Category Archives: Op-eds

The Independent View: A reply to Mark Pack from Obama’s Director of Data

By Ethan Roeder | Mon 19th November 2012 - 8:53 am

The Crystal Ball chart blogged by Mark Pack highlights the interesting cases of Alaska and Utah. These outliers make sense given the dynamics of the race (the large Mormon population in UT provided a boost to Romney while the absence of Sarah Palin from the ballot hurt Republican performance in AK relative to 2008). But why do we not see more turbulence in the battleground states? Surely the gobs of money spent in these states along with the monumental ground efforts of the Obama campaign would push these states away from the crowd? The answer to this apparent disconnect …

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Also posted in LDVUSA and The Independent View | Tagged barack obama, Mitt Romney and sarah palin | 5 Comments

Lord Avebury writes… World Toilet Day and sanitation: an unspoken problem

By Eric Avebury | Mon 19th November 2012 - 7:33 am

Today is World Toilet Day and it is important to remember that 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. One in three women across the world risks shame, disease, harassment and even attack because they do not have a safe place to go to the toilet. This is unthinkable in the UK, but a reality in the developing world and the impact is devastating. Absence of clean toilets and inadequate sanitation facilities are key causes of diarrhoeal disease, the second largest killer of children worldwide, causing around 760,000 child deaths every year. Diarrhoeal disease is also a contributing factor to malnutrition, which in turn can lead to stunted growth and impede cognitive development.

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Tagged dfid, featured, lynne featherstone, PATH, tearfund, water aid and world toilet day | Leave a comment

4-in-10 Lib Dem voters inclined to leave EU, says poll – a reminder why our pitch should be ‘In Europe to reform the EU’

By Stephen Tall | Sun 18th November 2012 - 4:20 pm

‘If a referendum were held on the UK’s membership of the European Union, how do you think you would vote?’ That’s the question posed by polling company Opinium and published today in The Observer — with the following result reported by the paper:

Almost four out of 10 Liberal Democrat voters support leaving the EU, according to a new poll which shows that hardline euroscepticism has taken hold in Britain’s most pro-European party. An Opinium/Observer survey has found that 39% of Lib Dem supporters

…

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Also posted in Europe / International and Polls | Tagged european union and nick clegg | 23 Comments

Libby Local, Episode 4: “The Canvass”

By Libby Local | Sun 18th November 2012 - 2:30 pm

It was late on a Tuesday night and I was parked up in the Market Tavern with Melissa having a good moan over a Pinot Grigio. I’d just finished a particularly scrappy and argumentative rehearsal with the Demsbury Orchestra. Susan, the new clarinet player, had caused us all grief.

“I’ve had enough of it,” I sounded off. “The Orchestra is not well-run anyway, and now we get this bloody new clarinet player who will not listen and does her own thing.” Melissa didn’t look the least bit interested, so I tried to bait her. “I bet she’s a Tory as …

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Tagged featured | 7 Comments

Opinion: Time to give voters the chance to register their abstention, or wish to abolish a post #WeDoRONRON

By Andrew Tennant | Sat 17th November 2012 - 4:55 pm

We’d all like to believe that the 80+% of voters who stayed at home for last week’s PCC elections would have voted for a Lib Dem candidate had one stood in their area. But the result can probably more accurately be seen as mass public apathy, or even hostility to the Police and Crime Commissioners policy.

A major problem with our electoral system, then, is that there is no effective way to capture and represent ‘none of the above’ or ‘no-one under any circumstances’ viewpoints that so many potentially hold.

As a democrat, I want to fix that. That’s why I hope …

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18 Comments

My ‘Super Thursday’ Lib Dem post mortem

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th November 2012 - 8:20 pm

A bad day for the Lib Dems, but not unexpectedly so. Call it sanguine, call it resigned…

Lib Dems Corby pressed

The party expected to get squeezed in Corby, and we were. I suspect we lost some ‘none of the above’ voters to Ukip and some left-leaning liberals to Labour (and many others who just didn’t vote). To forfeit our deposit by barely more than a dozen votes added an extra ignominy (although revived an old Liberal tradition). Though there is something practical we can do to lend a hand there…

Anyone else want to help the #BetterDeadThanRed

…

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Tagged corby, featured and police commissioner elections | 60 Comments

Wakey, wakey! It’s PCC election day in England and Wales. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 15th November 2012 - 10:40 am

Election day is usually a day when, if you’re at all interested/involved in politics, the pulse quickens, the blood pumps faster, the adrenaline kicks in. With all due respect to the sane candidates standing for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner (and naturally with very best wishes to those Lib Dems flying the party’s flag in England) today just doesn’t feel right.* In fact, it feels like a damp squib.

I think that’s a shame for two reasons.

First, voting matters. It’s perhaps the purest, most powerful way …

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Tagged elected police commissioners | 16 Comments

Nick Clegg: Parents can share the joys and responsibilities of bringing children into the world

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th November 2012 - 4:33 pm

Nick Clegg went on Woman’s Hour yesterday after announcing the Coalition’s plans to allow parents to choose which of them takes leave when they have a new baby.

He talked to Jane Garvey about the plans for around 20 minutes, fielding some pretty robust questions, including whether men or women actually wanted this change. He was quite firm that it wasn’t for the government to say that women should take time off and men should work when a baby was born.

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Tagged featured, flexible working, jane garvey, nick clegg, parental leave and woman's hour | 2 Comments

Opinion: Get real about corporate tax

By Geoff Crocker | Wed 14th November 2012 - 2:25 pm

Companies currently pay corporation tax in the country where they are incorporated. A campaign is under way, in the Guardian, and the Commons Public Accounts Committee, that companies should instead pay tax where they make their sales. The proposal has populist appeal, but is impracticable.

Many companies, including UK companies, make export sales without costly incorporation in each sales country. If a US coal producer sells 1m tonnes of coal to UK powerplants for £100m, and makes £5m profit, it submits accounts in the US for tax authority scrutiny, and pays US tax on the £5m. Should this profit be …

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Tagged business, corporatoin tax, economy, guardian, public accounts committee and tax | 29 Comments

A letter from……Catalonia

By Martin Petts | Wed 14th November 2012 - 11:57 am

As the UK plans a referendum on Scottish independence, those of us watching from Spain can only look on in envy at the orderly and civilised process led by the Secretary of State for Scotland. Here in Catalonia, Northern Spain, similar demand exists for an independent state, but the two sides have chosen indignation and confrontation instead of a serious debate.

The last two years have been tough for all EU governing parties and Spain has unique problems, with its sky-high unemployment levels, corruption and a rickety banking system. But this month Catalans will go to the polls in a general

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Tagged catalonia, featured, independence, Scotland and spain | 8 Comments

Michael Moore’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 14th November 2012 - 9:55 am

Every week Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here’s this week’s edition.

Mobile phone coverage

Mobile phone service ‘not spots’ across my constituency remain a huge frustration for local people and have a serious knock-on effect for businesses and Borderers going about their daily lives. As local MP, I have been working for many years to tackle this issue and I have welcomed the UK Government’s commitment, through the Mobile Infrastructure Project, to invest £150million to improve mobile phone signal in rural areas and on key transport routes.

Last week I …

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Tagged Michael Moore, mobile phone coverage, remembrance sunday and Westminster Notes | 1 Comment

Opinion: Champions for London’s Children

By James Kempton | Wed 14th November 2012 - 8:52 am

The Liberal Democrat education policy, written before the General Election, detailed a strong strategic role for councils, including commissioning new schools and holding all schools to account whatever their status.

The question now is whether this is more than just a change in the mood music, and whether the Coalition is genuinely up for endorsing local authorities who seek to hold academies to account as part of a strong ‘champion for children’ role. And moreover, whether they will give councils the teeth they need to do it properly.

Who better to rise to this challenge and make the case persuasively to government …

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Tagged education, london and london councils | 3 Comments

Opinion: Shared Parental Leave? Why Bother?

By Miranda Whitehead | Tue 13th November 2012 - 5:00 pm

Nick Clegg’s announcement today may be overshadowed by various rows in the media, but this is an historic moment. Parents will soon be able to share 50 weeks of the 52 weeks maternity leave entitlement, and everyone will have the right to request flexible working.

Why does this matter?

Because we are wasting the talent of our women workers to such an extent that when women start a family they often take a drop in their pay, lose the opportunity for promotion or even can find themselves locked out of the labour market. About one million women are missing from the …

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Tagged maternity leave, nick clegg, parental leave and women liberal democrats | 4 Comments

Opinion: Now is the time to re-nationalise the railways

By David Thorpe | Tue 13th November 2012 - 4:10 pm

As the 2015 General Election approaches, the principle challenge for Liberal Democrat policy makers will be to come up with distinctive policies which don’t trade in our party’s radicalism while allowing us to trade on our experience as a serious party of government.

One policy which we can be confident won’t be pursued by either of the other two parties is that of re-nationalising the railways.

Readers familiar with my previous posts on this site would be surprised to see me advocating nationalisation as a policy.

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Tagged nationalisation and railways | 34 Comments

Don Foster MP writes… Hear the views of Lib Dem councils on planning issues

By Don Foster MP | Tue 13th November 2012 - 11:48 am

Everyone benefits from a planning system that is efficient and effective – enabling the homes, jobs and facilities that communities need while minimising uncertainty for those promoting or affected by development.

The development of the National Planning Policy Framework, reducing 1,300 pages of planning policies in 44 separate documents to just 50 pages, has been widely welcomed. It will ensure that every area has a clear local plan which sets out local people’s views of how they wish their community to develop, consistent with the Framework, and against which planning applications for planning permission will be judged.
Less popular, among Liberal …

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Tagged national planning policy framework | 17 Comments

Opinion: Lord Patten should not go

By Andy Boddington | Tue 13th November 2012 - 8:36 am

Vultures are circling above Lord Patten’s head – he must not resign.

George Entwistle may or may not have made a good director general of the BBC. He took over from the maverick Mark Thompson, who had wreaked havoc across the BBC with his Delivering Quality First cuts. Entwistle might just have provided a steady pair of hands to guide the BBC and rebuild its confidence after the Thompson era. But coping with the Savile crisis proved beyond him and his fate became inevitable.

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Tagged bbc and chris patten | 2 Comments

Opinion: Housing – winding the clock back

By Alex Marsh | Mon 12th November 2012 - 2:53 pm

Friday 9th November 2012 could well come to be seen as a landmark date in the history of English housing policy. A key change introduced by the Localism Act 2011 came into effect. The Liberal Democrats are part of the Government presiding over the change. Is it a change we can be proud of?

Local authorities can now discharge their statutory homelessness duty by allocating households a tenancy in the private rented sector rather than in social housing. This has been an option for years. But until now to

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Tagged homelessness and housing | 9 Comments

Opinion: Let’s end the smoke filled rooms and make the party truly democratic

By Steven Haynes | Mon 12th November 2012 - 10:53 am

When Tim Gordon sent out an email announcing the results of the Federal Committee Elections he said:

The Liberal Democrats are a democratic party to the core, and your voting representatives have returned a set of committees which will ensure that members’ voices are heard at all levels of the party.

However, I look at the results as someone who is a member of Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform, a democracy activist who

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged featured and liberal democrats | 32 Comments

Libby Local, Episode 3: “Golden moments”

By Libby Local | Sun 11th November 2012 - 2:20 pm

On Monday I was sitting in the Market Tavern sipping a milky latte and gazing vaguely at my iPad. I’d been asked to write a piece for Lib Dem Focus and was finding it quite a challenge. As I struggled to simplify a tortuous phrase, Tony, a neighbour of mine thankfully joined me.

We talked local politics and he asked whether I had finally decided whether to stand for council next year. I found myself replying with a curious mix of pride and caution that I found a little disconcerting.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m standing for the Lib Dems.”

He …

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Tagged featured | 7 Comments

Entwistle quits BBC: what next?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 11th November 2012 - 12:20 pm

Another week, another day’s news headlines dominated by the media talking about itself… though this time with some legitimacy, as it’s not every day the Director-General of the BBC resigns within two months of being appointed to the post.

George Entwistle and the BBC’s Catch-22 problem

The BBC Director-General is editor-in-chief of the organisation, ultimately responsible for all content. The DG must also lead an organisation with 23,000 employees, a £4.8bn budget and multiple TV, radio and online outlets. I think it’s fair to say those are two …

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Tagged adam crozier, archie norman, bbc, chris patten, christopher jefferies, featured, george entwistle, itv and philip schofield | 9 Comments

Lynne Featherstone writes… Haringey deserves better

By Lynne Featherstone | Fri 9th November 2012 - 11:50 am

International Development minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest one…

I’m often asked why I got in to politics. There were a number of causes– but prominent amongst them was (and still is) complete and utter frustration with the Labour-run Haringey Council!

I live in a small cul-de-sac and whilst most dwellings here have one off street parking space (including me) many don’t. Some years ago now – Haringey decided to paint double yellow lines on both sides of the road – completely unnecessarily – which would have meant no parking …

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Tagged haringey council | 5 Comments

Opinion: Making a Pickle of the politics of planning

By Andy Boddington | Thu 8th November 2012 - 11:14 am

Eric Pickles is a great populist and masterful at landing a political punch. During Monday’s debate on the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, he was being pressed by Hilary Benn. Will he, Benn demanded, name a lagging planning authority that might be brought into special measures under the bill? “I am very happy to name the worst, which is Hackney,” Pickles told MPs with evident glee.

Poor Labour controlled Hackney, named and shamed as the worst planning authority in England. Except it isn’t – by far. The furious mayor of …

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Tagged eric pickles and planning | 16 Comments

Why there isn’t a British Nate Silver

By Stephen Tall | Thu 8th November 2012 - 8:22 am

A skim-read of Wednesday morning’s headlines might have left folk confused as to who had been declared the victor of the US presidential election: Barack Obama or Nate Silver.

For those who don’t know Nate Silver, he’s the analytical guru behind the FiveThirtyEight blog (named after the number of electoral college votes), now housed at the New York Times, which scrutinises and filters opinion polls. He first rose to prominence four years ago after predicting the winner in 49 of the 50 US states during the Obama-McCain presidential contest, …

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Tagged featured, john rentoul, nate silver and opinion polls | 17 Comments

Opinion: Three birds, one enhanced programme – beyond the town centre rejuvenation plans

By Geof Todd | Wed 7th November 2012 - 4:26 pm

In the wake of both the Government’s town centre rejuvenation plan and the Mary Portas initiative, I believe we have a bigger opportunity to build on the interest and momentum created by both these plans to use them to address some wider and related issues.

The current plans are very specific to town centres and I fully agree with the intent; however, I believe it could be enhanced to also address 2 additional points – the need to offer people not just the minimum wage, but a more representative ‘Living wage’ to help them out of any potential Benefits …

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Also posted in News | Tagged town centre rejuvenation | Leave a comment

Norman Baker MP writes… Green light for more green buses

By Norman Baker MP | Wed 7th November 2012 - 3:23 pm

Last year there were an estimated 2.3 billion bus passenger journeys in England. More people up and down the country get to work by bus than by all other forms of public transport combined, and over 50% of students use them to get to classrooms and lectures. More than that, they provide a life-line for rural communities and just as vital in cities in terms of reducing traffic jams and air pollution by getting people out of cars. But even while people are reducing their carbon emissions by hopping on the bus rather than using their cars, we want to …

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Tagged green issues and transport | 4 Comments

Opinion: Growth has returned, but what does it reveal?

By David Thorpe | Wed 7th November 2012 - 1:59 pm

One of the few tactically savvy moves made by the coalition recently has been its muted response to UK economy’s return to growth. This article examines what the return to growth means for the wider economy.

The first point to make is that, just as the double-dip phase of the recession was caused by international events, the return to growth has similarly been caused by external factors. The coalition deserves neither blame for the double-dip, nor credit for its ending.

Many of those who oppose the coalition’s economic policies on political rather than economic grounds question the validity of the …

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Tagged economy | 5 Comments

The Independent View: In defence of the Police

By Chris Meredith | Wed 7th November 2012 - 11:56 am

Comedian David Mitchell wrote an article in The Guardian recently in which he was generally disparaging of the police read it here

After reading the article I said to my wife ‘David Mitchell really doesn’t like the police’ her response was ‘What do you expect? He’s a liberal. They don’t like the police generally’ Is this true? It seems, to a degree, that it is. The police represent authority, discipline and justice. They can appear as the antithesis of the most basic principles of Liberalism: Liberty, equality, freedom and civil rights but my argument is that without the police democracy …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged criminal justice and police | 32 Comments

Michael Moore’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 7th November 2012 - 8:58 am

Every week Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here’s this week’s edition.

Borders Businesses

As the new GDP figures point in the right direction and a return to growth, I am working with local business here in the Borders to ensure they receive the support and advice they need to grow and create jobs for local people. At the moment I am conducting a Business Survey to assist me in this work and I want to encourage any business in Berwickshire which has not yet received one of these surveys to contact …

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Tagged business, Michael Moore and Westminster Notes | Leave a comment

Fiona Hall writes: EU exit would jeopardise Britain’s global trade

By Fiona Hall MEP | Tue 6th November 2012 - 4:24 pm

For years Europhobes have been propagating the misconception that Britain has to choose between the EU and the rest of the world.

However, this ‘choice’ between the EU and the rest of the world is a false choice. Indeed, being part of the EU is the best way to increase Britain’s trade with emerging markets. As Nick Clegg pointed out in his speech on Europe last week, the EU has free trade agreements in force with 46 countries and negotiations with another 78 countries are currently under way. In addition, the European Parliament last week lent its weight to launching new negotiations with the USA and Japan.

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged european union, nick clegg and trade policy | 25 Comments