Category Archives: Op-eds

Opinion: Where is the Liberal Democrat influence over drugs policy?

By Adam Corlett | Thu 4th July 2013 - 10:02 am

Yesterday we learnt that the Home Secretary has decided to ban the drug ‘khat’, against the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). The Lib Dems were reportedly against this move, and the decision lay with Theresa May. This and other decisions suggest that drugs minister Jeremy Browne has been given a script but no power.

The disappointing decision to make khat a Class C drug follows the view of the ACMD in January that it should remain legal (having said the same thing …

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Tagged drugs policy, jeremy browne and khat | 13 Comments

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 3rd July 2013 - 9:20 am

Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore MP, writes a regular column for newspapers in his Borders Constituency. Here is the latest edition.

Royal Highland Show

In the Borders we have a strong and successful farming industry with local farmers trading their products throughout the UK and abroad and constantly innovating and developing their businesses. Every summer I always attend local rural shows and events in the Borders which are an opportunity to meet with local farm businesses and discuss the work they are …

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Also posted in Parliament and Scotland | Tagged Michael Moore and Westminster Notes | Leave a comment

Boris shows himself to be more liberal than Nick on immigration

By Stephen Tall | Tue 2nd July 2013 - 9:10 pm

Typing that headline pained me. But it’s true, at least on the issue of an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Compare and contrast…

Here’s what London Mayor Boris Johnson said today on his LBC call-in show today:

“We should have an amnesty. We’ve got people who’ve got in here illegally. They are not engaged with the economy and being honest with the system.”

And here’s how Nick casually dumped the party’s policy three months ago:

… it was seen by many people as a reward for those who have broken the law. And so it risked undermining public confidence in the immigration system.

…

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27 Comments

Vince Cable: UK single market is good for business

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 2nd July 2013 - 3:58 pm

Vince Cable has been in Edinburgh today to launch the fourth in the series of “Scotland Analysis” papers produced by the UK Government about the effect of independence for Scotland on a variety of issues. Today, the spotlight is on business regulation and the changes that independence would force on businesses both in Scotland and the rest of the UK with two separate regulatory systems to get round. The example Vince cited on a Radio Scotland interview this morning (which you can listen to here) was a simple one of buying petrol on either side of the border, …

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Also posted in News | Tagged business, Scotland, scotland analysis, Scottish independence referendum and vince cable | 4 Comments

A free-for-all on school term dates?

By Mary Reid | Tue 2nd July 2013 - 2:58 pm

Michael Gove has had another ‘good idea’, produced without any reference to the professionals who will have to implement it, nor to the general public who will have to work around it. This time he is keen to allow all schools to set their own term dates, in line with the freedom already granted to academies and free schools.

It sounds like a superficial change, but those of us who have examined the issue in depth know that the implications could be far greater than you might imagine.

Some eight years ago I attended a series of meetings of councillors who, like me, held education portfolios in London boroughs. Our aim was to co-ordinate school term dates across the whole of London, and, wherever possible, with the surrounding counties, and we did achieve that. At the same time we looked at patterns of terms, considering some quite radical alternatives, such as six or seven equal length terms, with a shorter break in the summer.

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Tagged michael gove and schools | 30 Comments

Evan Harris writes… Speak out against the marriage tax allowance

By Evan Harris | Mon 1st July 2013 - 1:10 pm

David Cameron has finally given in to his backbenchers and promised to introduce a tax break for married couples in the next few weeks. Even David Cameron does not really support the policy. As Iain Dale put it in a blog last week “David Cameron and George Osborne keep paying lip service to this idea in the vain hope that it will keep Peter Bone and Mrs Bone happy if somewhere at the end of the rainbow this promise is ever introduced, but the truth of the matter is that neither Prime Minister or Chancellor gives a monkey’s cuss …

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Tagged marriage tax break | 34 Comments

Layla Moran writes… Child Detention still happens: Boy held at Campsfield for ‘2-3 months’

By Layla Moran MP | Mon 1st July 2013 - 8:45 am

It is my belief that in a civilized society we should protect children. That they should not be punished for the actions of their parents or grandparents and that they should be given every chance of leading a fulfilled, healthy and normal childhood. And they most certainly should not be locked up without cause because of their family’s decision either.

Photo: Helen Duffett on Flickr.

Sadly for many years, this was not only true but also prevalent. Children who were here illegally were held in immigration deportation centres for months and sometimes years, were not allowed to go to school, not allowed to develop. A child does not, in full understanding of the consequences, make the decision to enter a country illegally. It would have been the decision of their family in whatever form that may take; yet until 2011 they were punished as equals to these adults.

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Tagged campsfield, child detention, children, home office, nick clegg, oxford west and abingdon and theresa may | 9 Comments

Opinion: Beyond the membership card – how can we build a sustainable party model?

By James Fearnley | Sun 30th June 2013 - 2:15 pm

As a candidate for next year’s local elections in Rotherhithe, I and my colleagues across Southwark have some excellent targets. They take the form of a campaign grid, which helpfully channels our collective and individual energy as we work towards the finishing line now set for 22 May 2014.

Pioneered in Hull, our grid targets include manageable voter contact numbers, aspirational targets for fundraising and, of course, a core aim of recruiting more members.

It is the latter target that got me thinking… Why join a political party? …

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Tagged party membership | 19 Comments

Kirsty Williams AM writes: Why Welsh Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru have joined forces

By Kirsty Williams AM | Fri 28th June 2013 - 8:05 am

This week, and much to the surprise of many political commentators in Wales, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood and I held a joint press conference announcing that we are to join forces to negotiate with the Welsh Labour Government on next year’s budget settlement.

In the National Assembly, the Welsh Government has exactly half of the Assembly Members. Therefore, each year the Welsh Government needs the support of at least one of the opposition parties to pass their annual budget. In the past, this has given the …

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Also posted in News and Wales | Tagged labour party, leanne wood, plaid cymru and welsh assembly | 15 Comments

Opinion: Spend on innovation to drive economic growth

By Richard Davis | Thu 27th June 2013 - 4:23 pm

At a time when we are seeing some of the biggest government cuts in a generation it may seem to belittle the suffering people are facing to complain about the effect of the spending review on the science budget. As the government is trying to reduce our debt to income ratio, they have cut the deficit but we also need to create long-term sustainable economic growth. For this to happen investment in science and innovation is key. Our spending on research and development is vital to drive forward economic growth and reverse the current stagnation we see in our economy.

In …

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Tagged science and spending review 2013 | 13 Comments

Danny Alexander MP writes… Investing in Britain’s future

By Danny Alexander MP | Thu 27th June 2013 - 1:08 pm

Video by hmtreasuryuk on YouTube.

Yesterday, we set out a Spending Round that delivers Liberal Democrat priorities on investment and improving our public services while making responsible choices to deal with the financial problems Labour left us. It demonstrated that the Liberal Democrats will remain firm in our commitment to tackling the deficit, but fair in the way we go about it. Our number one priority in Government has been to fix the economic mess we inherited from Labour.

Today I have set out how we will invest in our country’s economic future by creating balanced growth and delivering lasting prosperity. I have announced the most comprehensive, ambitious and long-lasting capital investment plans this country has ever known.
In doing so we are putting long term priorities before short term political pressures and we are ending the culture of short-termism that plagued so many of our predecessors.

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Tagged comprehensive spending review 2013, high-speed rail, housing, infrastructure spending, roads and schools | 22 Comments

Ed Davey MP writes… Keeping the lights on with greener energy

By Ed Davey | Thu 27th June 2013 - 11:57 am

Hopefully by the time you’ve read this you’ll be aware of the details I announced this morning to secure the future of energy supply for the UK – if not, and excuse the pun – let me enlighten you.

As you know already, we have a plan in the form of the Energy Bill that is progressing well through Parliament. The plan essentially addresses a major issue – we need to attract £110 billion of private sector investment to replace the supply we lose as a result of 20% of our power stations closing by the end of this

…

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Tagged climate change, ed davey and energy | 6 Comments

Danny Alexander MP writes… Spending where it matters

By Danny Alexander MP | Wed 26th June 2013 - 1:25 pm

Our number one priority in Government has been to fix the economic mess we inherited from Labour. Today, we set out a Spending Round that delivers Liberal Democrat priorities on investment and improving our public services while making responsible choices to deal with the financial problems Labour left us. It demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats will remain firm in our commitment to tackling the deficit, but fair in the way we go about it.

When we entered Government in May 2010, we inherited from Labour an economy that was on the brink. We set out a plan to get our economy …

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Tagged childcare, comprehensive spending review 2013, nick clegg, pupil premium, social care, troubled families programme and vince cable | 53 Comments

Opinion: if you pay peanuts, you risk bad governance

By Mark Valladares | Wed 26th June 2013 - 12:20 pm

It is reported today that, in a further attempt to control spending, George Osborne is proposing further changes to public sector pay and conditions. Before he does though, perhaps he ought to make time for a little light reading…

Last week, the National Audit Office (NAO) published the extravagantly titled “Building capability in the Senior Civil Service to meet today’s challenges”, which sounds, on the face of it, to be a white knuckle, edge of your seat kind of read. And yet, if you’re keen to change the way that we are governed, …

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Tagged civil service and pay policy | 14 Comments

Opinion: What if?

By David Allen | Tue 25th June 2013 - 2:07 pm

The Coalition has hurt us. We can surely agree that now. It has left us no clear public image, other than supporting the EU and electoral change, in our own favour. Breaking up Coalition will be so very hard to do, whether now or later. If we leave it until 2014-15, we will have no time to establish a credible separate identity. Clegg, if still leading, will defend the Coalition’s record. It is only a small step on from there to promoting Tory-led Coalition out to 2020.

“Centrist” (i.e. pro-Tory) Lib Dem loyalists usually dismiss strategic

…

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Tagged coalition | 28 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats must stay firm on deficit reduction

By William Hobhouse | Tue 25th June 2013 - 8:59 am

George Osborne will stand up in the House of Commons on Thursday to announce the government’s intentions for public spending for the 2015-16 financial year in circumstances he neither anticipated nor wished for.

As a result of weaker economic growth and a revision to the estimates of the capacity of the British economy, the structural deficit that the coalition had hoped to eliminate by the time of the next election will exist well beyond it, meaning further spending cuts and tax rises.

Liberal Democrats must spell …

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Tagged comprehensive spending review 2013, economy, george osborne and liberal reform | 58 Comments

Opinion: A Peace Plan for Syria

By Joe Bourke | Mon 24th June 2013 - 4:54 pm

Nick Clegg has said about Syria “I am very proud that, as a country, our reaction isn’t just: ‘Oh this is happening, it’s got nothing to do with us. We want to wash our hands of it.’ We struggle with what can we do. It is the wonderful thing about Britain. We don’t stand by. We don’t walk the other side of the street. We want to get stuck in and sort stuff out.”

I think there may be a way to bring about a ceasefire and political negotiations that avoids the obvious dangers of arming rebel groups.

Turkey has called for …

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Tagged syria | 11 Comments

Eric Avebury writes… Light on the horizon for some gay asylum seekers

By Eric Avebury | Mon 24th June 2013 - 11:03 am

In 1995 our immigration law was amended so that asylum applicants from countries that were designated as ‘safe’ no longer had a right to appeal against refusal unless their case was ‘certified’ by the Secretary of State. With a Border Agency prone to error, a risk arose that people with good cases might be unjustly be detained, speeded through a truncated process and deported.

Even the Home Office recognised that in some designated countries, there was endemic persecution of women. In 2005 an Order was made adding some countries to the list of those deemed safe, but for men only. …

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Tagged asylum and LGBT rights | 3 Comments

Opinion: Should we offer to pay university fees for doctors who commit to NHS?

By Douglas Nicol | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 12:25 pm

The dire need in the NHS for qualified high level medical staff could be given a much needed boost by offering medical students free university fees if they commit themselves to working solely for the NHS for a number of years after qualifying as a junior doctor.

Even as they progress through the NHS as junior doctors they are still being taught and trained in NHS hospitals by senior doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists and registrars. Some then go on to be the elite in the world of medicine, being in demand to do heart and liver transplants, neuro-surgery, plastic surgery etc – …

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Tagged NHS and university tuition | 21 Comments

Lord Paul Tyler writes…Never on a Sunday?

By Paul Tyler | Fri 21st June 2013 - 12:59 pm

Some little Englander MPs, as we know, are incredibly jumpy about anything they think might have come from Europe. The latest in the line of Brussels bogeymen is the worrying advent of public activity at the weekend, which could – they say – cause all kinds of terrible problems.

The British Social Attitudes survey (not the dangerous ‘Eurobarometer’) has found that 45.7% of the public regard themselves as belonging to ‘no religion’. Of those who do profess some faith, 57.5% say they ‘never or practically never’ attend meetings or services connected to their religion. A further 20% say they do …

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Tagged conservatives, election law, eu and european elections 2014 | 6 Comments

The Syrian civil war is a humanitarian disaster: the time has come to intervene

By Nick T | Thu 20th June 2013 - 2:57 pm

There are few things about which we can be certain in the Syrian crisis, but there are some. We can be sure that brutal, unspeakable and unimaginable things are happening on a daily basis, particularly and most distressingly of all to the country’s children. We can also be sure that somehow, someday the war will end.

When it will end is anybody’s guess. How it will do so is a slightly easier to guess at. We know that Bashar al-Assad is militarily strong, thanks to the supply of weapons from Iran and Russia, and soldiers from Lebanon’s Hezbollah. We know that …

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Tagged featured and syria | 36 Comments

“I refute these allegations” – no, you don’t

By Nick T | Thu 20th June 2013 - 10:03 am

I blame the lawyers. It seems to be standard practice for those in the public eye accused of wrongdoing, or their lawyers, to make public statements asserting that they “refute” whatever allegations are being made.

But while they might deny them, or reject them, or dispute them, they do not “refute” them.

Here is the definition of that word:

Verb

Prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; disprove.
Prove that (someone) is wrong.

As the lawyers that make these statements know, denying something is not the same as proving it to be wrong. So I urge my fellow lawyers: stop this assault …

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18 Comments

Opinion: Creating a new Alliance

By Simon Hebditch | Tue 18th June 2013 - 9:02 am

There has always been a need to blend parliamentary, representative politics with the social activism of extra parliamentary movements. Recent examples of informal action outside the confines of the parliamentary system include UK Uncut on companies avoiding corporation tax and the Occupy movement. Liberal Democrats and their antecedents have an honourable history of involvement in single issue campaigns and community movements.

Indeed, it can be argued that “community politics” grew out of the widespread social campaigning movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Given this history you would expect Liberal Democrats to be at the forefront of such campaigning today but we …

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Tagged compass and labour party | 38 Comments

Michael Moore MP writes…Scotland has a role in overseas aid

By Michael Moore | Mon 17th June 2013 - 11:58 am

Amidst the fever of the independence referendum debate in Scotland on issues such as currency, financial services and pensions, Lynne Featherstone and I took part in a series of engagements in Glasgow recently which reinforced with me what would be lost in terms of international development if Scotland voted to leave the Union.

As a former International Development spokesperson for the Party I am still passionate about this issue. I’m proud that the issues we as Lib Dems have long campaigned for have become a reality

…

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Tagged international development, lynne featherstone, Michael Moore, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 3 Comments

A picture postcard from a Liberal Democrat in Gezi Park

By Sam Lawes | Sat 15th June 2013 - 11:58 am

I’m leafing through the 2,077 photos I’ve taken so far of Turkey’s protests. Having sat down to shed a ‘liberal’ light on what’s happening here, I realize I may make a further claim to your attention: I am seeing, as it were, both sides of the coin.

Watching protests in Beşiktaş, Taksim & Gezi Park, marching to the outskirts of Istanbul & being pepper-sprayed is one side. Working in a conservative, pro-government school where colleagues refer to protestors as “terrorists” and tut gruffly every time Taksim gets mentioned is the other.

A Tale of Two Turkeys

This is a tale of two Turkeys. …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged turkey | 3 Comments

The Morrissey Report: We must take chance to be a more effective, respectful team

By Jemima Bland | Fri 14th June 2013 - 2:00 pm

Helena Morrissey is a businesswoman, not a lawyer. She brings to our party her experience of functional and dysfunctional organisational practices, and a sympathetic, listening ear.

After a long, hard look at our organisation, our internal party culture, and our values, she finds us broadly well intentioned, but structurally deficient. Chiefly, we fail to have widely advertised, open and transparent procedures in place to deal with a clear organisational risk: abuse of power.

As a member of the parliamentary staff of the Lib Dems and a PPC, I applaud Helena Morrissey. When you read the report you will see that she has …

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Tagged morrissey report | 7 Comments

Helena Morrissey’s Report: some praise is also due

By Stephen Tall | Thu 13th June 2013 - 5:55 pm

I offered my first impressions of Helena Morrissey’s independent report into the Lib Dems’ culture and practices here yesterday, based on a skim-read and hearing Helena’s presentation of it at a media briefing.

I read the report in full (available online here) on the train home last night. I recommend it to all Lib Dems, and indeed anyone interested in how organisations can totally mess up when dealing with delicate internal issues.

It’s an excellently written, fair-minded, balanced and practical report which understands the idiosyncratic nature of …

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Also posted in News | Tagged chris bones, chris rennard, helena morrissey, morrissey report and ros scott | 6 Comments

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