julian Huppert | Thu 20th February 2014 - 12:40 pm

Public concern about immigration has been fuelled by the rise of UKIP, and further driven by the Tories desperately trying to show how tough they can be on foreigners, and Labour keen not to be left out of the ‘sounding tough’ rhetoric. I am always disappointed that just about the only thing Labour has apologised for is letting too many people into the country in their 13 years.

We must stand firm against the anti-foreigner tide, and the Immigration Policy Paper, which you can read here, does exactly that. Andrew Stunell has led the working group impressively to produce a …

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Tagged featured, immigration and liberal democrats spring conference 2014 | 14 Comments

Opinion: Food poverty is real and we need to address it

By Kelly-Marie Blundell | Thu 20th February 2014 - 11:15 am

There is some merit in the argument presented by the Archbishop of Westminster that cuts, and indeed caps, to welfare are removing a safety net for those worst off in society.

We see in the Independent that one in six GPs have been asked to refer people to food banks, and while unemployment may be dropping, people are still struggling with stagnant wages and rising costs.

I’ve long argued against the benefits cap, stating that the cost of living varies so broadly across the country that such a cap can only lead to people in so-called affluent areas being disadvantaged. …

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Tagged food poverty | 20 Comments

Graham Watson MEP writes: The time has come for the EU to take decisive action over Ukraine

By Graham Watson | Wed 19th February 2014 - 6:24 pm

The past twenty four hours has seen the situation in Ukraine escalate from serious to critical. We are only now seeing the true extent of the clashes between police and anti-government protestors, with the number of fatalities standing at 26 but set to rise as the violence continues. What is clear is that last night’s attack on protestors by the police was at the direct order of the Ukrainian government. While the government claimed it was simply aiming to restore law and order, the underlying motive was for President Yanukovych to reassert his legitimacy. As far as I am concerned, …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged eu, featured and ukraine | 24 Comments