Category Archives: Op-eds

Toby Fenwick

Opinion: A no-fly zone offers the best chance of success in Syria

By Toby Fenwick | Thu 29th August 2013 - 4:04 pm

The conflict in Syria has continued with greater or lesser public notice for more than two years now. In this time thousands have died, millions have been displaced within Syria and into neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. And the international community has done little or nothing, hamstrung by Russian support for Assad, Chinese support for non-intervention, and ultimately, lack of western interest.

The large-scale chemical attack in a Damascus suburb claiming at least 300 lives at once changed everything and nothing. Everything, in that such an egregious violation of the laws of armed conflict, along with President Obama’s previous warnings of …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: Syria – I know what’s wrong; working out what’s right is rather harder

By Mark Pack | Thu 29th August 2013 - 11:54 am

It is easy to work out what I disagree with on Syria.

The absurd politics of those on the left who have never lifted the smallest placard in protest again Assad’s wide scale murders but break out a garage-full the moment there is a whiff of US involvement in something.

Or those who talk about Syria with reference to Iraq but without references too to countries such as the Ivory Coast or Sierra Leone, where military intervention worked. Or without reference to countries such as the former Yugoslavia where the problem was not that military intervention took place but that it took …

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Jonathan Brown

Opinion… Syria: what do we do now? And, as importantly, why? (Part 3)

By Jonathan Brown | Thu 29th August 2013 - 8:42 am

The experience of the war in Iraq rightly made us all more sceptical about involvement in the Middle East. But the underlying principle of ‘responsibility to protect’, that as human beings we have a duty to one another, remains as true as it has ever been. It is too late for there to be a good outcome in Syria, but there are ‘less bad’ alternatives we should aim for.

No one is considering sending in the army. There’s no support for it, scant evidence we could do it legally and little reason to think it would make things better rather than …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 5 Comments
Jonathan Brown

Opinion… Syria: what do we do now? And as importantly, why? (Part 2)

By Jonathan Brown | Wed 28th August 2013 - 6:59 pm

In part 1, I looked at where the Syrian uprising came from and argued that we should not be afraid to ‘pick a side’. This time I want to review the failures of the UK’s current policy (or lack of one).

It’s probably uncontroversial to say that most of us would have wished for the Assad regime to hold elections, release its grip on power and transition peacefully to democracy. And that as a fallback option, many of us would have been happy with a negotiated pact between the regime and the opposition, along the lines of what was more …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 2 Comments
Tahir Maher

Opinion: Experience tells us that attacking Syria would harm rather than help

By Tahir Maher | Wed 28th August 2013 - 3:53 pm

I live near Forbury Gardens in Reading where the Maiwand Lion statue was erected in 1886 to commemorate the loss of 280 soldiers from the 66th Royal Berkshire Regiment at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan on 27th July 1880. There is talk of a memorial for our brave soldiers who fought and have lost their lives in the current campaign in Helmand. In my opinion, when the Americans and the British leave, Karzai won’t be too far behind and Mullah Omar will be reinstated as leader. In recent years we also have the experience of the war in Iraq …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 20 Comments
Jonathan Brown

Opinion… Syria: what do we do now? And as importantly, why? (Part 1)

By Jonathan Brown | Wed 28th August 2013 - 12:18 pm

There are no good options open to us. Our choices as a country are to jump from the top floor of the burning building where we currently stand or to turn and face the flames we’ve been fanning. I want us to take that leap – to make the effort to understand what outcome might be desirable and possible, and to work towards achieving it. While we’ve dithered, others have been working towards goals that should concern us: we have a stake in the outcome of this war.

This is the first of three articles, inspired not just by the chemical weapon …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 12 Comments
Ted Burke

The Independent View: Lost hours playing Snake – and reining in the banks on food pricing

By Ted Burke | Wed 28th August 2013 - 11:18 am

About a decade ago I was addicted to the classic Nokia game, Snake. If I had a spare few minutes I’d be guiding my pixelated reptile around the black and white screen of my mobile phone, trying to beat my high score. It was simple, hopelessly addictive and I couldn’t put it down.

As I happily helped the Snake on my screen eat itself full, like most people I was blissfully unaware that something was seriously unfair with global food pricing. The rules governing how much food costs – and banks taking advantage of them – was, and still is, locking …

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Also posted in Europe / International and The Independent View | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Syria: what do Liberal Democrats want?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 28th August 2013 - 9:57 am

Last night we brought you Nick Clegg’s view on Syria, which can be summarised as follows:

  • if we stand idly by we set a very dangerous precedent
  • the use of chemical weapons is a repugnant crime
  • we will not stand idly by when chemical weapons are used in complete breach of international law
  •  Government “is not going to act outside the remit of international law”
  • we want to stand up for the standards and norms in the civilised world

In the last couple of days Paddy Ashdown and Sir Menzies Campbell, two of the most respected voices this country has on foreign affairs, have been …

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The Independent View: Time to bring industry into the classroom

By James Kempton and Sam Tomlin | Wed 28th August 2013 - 9:00 am
 Too many young people leave education without the skills and understanding of industry that businesses need. The big increase in apprenticeships in recent years means that a lot more people are now experiencing vocational learning on the job.
But there is still a problem in further education colleges, where most vocational learners still get all or the majority their training. Currently only around 11% of teaching staff at these colleges also work in their chosen profession. In certain sectors such as STEM, where industry standards and practice move fast, knowledge can quickly become out of date. This leads to a gap

…

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
George Cunningham

Opinion: A more realistic approach to Defence policy

By George Cunningham | Tue 27th August 2013 - 3:33 pm

defenceThe Liberal Democrat Working Group on Defence came out last month with its policy paper “Defending the Future: UK Defence in the 21st Century”. Brussels and Europe Liberal Democrats made a detailed submission – praised by members of the working group – which also shows some alternative paths for the party’s defence policy. We suggest it is well worth a read before the party’s new defence policy motion comes up for debate at this Autumn’s party conference.

The Brussels and Europe Liberal Democrats’ paper calls for a more thought-through, long-term and realistic strategic approach by the Government, including defining more precisely Britain’s role in the world, a reform of security and defence-related institutions, the constant update of the threat assessment, the creation of out-of-area alliances to share military burden, ways for less expensive procurement, the capacity to regenerate of military forces quickly in time of war – and much more.

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George Potter

Opinion: Why aren’t we borrowing more?

By George Potter | Tue 27th August 2013 - 1:39 pm

At the moment the yield on the UK’s five year government gilts is 1.65%. What this means in plain English is that if our government wanted to borrow £1,000 it would have to pay back £1,083 in five years.

In contrast, if you or I or a business went to the bank and ask to borrow the same amount for five years we’d be looking at paying back well over £1,500 by the end of the loan.

What this tells us is that our government can borrow money very, very cheaply. It can borrow it at less than the rate of …

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David Gray

Opinion: We need urgent debate about Syria, not just rhetoric

By David Gray | Tue 27th August 2013 - 8:55 am

If recent news reports are to be believed, we are now edging closer and closer some form of military conflict with Syria. It is a fast moving situation; indeed, one that could escalate drastically within a matter of days. But with MPs on their summer holidays, there has been a worrying lack of proper debate about the issue.

A few months ago, an 87-year-old woman died and Parliament was recalled so that people could talk about it, at no small expense to the taxpayer. I have no wish to go through that particular debate again, but it is difficult to …

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The Voice

Lessons of Coalition (18): We need to show more loyalty to the voters

By The Voice | Sat 24th August 2013 - 2:15 pm

ldv coalition lessonsLibDemVoice is running a daily feature, ‘Lessons of Coalition’, to assess the major do’s and don’ts learned from our experience of the first 3 years in government. Reader contributions are welcome, either as comments or posts. The word limit is no more than 450 words, and please focus on just one lesson you think the party needs to learn. Simply email your submission to [email protected]. Today Alan Craw shares his thoughts.

Coalition government was never going to be easy, and so it proved, but the one general lesson we as …

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John Cole

Opinion: What moves me to go to Glasgow? Challenging Osborne’s Plan A

By John Cole | Sat 24th August 2013 - 10:30 am

I used to teach economics and in my retirement I have had the opportunity to follow closely the macro events of the last five years. The overwhelming weight of evidence is that the Osborne Plan A (expansionary fiscal consolidation) has been a disaster. Any objective analysis leads to this compelling conclusion – and Liberal Democrats should give up being “uberloyal” to the leadership and act in a dispassionate and evidence-informed manner.

You don’t have to take just my word for it. I can highly recommend Paul Krugman’s book End This Depression Now! and Mark Blyth’s recent publication Austerity – …

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Opinion: Government is at its best when it’s boring

By Andy Boddington | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 3:03 pm

If Alistair Darling had ever walked into the pub when I was pulling pints, I would have thrown him out on his ear for introducing the now deceased beer escalator.

Now I find myself applauding him. What he said today about High Speed 2 and transport policy was probably bad politics, but it is exceedingly good government.

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Opinion: Lessons from the failure of centre-liberal politics in Australia

By A Liberal Reform Board Member | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 1:03 pm

Australian DemocratsIn an island not so far away, in a time not so long ago, a socially liberal centrist party met its end under circumstances eerily similar to those the Liberal Democrats now find themselves in. The sudden demise of the Australian Democrats is a tale from the antipodes that holds several lessons for the Lib Dems.

The Australian Democrats were the 3rd force in Australian politics between 1977 and 2008, frequently holding the balance of power in Australia’s elected upper house and achieving election at the state and local council level. They played a lead role in many of the civil liberties, environmental protection and democratic reform battles in Australia during that time. At their height in the late 1990s, the Democrats were vital for the conservative government of John Howard to pass its legislation in the upper house.

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Nick Tyrone

Opinion: A Penny For Your Vote? – the costs of winning votes

By Nick Tyrone | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 11:03 am

Votes for cashThe Electoral Reform Society has released a paper entitled A Penny For Your Vote?, which explores the connection between politics and money. It will come as no surprise to most Liberal Democrats that the equation between cash and seats is out of kilter. But the hard numbers contained within the paper may still come as a shock.

The amount of money spent winning a single vote ranges from £3.07 down to 14 pence dependent on where in the country you live. The disparity between these two figures equates to the small number being 22 times paltrier than the large one. This is because, as most of you will have surmised already, the amount of cash that parties pour into a seat at a general election is mostly down to how marginal it is thought to be.

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George Potter

Opinion: Chelsea Manning is a woman. Get over it.

By George Potter | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 10:04 am

This week the leaker of the US diplomatic cables to Wikileaks, US Army private Bradley Manning formally announced that she will be living the rest of her life as a woman, hopes to have hormone therapy and would like to be referred to from now on with female pronouns.

Predictably, this triggered an onslaught of media attention referring to Chelsea Manning as “Bradley” and as “he”. This in turn triggered an equally predictable deluge of transphobic opinion and comment pieces across print, broadcast and online media.

Some of these pieces are of the “a dog isn’t a cat even if you …

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Tagged | 27 Comments
Gerald Vernon-Jackson

Opinion: Does the central and local government relationship need rewiring?

By Gerald Vernon-Jackson | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 9:03 am

Wired Government smallerThe relationship between central and local government in the UK has always been strained. The UK is one of the most centralised democracies in Europe, and as we have no written constitution local government has no automatic right to exist or do anything. Everything is dependent on the decisions of ministers.

The new Government in 2010 did good things in reversing some of the things the last right-wing, authoritarian and centralising government had done. The huge inspection and reporting regime was abolished. Ring fencing of budgets was mainly done away with. The Localism Act was brought in that gave local government the power of local competence.

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Also posted in Local government and News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

I’m a liberal and I’m sticking up for Nick Clegg over David Miranda and The Guardian

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 12:30 am

Civil liberties. It’s the issue that unites Lib Dems like no other. While you’ll find a range of views within the party on big issues that matter more to the voters — such as the economy or the NHS or even tuition fees — personal freedom, the right to live your life as you choose, is at the heart of liberalism. Nick Clegg made his name within the Lib Dems as shadow home affairs spokesman by proposing measures like the Freedom Bill and threatening to go to prison rather than carry an ID card.

Yet civil liberties is also the …

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Also posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 46 Comments
Paul Reynolds

Opinion: The Egypt crisis and the role of the UK

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 22nd August 2013 - 9:23 am

For the benefit of Lib Dem members who read LDV I thought it useful to offer up a perspective on the current crisis as a contribution to understanding on the topic – especially important from a Coalition perspective given the UK Foreign Secretary’s recent highly controversial pronouncements.

Historically the military has had a major role in Egyptian society and its age-old pursuit of autonomy & independence – from the centuries of Mamluks to the post-independence military governments, and President Mubarak’s Western-backed thirty-year de facto military rule. The state, whilst strong on ‘security’, is generally incompetent and corrupt, such that it is …

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Nick T

Why we should consider the detention of David Miranda and destruction of the Guardian’s data as distinct issues

By Nick T | Wed 21st August 2013 - 7:28 pm

The conflation of the detention of David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, and the story of the Guardian having destroyed the computers on which a version of the data released by Edward Snowden was stored was perhaps inevitable, and has certainly been encouraged by the Guardian. But we should avoid considering the issues as a single whole, for there are separate arguments at play in each in relation to the actions of the state and others, particularly when it comes to the actions of Liberal Democrats in government.

I have relatively few concerns about the state’s actions regarding …

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Caron Lindsay

Conference preview: The training programme

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st August 2013 - 2:10 pm

Some people go to Liberal Democrat Conference and never get anywhere near the debating hall, because the fringe, exhibition and training programme provide such a cornucopia of interesting and enriching entertainment. Others mix and match between debates and fringes.

This year’s training programme, which you can view in full here,  is intense. There are three and a half full days of sessions on a huge variety of subjects. During the day, there can be as many as nine sessions going on at once. The Party’s training guide has suggestions for courses to attend if you’re a local or parliamentary candidate, …

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The Voice

Lessons of Coalition (17): The two biggest problems are betrayal and betrayal

By The Voice | Wed 21st August 2013 - 12:40 pm

ldv coalition lessonsLibDemVoice is running a daily feature, ‘Lessons of Coalition’, to assess the major do’s and don’ts learned from our experience of the first 3 years in government. Reader contributions are welcome, either as comments or posts. The word limit is no more than 450 words, and please focus on just one lesson you think the party needs to learn. Simply email your submission to [email protected]. Today Alex Wilcock shares his thoughts.

The two biggest problems for any future coalition will be the breakdown of trust between the voters and the …

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Iain Donaldson

Opinion: Secret courts and the detention of David Miranda

By Iain Donaldson | Wed 21st August 2013 - 10:28 am
For a number of years where it was felt that taking a case into court may result in information being divulged that could harm national security successive British Governments have settled out of court.
 
This Coalition Government decided that this approach was too costly and so resolved to introduce closed material procedures, or secret courts, for civil cases brought by citizens against the intelligence services.
In these secret courts the citizen will lay their case before a Judge, who will then sit in private with the intelligence services present but the Citizen not, and consider evidence that may never have been seen

…

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Sam Phripp

Opinion: A Liberal approach to Higher Education

By Sam Phripp | Tue 20th August 2013 - 1:21 pm

University campusWhen people ask me why I’m a Liberal Democrat, I simplify it slightly. Yes, it’s because I have a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament and I think he’s pretty great, but it’s also because I quite like freedom, and I think it should be applied more liberally (see what I did there?).

I always describe Liberalism as being obsessed with freedom. It’s a very simple way of encompassing so many of the campaigns and issues we care so passionately about. We raised the tax threshold, because people on low incomes deserve freedom from a punitive tax burden. We legalised same-sex marriage because people deserve the freedom to marry whoever they see fit. The changes to benefits – controversial thought they are – are about ensuring that people aren’t beholden to the state without good reason.

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Caron Lindsay

Why I’m not so worried about David Miranda’s detention

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 20th August 2013 - 9:46 am

When David Miranda was arrested under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act at Heathrow Airport on Sunday morning, he had the best lawyers the Guardian could afford at least  arguing with the authorities if not with him for all of that time, the newspaper itself and the Brazilian Government, concerned at the treatment of one of its own citizens, to stick up for him. Even then, the authorities held on to him to within minutes of the maximum nine hours. Holding the partner of the journalist who has been working on a story alleging that Governments have been acting beyond …

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Colin Gell

Opinion: We must end our silence on brain gain

By Colin Gell | Tue 20th August 2013 - 8:41 am

There is a certain phrase that summarises the immigration debate for me;  the one that goes ‘I’m not racist but….’  that gives people the opportunity to make comments that could otherwise be offensive.  We’re now seeing a sophisticated anti-immigration stance from other parties where they simply structure in racist comments and defend it as just being anti-immigration. For me this is what they tried to do with the ‘go home’ van ad campaign.

However as a party we’re not putting up much of a fight against this, and have been silent for some time, unless we’re responding to the campaigns of …

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Lara Greer

Opinion: Your school needs you

By Lara Greer | Mon 19th August 2013 - 4:48 pm

What to do about social mobility? The UK has some of the worst rates of social mobility in the OECD, with little progress being made since the 1970s. What can we do to ensure kids from low-income families go on to earn more than their parents?

I will be going back to my old school in Edinburgh to talk to pupils who were in my position 10 years ago; the first in their family to consider university, pursuing a career without any personal contacts in the field to help. With 1 in 5 pupils registered for Free School Meals (as I …

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Pat Moloney

Opinion: Liverpool City Region cabinet

By Pat Moloney | Mon 19th August 2013 - 2:44 pm

In February 2012, Labour controlled Liverpool City Council voted to have an elected mayor without seeking the views of the residents of Liverpool via a referendum. In May 2012, a Labour Mayor was elected.

Now there is a proposal for the six local authorities in the Liverpool City Region (Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, St. Helens, Wirral and Halton) to establish a combined city region cabinet to promote economic development, transport and employment and skills in the Liverpool City Region.

Whilst it is welcome for local authorities to co-operate, the mechanism of this proposal is hugely undemocratic and has completely bypassed locally elected councillors.

The …

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Also posted in Local government | Tagged and | 8 Comments
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