Category Archives: Op-eds

John Carlisle

Opinion: time to march for the Civil Service

By John Carlisle | Fri 19th October 2012 - 9:22 am

At the moment we are being outmanoeuvred by the Tories on the PR front, as the Osborne distortion of employee ownership illustrates, and we are not differentiating ourselves in an increasingly right wing government. We need to issue two challenges, right now, in addition to the clamour around the Employee Share Ownership issue – especially with the TUC demonstration looming on Saturday, which I shall be attending (hopefully I will see other yellow rosettes there).

They are related. The first is the austerity measures translated into

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Tagged , and | 26 Comments
Mark Pack

The pointlessness of political opinion polls

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th October 2012 - 7:50 am

Leo Barasi’s piece over on Liberal Conspiracy raises an interesting point about the frequency of political opinion polling in the UK. We now have far more polls than before giving national voting intention figures (this Parliament so far: 878, 2001-5 312 in total, 1987-92 548 in total – to give some examples). But do we have too few?

Due to the vagaries of random sampling, a poll that shows a party’s support going up or down a couple of points doesn’t really show anything. It’s like tossing a coin 10 …

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Also posted in Polls | Tagged | 12 Comments

Opinion: Lord Matthew Taylor must recognise that planning is for everyone

By Andy Boddington | Thu 18th October 2012 - 2:54 pm

There was near universal welcome for the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) when it was launched last March. Environmental groups moaned about details. Developers grumbled that they had expected a greater relaxation of rules. But planning is about solving spatial conflict in our very crowded country. The NPPF is not too bad at doing that.

Lord Matthew Taylor has now been given an equally demanding task. The broad structure of planning is controlled by policy statements, but the devil is in the detail.

…

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4 Comments
Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes… This week could have been very different

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 18th October 2012 - 11:20 am

Last weekend was the fifth anniversary of the day that Gordon Brown changed his mind at the last minute and didn’t call the widely anticipated 2007 autumn General Election. Given the remainder of his tenure it is easy for many of us to forget that following his succession to No. 10 Downing St, Gordon Brown did received a popularity bounce. Brown was 10% ahead in the polls, David Cameron was floundering following a difficult period as opposition leader, and of course the banking collapse of 2008 had not yet happened.

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Nick Tyrone

Opinion: Clegg tourettes – the three party conferences

By Nick Tyrone | Thu 18th October 2012 - 9:50 am

My occupation took me to all three major conferences this year and I’d like to share my impressions with you.

First up, our lot. As usual, the press marched on us, expecting a revolt. Wanting to be there as Vince made his big move. As usual, nothing much really happened on that front. A few more grumbles about Nick than last year, that was all. The biggest complaint I have about my time in Brighton was the weather (particularly …

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Also posted in Conference | 9 Comments
Jenny Ricks

The Independent View: Fill your 4 x 4 with biofuel, or feed an African child for 200 days?

By Jenny Ricks | Wed 17th October 2012 - 4:40 pm

From time to time the solution to a problem ends up being worse than the original dilemma. Such is the case with making fuel from food crops – biofuels – in place of burning fossil fuels. What started off as such a well-intentioned idea to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has ended up not only doing the opposite, but also contributing to world food price rises and driving poor people off their land in developing countries and into hunger.

But as the tide turns against biofuels, there are sustainable alternatives which can take their place. And that’s where the Lib

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb writes: Time to change

By Norman Lamb MP | Wed 17th October 2012 - 12:54 pm

Over the next few weeks’ telly-watching you may see adverts encouraging people to talk about mental health. For those of you that can’t wait, you can watch them online here. These adverts are part of the Time to Change campaign, England’s biggest ever attempt to end the stigma and discrimination that faces people with mental health problems. This is a brilliant campaign. I remember speaking at its launch back in 2008. In the time since then, it has made a real difference.

It can be extraordinarily tough to talk about mental health problems, and this only adds to the hardship caused by the illness itself. I welcome the fact that more and

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Tagged and | 6 Comments
Iain Roberts

Is liberalism wrong – and how would we know?

By Iain Roberts | Wed 17th October 2012 - 11:58 am

A couple of hours on Twitter is more than enough to see the acolytes of political philosophy A assuring the world that everyone who believes in political philosophy B is stupid, immoral or more than likely both. The favour is typically returned in kind.

And yet anyone who’s acquainted with that slightly curious place known as the “real world” knows there are many highly intelligent, moral and clear-thinking people in pretty much every camp. Anyone who thinks Burke, Mill or even Marx had nothing worthwhile to say is a fool.

Who’s actually right? Are our political philosophies just religions in which we must

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Dave Page

Opinion: Open standards: a liberal approach to technology

By Dave Page | Wed 17th October 2012 - 9:56 am

As we look at how we use technology to campaign as Liberal Democrats, we should consider the use of open standards.

Most people know something very basic about the World Wide Web – it was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. But the key to its success was not just the skill of its inventor; the standards behind the web were open, meaning that anybody could write a web server, web browser or web page. Dozens of programmes sprung up, all of them able to talk to each …

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Tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Simon McGrath

Opinion: Abu Hamza isn’t Gary McKinnon but we should still be concerned about his extradition

By Simon McGrath | Tue 16th October 2012 - 4:42 pm

The extradition of Abu Hamza and 4 other men to the US seems to have given almost universal pleasure and there is no doubt that he seems an extraordinarily unpleasant man, with a long criminal record and deeply repellent views.

But it is in just these sorts of cases that a Liberal needs to be careful and not just go with popular opinion. When you look at what crimes he and the other men involved are accused of it is impossible not to be concerned. It is, interestingly enough, quite difficult to find exactly what they are accused of; the best summary I have found is here.

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Also posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Paul Haydon

Opinion: We shouldn’t take peace in Europe for granted

By Paul Haydon | Tue 16th October 2012 - 3:50 pm

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU on Friday was met with predictable derision from the likes of Nigel Farage, who described it the decision as “baffling,” and leader of the Tory MEPs  Martin Callanan, who said it was “a little late for an April Fools’ Joke.”

Admittedly, the current social unrest across Southern Europe made the award seem a little incongruous, especially coming just days after Angela Merkel’s visit to Greece was met with violent protests in Athens.

Yet in fact, this was …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged , , and | 18 Comments
Caron Lindsay

The unsung hero of the Edinburgh Agreement

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th October 2012 - 11:53 am

As I watched the events unfold in the Edinburgh sunshine today, as Alex Salmond and David Cameron signed the historic Agreement on the process for the Independence Referendum, my thoughts were with the man who actually put the leg work in on this.

To put it bluntly, if we’d waited for David Cameron and Alex Salmond to reach agreement, we’d be waiting until people were telling their grandchildren about the day Hell froze over. In fact, only recently the Tories were murmuring about the UK Government running its own referendum. That, believe me, would not have ended well.

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Also posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 12 Comments
Tracy Connell

Employee share ownership – open letter to Vince Cable and Nick Clegg

By Tracy Connell | Tue 16th October 2012 - 10:53 am

We, the undersigned, are extremely concerned by the employee share ownership policy. We call for this bill to be amended to remove the part where workers have to give up their rights for share-ownership and, rather, for the proposal to mirror that agreed by the Liberal Democrat conference in this document.

The proposal appears to allow for workers to give up their rights in return for company shares, as detailed on the HM Treasury website:

Under the new type of contract, employees will be given between £2,000 and £50,000 of shares that are exempt from capital gains tax. In exchange, they

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Tagged , , and | 80 Comments

Opinion: Sex education must be reformed to combat sexual abuse

By Anne Smith | Tue 16th October 2012 - 9:55 am

This post carries a trigger warning for domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape. 

The author’s name has been changed to protect her identity. 

The allegations of Jimmy Savile’s serial sexual abuse of young girls have been met with universal outrage. It has helped many more women to speak up about their own horrific stories. Rape and sexual harassment happens to women daily across the country, the majority of whom never speak up.

I was raped by a friend from university earlier this year. He never apologised and I suffered abuse from his friends worse than the incident itself. They routinely mimicked my screams …

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Tagged , , , , and | 25 Comments

Opinion: Regional planning – it mattered not one jot

By Andy Boddington | Mon 15th October 2012 - 4:53 pm

It is a general rule of life that the longer a document is, the less it matters. I have just read all 1,374 pages of the Strategic Environmental Assessment for the revocation of the South East Plan, published last week. Does this document matter? Not one jot, except for one important lesson, which I’ll come to in a moment.

Everything regional is out of favour at the moment. Quite rightly, too. When I lived in Oxfordshire I did not feel that I belonged to “the South East”. Now I live in Shropshire, I do not for a moment

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Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Kirsten de Keyser

Opinion: Calling All Bloggers – Don’t make me a tax avoidance accomplice

By Kirsten de Keyser | Mon 15th October 2012 - 3:23 pm

According to Vince Cable “No one keeps their cash in tax havens for the quality of investment advice; these are sunny places for shady people.” True to form, Vince hit the nail squarely on its head with a whammy of a quote, and how we all clapped enthusiastically. But who actually piles the cash into these rogues’ coffers in the first place? It could be you.

Many of our enthusiastic clappers routinely rock up outside Boots, on a sunny Saturday, aggressively jabbing angry posters-on-sticks skywards, in tandem with chants of

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Tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Vince Cable

Vince Cable MP writes… My view on George Osborne’s employee ownership scheme

By Vince Cable | Mon 15th October 2012 - 2:18 pm

Last week at the Conservative Party conference the Chancellor announced a new equity ownership scheme. His proposed scheme, targeted at small companies, is entirely voluntary and cannot be forced upon employees. It would offer employees shares (from £2,000 to £50,000) in their business in exchange for certain employment rights. The shares are Capital Gains Tax free – which if the company grows extremely fast is a valuable offer.

The scheme has had a mixed reaction. However a few

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Tagged , , , and | 76 Comments
Richard Davis

Opinion: Apps – a new weapon in the campaigning arsenal

By Richard Davis | Mon 15th October 2012 - 1:53 pm

In the 2010 general election it was the norm for all candidates to have a website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter account. Social media were spreading, even back then, and becoming a way for politicians to reach out to the people they represent, not just as a news outlet, but, as Tom Brake recently wrote on Lib Dem Voice, a method for opening a two-way communication with the electorate.

But now, with the spread of smart phones, we are entering an age where the politicians can add another weapon to their

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7 Comments
Ruth Bright

Opinion: Three-in-one leader’s speech

By Ruth Bright | Mon 15th October 2012 - 12:23 pm

Editor’s note: This composite leader’s conference speech was written last Thursday, well before Andrew Rawnsley published a similar piece.

Today we gather in a generic city with a bit of regeneration.

It is good to get out of the Westminster bubble.

It’s hard being outside the bubble.

Some people outside the bubble don’t like us.

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Also posted in Conference and Humour | 12 Comments
William Jones

Opinion: The challenge ahead for Nick Clegg

By William Jones | Mon 15th October 2012 - 10:53 am

The right-wing, who have been rocking the leadership boat for David Cameron, have been dealt with. With some PR mastery, that has relaunched him. Even the threat of Boris seems to have melted away.

Cameron is now considered a “real Tory” amongst activists after Osborne provided some red-blooded Tory announcements. He has removed any questions about his leadership, for now, if he can steamroller the Lib Dems with a further £10bn of benefit cuts, the shelving of any taxes

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Tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Paul Walter

The Sun’s “Hero of the week” is a straw man

By Paul Walter | Mon 15th October 2012 - 9:23 am

The Guardian reports:

Nick Clegg has declined to back the campaign to ban page 3 girls from the Sun, on the grounds that the state should not dictate the content of newspapers. In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, the deputy prime minister said it would be “deeply illiberal” for the state to dictate what appears in newspapers…Clegg was asked by Shelagh Fogarty, the Radio 5 presenter, if he would support the page 3 ban during a live broadcast from Sheffield. “No, no, no,” he said. “I’ve got three little sons so I don’t have page 3

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Tagged , , and | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

The European Union deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

By Mark Pack | Sun 14th October 2012 - 10:50 am

Something I wrote back last autumn is rather applicable to my views of the Nobel Peace Prize going to the European Union:

Sat on a shelf a few metres away from me is a box containing the various military medals won by my relatives over previous generations. The medals criss-cross Europe, coming from different countries, over the three wars that had a German-French conflict at their centre. To British eyes that count of three wars may seem odd at first, but for the German and French politicians building new European structures in the aftermath of the Second World War, their

…

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged and | 39 Comments
Mark Pack

At this rate, I’m going to be launching the Save Andrew Mitchell Fan Club

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th October 2012 - 9:25 am

The Andrew Mitchell Gate-Gate story started off simply enough: politician does stupid thing, bungles apology and faces heavy pressure to quit. Add to that what I’ve heard from people who have worked with him, and it all seemed a straight forward story of a person with an unpleasant streak getting found out.

But you know what? The longer this has gone on, the more sympathy I have with him. Hard to believe, but consider two salient facts.

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Tagged and | 39 Comments
Jamie Hewitt

Thoughts on this World Arthritis Day

By Jamie Hewitt | Fri 12th October 2012 - 4:21 pm

To mark World Arthritis Day, Jamie Hewitt, Government Affairs Manager at the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) peers into Norman Lamb MP’s ministerial inbox and takes a look at the forthcoming Long-Term Conditions Outcomes Strategy.

Things move on quickly in politics. Just shy of one year ago today I posted a blog for Liberal Democrat Voice on the subject of a live webchat we had conducted with the Minister for Long-Term Conditions at the time, Paul Burstow MP.

During our public tête-a-tête the Minister was challenged squarely about the merits of introducing a musculoskeletal strategy and indicated that the Coalition Government …

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Also posted in News | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Are you a member of Unlock Democracy? Please help improve it

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th October 2012 - 1:25 pm

In the spring and summer I blogged about how underwhelmed I was by the exceptionally tight campaigning restrictions for Unlock Democracy’s internal elections which blocked contact between candidates and voters (the irony given the organisation’s name!), leaving just a fairly uninformative booklet to guide my votes:

Now having the ballot mailing for the council and for the related limited company in front of me, things are even worse. Why? Because I’m left with almost no decent information on which to decide how to cast my vote. Sure, I’ve got a

…

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Tagged | 2 Comments

Opinion: Shares for Rights? An open letter to Nick Clegg

By Nigel Quinton | Fri 12th October 2012 - 11:52 am

Dear Nick

Like most people I have spoken to this week I had imagined that Osborne’s announcement of “shares-for-rights” was for the Tory conference audience, and would not see its way into government policy, not at least while the Liberal Democrats are part of the government.

Yet today I read in Tim Gordon’s weekly update that we actually are supporting this as a promotion of employee ownership! Nick, it is anything but!!

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , and | 32 Comments
Geoff Crocker

Opinion: Britain should join the Euro

By Geoff Crocker | Thu 11th October 2012 - 5:35 pm

Lib Dems have gone remarkably quiet about Europe, whilst the Conservative Euro-sceptic agenda gains ground, certainly within its party conference, and probably within its party at large. Euro-scepticism flourishes in large swathes of the UK media. This swing of opinion is fuelled by the perspective that the Eurozone economy is in dire trouble, that the Euro might not survive, and that the UK was very sensible to have kept out of it. We are told all this every night on Newsnight. Gillian Tett wrote recently in the FT, that her father was correct in dismissing the Euro project as unworkable 16 years ago, and she had been wrong in her Euro enthusiasm.

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Tagged and | 163 Comments
Paul Tyler

Paul Tyler writes: Progress postponed

By Paul Tyler | Wed 10th October 2012 - 12:56 pm

There was no talk this year of banning champagne at the Conservative Party Conference. Perhaps there was no danger of exuberance among delegates. As recalcitrant Tories sought one-in-the-eye against Nick Clegg by erasing Lords Reform from the Coalition Agreement, their party’s treasured redrawing of the UK electoral map was duly jettisoned too. Without a stronger second chamber to challenge the executive, it would have been wrong to reduce the size of the House of Commons, thereby increasing the proportionate dominance of the government’s ‘payroll’ within it.

Clearly, the failure of the most comprehensive attempt to reform the composition of the Lords …

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Rob Murphy

Opinion: Cameron’s lurch to the right is Clegg’s opportunity

By Rob Murphy | Wed 10th October 2012 - 11:54 am

Party conference seasons are rarely memorable. Apart from Cameron’s “call that election – we will fight, Britain will win” bluff, which prompted Gordon Brown to call off the “election that never was” in 2007. Apart from a few leadership shocks – Ed Miliband’s pipping of his brother to the line on the shoulders of the trade unions in 2010 and the foundering of David Davis’ leaden leadership bid in 2005.

It may be premature to pass judgment on this conference season just yet. But it is a season that will be remembered for three things. Nick

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Tagged , , and | 70 Comments
Sophie Bridger

Opinion: we must act to make sure all girls have access to education

By Sophie Bridger | Wed 10th October 2012 - 10:58 am

Yesterday, in the Swat region of Pakistan, a 14 year old girl was shot. Her name is Malala Yousafzai, and she was walking home from school with her friend when she was shot in the side of the head. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The question on all our minds is ‘Why would anyone try and kill a 14 year old girl?’.

Because Malala Yousafzai stood up for something that scares and horrifies the Taliban – she dared to speak out for girls’ right to an education.

Malala was 11 years old when she started writing about life under the …

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