Category Archives: Op-eds

Linda Jack

Linda Jack writes: My solutions for improving public services

By Linda Jack | Sun 17th July 2011 - 12:20 pm

Yesterday I had my say about the concerns I have about the whole scale marketization of public services, so you are quite entitled to ask what would my solution be to the undoubted challenge to improve them?

Firstly – electoral reform coupled with a duty for local and public authorities to engage more meaningfully with the communities they represent. Involving service users as of right, in the design and delivery of services. I want to be able to elect both local and national politicians in a way that improves both their accountability to me but also their interest in doing …

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Paul Walter

Opinion: Cameron’s ten big mistakes – more please!

By Paul Walter | Sun 17th July 2011 - 9:25 am

In the Telegraph, Tim Montgomerie, editor of ConservativeHome, outlines the results of a recent survey of Tory party members.

1,500 of them were asked to name “what they saw as Cameron’s three biggest errors”. The resulting Top Ten makes an extraordinary epistle from Planet Tory. Several of the points on the list would be regarded by many as Cameron’s greatest non-mistakes:

  • “Supporting climate change policies” – mistake? Well, perhaps only when ConHome add the highly debatable non-sequitur of “…that will increase energy bills”.
  • “U-turn on NHS reforms” – mistake? Hell, no. “Hurrah!” – Say many of us.
  • “Agreement to Nick

…

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Tagged , and | 21 Comments
The Voice

What made the Mail, the Express and the Telegraph keen to see Nick Clegg doing more of his job?

By The Voice | Sat 16th July 2011 - 2:47 pm

An odd set of messages this week from some of the right-wing press: the Mail, the Express and Telegraph all ran pieces criticising Nick Clegg for taking his children to school, while being essential to the smooth running of the country.

In a classic bit of pandering/flamebait (delete according to taste), they variously criticise Clegg for not working 24 hours a day before concluding that he is “powerful”, “Co-Prime Minister” and “the second most senior politician in the land”.

The Express’s Virginia Blackburn likes to think of Clegg as “a commanding figure, a statesman, a diplomat representing his …

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Linda Jack

Linda Jack writes: Public services – open for whom?

By Linda Jack | Sat 16th July 2011 - 12:20 pm

It seems extraordinary to me, that hot on the heels of conference having, so recently, resoundingly rejected the marketization of the NHS and the concept of outsourcing to “any willing provider” – Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander yet again embrace an approach to delivering public services in the Open Public Services White Paper that flies in the face of Lib Dem policy and values. What is deeply shocking to me and I am sure many of you, is the assertion in the introduction that:

We are not the first government to realise the power of open public services, others have

…

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Chris White

Chris White writes: Approving Police Commissioner candidates

By Chris White | Sat 16th July 2011 - 8:55 am

Readers of LDV will have noticed that there is an announcement about Police Commissioner candidates – presumably placed by the English Party.

Of course, none of us want these elections (and most councillors in other parties don’t either) but it’s in the Coalition agreement and so we are to an extent stuck with a particularly silly bit of the Tory manifesto. Such, I guess, is the nature of Coalitions.

What is troubling, however, is the fact that the English Party has decided to play the centralist card: candidates need in essence to be approved like parliamentary candidates.

One of the main …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , and | 14 Comments
Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes: Housing is the most important issue facing London

By Brian Paddick | Thu 14th July 2011 - 11:52 am

When I told the BBC’s John Sopel, minutes after the result of the last London Mayoral election was announced, that my second preference vote had gone to the ‘Left List’ candidate Lindsey German, he would not believe me. There were many of her policies I did not agree with but her party was passionate about building more social housing in London. In every debate during the campaign I found myself in agreement with her and disagreeing with the other candidates on that issue.

I believe housing is the single most important issue facing London and this is why.

Quite rightly a priority …

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Tagged | 22 Comments
Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Keeping competition in its box

By Paul Burstow | Thu 14th July 2011 - 9:06 am

Mention the words “competition” and “the NHS”, and you will often get the same two responses. A misapprehension which confuses competition with privatisation. But also an instinctive desire to reject new providers in order to protect the NHS. We understand this reaction, and we understand why people are cautious about competition.

The creation of the NHS is a cherished part of the liberal story. It was a liberal, working in a Coalition, who first imagined the NHS and its values of healthcare available to all, free at point of delivery, based on clinical need, not ability to pay. That’s why Nick Clegg has consistently made it crystal clear that we will never privatise the NHS. And why you will never have to pay for your NHS care under our watch.

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Mark Littlewood

Mark Littlewood writes: Sharper axes, lower taxes

By Mark Littlewood | Wed 13th July 2011 - 4:02 pm

Today sees the Institute of Economic Affairs publish its own version of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The research report – Sharper Axes, Lower Taxes: Big Steps to a Smaller State – calls for a radical downsizing of the public sector and sketches out the colossal tax cuts which would become possible. Accompanying opinion poll research, conducted by ComRes, shows overwhelming public support for such a strategy.
 
For all the sound and fury surrounding the coalition’s fiscal retrenchment, its proposals are actually amazingly modest. In real terms, public spending will fall by a mere 3% or so between now and the …

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59 Comments
Mike Tuffrey

Mike Tuffrey writes… My kinda campaign … working towards success in 2014

By Mike Tuffrey | Wed 13th July 2011 - 11:53 am

Ol’ blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, used to sing about “My kinda town…” Rest assured, I won’t be singing. But let me tell you about London – my town – and the kind of campaign I intend to run as our candidate to be Mayor of London.

The test of success in the 2012 campaign isn’t just the number of votes we win in the Mayor contest – it is how many Assembly members we get elected and how many councillors, councils and MEPs we get elected in 2014.

Our very best London-wide campaigning in the past – such as that led …

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Also posted in London | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Rachel Coleman Finch

Opinion: Schools should suit working parents

By Rachel Coleman Finch | Wed 13th July 2011 - 10:18 am

Like many parents of four-year-olds right now, I’m preparing for the big move to primary school this September. Our new school is doing a great job of easing the transition from nursery for our son; but as full-time working parents the difference between nursery and school is deeply stressful.

Nursery is run for working parents: open 8-6, three meals a day provided, flexible arrival and departure time, and one itemised monthly bill. School is very different: closed 14 weeks of the year, and finishing around 3pm the other 38. A whole mini-industry of breakfast clubs, after-school clubs, holiday clubs and summer schools has grown up to fill the gap for families who can’t have an adult at home so much of the time. Each one has its own waiting list, hours, costs, payment methods and reputation for quality … or not. Even school dinners are paid for separately. With less than 2 months to go, we’ve a lot of arrangements still to sort out.

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Mark Valladares

Opinion: Liberal Bureaucracy – Killing Your Party With Its Song?…

By Mark Valladares | Tue 12th July 2011 - 3:13 pm

This is quite a hard post to write. After all, I’ve been a party bureaucrat for more than a quarter of a century, from my embryonic days as Secretary General of the Young Liberals, via incarnations as a Returning Officer, a member of the English Candidates Committee and stints as Regional Secretary in both London and now the East of England.

Once upon a time, I took the view that, if I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, campaign, what I could do was do the boring, yet necessary stuff that enabled the Party to fulfil its organisational obligations, thus freeing up people …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | 15 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats didn’t just avoid Murdoch, we tried to cut him down to size

By James Percival | Tue 12th July 2011 - 1:53 pm

In my last post for Lib Dem Voice, I pointed out that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems had never courted Murdoch and his cronies.

Actually, that was just the half of it.

We didn’t just avoid him. We have tried, in different ways over a number of years, to cut the media mogul down to size and clamp down on the sort of abhorrent media practices that have been exposed of late.

As far back as 1994, the year before Tony Blair chose to fly to Oz to lick Rupert Murdoch’s boots, we were calling for the OFT …

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David Boyle

Opinion: Time to publish the magical ratio

By David Boyle | Tue 12th July 2011 - 10:21 am

A week is a long time in politics, but it also sometimes seems to move at a glacial pace.

It is now two decades since Bill Clinton won the presidency on the slogan that ‘trickle down economics’ doesn’t work. Yet even a couple of years ago, there was Labour’s Peter Mandelson being ‘relaxed’ about people getting ‘filthy rich’.

Well, finally things seem to be shifting. Even Max Hastings, of all people, writes in the Financial Times that “gross disparities seems likely sooner or later to promote an upheaval, perhaps graver now than most western societies can now envisage.”

It certainly seems to …

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Harriet Ainscough and Sam Fisk

Opinion: The struggle for democracy persists in Europe, not just the Middle East

By Harriet Ainscough and Sam Fisk | Mon 11th July 2011 - 1:18 pm

In December last year, Alyaksandr Lukashenka was re-elected president of Belarus, with 79.7% of the vote in elections deemed to fall massively short of OSCE standards. Under his leadership, the Belarusian regime systematically violates basic liberties. The past week has seen a worsening of the situation, with the oppressive regime using unjustifiable violence against protesters seeking democracy and freedom.

Despite a ban on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, in an attempt to try and stifle the protests, the capital Minsk has seen huge anti-Lukashenka demonstrations. The response of the Belarusian Government has been appalling. Hundreds of peaceful protesters have been …

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Duncan Stott

Opinion: Private sector tenants are disenfranchised

By Duncan Stott | Sun 10th July 2011 - 2:15 pm

There has been a lively debate on Lib Dem Voice this week on housing policy. Well-argued articles from Alex Marsh, Mike Tuffrey and Stephen Gilbert have ignited equally interesting debates in the comments. All sorts of intriguing policy ideas have been proposed to address the growing crisis in housing supply.

However, a great idea is just the starting point on the long journey to create a successful policy. For a mainstream party with ambitions to form the next government, it is crucial that ideas enjoy popular support with voters. Housing development invokes strong feelings amongst the electorate, both …

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Jonathan Hunt

Opinion: Paper victory?

By Jonathan Hunt | Sun 10th July 2011 - 10:48 am

OK, so most of the country is totally repulsed by the Screws and News International. Rupert Murdoch is “the devil incarnate” and Rebecca Brooks the most reviled woman since Marie Antoinette.
 
Many of us have been convinced of this for years, if not decades. I once had the misfortune of working for a paper taken over by Murdoch. And seeing happy, friendly creative colleagues suddenly stop working for each another, poisoned by a culture of cynicism, suspicion and toadying to the bosses.
 
But as we devour the final copy of the News of the World, who will think ahead to what happens …

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18 Comments
Helen Duffett

The News of the World and giving readers what they want

By Helen Duffett | Sat 9th July 2011 - 5:54 pm

No, not a trailer for your super soaraway Lib Dem Voice on Sunday, but a quick quirk-alert on reader figures at our site this week.

It’s one of my jobs at Lib Dem Voice to keep an eye on the stats, including visitor numbers, popular posts, search terms and lots of other data.

These give us blogging ideas, help us to plan (and sometimes crow), and are another strand of audience feedback – alongside the comments threads, survey responses, emails and phonecalls, and of course the articles themselves that people submit.

So I thought I’d briefly share a surprising finding from …

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David Warren

Opinion: Trade unions, pensions and Labour

By David Warren | Sat 9th July 2011 - 2:45 pm

I have been following very closely the pensions dispute as it unfolds and one of my concerns is public sector workers could lose a lot of pay through strike action in what I am starting to believe is a political strike which they cannot possibly win.

I am also a little surprised at the way the government have handled things so far and, as a former national union representative, I have been amazed at times by their ineptitude.

Further confirmation I am afraid that the Tories and sadly many in our party don’t understand the real world of industrial relations.

So why do …

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Stephen Tall

In Praise of Nick Davies, the British Bernstein & Woodward to Murdoch’s Nixon

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th July 2011 - 11:50 am

One man, above all, deserves to be singled-out for his single-minded pursuit of the lies, deceit and criminality that have stained British journalism: The Guardian’s special correspondent, Nick Davies.

His has been a lonely crusade. Despite the mounting evidence of corrupt practices, the tentacles of which have extended right into the very centre of the Establishment in this country — Parliament, media barons, senior police officers, Downing Street — Nick Davies has doggedly pursued a campaign which has resulted in the closure of this country’s most-read newspaper. That is some accolade.

But, as he would be the first to point out, it should never have got this far.

The closure of the News of the World would have been avoided if those who knew the truth, or at least had the power to uncover the truth, had done their jobs properly, had fulfilled their duty to the public. And that’s as true of Rebekah Brooks as it is of ‘Yates of the Yard’.

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Chris Nicholson

Opinion: Driving better performance across public services

By Chris Nicholson | Sat 9th July 2011 - 10:20 am

25 years ago, when I was Leader of Kingston Council, Margaret Thatcher was planning to introduce Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) for services like bin collection and road sweeping. The Council Director responsible for these services started working out what measures he would take to improve efficiency and cut costs. But then the government announced a delay in CCT so he proposed shelving these plans. I said no.

I often recall this incident when the subject of competition in public services comes up. Liberals should never be afraid of competition where it is likely to lead to better public services. Nor …

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Paul Braithwaite

Opinion: Our party must keep its Equitable pledge

By Paul Braithwaite | Fri 8th July 2011 - 8:31 pm

For a decade now I have been the general secretary of EMAG, the Equitable Members’ Action Group, a campaigning group for those who lost out because of maladministration and regulatory failure at the once venerable insurance firm Equitable Life. Our pursuit of justice for Equitable Life policyholders started in the summer of 2000. Shortly after, Vince Cable took up the cause and together we walked to Downing Street to deliver a protest letter to Gordon Brown on 6th August, 2001. It was the start of my personal politicisation and I became a Liberal Democrat Councillor in Camden in 2006. …

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Helen Flynn

Opinion: Claiming the centre ground

By Helen Flynn | Fri 8th July 2011 - 3:40 pm

As (at least) one Lib Dem member commented after the local council elections, “the only way is up” from now on. But to win back support and indeed increase our base we need to refocus. It is right that we should be emphasising our distinctiveness in the coalition, but we need to do a lot more. We need to clearly articulate what we stand for, and communicate it relentlessly to the electorate. In the same way that the more tribal parties will repeat over and over again the same phrase so that people end up parroting them (regardless of …

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41 Comments
Tim Leunig

Opinion: Cameron should be as ruthless as Murdoch‏

By Tim Leunig | Fri 8th July 2011 - 1:10 pm

In shutting the News of the World, the Murdochs have shown themselves to be ruthless. Their ruthlessness changed the story, although it has not killed it.

David Cameron needs to be as ruthless. So long as the Murdochs have a powerful media presence, his hiring of Andy Coulson and his closeness to Rebekah Brooks are real issues. The retoxification of the Tory party is underway.

Cameron should announce that he was lied to by Coulson, and that the level of rot can only have happened if people at the top were not managing the paper properly. It was Brooks and …

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Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes: The Lib Dem Guide to phone hacking

By Brian Paddick | Fri 8th July 2011 - 11:53 am

Uniquely perhaps, I was a victim of the News of the World’s private investigator, Glen Mulcaire, when I was a senior police officer at New Scotland Yard, working along the corridor from the officers who conducted the first phone hacking inquiry in 2002. But they never told me I was victim.

It was only a couple of years ago when my solicitor received a call from a Guardian journalist, that I knew Mulcaire had my name and mobile phone number in his notebook.

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Stephen Gilbert MP

Stephen Gilbert MP writes: UK housing policy in crisis

By Stephen Gilbert MP | Fri 8th July 2011 - 10:18 am

Last year I was probably the only MP to be elected while still living with my parents. Of course, I’d moved out of home and, like many others, had to move back again. It’s a symptom of the fact that housing policy in the UK is in crisis. We have millions of people languishing on social housing waiting lists, first-time-buyers priced out of the market and in private rented sector tenants facing increased rents with decreased security of tenure and standards.

Let’s be clear: Governments of all hues have failed on housing and, frankly, the Coalition has barely begun to acknowledge …

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Opinion: Nick Clegg didn’t suck up to Murdoch – that’s why his minions tried to destroy him

By James Percival | Fri 8th July 2011 - 9:22 am

There was a moment during the election campaign last year when many Liberal Democrats realised we had passed through the looking glass.

Nick Clegg’s performance in the first leaders’ debate broke the glass ceiling of British politics and, it seems, caused more than one Tory-supporting newspaper editor to wet themselves in fear.

Then, on the eve of the second debate, the right wing press let slip the dogs of war.

It wasn’t just the Murdoch papers that went for Nick, but they did and they did it viciously. The Sun ridiculed him, splashing outrageous and ridiculous headlines on their front page for days …

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Opinion: ‘Activate’ – Liberal Youth’s annual renewal

By Tom Wood | Thu 7th July 2011 - 6:52 pm

This weekend was Liberal Youth’s Activate event which, as the new chair of Liberal Youth, meant a weekend of hard work and no sleep; but one stuffed full of inspiration.

Although on paper Activate is our simply our annual training event for young Lib Dems in actuality it’s much more than that.

I see Activate as the annual renewal of our movement, firstly because it’s when our newly elected executive will meet face-to-face and begin setting priorities for the year ahead, and secondly (and most importantly) because this is when we welcome all our newly recruited members to the organisation and give them the skills to become real activists for the party.

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Nick Tyrone

Opinion: It should be about more than Murdoch

By Nick Tyrone | Thu 7th July 2011 - 3:59 pm

The left of centre in Britain had better figure out what it stands for when it comes to free speech and the monopolisation of power in the media.

There is apparently a flash mob, due to take place in front of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this afternoon. Well, at least if it isn’t still raining. Then the various protestors will probably head to the pub instead, if I know my protestors.

It’s been organised by several left leaning think tanks and pressure groups to try and achieve two things: 1. To put pressure on the government to delay …

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David Hennigan

Opinion: Why Wrexham Labour Party should be ashamed: The curious case of Aled Roberts

By David Hennigan | Thu 7th July 2011 - 12:21 pm

It’s estimated that well over 30% of the Welsh population speak Welsh as their first language – that is growing year on year. Hundreds of thousands more across the world speak it – even in a distant corner of Argentina – the valleys of a Patagonia. My partner from Rhosllanerchrugog and her family speak Welsh. They are fiercely proud of their heritage and would be absolutely disgusted with the treatment of Aled Roberts AM. It appears that they don’t speak Welsh at the Electoral Commission!

Now let me declare an interest, I don’t know Aled Roberts, I know his mum …

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Mike Tuffrey

Mike Tuffrey writes… Housing: time to think big on the supply-side

By Mike Tuffrey | Thu 7th July 2011 - 10:25 am

Even a cursory look at the state of housing in London instantly shows that something is profoundly wrong. Rents outside the social sector are racing ahead, up 17% last year. House prices defy the laws of gravity, up 5% despite national economic trends.

And the really scandalous thing is that it has been this way under both Mayors of London, with no sign of any fundamental change. That’s why I’ve been arguing we must focus above all else on getting the supply increased. Without that, solving the affordability question gets harder and harder: ever-rising housing and land costs means ever …

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Also posted in London | Tagged , and | 42 Comments
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