Category Archives: Op-eds

Why the Lib Dems cannot end the Coalition. And what we should do to try and rescue it.

By Stephen Tall | Sun 15th July 2012 - 8:55 am

How do we revitalise the Coalition? I realise that for many Lib Dems that’s the very last question on your minds. After a week in which Tory rebel MPs forced the Government to delay a key plank of the Coalition Agreement — House of Lords reform — rather more Lib Dems, and not just the ‘usual suspects’, are turning to the question: how quickly can we be shot of the Tories?

After all, didn’t enough of our MPs walk the plank on the Coalition’s behalf on tuition fees, a policy directly counter to the Lib Dem manifesto? Meanwhile David Cameron cannot even persuade his party to back a reform that’s featured in the last three Tory manifestos. So what’s the purpose of the Coalition any more?

I get the emotional pull of the argument… but it doesn’t persuade me.

Coalition matters more to the Lib Dems than the Tories

The simple truth is that it’s more important for the Lib Dems to try and make this coalition work than it is for the Tories.

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Also posted in News | Tagged coalition, coalition agreement, david cameron, economy, featured and nick clegg | 65 Comments

Opinion: How my life changed forever – 100 days in!

By Rebecca Taylor | Fri 13th July 2012 - 3:16 pm

At the start of this year I was a Lib Dem from Yorkshire working and studying in London who according to some journalists was an “unknown” – although I was quite well known in certain Lib Dem circles, especially for my quiches! The resignation of Diana Wallis, as Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber changed all that.

In 2009 I was third on the Lib Dem list for Yorkshire and the Humber. When you are third on a regional list and the …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged ACTA, ALDE, calder valley, cycling, diana wallis, european parliament and flooding | 13 Comments

Opinion: Why a referendum on second chamber reform would be good for the party

By Bill le Breton | Fri 13th July 2012 - 11:56 am

The Liberal Democrats built their electoral success on the three ‘Cs’: Concentrate, Communicate and Campaign. The campaigning zeal of the Party took us from a handful of councillors and a few MPs dotted around the Celtic fringe in the mid ‘Seventies to a truly national party, with over 3,500 councillors, 60MPs, power and influence in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament, power and influence in over 150 councils, from Newcastle to Newquay, Liverpool to Islington.

Campaigning is the life blood of the movement we endeavour to create around the drive to seize and redistribute power. We do this by the simple means of helping people to take and use their power in their communities. Campaigning succeeds by involving people beyond the party in our campaigns. It energies and strengthens communities and nurtures the tolerance that comes from understanding others and identifying the common causes that link us. These common causes centre upon the injustice stemming from subjection to illegitimate power – be that banks that gamble with our money and provide shocking service, supermarkets that drive farmers to ruin and fix prices or bureaucrats who entangle citizens in red tape and restrict people’s opportunities.

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Tagged constitutional reform, david cameron, house of lords, House of Lords referendum, lords reform and nick clegg | 41 Comments

Opinion: No economic case for regional pay

By John Pugh | Fri 13th July 2012 - 10:36 am

The clamour against regional pay received renewed vigour yesterday as 25 Liberal Democrat backbenchers endorsed a paper calling for the government to scrap any plans to link public sector pay to private sector earnings across the UK. The paper prepared in the office of John Pugh MP, analyses the evidence submitted to the Treasury and Office of Manpower Economics and concludes that there is no economic case for introducing regional pay.

The government has considered the introduction of regional pay in light of concerns that public sector pay premiums across the UK are ‘crowding-out’ the private sector. However statistics show that the private sector is not struggling to recruit staff, as vacancies in the public sector go unfilled for longer and a survey of business leaders shows that the majority have not struggled to compete with public sector wages.

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Tagged john pugh, NHS, nick clegg and regional pay | 31 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats must not apologise for cuts

By David Thorpe | Fri 13th July 2012 - 8:54 am

Occasionally Nick Clegg, or his speechwriters create a phrase which deserves to live on in the political lexicon long after the rest of the speech has been confined to the political dustbin. The pre-2010 General Election debates were transformed by Nick referring to the “two old parties” and asking voters to “do something different this time”.

While the phrases were memorable, they were hardly that effective. Voters did what they did the last time they faced a Labour government mired in staggering incompetence and a Tory party leadership tacking to the centre while the grassroots howled. That was in the 1970’s when voters gave Labour a kicking and the Tories the mandate of largest party in parliament but no overall majority. In 2010 the outcome was the same with Labour weakened and the Tories becoming the largest party, except that on this occasion, the Liberal Democrats, from MPs to ordinary members, voted by a huge majority for a coalition. But while the phrases used in the debates were clever and eye catching, it was another of Nick’s phrases which should help set the tone for the party in the future. Nick said there would be “savage cuts”, while Vince Cable joined his Tory and Labour colleagues in saying that post-election there would, under a Liberal Democrat government, be “cuts faster and deeper than Thatcher”.

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Tagged austerity, francois hollande, gordon brown, keynes, nick clegg, spending cuts and vince cable | 38 Comments

Lords reform – what exactly have the ‘rebels’ achieved?

By Nick T | Thu 12th July 2012 - 2:28 pm

Here’s what I tweeted on Tuesday evening:

What, more broadly, do Tory rebels think they’ll achieve today? More chance of Tory majority? No. More of ‘their’ issues pursued by gov? No.

— Nick Thornsby (@NickThornsby) July 10, 2012

And I think this is still a pertinent question. There is one thing that the rebels clearly achieved, and that it to make Lords reform less likely to happen. Lords reform is by no means dead, but it would have been more likely had the programme motion been passed. But given that much of the rebellion wasn’t driven by hard principle (given …

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Tagged lords reform | 21 Comments

Opinion: Kill the Euro before it kills Europe

By David Allen | Thu 12th July 2012 - 12:53 pm

The Euro was meant to secure the peace in Europe. Instead, it is the cause of conflict. Those who seek European harmony should now recognise that the Euro stands in the way. We need to understand why this is. Here is my take.

Most economic areas have a successful centre and struggling periphery. Think of London versus Northumbria in Britain, Germany versus Greece in Europe. How do winning and losing regions establish competitive equilibrium?

Within a sovereign nation, political pressures ensure large resource transfers from rich to poor regions. Taxes raised in the prosperous centre

…

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Tagged euro and europe | 67 Comments

Opinion: Time to take a stand on “Boris Island”

By Chris Sams | Wed 11th July 2012 - 7:01 pm

Local politics in the south-east of England, especially in North Kent and London, has been dominated by the proposed HUB airport, it was a key issue in the Mayoral debate, especially for residents of the Medway towns. London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson is pushing for a new airport either on the Isle of Grain where there is an RSPB sanctuary on marshland that was portrayed in Dickens’ Great Expectations or in the middle of the estuary itself.

It is a story that is hardly out of the local press or local Politicians blogs which is why I was reading a

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Also posted in News | Tagged aviation, boris island, environment and thames estuary airport | 16 Comments

Opinion: could the Armed Services help run schools?

By Sean Davey | Wed 11th July 2012 - 3:57 pm

First of all it is no exaggeration to say that the British public are hugely proud and supportive of our armed services, and so we should be of the men and women who dedicate their lives to national service. But in modern times the military is facing a number of challenges which are rapidly changing the function they serve.

With a Conservative Defence Secretary enacting the biggest round of cuts since the end of the …

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Tagged armed services, defence and education | 18 Comments

Liberal Youth: It’s time to think about Freshers

By Callum Morton and Ben Richards | Wed 11th July 2012 - 10:25 am

As the academic year draws to a close, most young people are thinking about the summer ahead – not us though. At Liberal Youth we’re already planning for the next academic year and we want this year’s Freshers (the inaugural party / join-a-society week at the start of the academic term) to be the one that puts us back on the map.

The Freshers period is incredibly important to our organisation, more so now than ever. We’re not naive, we know the Liberal Democrats’ reputation on campus isn’t the same as it was a few years ago, but we’re working hard …

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Tagged belarus, campaign for body confidence, equal marriage, iflry, liberal youth, nus and tuition fees | 8 Comments

Blast from the past: Paddy Ashdown on principled opposition

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th July 2012 - 9:01 am

As I’ve watched the shameful shenanigans in the House of Commons this week over Lords reform, one event from our not so recent past kept popping into my head. Those of us of a certain age can remember the eventful passage of the Maastricht Bill through Parliament in 1992/93. Even though they agreed with the principles of the Maastricht Treaty, Labour teamed up with Tory Eurosceptics to try to undermine the Government.

The Liberal Democrats, enthusiastic about closer European partnership, played no such games. I would be lying if I said I had taken this entirely calmly at the time. After …

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Tagged a fortunate life, coalition, house of commons, lords reform and paddy ashdown | 19 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats must not defend this appalling bill

By Robin McGhee | Tue 10th July 2012 - 5:09 pm

The British constitution is primarily the result of accident or, at best, short-term political compromise. From the existence of a Prime Minister to the electoral system, chances are some aristocrat you’ve never heard of blundered across it by accident a couple of centuries ago. The current bill to reform the House of Lords continues this unfortunate tradition.

I am almost alone in the Lib Dems in opposing an elected second chamber. As it stands, the bill is not about to make me change my mind.

The bill proposes an electoral system which uses list PR. This system puts powers …

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Tagged lords reform | 42 Comments

The best reason for House of Lords reform is one almost nobody mentions

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th July 2012 - 4:05 pm

My post from last year is rather relevant again, so here it is with some slight updates:

The voters have cast their verdict and an MP is out of office. What should happen to them next? Most people’s answers are somewhere on the spectrum from the polite (let them tidy up their affairs and see their staff properly treated as their contracts end) through to answers best not published before the watershed.

But our political system has a remarkable answer.

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Tagged constitutional reform, featured, house of lords and lords reform | 28 Comments

Why doesn’t Theresa May want mandatory tracking of all cars?

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th July 2012 - 2:25 pm

Because it is an absurd idea may well be your answer to that question even before you’ve reached the end of it. But bear with me a moment.

Imagine a government policy to have mandatory tracking devices in all motor vehicles, which would record all the journeys and store the data. The data would normally be private but could be accessed by the police and others if they subsequently discovered a reason to suspect someone. (You may be able to guess where I am going with this…)

It would cost a fair …

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Tagged draft communications data bill, featured, interception modernisation programme, Interception of Communications Commissioner and theresa may | 14 Comments

Opinion: Exploding the tuition fees polling myth

By Nick Tyrone | Tue 10th July 2012 - 12:03 pm

It is generally assumed knowledge – within the Liberal Democrats as well as in the wider political world – that our party’s poll numbers took a big nosedive right after the coalition government voted (excepting rebels) to change the way tuition works in England by raising the limit on what universities can charge students per year to £9,000.

For instance, a common answer I get when I ask fellow Lib Dems how many points they think we lost post tuition fees is “about 8%”.

What I want to do here is not to discuss the pros and cons of the 2010 Higher …

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Tagged opinion polls and yougov | 35 Comments

Opinion: Fear-mongering, negative stereotyping and abuse, even in polite society

By Issan Ghazni | Tue 10th July 2012 - 10:39 am

Why, in a supposedly modern civilised liberal society, are some of our journalists having to put up with alarming levels of personal abuse?

Mehdi Hasan

It is not often that I agree or sympathise with the comments of Mehdi Hasan, a vehemently tribal Labour party supporting journalist previously working for the New Statesman and now with the Huffington Post UK.

But here, he talks about something I concur with – an issue which is not written about often due to the fear of public reprisal. It is an issue of real importance …

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Tagged islamophobia | 18 Comments

The 15 words that mean the Coalition won’t fall, no matter what happens to Lords reform

By Stephen Tall | Mon 9th July 2012 - 10:45 pm

There’s a very simple reason why — even if enough Tory MPs inflict the Coalition’s first defeat on a key plank of the Coalition Agreement which appeared in their last three manifestos — the Government will not fall tomorrow. It’s these 15 words from the May 2010 Programme for Government:

The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement.

There is also, of course, the small matter of the current opinion polls: neither the Tories nor the Lib Dems will relish a rush to the ballot box at the moment. A Coalition once held together by radicalism and conviction is now bound together by a pact of mutually assured destruction.

The inconsistencies in Tory backbenchers’ position on Lords reform are legion. I won’t unpick them here, as Nick Thornsby has already highlighted six examples on his blog here.

What the Lords fracas reveals about the Tories’ mood

More interesting than trying to pick through the rubble of Tory excuses is to try and understand why a policy on which the two Coalition parties officially agree should be showing up so clearly David Cameron’s inability to lead his party.

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Tagged david cameron, featured, lords reform, nick clegg and peter kellner | 38 Comments

Opinion: We need to counter the perception that we are no longer a political force to take seriously

By Paul Haydon | Mon 9th July 2012 - 3:53 pm

Many of my friends are quite bemused when I say am working for the Liberal Democrats. “They’re a bit of a laughing stock at the moment,” one will say. “They’ll be wiped out at the next election,” another comments. These are not die-hard Labour tribalists or Tory hardliners, who yearn for the end of the Lib Dems and the return to a two-party system. They are just ordinary members of the public, with nothing more than a passing interest in politics.

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34 Comments

Albert Einstein, the good liberal

By Mark Pack | Mon 9th July 2012 - 2:25 pm

I’ve commented before that Albert Einstein is a good example of the power of brevity, something some politicians and campaigners forget when insisting they need to write a long story or give a length speech in order to properly explain an issue:

It’s far harder to write clear, precise and brief text than it is to write long, imprecise and waffly pieces. So don’t confuse brevity with dumbing down. Unless of course you think Albert Einstein was a stupid, idiotic scientist for lazily using just using five characters (not even five whole words!) to try to explain complex science when

…

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Tagged albert einstein | 10 Comments

Opinion: The case for a Republic – and why Lib Dems should support it

By Kevin McNamara | Mon 9th July 2012 - 12:53 pm

This is a long fought argument and, maybe, one that everyone that will read this is tired of hearing. Nonetheless, it is an argument that all liberals should support.

As liberals, we oppose the arbitrary concentration of power – and you don’t get more arbitrary than your head of state being hereditary!

As a short disclaimer, I do not intend to go into arguments about cost et cetera, but rather the principle of having a monarchy.

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Tagged monarchy | 23 Comments

Chris Rennard writes…The inspiration behind Alcoholics Anonymous

By Chris Rennard | Mon 9th July 2012 - 11:23 am

Last week I was asked to speak to a group of charity fundraisers in Geneva. You can see my speech below this article on YouTube.

I was asked to inspire them based on work that I had done with the Liberal Democrats as a senior manager between 1989 and 2009 to help spend resources more effectively, raise substantially more money from large donors and make the party more electorally successful.

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Tagged alcoholism | 5 Comments

Norman Lamb MP writes…Employee ownership: moving from niche to mainstream

By Norman Lamb MP | Mon 9th July 2012 - 9:53 am

I’ve written about employee ownership on these pages before – but today am doing so from a very different position. As the Coalition’s minister for employment relations, employee ownership is part of my remit. I’ve gone from being an enthusiastic advocate of greater employee ownership, to being the Liberal Democrat minister responsible for delivering it.

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Tagged employee ownership | 3 Comments

Lynne Featherstone writes… The worst roads in the country?

By Lynne Featherstone | Sat 7th July 2012 - 10:55 am

Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest one, turning on the local council’s record on road repairs.

It sometimes seems that the only thing Haringey Council is good at is finding new ways to fail local people. So maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised to read that the borough has the worst maintained roads in England.

A new survey by the Department for Transport shows that one in five of Haringey’s main roads are in need of some kind of repair. No other council area in England has …

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Tagged haringey council | 3 Comments

Lord McNally writes… Conscience and reform

By Lord Tom McNally | Fri 6th July 2012 - 12:23 pm

Shirley Williams has recently been made Peer of the Year in one of the regular Parliamentary Awards. Eric Avebury was recently given a life time achievement award at a ceremony in the Speaker’s House. Matthew Oakeshott received praise for his persistence in pointing out that there is much in our banking system which is rotten and in need of reform. When issues affecting children are debated in the Lords it is often Joan Walmsley who holds the House with informed and practical opinion. Ditto when Margaret Sharp speaks on science, technology and higher education. Sally Hamwee and Martin …

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Tagged constitutional reform, house of lords, Joan Walmsley, lords reform, margaret sharp, martin thomas, paddy ashdown, sally hamwee and shirley williams | 45 Comments

Opinion: Tuition fees – a progressive model for welfare?

By Samuel Barratt | Thu 5th July 2012 - 1:22 pm

Given the proportion of public sector spending it accounts for, in austere times welfare spending has come under the spotlight, with sizeable cuts having already being made.

Looking at who is accessing benefits to ensure those in receipt of them should be is to be welcomed. A blind eye should not, however, be turned to wealthier individuals in receipt of things like winter fuel allowance whilst cuts are made to some of the poorest in our society.

It is right that Liberal Democrats have distanced ourselves from Cameron’s musings that everyone under 25 should not be able to rely on support from …

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Tagged tuition fees and welfare reform | 49 Comments

Edward McMillan-Scott MEP writes… Our voice on human rights is amplified by the EU

By Edward McMillan-Scott | Thu 5th July 2012 - 11:54 am

The Coalition pledge to put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy is bearing fruit. Thanks especially to pressure from the European Parliament – where as Vice-President for democracy and human rights I have lobbied hard – and the Foreign Office, civil society, the EU’s 27 governments recently adopted a comprehensive new approach. Jeremy Browne, our excellent minister for human rights, and I co-authored a recent article published by the Independent explaining the background of the ambitious new EU Human Rights package.

Although the EU’s foreign ministers gave the green light to a new Strategy with an associated …

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Tagged europe and human rights | 3 Comments

Lib Dems should back a judge-led inquiry into financial scandal

By Stephen Tall | Wed 4th July 2012 - 10:55 pm

I get why the Tories are opposed to a judge-led inquiry into the scandalous rate-rigging practices employed by Barclays and other banks: their experiences of the Leveson Inquiry show how scandals, even ones that blend across the red/blue parties, have a habit of rebounding on the government of the day.

I get why Labour are in favour of a judge-led inquiry: so complicit were Labour (and Ed Balls in particular) in the catastrophic financial mess of the last few years, of which the banks are just one part, that they are desperate to appear transparent in the hope the inquiry will rebound on the government of the day.

But I don’t get why the Lib Dems are lining up with the Tories to oppose a judge-led inquiry.

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Also posted in News | Tagged banking, bob diamond, featured, finance, leveson inquiry and Parliament | 58 Comments

Local liberal heroes: Anood Al-Samerai

By Mark Pack | Wed 4th July 2012 - 2:20 pm

A while back, I penned a series of posts profiling forgotten liberal heroes (to which a couple of other people also kindly contributed), looking at some of those who achieved great things for liberalism in their time but have been unjustly forgotten – such as Margaret Wintringham, the very first female Liberal MP.

There is also another group of people who I think are often unjustly obscure – those local campaigners who are often at the heart of their local community and local party, delivering liberalism and helping others, but as their stage is a local one they are often unacknowledged …

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Tagged anood al-samerai, local liberal heroes and southwark liberal democrats | 2 Comments

Opinion: What is keeping councils awake at night?

By Chris White | Wed 4th July 2012 - 12:27 pm

The Local Government Conference met in conference in Birmingham last week.

I am slightly (only very slightly) embarrassed to confess that I have attended every conference since the LGA was created in 1997. In that first year the conference (in Manchester) ran from Tuesday until Friday. There was a gala night on the set of Coronation Street (this is apparently a television soap opera for those of you too busy each evening with your politics).

John Prescott and Gordon Brown turned up to praise the new body’s birth and the role of local government (delicious irony in hindsight), John Bird and John …

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Also posted in Local government | Tagged #lgaconf, chris white, eric pickles, lga, Local government and michael gove | 5 Comments