Category Archives: Op-eds

Opinion: Standing up for the rights of mobile home owners

By Peter Black | Tue 29th May 2012 - 8:55 am

A recent survey by a consumer watchdog has found that more than 40 per cent of park homes residents have said that they feel unable to sell or buy their home freely due to a fear of site operators blocking sales. Consumer Focus Wales has discovered that almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of park home residents in Wales who were interviewed have experienced problems on their site in the past five years, while 29 per cent have experienced problems with site maintenance, security or safety standards.

Local councils have also told the consumer watchdog that penalties are not severe enough for rogue site operators, while it is almost impossible to revoke a licence. The high costs of potential court cases against rogue site operators means that local authorities are reluctant to take action which might affect vulnerable residents.

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Also posted in News | Tagged mobile homes, park homes, peter black and welsh assembly | 1 Comment

Opinion: You can’t have ‘growth’ without ‘austerity’

By David Thorpe | Mon 28th May 2012 - 12:54 pm

Amid the current maelstrom of gossip, speculation and forecasting concerning the British economy, a number of myths have developed.

Principal among them is that the coalition’s economic plans for this parliament contained ‘only’ cuts, with no concern for achieving growth.

The issue of whether fiscal consolidation itself can be a driver of growth is one I aim to address further below, but first I want to debunk that myth.

The economic plans, outlined by the coalition in 2010, made clear that the first half of the parliament would contain the bulk of the …

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Tagged austerity, economic growth and economy | 38 Comments

Opinion: Time to move on from the sterile debate based on misinterpretations of Keynes and Smith

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 28th May 2012 - 9:54 am

Is Europe, including the UK, destined to drown in a sea of irreconcilable debate over austerity versus growth, whilst the economic answers watch despairing from the shore ?

It may well be so. The election in France of President Hollande, and the success of anti-austerity parties and groups, seems to point that way.

There is no middle ground here. Only a different way of looking at the problem.

To get there however, I first wish to take you back, dear reader, to the mid-1970s when political criticisms of Keynesian demand …

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11 Comments

The Weekend Debate: What’s wrong with making membership of the second chamber a lottery?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th May 2012 - 8:55 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

The debate about what a reformed House of Lords should look like has been defeating legislators for well over a century — and here’s a novel proposal from Sandy Walkington, who stood for the Lib Dems in St Albans at the last election:

Greece is not exactly in fashion at the moment. But we could learn a thing or two from ancient Athens. They chose their office holders by lot from amongst the citizens, who then had to serve for a

…

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Tagged house of lords, lords reform, sandy walkington and sortition | 40 Comments

Local liberal heroes: Peter Truesdale

By Mark Pack | Fri 25th May 2012 - 11:50 am

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 in the wider party.

Today it is the turn of Lambeth Liberal Democrat Peter Truesdale.

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Tagged lambeth council, local liberal heroes and peter truesdale | 3 Comments

Norman Baker MP writes… Helping people make smarter transport choices

By Norman Baker MP | Fri 25th May 2012 - 10:20 am

Transport accounts for around a quarter of the UK’s emissions, but people want to travel and they want to travel further and more often. Good transport infrastructure is also essential to a well-functioning economy, so how do we square the circle?

The Lib Dem approach is to say that it isn’t about choosing between growth and carbon reduction: it’s about reducing carbon emissions from transport. That’s why the Lib Dems in Government are overseeing the of spending £2.4bn on transport improvements; the biggest rail expansion programme since Victorian times; electrification of over 800 miles of railway compared to the 9 miles …

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Tagged living streets, local sustainable transport fund, sustainability and transport | 12 Comments

Opinion: The need for the CAP

By George Potter | Fri 25th May 2012 - 8:55 am

This is the last article in a three part series of articles based on interviews with Lib Dem MEPs George Lyon and Phil Bennion about reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The other two articles can be found here and here.

One of the subjects which came up in the interviews was whether or not to have a CAP at all. Both of them made some interesting points about the subject.

Phil Bennion made the argument that it was necessary for the sake of global food security.

“We have to approach food security, not just from Europe’s point of view ...

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Tagged common agricultural policy and europe | 1 Comment

Opinion: Releasing Megrahi was the right thing to do

By Malcolm Wood | Thu 24th May 2012 - 3:56 pm

The release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the Lockerbie Bombing in which 270 people died, on compassionate grounds is almost always described in the media as a controversial decision but I think it was the right one.

I accept the cynical case that his release was convenient to the Scottish government in many ways: it prevented his “martyrdom” in a Scottish prison; it may have helped the lucrative business of trading with Libya; it was helpful to the SNP government’s wider aims to
remind everyone about ways in which Scottish and English law (and, by extension, Scotland and England) …

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Tagged abdelbaset ali al-megrahi, lockerbie bombing and snp | 6 Comments

Baroness Parminter writes… Protecting buzzards

By Kathryn Parminter | Thu 24th May 2012 - 2:53 pm

Many of you will have seen the news yesterday that common buzzards may be at risk following anecdotal evidence from the shooting industry that buzzards, which usually scavenge dead animals, may be eating some of the 40 million young pheasants that are released each year for shooting.

My colleagues on the Lib Dem Defra backbench Committee and I have been very clear that we oppose measures that would harm a protected bird of prey that’s only now recovering after decades of decline, and we’ve been making this case to Defra ministers. We believe the focus should be on tackling …

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Tagged buzzards and defra | 12 Comments

How referendums are the most effective way to maintain the status quo & what it means for Lords reform

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th May 2012 - 1:55 pm

Warning: this post contains paradoxes and thinking in progress…

Paradox 1: When asked, most people in this country say the current system of British politics needs to change. Yet the public consistently votes for small-c conservative parties and causes.

Paradox 2: As both a liberal and a democrat, I want a more participative democracy. Yet I’m sceptical referendums are the best way to achieve this.

A brief history of referendums in this country

Let’s take a look at our three most recent experiences in this country of referendums:

Just three weeks ago, 11 cities in England voted on whether or not they

…

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Tagged constitutional reform, featured, house of lords, House of Lords referendum and lords reform | 22 Comments

Opinion: How a stranger carrying a rucksack came within 10 feet of Nick Clegg

By Hywel Morgan | Thu 24th May 2012 - 12:57 pm

It was November 5th 2011, the date for that hotbed of radical fervour that is Yorkshire and Humber regional conference.

Those who know me will not be surprised that I was running late so things were already underway when I arrive. Those people will be further un-surprised that I hadn’t registered in advance either, confident that people would be willing to take my money on the day!

The session was already underway so I quietly slipped in through the door and sat at the back.

That’s right – at an openly advertised meeting, where Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom …

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Tagged conference accreditation, FCC, fe, ffac and nick clegg | 21 Comments

New Liberal Democrat group to help seekers of sanctuary

By Suzanne Fletcher | Thu 24th May 2012 - 11:27 am

Liberal Democrats, as a party, have a proud record of standing up for the way our country views and treats with compassion and humanity those who seek sanctuary in our country. This culminated in the ending of the detention of children in the notorious Yarlswood, and the opening of the new pre departure accommodation at Cedars, for those families with children who were sadly being returned to their country of origin.

As well as actions as a party though, there are very many individuals who are both concerned about, and working with and for, asylum seekers in their locality. This ranges …

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Tagged asylum, child detention and immigration | 4 Comments

A warm welcome for Andrew Marr’s change of heart on blogging

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th May 2012 - 7:40 am

Here’s the BBC’s Andrew Marr speaking in October 2010:

“Most citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism at all. A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people. … Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. It is vituperative. Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things on line that they wouldn’t dream of saying in person.”

And here’s Andrew Marr speaking to the Leveson Inquiry yesterday:

“You look around and a

…

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Tagged andrew marr, blogging, gordon brown, leveson inquiry, Mark Pack and tim montgomerie | 4 Comments

What’s on Willie Rennie’s Kindle?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 23rd May 2012 - 4:14 pm

There aren’t very many people I know who don’t have a Kindle or some other e-Reader. I have the Kindle App on my iPad but don’t tend to use it very often because it’s not really that comfortable. My main reason for avoiding getting my books in electronic form is because I worry about the effects on bookshops. I could spend a whole day quite happily browsing, picking up various books, admiring the covers, having a sneaky read. There is no greater therapy. What happens to them if we all download our books in the same format? It’s not great …

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Tagged willie rennie kindle | 12 Comments

Opinion: the undignified spectacle at the G8

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 5:22 pm

Imagine the scene. It’s a dirty whitewashed three-storey government building in the capital city, surrounded by high walls with US helicopters parked around. Inside sit several US generals and two Europeans, in the dusty heat. The war they are there to discuss is secretly assumed to go on for 25 years. They all know they cannot win it despite superior air power and unlimited cash. They had all given it their best shot with use of terrible weapons. Neighbouring countries have been mercilessly bombed, and ushering in governments very unfriendly to the US and the West.

It was time to find …

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

Opinion: a request to our boys in the BIS

By Daniel Henry | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 4:21 pm

Every now and then I do something that requires me to provide “proof of address”.

There’s starting a phone contract, applying for security jobs, signing on, etc. For whatever reason these companies need “proof” of my address, either a utilities bill or bank statement and unfortunately for me I struggle to provide it.

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Tagged identity | 10 Comments

Nick Harvey MP writes… Updating you on Trident

By Nick Harvey | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 3:42 pm

Today’s announcement that design contracts for the Trident successor submarines have been signed is being portrayed as the Coalition Government moving a step closer to a full Trident replacement.

In reality the final decision for Trident replacement is still years away. Until 2016’s Main Gate decision, the ‘point of no return’ at which contracts are finalised and billions of pounds committed, there are still important questions to be asked about the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

And if it wasn’t for Liberal Democrat influence in this Government, this simply would not be the case. It is because we are …

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Tagged coalition agreement and trident | 13 Comments

Taxpayers’ Alliance report on tax – good in parts

By Tim Leunig | Mon 21st May 2012 - 2:54 pm

The Taxpayers Alliance and Institute of Directors have just produced a 417 page report on the British Tax System. Some parts are good, some are plain silly.

Let’s get the silliness out of the way first. The report says the tax to GDP ratio should be 33%, and marginal tax rates (including employers’ national insurance) should be no higher than 30%. They believe this will spur growth. The reality – sadly for right-wingers – is that there is little evidence that even French tax rates preclude high levels …

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Tagged tax | 15 Comments

Opinion: The government is in real trouble and needs a new chancellor

By Lev Eakins | Mon 21st May 2012 - 10:24 am

In the last two months, the government has been presented with four major problems:

1. The Economy – It’s not growing, despite good signs in manufacturing and a recent drop in unemployment, we’re back in recession and could even face another almighty shock if the Euro crisis deepens.

2. Ministers mucking things up – May, Hunt and Osborne have provided the government with a fatal combination of not getting the basics right (Abu Qatada and airport queues), the smell of sleaze (Murdoch) and the fallout from …

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Tagged economy and george osborne | 24 Comments

Opinion: Pupil Premium. Extend the concept?

By Paul Reynolds | Fri 18th May 2012 - 12:00 pm

The Pupil Premium (PP) is great politics. As a way of increasing funding for schools with more pupils from poorer backgrounds, with all the incentives that implies, is has laudable political features. It contrasts us well as ‘pro-poor’ relative to the Conservatives. It is a kind of remedy for the ‘student fees’ debacle. And it is simple – easy to understand and to implement.

It is worth having a closer look at its features and context. Are there any broader lessons for the Lib Dems?

First, what is it? In effect PP is an additional dimension to the way that central government …

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Tagged education, pupil premium and schools | 10 Comments

Opinion: The future of the CAP – specific proposals by Liberal Democrats

By George Potter | Fri 18th May 2012 - 9:02 am

This is the second of three articles, based on interviews with Lib Dem MEPs Phil Bennion and George Lyon, covering the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This article addresses the specific changes they want made to current EU plans for reform.

When I spoke to him, Phil Bennion explained to me that, while Lib Dem MEPs are broadly supportive of the Commissioner’s plans for reform (the key idea being to start spending 30% of ‘pillar one’ payments on environmental elements), they have serious concerns with the detail.

An example he gave was the proposal for farmers to have …

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Tagged common agricultural policy and europe | 7 Comments

Willie Rennie’s first year as Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th May 2012 - 8:47 pm

Tomorrow it’s a year since Willie Rennie became Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader. What have been the highlights of that first year?

Well, on his first day, I interviewed him for Liberal Democrat Voice and you can still listen to that here. He said that his priorities for his first hundred days were to work out what our message was, to sort out our organisation and to get out there and meet people, members and ordinary people on their doorsteps. So how has he done with these things and more?

Willie leader launch crouching in front of bridge …

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Tagged alex salmond, equal marriage, nick clegg, rupert murdoch, snp, soctland and willie rennie | 7 Comments

John Leech MP writes… It is not just the Leader’s job to sell the Pupil Premium

By John Leech | Tue 15th May 2012 - 4:21 pm

The Pupil Premium is one of our biggest achievement in government, and helps the poorest children in our country bridge the gap when it comes to the quality of education they receive. Manchester has had an extra £19 million this year, and the overall spend is some £1.25 billion this year, increasing to £2.5 billion by 2014/15.

The Pupil Premium ticks all the boxes for the Party. It is designed to help the most disadvantaged, it allows schools to spend the extra money flexibly, and it is new money on top of the school budget.

So why are we not shouting about …

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Tagged nick clegg, pupil premium, sarah teather and twitter | 22 Comments

Opinion: A letter to a constituent regarding equal marriage

By Tom Papworth | Tue 15th May 2012 - 1:55 pm

The following is the text of an email that I sent to a constituent earlier today. He wrote to me to ask about my views of the government’s proposals “to re-define marriage”, which he believes “will have far-reaching consequences… will have an adverse effect on the stability and flourishing of our local community.” I beg to differ.

Dear sir,

Thank you for your email regarding the government’s proposals to change the law on marriage in the United Kingdom. This is not a local authority matter, and so has no relevance to my role as a local councillor. However, as you have asked to know my views on this matter, I am happy to oblige.

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Tagged equal marriage | 32 Comments

Opinion: A message from Paddy over a decade later

By Chris Richards | Tue 15th May 2012 - 12:10 pm

Back in September 1999 Paddy Ashdown gave his farewell speech to the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference. The speech set out some challenges for Liberal Democrats as we approached a new century. What is interesting to note, reading it almost 13 years later, is how prescient his speech is when looking at the credit crunch and the current Eurozone crisis:

Here is the inescapable fact. Power is now moving, increasingly, beyond the confines of the nation state and is rapidly making many of its institutions irrelevant.

He continued,

We must start taking global governance seriously. The nation states, their governments and their politicians are

…

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Tagged paddy ashdown | 5 Comments

Opinion: Clutching at straws

By Bill le Breton | Tue 15th May 2012 - 10:08 am

I have spent the day clutching at a couple of straws.

Last week in the tractor factory Nick Clegg appeared to confuse the ‘deficit’ with the National Debt when he said, “We have a moral duty to the next generation to wipe the slate clean for them of debt. We have set out a plan – it lasts about six or seven years – to wipe the slate clean to rid people of the deadweight of debt that has been built up over time.”

It sounded like a fail in GCSE Economics. But suppose he wasn’t mistaking the policy to eliminate the structural deficit by 2017 for a moral crusade to wipe the slate clean by removing the deadweight of the National Debt, all £1,300 billion of it.

At the other end of my straw was the realisation that Nick Clegg might have become an extreme Market Monetarist and was revealing his plan to re-establish Nominal GDP back to its trend line, even if that meant buying in the whole of the National Debt in the mother of all quantitative easing exercises.

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Also posted in News | Tagged bank of england, deficit, federal reserve, national debt and quantitative easing | 34 Comments

The Independent View: Clegg’s Pupil Premium could be wasted

By Rick Muir | Tue 15th May 2012 - 8:56 am

Keen to move on from the poor headlines of the last few weeks, Nick Clegg has sought to re-focus attention on his flagship social mobility agenda with a speech on the Pupil Premium.

The Pupil Premium is the government’s main policy for reducing educational inequality in schools, meaning that schools get extra funding for every child on Free School Meals (£488 this year, £600 next year). IPPR has always welcomed the Pupil Premium but have expressed concerns that it will not be spent directly on providing extra support for the children who need it. Under the current model, schools are free to spend it on whatever they like – and the majority of heads say they are using it to plug gaps in existing budgets.

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged EBacc, pupil premium and schools | 15 Comments

Norman Lamb MP writes… Fairness: from the farm to the shopping trolley

By Norman Lamb MP | Mon 14th May 2012 - 5:05 pm

The Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill was announced in the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday. This is an issue which the Liberal Democrats in general, and Andrew George in particular, have campaigned on for many years. I can remember meeting with farmers shortly after I was first elected back in 2001, and hearing from them the difficulties they faced as suppliers for the biggest supermarkets. A commitment to introduce “a powerful independent regulator of Britain’s food market” featured in our last manifesto (in fact, …

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Tagged farming and Supermarkets | 4 Comments

Opinion: Corruption – We can do better than this

By Simon Beard | Mon 14th May 2012 - 3:54 pm

The UK is more corrupt than Qatar. That’s not my judgement, but that of the World Bank and their Control of Corruption Index. This places the UK 18th in the world, behind not only Qatar but Iceland, Chile and Liechtenstein.

It’s easy to sound jingoistic with this sort of comparison, and I really don’t mean to. So here’s an even more worrying comparison. In 2010, the latest year the World Bank has collated its figures for, the UK received a control of corruption score of +1.48 (on a …

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Tagged corruption | 11 Comments