Category Archives: Op-eds

Ian Hurdley

Opinion: Can the bank bailout boost credit unions?

By Ian Hurdley | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 2:50 pm

LloydsTSB is now sufficiently strong that the current share price exceeds the price paid by the Government at the time of the bail-out. These shares can now be sold off and the money returned to the taxpayer. The sums are such that there is the potential to transform access to affordable credit for the most vulnerable in society – those hit hardest by the cost to the public of the original bail-out.

Poorer and vulnerable people have continued to suffer disproportionately ever since the bail-out, as incomes from low paid work or benefit payments lag behind inflation. They have faced a …

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Eric Avebury

Lord Avebury: Caste adrift

By Eric Avebury | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 10:30 am

The Government acknowledge that Caste discrimination in the UK is a fact. But they were not convinced that legislation against it was necessary until April, when they agreed reluctantly to make caste a ‘protected characteristic’ under the Equality Act. They appeared to be converted after suffering two defeats on the issue in the Lords and running out of time to complete their  programme for the session that was about to end.

But since then, Equality Minister Helen Grant has said plainly that she doesn’t agree with the proposal, defying the Cabinet Office Code which says that once a decision is made, …

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William Summers

Opinion: The party needs a better nomination system for the Lords

By William Summers | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 10:05 am

Like many others, I let out a sigh of resignation when I saw that yet more appointments are being made to the unelected and unaccountable House of Lords. Nothing against the individuals receiving a peerage this week (some of whom I have known personally and all of whom I’m sure will be excellent representatives), but yet again it’s a fairly predictable mix of ex-MPs and party insiders.

Liberal Democrats are right to nominate their own choices for these positions – better off having an influence over a broken system than being excluded from it altogether – but it got me …

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The Voice

Lessons of Coalition (4): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 8:01 am

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 Nick Thornsby shares his thoughts …

Making a success of coalition government as a concept

Making a success of this coalition government meant two things for the Liberal Democrats. It …

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Britain can’t cook, won’t cook. Should we care?

By Andy Boddington | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 7:05 am

A year ago we set up a tiny community garden on the verges of our barren car park. Not a great deal grew in the first season, but what we produced we tried to give away, sometimes without success.

“What will I do with it?” asked J as I offered him a bunch of dirty carrots. A few days ago, I got a glimpse inside J’s fridge. Everything was pre-packed, microwave or oven ready, accompanied by step-by-step instructions. J doesn’t cook and he is not alone.

A review for Defra by Best Foot Forward highlighted that one in six …

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Caron Lindsay

New Liberal Democrat Peers: Has Nick got it right?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 1st August 2013 - 7:00 pm

I will start by getting it out there that I just hate having to write this post. The very idea that the power of patronage exercised by 3 men, with a tiny fig leaf of scrutiny by a committee can choose people who make the laws I have to obey almost brings me out in hives. I can forgive Nick Clegg, because at least he tried to do something about it before he was defeated by the combined forces of Britain’s two conservative parties. While we’re stuck with an appointed second Chamber, it would be foolish for us to decide not …

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Judith Jolly

Baroness Judith Jolly writes… Welcome to our new Peers

By Judith Jolly | Thu 1st August 2013 - 12:20 pm

We heard this morning of new members swelling our ranks on the red benches in the House of Lords.

It seems only yesterday since I arrived in January 2011, fully expecting to serve only five or maybe ten years before standing down for those elected to the Upper House. We now know that it is not to be (yet!) but it was not for want of trying.

If I were to give advice it would be to get involved in something you know something about and something you know nothing about but find interesting. Join some all-party groups. Challenge our government …

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The Voice

Lessons of Coalition (3): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Thu 1st August 2013 - 8:03 am

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 Gareth Epps shares his thoughts …

Government: What’s Occurrin?

A couple of years ago I took a trip to Barry Island and went on one of the …

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The Voice

Lessons of Coalition (2): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By The Voice | Wed 31st July 2013 - 8:15 am

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 Mark Valladares shares his thoughts …

Better party communications responding to the realities of governing

My lesson of coalition is the importance of building a Party …

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Don Foster MP

Don Foster MP writes… Access to finance for ethnic minority businesses

By Don Foster MP | Tue 30th July 2013 - 3:38 pm

Liberal Democrats want to create a Stronger Economy in a Fairer Society. In order to do this it is vital that no one section of society is unnecessarily prevented from starting a new business should they wish to do so. However, evidence suggests that people from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are often keen to start a business but for a variety of reasons don’t go through with it. The National Audit Office estimates that the cost to our economy from the failure to fully use the talents of people from our ethnic minority population could be more than …

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David Allen

Gideon Keynes – The Memoirs

By David Allen | Tue 30th July 2013 - 11:42 am

I got all my best lines from comedians and opponents.  It began on Oleg’s yacht, when I bet the Prince of Darkness a grand he couldn’t invent me a policy more blatantly bogus than “Neo-Classical Endogenous Growth Theory”.  After a few vodkas, Peter came up trumps.  “Expansionary Fiscal Contraction!” he spluttered, between giggles.  I cunningly insisted on sole rights to the phrase, and paid up.

Next – gulp – we won.  We were in The Thick of It – you remember, that comedy Tony wrote under an Italian pseudonym, which he kept secret until his trial at The Hague in 2022.  …

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Stephen Tall

Lessons of Coalition: what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th July 2013 - 8:00 am

ldv coalition lessonsWe’re more than three years in. What started in the Rose Garden has turned into a bed of thorns. The quieter summer weeks are as good a time as any to reflect on the key lessons the Lib Dems need to learn from this stint in government. Who knows? We may have a second chance after 2015: best to plan ahead now to avoid the obvious pitfalls we fell into this time (tuition fees, NHS Bill, secret courts) as well as to max-out the successes we’ve delivered (tax-cuts for the low-paid, the ‘pupil premium’, new apprenticeships).

Over the next few days, we’ll be running a daily feature, ‘Lessons of Coalition’ to which those of us who contribute to LibDemVoce will be adding. But we welcome reader contributions as well. 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]. Here’s mine for starters…

Stronger policy development and campaigning on issues that matter to the public (AKA where’s our liberal equivalent of the benefits cap?)

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Mary Reid

No more leverage or transformation

By Mary Reid | Mon 29th July 2013 - 3:00 pm

Some years ago my portfolio as a Cabinet member in Kingston Council included Communications. My first act was to set about enforcing the use of Plain English in all communications between the Council and residents. Although leaflets had been subjected to scrutiny, and many had won the Crystal mark, hundreds of standard letters were still written in ‘councilese’. So with the officers I set up a Better Letters campaign, which named and shamed the worst, and awarded plaudits to the most improved letters, as well as providing advice.

One of my favourite sentences appeared in the standard letter telling residents about …

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Opinion: Pies, GM pies, and statistics

By Andy Boddington | Mon 29th July 2013 - 9:00 am

Carrots at Farmer's Market - Some rights reserved by Ed YourdonPublic opinion is swinging in favour of GM crops and foods, but are Lib Dem voters really leading the pack?

Here on Lib Dem Voice in June, Baroness Kate Parminter said that it is the duty of the government to take into account public opinion when deciding whether to give the go-ahead to GM crops and food. It now seems that public sentiment is shifting in favour of GM food.

A survey published by the Independent last week suggested that 42% …

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Steve Coltman

Opinion: Where does the Trident debate go from here?

By Steve Coltman | Fri 26th July 2013 - 12:29 pm

In the Spring of 2011 I submitted a motion to conference. It was not selected for debate:

Conference notes that:

(i) The Coalition agreement states: “We will maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent and have agreed that the renewal of Trident should be scrutinised to ensure value for money. The Liberal Democrats will continue to make the case for alternatives.”

(ii) Conference in September last year resolved, among other things, to: “Press for the extension of the SDSR to allow a full review of the alternatives to ‘like-for-like replacement of Trident.”

(iii) The final decision on a replacement for the Vanguard-class submarines has been deferred to

…

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Layla Moran MP

Opinion: Performance related pay for teachers: does it drive up standards?

By Layla Moran MP | Thu 25th July 2013 - 11:30 am

Michael Gove’s most recent big idea to improve the teaching profession takes the form of performance related pay. Like many of Gove’s big ideas it has incensed teachers. But it’s also a populist move. One poll estimated that 61% of voters backed the idea. But will it improve teaching standards?

The evidence for performance related pay leading to improving standards in education is inconclusive. Literature shows no causal relationship between performance related pay and standards and results vary enormously depending on the context. In India one study showed that “after controlling for student ability, parental background and the resources available …

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Caron Lindsay

“Go home” billboards – an open letter and blog round-up

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th July 2013 - 12:55 pm

Since my post on Monday about the Home Office’s plan to send mobile billboards proclaiming that people who are in this country illegally should go home or face arrest, a number of bloggers and party members across various internet fora have expressed emotions ranging from horror to anger at the plan.

Sarah Teather is, as far as I can tell, the only Liberal Democrat MP to have passed any comment at all, and just to remind you, she wasn’t chuffed:

Vulnerable individuals who are fleeing persecution and violence are treated with disbelief and a complete lack of compassion in a rigid

…

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Dr Lynn McDonald

Opinion: Why Florence Nightingale should be in the National Curriculum and why Liberal Democrats should want her there

By Dr Lynn McDonald | Wed 24th July 2013 - 11:45 am

The Secretary of State for Education has decided that Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), famous for the Crimean War (1854-56) and major founder of professional nursing should be thrown out of the National Curriculum. Mary Seacole, who is there now, is to stay. Many Liberal Democrats support this, probably thanks to misinformation in wide circulation from Seacole campaigners.

Nightingale influenced not only Britain but the world on nursing and hospital safety. She brought trained nursing into the dreaded the workhouse infirmaries, beginning in Liverpool in 1865. She called for quality health care for all, including those who could not pay fees (no NHS …

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Paul Thompson

Opinion: Cameron’s false porn panacea

By Paul Thompson | Wed 24th July 2013 - 8:52 am

From suggesting that the Blackberry messenger service be shut down during the 2011 riots, to proposing that the food standards agency can monitor your home internet usage It’s clear that Cameron, or those around him, have a limited appreciation of how the internet works.

Yesterday Cameron announced another clanger – default internet filtering for every household in the country, so unless you tell you ISP otherwise, pornographic content would be blocked – or at least some porn, as Cameron was today forced embarrassingly admit that the Sun’s Page 3 topless models wouldn’t be blocked.

So isn’t it a good idea to …

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Caroline Pidgeon

Caroline Pidgeon writes: Setting our cities free from the stranglehold of the Treasury

By Caroline Pidgeon | Tue 23rd July 2013 - 3:00 pm

City Hall and Tower BridgeReforming local government finance – a phrase that is enough to send many of us to sleep.  But put a different way, devolving financial powers to our great cities, allowing local innovation and genuine localism, may keep your interest for longer!

May saw the launch of an excellent policy report called Raising the capital.  The report was produced by the London Finance Commission, an authoritative wide ranging group of experts from both inside and outside politics, but crucially including experts from Birmingham and Manchester.  The commission was chaired by respected Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics.

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Caron Lindsay

ATOS lose monopoly on work capability assessments after audit shows up “unacceptable” standards

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 23rd July 2013 - 1:29 pm

Those of us who are concerned about the fairness of the welfare system often cite the Work Capability Assessment, which claimants of Employment and Support Allowance are required to take. It seems that every few days there’s a story in the press reporting how someone has been marked fit for work when it is clearly inappropriate to do so. Yesterday the Daily Record carried the story of a woman who lived just a couple of miles away from me who was told she was fit for work weeks before she died of a brain tumour.

Concerns about the WCA appear …

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Stephen Tall

An Open Letter to The New Prince

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 10:05 pm

Dear Your Highness,
Kate and William
Congratulations on being born! It’s the first universal experience you’ll share in common with your subjects-to-be. From now on, your life and the lives of the 2,000 other babies born in the UK today will begin to diverge. You probably won’t notice this happen for a good, long while (nor will they). But, eventually, one day it will hit you: your life has been marked out to be different from the very start.

The reason is simple. It’s not just that, as every media outlet informs us, ‘the

…

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood MP writes… Balance of competence reports shows EU membership is crucial for UK jobs

By Martin Horwood | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 4:53 pm

The Government today published the long awaited first six reports of the review of the balance of competences between EU and national levels, due to be finalised at the end of 2014. The review has been overseen by a Ministerial star chamber with Lord Wallace of Saltaire leading impressively for the Liberal Democrats in the complicated process.

Contrary to the perception in Eurosceptic ranks, this review is not and was never about creating a wish list of demands for unilateral repatriation of powers. Liberal Democrats have been unwavering in our arguments that the EU needs reform to make …

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Iain Roberts

Opinion: Cameron’s porn ban – what does it mean?

By Iain Roberts | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 3:55 pm

"PC Baan" internet cafe in Seoul, Korea - Some rights reserved by HachimakiDavid Cameron is out to make the world a safer place by tackling what he sees as the problems caused by pornography. We don’t really know the details of the policy yet, but with Cameron doing the rounds on TV and radio today we’ve got a reasonable idea of what he’s got in mind.

Block pornography by default
Web filtering software is very common – most schools and businesses have it installed. It does a passable job of blocking access to undesirable sites whilst allowing others. Inevitably, some sites that you don’t want to block get caught up, but by and large the filters work OK.

Cameron’s concern is that they aren’t being extensively used by parents of younger children, and the suspicion (probably rightly) is that in many cases it’s because parents aren’t tech savvy enough to know they exist or how to implement them.

So this main headline item – that ISPs all implement filtering software for all customers, and that it be turned on by default (with someone in the household having to make a positive decision to turn it off) – is a “nudge” policy.

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Mathew Hulbert

Opinion: We should all be born equal

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 2:02 pm

Royal familyOf course the birth of a baby is a joyous occasion and only the most cold-hearted of person would fail to wish any new parents and their newborn well.

But, that having been said, today’s sycophantic media coverage of the Duchess of Cambridge’s going into labour has shown, yet again, that all too many journalists appear to lose their critical faculties when it comes to anything Royal.

They seem to forget that polls consistently show that a sizeable percentage of the population support a democratic alternative to the Monarchy, a Republic.

I feel …

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Tony Vickers

Opinion: Why fear this tax?

By Tony Vickers | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 8:45 am

Our last Manifesto included a commitment to “reform business rates, creating a fairer system where rates are based on site values rather than rental values. “Site Value Rating” (SVR – a purely local tax) had been party policy for decades but until 2010 never made it to a manifesto. The Party had never embraced a Land Value Tax (LVT) as a key part of our national economic policy.

Since the debt-fuelled property boom led to the present global financial crisis there have been statements in support of LVT from leading figures in all the other parties. Tory Planning Minister Nick …

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Chris Lucas

Opinion: My twin inspirations – The Terminator and The Leadership Programme!

By Chris Lucas | Sun 21st July 2013 - 3:30 pm

Conference Rally2The other day, I was watching ‘The Terminator’ (one of my favourite films) for the umpteenth time and it occurred to me that it perfectly illustrated how the Liberal Democrat Leadership Programme came about…

Picture the scene. The date is Friday, 8th May, 2015, and many Lib Dems emerge bleary-eyed from their homes, council buildings and school halls after attending counts or watching Peter Snow’s swing-o-meter twitch as the results come in on TV.

In this future, we have had a good election, increasing the number of seats we hold. Of course, …

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Karen Wilkinson

Opinion: New policy on school attendance is illiberal

By Karen Wilkinson | Sun 21st July 2013 - 8:46 am

I owe Labour an apology for labelling the push a few years ago to reduce Heads’ discretion on family holidays as ”Nanny State”: no consultation with parents, just an assumption that only the state & education system could be trusted with a child’s best interests. There was a parent rebellion at our local primary school.

Nanny has now been replaced by the Patriarchal State  in an approach that implies “As some pupils have been skiving, the whole school will be kept in.”

As of this September, approval of all family holidays during term time is banned other than in “exceptional” circumstances. …

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Gareth Jones

Opinion: Thoughts on Trident alternatives

By Gareth Jones | Fri 19th July 2013 - 1:54 pm

The much awaited Trident alternatives report is out; and, within the given parameters, its quite a good one. The party should be happy it forced the MOD to publicly review its nuclear deterrent for the first time.

However, the revelation that ballistic missiles are superior to cruise missiles for nuclear deterrent is not really a revelation for even laypersons like myself, and the debate is really about replacing the V class nuclear submarines which carry Trident rather than the missile itself. Retaining the Trident system, which we already operate, would always be a cheaper option than a

…

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Jeremy Browne MP

Jeremy Browne MP writes… The Liberal Democrats are presiding over falling crime

By Jeremy Browne MP | Thu 18th July 2013 - 2:20 pm

Today the Coalition Government has – once again – confounded its critics. Despite the ongoing challenges in our economy, crime continues to fall. Criminologists and Labour politicians have repeatedly pointed to the country’s economic troubles and insisted we would see a rapid increase in crime rates. The most pessimistic forecasters warned of an explosion in criminality that would undermine the very fabric of our society. And yet today we hear that crime in England and Wales is at its lowest point since the independent crime survey began in 1981.

The facts speak for themselves. Crime has been lower every single …

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