Category Archives: Op-eds

Stephen Tall

Why Simon Kelner is wrong to defend Johann Hari

By Stephen Tall | Wed 29th June 2011 - 9:25 am

Johann Hari is used to provoking controversy – as the Independent’s most outspoken left/liberal columnist its his stock-in-trade – but yesterday found himself on the receiving end of criticism of his integrity.

The reason? His repeated borrowing of quotes from interviews published by other journalists which he then drops into his own interviews as if they had been made directly in conversation.

The accusation first surfaced last week on the DSG blog concerning an interview Mr Hari undertook with ‘Italian communist and every ultra-leftist’s favourite “psychopath”’, Toni Negri. And the accusation went mainstream after Yahoo editor Brian Whelan’s demolition …

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Alex Feakes

Opinion: The flaw at the heart of the Higher Education White Paper

By Alex Feakes | Tue 28th June 2011 - 5:53 pm

Get your hands on a copy of the Higher Education White Paper and take a look at what the university sector might look like in the future. The government is promising a shiny-bright student-focused experience for all as you make your well-informed choice from a multitude of quality providers jockeying to meet your every higher education need. Welcome to Uni-Mart, where the student -consumer is king.

Except… their consumer experience won’t feel very regal under these proposals, because this White Paper contains a major flaw: it wants to encourage competition between HE institutions in the belief that a …

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Matthew Green

Opinion: The Lib Dems need to move into the 21st Century

By Matthew Green | Tue 28th June 2011 - 1:31 pm

I attended my first English Council at the weekend, the little-known body nominally supervising the party’s administration in England. Amid the constitutional amendments and letting off steam about the evil Federal party, it was possible to reflect on the huge challenges the party now faces. Inevitably most of the attention is on policies and messaging. This is vital but not sufficient. But we also need to catch up with the way politics is now done. I don’t think enough people appreciate the implications of this.

We can overdo the analogies between politics and warfare, but some …

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Alex Feakes

Opinion: LEA governors under threat

By Alex Feakes | Tue 28th June 2011 - 11:23 am

The debates about schools and education so far in this parliament have largely focused around free schools and academies, with occasional diversion into the content of the curriculum and the E-Baccalaureate. I’ve touched on some of these issues before, but just whilst there’s still time (just!) for a change in the Education Bill as it passes through the committee stage in the House of Lords, I wanted to highlight the threat posed in the Bill to school governors appointed by Local Education Authorities. I should say at this point that I have been an LEA appointed governor …

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Simon McGrath

Opinion: Liberal Democrats to hold inquiry into AV Referendum

By Simon McGrath | Tue 28th June 2011 - 9:29 am

The Guardian reports that the Party has decided to hold an inquiry, headed by James Gurling, into the Yes to AV campaign.

I wrote a piece for Lib Dem Voice back in May calling for an inquiry and since then more and more information has come to light about the shambolic and incompetent way the Yes campaign was run.

What does seem rather odd is that there has been no announcement to Party members and activists that this inquiry was taking place and asking for their input. I asked a couple of Lib Dems who had been highly active in …

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood MP writes: Facing up to human rights in China

By Martin Horwood | Mon 27th June 2011 - 1:53 pm

Premier Wen Jiabao of China arrived in Britain over the weekend for a series of events culminating in bilateral talks with the Prime Ministers today at Number Ten.

While the discussions will undoubtedly turn to the economy, trade agreements and further cooperation between our two countries, I hope the Prime Minister will also promote our greatest exports: our long held values of democracy, human rights and free speech.

These bilateral meetings offer the British government a chance to place human rights unambiguously on the agenda in our discussions with the Chinese. As William Hague wrote last year, “promoting human rights is …

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Tom Papworth

Opinion: Stephen Williams is right to support the criminalisation of squatting

By Tom Papworth | Mon 27th June 2011 - 12:57 pm

It’s always a pleasure to see a Liberal Democrat MP standing up for our core liberal values. And among the core principles of liberalism, private ownership of property is of huge importance.

So it’s truly gratifying to see that Stephen Williams, MP for Bristol West, is taking a stand to protect owners of property from being dispossessed. Stephen has given his support to legislation, to be brought before parliament by the government, to criminalise squatting.

This is highly welcome and long overdue. Squatting has for too long been portrayed as a victimless crime, a Robin Hood grab …

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Stephen Tall

Forget about abolishing Labour’s shadow cabinet elections, Ed. That’s not the battle you need to win.

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th June 2011 - 5:45 pm

It’s been a tough few weeks for Labour leader Ed Miliband, with increasing mutterings internally and in the media with his performance, culminating in this week’s ICM poll showing him to be less popular than Nick Clegg.

On the upside, he’s starting to score points off David Cameron at PMQs, a crucible of irrelevance to actual politics but crucial in shaping personality-obsessed journos’ perceptions. And, with today’s interview in the Guardian, he’s proposed a ‘reform agenda’ to open up the Labour party — in his words, “in order to have a good conversation at party conference, you’ve …

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Mark Valladares

Local parties should start early when it comes to AGMs

By Mark Valladares | Sat 25th June 2011 - 1:15 pm

Yes, I know that it’s only June, but have you given any thought to your Local Party’s AGM?

The Party’s Constitution specifies that it should take place between 1 October and 30 November, so it isn’t as far away as you might think. And there are things that can be done now that will help to make it more successful than might otherwise be the case.

Firstly, have you decided upon a date yet? Apart from the limitations on timing noted above, you don’t want to clash with your Regional Conference, so you might want to rule that out. Is a weekend …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

How coalition government means better government

By Mark Pack | Fri 24th June 2011 - 1:53 pm

Last night I headed over to Enfield to hear Nick Harvey talked to a packed restaurant of Liberal Democrats about his experiences of a minister. It was an impressive turnout from one of our smaller local parties in London and an impressive speech from Nick, who cut his political teeth in the borough.

One part was about how coalition government made for better government. Nick Harvey gave the example of how troops were deployed to Helmand Province in Afghanistan.

As a defence minister learning about one of the most important issues facing him and colleagues, he had wanted to get his head …

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Mike Tuffrey

Opinion: The postcode lottery – why freedom to be different is a good thing

By Mike Tuffrey | Fri 24th June 2011 - 10:23 am

Few things are more likely to generate a round of applause at a public meeting than condemning the so-called postcode lottery. And of course random unfairness in the quality of a service – the ‘lottery’ aspect – is a bad thing, especially if people are paying the same but getting worse outcomes.

But what about difference – where one part of the country or one neighbourhood does things differently compared to another? What if it’s not a lottery but a choice?

And if people have freedom to do things differently and better, can we accept the risk they’ll not succeed and things …

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Also posted in Local government and London | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Modernising community politics: creating communities

By Mark Pack | Fri 24th June 2011 - 8:43 am

At the recent Social Liberal Forum conference, I took part in the panel on the Big Society and community politics. Regular readers won’t be surprised about the views I expressed on either of them (see for example here and here), but one point that I’ve not talked about for a while came out in discussion following a very pertinent question from Hackney’s Mark Smulian.

Mark rightly pointed out that the concept of community in the area where he lives, with a large transient population, was very different from what worked when community politics was first being created. Mark if …

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Opinion: Liberal Youth promote intergenerational fairness for Bank Shares

By Tom Wood | Thu 23rd June 2011 - 3:52 pm

Nick Clegg’s innovative proposal to give the public shares in Lloyds and RBS is enthusiastically welcomed by Liberal Youth: but we believe that these reforms can go even further. Young people are bearing the brunt of the recession caused by the banks both in a lack of jobs and lost funding for education, and because it is the next generation that will be paying off the government’s debt for years to come. It is only right the government should give something back to them.

While Nick’s proposal represents exactly the kind of fairness that Liberal Democrats seek to bring to …

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Opinion: How to change everything forever in six months

By London Liberal | Thu 23rd June 2011 - 11:18 am

A little-noticed policy of the Coalition is that of throwing out the entire planning system and replacing it with about fifty pages of pro-development planning policies. This is called the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and is intended to be the entire amount of national planning policy governing development. When implemented it will change your community forever.

Given what it seeks to do, fifty pages is a tiny amount – by contrast, the current Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 1, which deals merely with Sustainable Development, is itself twenty-five pages long. And there are twenty-five of these PPS’s, reaching about …

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Jo Shaw

Opinion: Opportunity knocks for Nick Clegg and UN Women

By Jo Shaw | Wed 22nd June 2011 - 1:53 pm

In January of this year, I appointed myself a Godmother. Not of a child (I’m already a godmother to one of them, and she’s fabulous, plus I was asked!), but of an organisation – UN Women. As part of the campaign to assist the launch of UN Women, VSO is campaigning for Godmothers (of both sexes), to ensure that UN Women gets the support, financial and moral, it needs for its vital work.

Women have been at the heart of the world’s events over the past few months. Whether it’s campaigning against the driving ban-or-is-it-a-ban in Saudi Arabia, the …

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes: Under-18s must have the right to choose their future

By Julian Huppert | Wed 22nd June 2011 - 10:54 am

Our constitution has many interesting anomalies, but to me one of the most obvious has always been the way we treat the ‘nearly-adults’ in our society. Our 16 and 17 year olds are subject to a whole set of rules that are thrown out of the window when they turn 18; similarly, they are unable to do a whole set of things that they are suddenly allowed to on that most auspicious day. We don’t let these nearly-adults vote, have credit cards or bind themselves into a credit agreement. They can, however, commit themselves to an extended period in the …

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Mark Pack

Campaigning in your local community

By Mark Pack | Wed 22nd June 2011 - 7:42 am

In the latest edition of ALDC’s Campaigner I previewed their next publication, written by myself and Shaun Roberts:

UPDATE: Campaigning In Your Community has now been published and is available for purchase.

In communities across the country there are improvements just waiting for a successful campaign to bring them about. Yet there are also people – far too many people in far too many places – who do not believe they and their neighbours have any power to change the streets around them, let alone the wider world.

Helping bring about those changes and helping people realise their own power should be at the …

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Prateek Buch

Opinion: This is the Social Liberal moment

By Prateek Buch | Tue 21st June 2011 - 4:25 pm

After months of planning, and not inconsiderate last-minute scrambling, the Social Liberal Forum’s first ever conference took place at City University on Saturday; envisioned by Hackney’s Geoff Payne and put into action by the outstanding team he led, the conference (#SLFconf on Twitter) was a massive success from so many perspectives.

Firstly, there was the interest generated by having two Cabinet Ministers and the Party’s Deputy Leader speaking – Vince Cable’s speech was carried live by the BBC and Sky news was also filming throughout the day. Of course the Ministers were a significant draw, but the packed-out audience was …

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Kirsty Williams AM

Kirsty Williams writes: Slow progress in Wales

By Kirsty Williams AM | Tue 21st June 2011 - 3:25 pm

We are six weeks from the elections and the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Government getting on with the job they were elected to do – governing and legislating. The Scottish Government is demanding more fiscal powers and they are rocking the constitutional boat. Whether you agree with the SNPs policies or not, they are doing something. The story in Wales is different.

The first major government announcement in Wales came on Tuesday when the First Minister rose to his feet to outline his Welsh equivalent of the Queen Speech. This should have been a momentous occasion since the people …

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Also posted in News and Wales | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Andrew Cook

Opinion: Bombardier – the end is nigh?‏

By Andrew Cook | Tue 21st June 2011 - 1:41 pm

Just over a year ago, I wrote on Lib Dem Voice that the future for the Bombardier train building plant at Derby looked precarious. At that time, my fears were around the deep spending cuts that we were being forewarned of. Happily those cuts have not so far seriously affected transport spending. But last week, the same Derby Litchurch Lane Bombardier plant suffered a severe blow when the Department for Transport announced that the order for new trains to work the Thameslink service in London is likely to go to Siemens in Germany. Siemens builds fine trains (although, as …

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Mark Thompson

Opinion: The progressive case for aligning pension ages across the public and private sectors‏

By Mark Thompson | Tue 21st June 2011 - 11:17 am

The government is pressing ahead with plans to align pension ages across the public and private sectors. By 2020, both men and women in the private sector will have their retirement ages aligned at 66. But if the public sector is left unreformed, many people working within it would still be able to retire with their public sector pension available from the age of 60 or 65 (depending on whether they are male or female).

There is a progressive case to be made for aligning the public and private sector in this respect. Recent research has shown that currently the …

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Stuart Bonar

Opinion: Taxpayer foots £6.7m NO 2 AV leaflet bill

By Stuart Bonar | Tue 21st June 2011 - 10:26 am

We all remember the supposed concern the NO 2 AV campaign had for the British taxpayer. You’ll remember – who could forget? – their claim that the Alternative Vote would cost £250m, and that this’ll kill babies and soldiers. You might also remember David Blunkett’s polling-day admission that that was all nonsense, but, hey, all’s fair in love, war and politics, and I guess they were just really concerned about saving taxpayers’ money. After all, TaxPayers’ Alliance founder Matthew Elliott headed up their campaign.

Just to underline how much they cared about the public purse, they …

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Colin Green

Opinion: The Unpalatable Truth – Pensions Have To Change

By Colin Green | Mon 20th June 2011 - 3:21 pm

Pensions are again in the news. This time concerning the public sector. For a number of years now, private sector pension schemes have been closed or have changed from defined benefits into simple money purchase schemes. Why is this happening and what can we do?

In 1900, average life expectancy was just 50 years of age. Few people lived long enough to retire. By the 1950s, average life spans had reached 70. The state pension was introduced at age 65 giving 5 years of retirement after 50 years of work. Since then life expectancy has risen to 80, yet we still …

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Jenny Willott

Jenny Willott MP writes: Calling for a fair rise in the State Pension age

By Jenny Willott | Mon 20th June 2011 - 11:17 am

In 1970 a person reaching 60 could expect to live a further 18 years. Last year, they could expect to live another 28 years. Advances in healthcare, living standards and technology mean that people in the UK are living longer and life expectancy is rapidly increasing.

This is something we should celebrate, but it is also something for which we must plan. We cannot expect people to work until they drop but the longer people spend in retirement, the more strain this puts on public services and, in particular, on the Government’s ability to pay people a decent pension.

Last year around …

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Lee Dargue

Opinion: The Social Liberal Conference was a major success

By Lee Dargue | Mon 20th June 2011 - 9:41 am

The SLF conference was a major success. Yes, it was “full” – David Hall-Mathews careful not to refer to the event as “sold out”. Yes, lots of people debated and tweeted like crazy on subjects ranging from NHS reforms to the history of the American fridge. But it wasn’t the numbers or amount of talking we did which was the most important. It was the fact that there is still a groundswell of progressives alive and well in the Liberal Democrats. In fact, since entering government with the Conservative party, and with a recent “win” (yet to see how it …

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Dominic Mantle

Opinion: Cable’s GMB speech encapsulated coalition tensions

By Dominic Mantle | Sun 19th June 2011 - 7:56 pm

The Business Secretary Vince Cable’s speech to the GMB annual conference last Monday received significant attention. Some media coverage would have us believe that the senior Lib Dem had brazenly threatened trades unions with serious curbs on their strike powers. In fact, Cable had qualified his brief hint of this possibility with the admission that present circumstances merited no government action.

Within the context of unions’ criticism of government cuts to jobs and services, Cable’s introduction to the table of the possibility of changes to strike law may have been a strategic manoeuvre intended to dissuade industrial action planned …

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Stephen Tall

Does Labour have a ‘Plan B’ for the economy at the next election?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 19th June 2011 - 9:15 am

The question is repeatedly asked of the Coalition and its economic policy of deficit reduction: do you have a Plan B? (It is, by the way, a ludicrous question to ask — Steve Richards, the left-leaning Independent commentator, has acknowledged as much: ‘The debate is silly because no Chancellor can acknowledge an alternative route in advance.’)

But if the question’s going to continue to be asked, let’s at least do it the justice of turning it round: does Labour have a Plan B? The thought was in particular prompted by this excellent post — unambiguously titled, Labour must stop …

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Stephen Tall

What Nick can do next…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 18th June 2011 - 2:58 pm

The Guardian’s Michael White poses the tricky question for Liberal Democrats — “Nick Clegg is doing better, but will it be enough?” — on his blog, following Nick’s well-received speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery. As Michael points out, only the sharp jokes were reported in the media, rather than the substance which accompanied them (a charge to which I also plead partially guilty). So let’s add a bit of balance…

had three non-jokey points to make – three you didn’t read in the papers today. One was that, whatever happens at the next election, Britain will not

…

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Matt Sanders

Opinion: Liberal Democrats and Londoners deserve a three horse race

By Matt Sanders | Thu 16th June 2011 - 5:29 pm

Brian Paddick, who is now reported to be running for Mayor of London, has the experience and the high profile to take on Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone.

Like it or not, the race next year is going to be personality politics at its most intense. With polls showing a lead for the Labour party in London, but Johnson and Livingstone running neck and neck, it’s in the big parties interests to make this “Ken vs Boris”.

I like and respect the other names who have put themselves forward for the Liberal Democrat nomination. Mike Tuffrey has quietly …

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Helen Flynn

Opinion: It shouldn’t just be about the NHS

By Helen Flynn | Thu 16th June 2011 - 4:15 pm

As an education campaigner and someone who believes in the principles behind the NHS, I have been following the news about the changes we have managed to make to the health bill with interest, and, obviously, pleasure that we have made a difference.

But when are we going to get our collective heads out of the sand when it comes to the privatisation of state education, where “any willing provider” that we were all so horrified about when proposed in the health bill is already rampaging through the education sector?

It will not be long, believe me, where we are seen as …

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