Category Archives: Op-eds

Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… 50 years after the Orpington by-election

By Chris Rennard | Thu 15th March 2012 - 8:50 pm

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Tom Papworth

Opinon: Planning for a brighter future

By Tom Papworth | Thu 15th March 2012 - 3:56 pm

Yesterday, I set out the indictment of our current land-use planning system, which has created a housing crisis, is stifling our economy and leading to damaging environmental outcomes. That’s fairly widely acknowledged. It is far less simple to propose an alternative, but below I hope to outline some possible principles as mechanisms for a better planning system that empowers individuals and communities rather than bureaucrats and politicians.

The first thing we need to do is to restore the principle that those who suffer the secondary effects of development are compensated. The original Town and Country Planning Act (1947) did contain provision …

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James Sandbach

Opinion: Conference votes again on access to justice, Parliamentarians should follow

By James Sandbach | Thu 15th March 2012 - 2:53 pm

For the third Party conference in a row, Liberal Democrats  voted for a policy motion covering legal aid and access to justice directly contrary to the Government’s legal aid reforms – in the Legal Aid, Sentencing Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO) – reaching their final stages in Parliament. Gateshead conference voted to ensure that “the scope of civil legal aid covers appropriate legal help and assistance in categories of law where the issues raised are of substantial importance.. and which cannot be settled by alternative dispute resolution” but night after night I see our Peers voting to remove category after …

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes… Equal Marriage consultation: take part and spread the word

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 15th March 2012 - 1:03 pm

One of our fundamental values as a party is our firm belief in equality. This is why I am member of our party and why I am so proud to be your President. We have always stood for individual liberty and the right to choose how we lead our lives. That’s why we came into being in the 19th century to protect the rights of religious minorities, it’s why we led the support for equality for women and why we decided before any other major party that civil marriage should be open to same-sex couples equally. The Liberal Democrats in …

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Pawel Swidlicki

The Independent View: How should Liberal Democrats respond to the views of their voters on Europe

By Pawel Swidlicki | Thu 15th March 2012 - 12:25 pm

In the polarised and often exaggeratedUKdebate on the EU, the Lib Dems have often been caricaturised by much of the press and Tory MPs as being unreservedly in favour of greater EU integration or even an ‘EU super state’. The truth is of course far more nuanced.

That’s why a new YouGov/Cambridge cross-country poll out today is so interesting. It shows that a majority of UK voters (53%) support either no further EU integration or a looser arrangement. Only 14% said they wanted more integration. These attitudes span the political divide, with 50% of Lib Dem voters saying they …

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Also posted in Europe / International and The Independent View | 15 Comments
Matt Hemsley

Opinion: We shouldn’t be afraid to raise parking charges

By Matt Hemsley | Thu 15th March 2012 - 10:55 am

Boosting the local economy and local high streets, cutting carbon and making our transport system greener, more reliable and affordable are surely key aims of Liberal Democrats across theUK.

Between 2007 and 2010 I worked for the party in Bath.  During that time I helped to lead a campaign against increased evening parking charges that the then Conservative-run council was bringing in.  I also helped to put together an 8-point plan to boost the local economy during the recession. Included in it was a call for free parking on one day a week to encourage shoppers into Bath.  Unfortunately, I was …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: Let’s raise tax threshold to £10,000 for all taxpayers

By Joe Bourke | Thu 15th March 2012 - 8:57 am

To keep the cost down, the increase of £1,000 in the personal allowance this year excluded higher rate taxpayers and over 65’s. Also, the higher rate threshold was reduced to bring more people and income into the 40% tax band.

The 2011 budget announced an increase in the personal allowance for under 65’s by £630 in April 2012, with the higher rate threshold unchanged. The freezing of the higher rate threshold brings more people and a greater proportion of existing earnings into the higher rate band – so-called fiscal drag.

This process seems consistent with the aim of increasing the personal allowance …

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Tom Papworth

Opinion: the ongoing disaster of British land-use planning

By Tom Papworth | Wed 14th March 2012 - 4:56 pm

Britain’s planning system is generally defended on environmental grounds. Yet far from keepingBritain“green and pleasant”, the Town and Country Planning Acts have led to the creation of dormitory towns, required the building of extensive infrastructure, and have increased urban density at the expense of urban green space.

In a new report released by the Adam Smith Institute, I argue that we need to do away with the old, top-down planning system. In this first article, I will lay out the indictment of the system. Tomorrow, I will make some proposals for how we can liberate the land and empower individuals …

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Mark Pack

A story, a story, my kingdom for a story

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th March 2012 - 3:50 pm

Neil Stockley has often, and rightly, written about the power of stories in conveying a political message. A dry recital of bullet points and decimal points may make for a good conference motion or a useful background briefing document. What it does not make for is a message that will move and convince people. It needs a story to bring it to life.

Last week I heard Norman Lamb talking to Twickenham and Richmond Liberal Democrats, at a fundraiser for Munira Wilson’s GLA campaign. His speech neatly illustrated the point. As he was getting into the flow, he veered …

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Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Who will win the debate between Shirley Williams and Polly Toynbee?

By Chris Rennard | Wed 14th March 2012 - 1:51 pm

I spent some of last Saturday morning in the briefing session at the Lib Dem Conference with the Lib Dem parliamentary health team sitting just in front of Andrew Sparrow and Patrick Wintour (both of the Guardian) as Shirley Williams laid into Polly Toynbee’s account in their paper of a key amendment on the Health Bill. For those of us who are fed up with Toynbee’s ‘tribal’ attacks on the Lib Dems it was a joy to listen to.

Andrew Sparrow wrote a great account of Shirley’s clear rebuttal of the Toynbee attack. He tweeted that, “It …

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood MP writes… Why Nick Clegg’s response to Jenny Tonge was right

By Martin Horwood | Wed 14th March 2012 - 9:23 am

The controversy surrounding Jenny Tonge’s resignation from our party in the House of Lords has attracted a lot of comment online. I’m co-chair of the parliamentary party’s international affairs committee (although writing here in a personal capacity) and I think the stance which Nick took as leader was right.

Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine – for whom I have a great deal of time – have suggested that Jenny’s ‘intention was to imply that Israel’s wilful failure to uphold and respect the human rights of Palestinian Muslims and Christians is behaviour which is likely to lead to its …

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Mike Bird

Opinion: bashing bankers the economically liberal way – risk and responsibility

By Mike Bird | Tue 13th March 2012 - 3:23 pm

Just before conference I caught some largely unreported news on a Private Member’s Bill, put to the Commons by Steve Baker MP, founder of the Cobden Centre, and one of the Conservative 2010 intake.

My usual response to scant coverage of a Conservative backbencher’s bills would be thankful, but in this case, the bill highlights something that has received astonishingly little attention: reforming the personal liability of directors. We’ve rested on the important points of how to discharge shares in effectively state-owned institutions, and how to increase lending to struggling businesses. On these issues Stephen Williams …

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Lee Dargue

Opinion: #KillTheBill – but not for a reason you may be aware of…

By Lee Dargue | Tue 13th March 2012 - 1:52 pm

This weekend saw the LibDems argue both for and against the Health and Social Care Bill. It may be a cliché, but whilst I’m in the #KillTheBill camp, I am still proud of our democratic system that allows votes on both sides of the argument to be counted (interestingly, I had to explain to supporters of the bill that those of us arguing against don’t want NO bill, just not THIS bill – for some reason they seemed surprised at that).

I spoke to both Paul Burstow and Judith Jolly about some of the concerns I have, and I pay tribute …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 21 Comments

Opinion: even football supporters have civil liberties… don’t they?

By Gary Shearer | Tue 13th March 2012 - 11:52 am

There I was with a couple of mates when a group of police officers appeared and started filming us.

None of us had a criminal record, nor were we doing anything remotely suspicious. We were not drunk, we were in a public place and there was nothing untoward going on around us either.

Our only crime was to have visited a football stadium to watch a match.

To rub it in even further, not only was one of the officers recording video for almost the entire 90 minutes another stood right next to her and took dozens of pictures.

At first I thought the …

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Scott Hill

Opinion: the way forward – with Clegg at the helm

By Scott Hill | Tue 13th March 2012 - 9:22 am

As soon as the Liberal Democrats bravely stepped in to coalition with David Cameron’s Conservatives we knew tough times may lie ahead. Whilst the coalition’s majority party has sailed through relatively unscathed, the junior partner has suffered an incessant flow of unfair and unjust criticism. Just as we thought this was beginning to wane, this month has witnessed an increase in anti-Clegg rhetoric.

First to weigh in was the Lib Dems’ very own Lembit Opik (as eccentric and publicity-seeking as ever), who has outlined in his new book a plan for a Lib Dem resurrection. He states that Clegg must …

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Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett

Opinion: Lynne is our Champion for equality and everyone should know it!

By Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett | Mon 12th March 2012 - 1:17 pm

Contrary to the pernicious article in the Guardian on Saturday, Lynne Featherstone MP, Minister for Equalities has worked her socks off to put equality and women’s rights at the top of the agenda for this Coalition Government.

And not only at the top of the agenda, but driving in every possible direction to ensure the rights of women (and also in particular the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people) are catapulted on to the front page of every tabloid and broadsheet paper and into the mainstream political debate and discussion.

So with all this extraordinary work, you would hope …

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Maria Pretzler

A new start: Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform

By Maria Pretzler | Mon 12th March 2012 - 12:24 pm

On Saturday, 10th March, at Spring Conference in Gateshead, we launched a new organisation – Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform. At the moment, LDER has over 70 members and is aiming to gain the status of an Accredited Organisation (AO) at the earliest possible opportunity.

Electoral reform is not exactly a new cause, you might think, and the voters have told us exactly what they think about it. As I went around the conference centre asking Liberal Democrats to sign up for LDER, I was asked repeatedly: ‘Why electoral reform?’ ‘Why …

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Joe Bourke

Extending the LibDem youth contract to self-employment

By Joe Bourke | Mon 12th March 2012 - 10:54 am

Small and medium sized businesses account for 51% of turnover and 55% of employment (DTI figures). They primarily employ UK based staff and pay full UK tax on the value generated here.

Equipping young people with the training and skills for self-employment has the advantage of developing a more flexible and resilient workforce, better able to adjust to a fast changing economy, as well as enlarging the pool of entrepreneurs capable of starting and growing small business concerns.

An enhanced Liberal Democrat youth contract aimed at developing a base of budding entrepreneurs, would establish a core of upwardly mobile, aspirational self-starters, a …

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Stephen Gilbert MP

Steve Gilbert MP writes… Church opposition to gay marriage is “intolerant, out of touch, and wrong”

By Stephen Gilbert MP | Mon 12th March 2012 - 9:24 am

Another Sunday and another set of intolerant and out of touch comments from senior Church leaders who have set their face against the Coalition plans for equal marriage. It’s clear that some parts of the Church are on a collision course with Parliament and the people. But, rather than showing themselves to be modern defenders of values we all share, they are showing how out of touch they are with British society today and the institution they seek to protect. They are also plain wrong: extending marriage to same-sex couples will not undermine the institution; it will renew and reinforce …

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Clare Algar

The Independent View: why proposals for secret trials should be opposed

By Clare Algar | Fri 9th March 2012 - 8:35 pm

A “chilling threat to liberty and justice” an “excessive and dangerous” move which would “shake our constitution to its common law roots” tilting it “towards the closed courts…so favoured by despots” and miring individuals in “Kafkaesque cases.”

As the Liberal Democrat Spring conference approaches, the disturbing potential of the Government’s plans to extend secret justice across the country’s civil courts has hit the headlines, with the Mail, Times, Guardian, Independent and FT all united in condemnation.

That sense of alarm is also becoming apparent within the party. Tom Brake, chair of the backbench …

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Also posted in Conference and News | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Kate Hudson

The Independent View: Dropping the bomb

By Kate Hudson | Fri 9th March 2012 - 4:25 pm

A report launched this week caught the headlines by describing the replacement of Trident as “nonsensical”.

“Replacing Trident makes no sense” said the BBC, while the Guardian led with “Trident nuclear deterrent upgrade ‘nonsensical’”.

But they were not quoting the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament or any other campaigning organisation. Rather, they were quoting the liberal thinktank CentreForum, which David Cameron has previously commended “for their excellent work”.

Nick Clegg has also indicated the policy significance of CentreForum: “Many of the policy areas my party is implementing in government were developed, tested and refined through dialogue with the CentreForum team.”

The …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Tom Smith

Liberal Insight: new think tank launched

By Tom Smith | Fri 9th March 2012 - 3:25 pm

Today we are announcing the launch of Liberal Insight, the new liberal think tank. Liberal Insight will contribute radical, progressive and innovative ideas to a vision of liberal society.  Our advisory board is being chaired by Party President Tim Farron MP.

Liberalism has seen a resurgence in Britain in recent years, culminating in almost 7 million voters at the last election for the Liberal Democrats, a place in the Coalition Government and a long-awaited opportunity to implement distinctly liberal policies.

This rise in electoral success has come against a trend of the liberal gains of the last century being eroded by the deliberate actions …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 11 Comments
Stephen Williams

Stephen Williams MP writes… What would you do with £60 extra every month?

By Stephen Williams | Fri 9th March 2012 - 2:43 pm

The Liberal Democrats are demanding that our Coalition Government gives you a much needed tax cut. We want to give hard-working people over £700 extra a year; that’s about £60 extra in your wages every month. Instead of helping millionaires, the Lib Dems want to give millions of deserving people a break. You can help us to get this tax cut announced in the Budget on 21st March.

Please tell me today what you’d do with an extra £60 a month.

By telling me how you’d use the £60 tax cut you’ll not only be spreading the word, you’ll also …

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Shirley Williams

Baroness Shirley Williams writes… I am fed up with lies about Lib Dems and the Health Bill

By Shirley Williams | Fri 9th March 2012 - 12:34 pm

Last March, I spoke at the Sheffield Conference in support of the motion that led to radical changes in the Health and Social Care Bill. By the Summer, much of the Bill had been changed and I was able to write that the Bill was much improved.

I felt that we should be proud as Liberal Democrats for thwarting the initial plans.

My colleagues in the House of Lords have made more very important changes to the original plans. On Tuesday I told the House that, “I believe that that culmination of changes will enable us to bring about an …

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John Pugh

John Pugh MP writes … TINA and NHS Choices

By John Pugh | Fri 9th March 2012 - 10:08 am

Mrs Thatcher was reputed to declare in more than one context that There Is No Alternative – earning herself the sobriquet of TINA . In life that is rarely the case and as an avowed existentialist I am disinclined to believe that is ever the case.

The party will be told that there is no practical alternative to the Lansley Bill. That could be true. I have no doubt that the Bill has been substantially changed and improved as a result of the listening exercise and amendment in the Lords.

It is, however, still a massive set of changes to the NHS and a continuation …

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Also posted in Parliament | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Andy Burnham

A letter from Andy Burnham to Liberal Democrat members

By Andy Burnham | Fri 9th March 2012 - 9:00 am

I never expected to see the day when I could say, hand on heart, that I was more interested in events at a Lib Dem Spring Conference than the weekend’s football. But life’s full of surprises and that moment has arrived.

It is no over-statement to say that this weekend’s gathering in Gateshead could determine the future of our country’s best-loved institution.

As you prepare for the weekend, I wanted to make a direct appeal to the grassroots members of your party: please stand out against the current direction of reform and stand up for the NHS model we all have been …

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Also posted in Conference and The Independent View | Tagged , , and | 62 Comments
Sean Davey

Opinion: Reasons to be Cheerful

By Sean Davey | Fri 9th March 2012 - 7:55 am

Waking up to the encouraging string of headlines as I did on Monday, I’m suddenly wondering if this is the point where we as a party have started getting it right?

If there are three uncontroversial elements to Lib Dem identity then equal marriage rights, campaigning against Trident and defending the individual (Nick Clegg launching the #thisisabuse campaign) are surely good starting points?

Conference is this weekend, so you could be forgiven for thinking these brilliant policies appear pre-emptively in our packs – but no, it’s almost as if we are a party of government: the Deputy Prime Minister appearing …

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Charles West

Opinion: Why the Leader’s letter hardened our Health Bill motion

By Charles West | Thu 8th March 2012 - 6:28 pm

For a year a group of Liberal Democrats who know something about the NHS and the delivery of healthcare have been working to modify Lansley’s Health Bill with the aim of preventing irreversible damage to the NHS.

Until last week our draft motion still offered the hope of amending the Bill. When we saw Nick’s letter we realised that there was no point.

On preventing competition by price the letter is doubly misleading. David Nicholson warned about this in January 2011 and the Government conceded the point in February. However, even now competition on price has not been completely prevented. Government Peers …

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Mark Goodrich

Opinion: What can Sweden teach us about liberalism?

By Mark Goodrich | Thu 8th March 2012 - 5:28 pm

One of the great experiences in life is reading a text which suddenly throws new light on an issue or expresses a feeling which had been nagging away at you without reaching expression.  It has happened to me when I have read some of the classics of liberal thought.  And, bizarrely, it happened a few weeks ago when reading a column in the Guardian.

The column by Lars Tragardh expressed doubts as to whether the Swedish model (in its current manifestation under a centre-right government) was compatible with Cameron’s conservative ideology.  He pointed out that the Swedish combination of a …

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Tim Clement-Jones

Lord Clement-Jones writes… Limiting competition in the NHS

By Tim Clement-Jones | Thu 8th March 2012 - 12:54 pm

This week Liberal Democrat peers achieved yet more success in limiting the application of competition in the National Health Service. Our party members believe, and our conference policy passed last spring affirms, that while competition can play a role in improving the quality of health, it should never be given higher priority than the interests of patients. And I completely agree.

Competition Commission

I was concerned that the Competition Commission should not be reviewing how effectively competition is working in the health service. In the private sector, the Competition Commission plays a crucial role in ensuring that companies compete fairly, and prevents …

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