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Category Archives: Op-eds

How election leaflets used to look: Skipton 1885

By Mark Pack | Mon 29th November 2010 - 8:56 am

As a follow up to my City of London election leaflet from the 1930s, here is a single-sided Conservative general election leaflet from 1885 for the Skipton Parliamentary constituency:

Skipton 1885 Conservative leaflet

The name handwritten in the bottom left corner is that of the voter to whom the leaflet was delivered, the handwriting not so much an attempt at personalisation as a reflection of the lack of alternative ways of individually addressing leaflets at the time. Indeed, overall the letter is far less personal than an equivalent is (or should …

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Tagged history and how leaflets used to look | 13 Comments

Opinion: A suggestion for an amendment to the AV bill

By Daniel Henry | Sat 27th November 2010 - 2:06 pm

This article is easier to follow if you understand how STV and AV works. If you’re not familiar with them, I recommend quickly clicking on the links for explanations.

How STV would clean up politics.
When the electoral reform campaign was for STV, one of the arguments we liked to use was how it would help clean up politics by ending “safe seats”. We call a seat “safe” if it has been held by the same party for a long while and it’s pretty much guaranteed that the candidate who runs for that party will win. This means that some …

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Tagged AV | 69 Comments

Opinion: Lords avoid falling into Labour’s “elephant trap” – just

By Jonathan Featonby | Sat 27th November 2010 - 10:17 am

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituency Bill advanced to its second reading in the House of Lords earlier this month after narrowly avoiding a referral motion tabled by Labour peer Lord Falconer.

Lord Falconer had argued that the bill was hybrid as it treated two existing parliamentary seats – Orkney and the Western Isles – as special cases that would have been exempt from the constituency boundary redrawing element of the bill.

The motion was defeated by 224 votes to 210, allowing the second reading of the bill to take place.

But there needs to be a closer look as to …

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Tagged AV, lord falconer and lord mcnally | 13 Comments

The Saturday debate: What is fairness?

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th November 2010 - 8:58 am

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

In his recently published book, 22 Days in May, David Laws writes,

The coalition needs to redefine what fairness means. Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line, whatever their personal circumstances. Fairness means giving people the educational and employment opportunities to ensure that they are not dependent on an over-mighty state and trapped in dead-end lives.

Agree? Disagree?

Tagged david laws, featured and weekend debate | 48 Comments

The Independent View: Why killing badgers might not be the answer

By Richard Meyer | Fri 26th November 2010 - 2:51 pm

Dr. Richard Meyer served on the Government Consultative Panel for three years, wrote The Fate of the Badger (Batsford 1986) and worked for a year with WWF. This post is adapted from his submission to Defra as part of the public consultation process on bovine tuberculosis.

The background is briefly that the majority of farmers have long believed that badgers give TB to cattle. I will try to show in plain English why the planned ex-officio cull of badgers by farmers is misguided, uncivilised and dangerous.

Misguided? The most telling evidence is simply historic. On-farm intradermal tuberculin testing (‘Test & Slaughter’) reduced …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged badgers and bovine tb | 41 Comments

Tavish Scott writes… The SNP budget is too severe on services but too soft on waste

By Tavish Scott MSP | Fri 26th November 2010 - 10:54 am

The Scottish Government has published its budget. But it’s for one year not three! No SNP Minister can explain why it was right for nationalists in Wales to produce figures for three years but not for the SNP Government in Scotland.

SNP Ministers say they can’t give a four-year budget because they have just set up a public service reform group. That’s code for “we don’t know what to do but whatever we do will be after next May’s Election. Yet the SNP have known the broad numbers for months.

After all, Alex Salmond wrote to Vince Cable on 12th February to say, …

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Also posted in Scotland | Tagged alex salmond and jeremy purvis | 2 Comments

Get them more involved!

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th November 2010 - 8:54 am

Since the general election I’ve been to speak at fifteen local party events and two trends have struck me. First, the increase in the party’s headline membership figures comes over on the ground, with new faces turning up at events and new people interested in helping. Second, and less promising, is the heavy reliance on only two questions when someone new pops up: “can you deliver leaflets?” or, if they look really keen, “do you want to be on the local party executive?”

Those are both good questions – and the enthusiasm for getting people directly involved with leafleting is a …

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Tagged featured | 7 Comments

Opinion: Beware of Tesco towns

By Merlene Emerson | Thu 25th November 2010 - 11:24 am

The Government’s chief design adviser has warned against the danger of supermarket led developments in town centres. Mixed-use developments involving the building of housing, schools and parks linked to supermarkets are often badly conceived and may not thrive in the long term, said the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) in its report published this week.

While developers are keen to sign up a key anchor tenant such as Tesco, Sainsbury or Homebase to lease their retail and commercial spaces, this may not be what residents or local communities want or need. A formula that works for an out-of-town …

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Tagged hammersmith and fulham and planning | 13 Comments

Chris White writes…‘We can’t keep meeting like this…’

By Chris White | Wed 24th November 2010 - 5:55 pm

There are some issues that the public finds it difficult to care about and councillors find fascinating. One of these is the governance model for local government – about to change once more.

The Coalition, bafflingly, is about to reintroduce the committee system (or rather to allow its reintroduction) while also forcing 12 large cities to have executive mayors. There is next to no intellectual rationale for facing both ways at once. Nevertheless it is probably a good idea to think more carefully about the basic principles here.

What is the committee system? Why do we instinctively prefer committees and oppose ‘Cabinets’ …

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Also posted in Local government | 11 Comments

Opinion: “The Importance of Teaching” White Paper – putting Lib Dem policy into action?

By James Kempton | Wed 24th November 2010 - 3:08 pm

After a year’s work in the run up to the General Election co-writing the Liberal Democrats’ Equity and Excellence education policy paper with other members of the 5-19 Education Policy Working Group, I opened the Coalition Government’s first education White Paper with understandable trepidation.

Nothing can be more important than giving every child a fair start in life, but the education system inherited from Labour offered some young people pretty much the best education system anywhere in the world, while leaving others ill-equipped, under-funded, and lacking the skills needed to get on in life.

The White Paper launched by the government today, called The Importance of Teaching takes as its starting point the unflattering international comparisons of the performance and skills of our pupils. Its critique of where and why the school system is underperforming is one that will be very familiar to most Liberal Democrats. It is a vision for a system based on excellence, underpinned by freedom and fairness: an education system which challenges low aspiration and achievement and where school-level innovation and diversity are seen as strengths to be welcomed.

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Tagged education, local government association, ofsted, pupil premium and sats | 29 Comments

In Government for all the right reasons: the David Laws interview

By Helen Duffett | Tue 23rd November 2010 - 4:41 pm

Yesterday I interviewed David Laws, on the day his book 22 Days in May was published. I asked him about the book, his views on the Coalition Government, as well as about the focus of his current work, plus his thoughts on the Ireland bailout.

In the introduction to the book, David Laws writes that its purpose is to “inform those who are interested in this important period of British politics, and to make sure that an accurate account is left of what really happened in May 2010, before memories fade, myths grow and evidence is lost.”

Why have you published …

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Tagged coalition, david laws and featured | 40 Comments

Opinion: How do my election leaflets look now?

By Stuart Bonar | Tue 23rd November 2010 - 10:26 am

Rummaging through some papers at the weekend I came across my Election Address from May’s General Election. I was the Liberal Democrat candidate in Plymouth Moor View.

Conditioned after months of the media drip feed about how Lib Dems had stabbed every conceivable group in the back, I steeled myself to read the list of broken promises I had made to the good people of my home city.

Well, first of all, on the front of my Election Address, I promised fairer taxes that put money back in your pocket. I went into specifics, stating that “you will pay no tax …

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49 Comments

On the receiving end of a tuition fees protest

By Iain Roberts | Mon 22nd November 2010 - 2:21 pm

I recently spent the day at the office of a Lib Dem MP, who’s been targetted for a protest about the proposed increase in tuition fees. As a veteran of quite a few protests myself, especially back in my student days, it’s interesting and quite fun to be on the receiving end.

My personal view on the Lib Dem tuition fees position is one I’ve previously written about. With hindsight, the pledge was clearly a mistake and our MPs shouldn’t have made it. However, we are where we are and MPs have to consider not just the pledge but actually …

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Tagged higher education, tuition fees and universities | 26 Comments

Opinion: Ireland has many economic problems…..but it isn’t an argument against the Euro

By David Thorpe | Sun 21st November 2010 - 1:50 pm

As my native Ireland teeters on the edge of bankruptcy and bailout, sections of the British press have taken the opportunity to view Ireland’s difficulty as the Europsceptic’s opportunity.

Some of the comment has centred around the idea that British taxpayers will be asked to ‘bail out’ their feckless neighbours, as, apparently they were with Greece last year.

This article aims not to explore that argument further, as it is a debate too reliant on uncertain future events, and is framed within a Britsih nationalist context which it is not appropriate for me to explore.

Instead I want to focus on another aspect …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged euro, european union, eurosceptic and republic of ireland | 55 Comments

Opinion: Control Orders – 14 words to mull over

By Jo Shaw | Sun 21st November 2010 - 12:26 pm

“The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society”. These are the first fourteen words of the Preamble to the Constitution of the Liberal Democrats. It was this statement that finally made me decide to join the Lib Dems nearly ten years ago, and has kept me campaigning, working and fighting for and on behalf of our party ever since.

The control order debate has been raging lately, within the party and in the press. I wanted to explain why I feel so strongly about the issue of control orders and why I set up the …

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Tagged anti-terrorist legislation and control orders | 13 Comments

Opinion: Lib Dems must change strategy if they are to regain electoral credibility

By Sean McHale | Sun 21st November 2010 - 9:56 am

Nobody likes an apologist. So why are the Liberal Democrats apologising for every decision the Coalition takes? Continue on this road and the party is heading toward electoral annihilation.

This apologist outlook has stemmed from the strategy the Lib Dems have operated with since 1997, namely, attacking the government from the left. The strategy must be broadly viewed as a success. Only a month prior to the election the party were ahead in the polls, and although they suffered a net loss in regard to seats, the party gained a notoriety amongst the public not witnessed for over 80 years.

But the …

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Tagged simon hughes | 32 Comments

David Howarth writes… The Public Bodies Bill is sloppy, lazily drafted and must be radically amended

By David Howarth | Sat 20th November 2010 - 4:02 pm

On Friday, Mark Pack wrote on Lib Dem Voice about Public Bodies Bill – Abolition of Parliament: it was wrong then and it’s wrong now – highlighting how some parts of the Public Bodies Bill echo the proposals previously made by Labour and against which David Howarth led the opposition. Now David Howarth gives his take on the Bill:

The Public Bodies Bill gives ministers powers to abolish, merge, reform or change the functions or financial arrangements of public bodies (i.e. quangos). Ministers will be able to use these powers by issuing unamendable statutory instruments that require a single vote …

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Tagged Mark Pack and public bodies bill | 19 Comments

Opinion: Let’s hear from Labour their tuition fees policy

By Shas Sheehan | Sat 20th November 2010 - 10:27 am

What a mess we seem to have got ourselves into over tuition fees. How on earth did we get here?

I can only speak for myself. I joined the party because of its policies on green issues, clarity of thought on civil liberties, regard for international law, opposition to nuclear energy and renewal of Trident, and tuition fees.

This latter policy was very important to me.

I don’t come from a privileged background. At school I was one of the kids on free school meals and to go to university I had a full grant.

I hated free school meals because everyone knew who …

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Tagged browne report, higher education, tuition fees, universities and vince cable | 59 Comments

Jeremy Browne writes… Human rights, six months in

By Jeremy Browne MP | Fri 19th November 2010 - 10:53 am

Last week at the UN, 107 countries voted for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. The UK led the international lobbying effort and provided strong encouragement to countries such as Mongolia, who voted for the moratorium for the first time.

This was a very encouraging result and part of a wider international movement towards global abolition. It is clear in my mind that the death penalty is no deterrent to criminals, it can never be reversed and it is a denial of the liberal sanctity of the individual. It is the UK’s unwavering aim to try and …

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19 Comments

Abolition of Parliament: it was wrong then and it’s wrong now

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th November 2010 - 8:56 am

Back when Tony Blair was Prime Minister Labour tried to get through Parliament sweeping powers to change the law without requiring full Parliamentary scrutiny. Then Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth was one of those who led the charge against this, writing in The Times:

The Government proposed an extraordinary Bill that will drastically reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws, a Bill some constitutional experts are already calling “the Abolition of Parliament Bill”.

A couple of journalists noticed, including Daniel Finkelstein of The Times, and a couple more pricked up their ears last week when I highlighted some biting academic criticism of the

…

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Tagged david howarth, dizzy thinks, house of lords delegated powers and regulatory reform committee, LabourList, Liberal Conspiracy and public bodies bill | 7 Comments

Chris Rennard writes… The battle for electoral reform in the Lords

By Chris Rennard | Thu 18th November 2010 - 7:05 pm

Battle has been joined in the House of Lords over the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (generally referred to as the PVSC Bill). Having passed all stages in the Commons, it came to the Lords this week. It needs to get to Royal Assent by the end of January for the referendum on using the Alternative Vote for future Westminster elections to be held on May 5th next year.

Two controversial measures have been put together in one Bill as part of the coalition agreement. The Government won every vote in the Commons on this Bill with comfortable majorities. But Labour’s …

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Tagged av referendum, electoral reform, Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and paul tyler | 12 Comments

Opinion: Microfinance epitomises Liberal Democracy

By Shas Sheehan | Wed 17th November 2010 - 10:24 am

Microfinance epitomises Liberal Democracy and we must push the Department For International Development (DFID) to reverse the declining support the Labour years has visited on this decentralised, non-statist and very effective means of lending a hand up to the poorest people on the planet.

In the picture is the cooking stove I bought in Malawi from a gentleman called George (not his real name). George was loaned the money by a microfinance charity so that he could buy sheet metal rather than scavenge for the materials he needed.

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged malawi | 5 Comments

Not all your letters have to be the same: a European lesson

By Mark Pack | Wed 17th November 2010 - 8:55 am

The following piece by Dinti Batstone and myself appeared in the November edition of ALDC‘s Campaigner. It follows up on two common themes of ours – Dinti’s on targeting European voters and mine about direct mail:

It’s been a case of two steps forward, one step back in many local parties when it comes to getting more out of direct mail over the last few years. As covered previously in of Campaigner, the emphasis on doing direct mail more often and to more people has sometimes come at a cost in variation. Rather than, say, one batch of direct …

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Tagged dinti batstone and direct mail | 1 Comment

False claims of betrayal do the NUS no credit

By Iain Roberts | Tue 16th November 2010 - 5:29 pm

Have the Liberal Democrats betrayed students? The NUS certainly say so, and plenty of people agree.

They’re wrong.

The Liberal Democrats have made a u-turn on tuition fees – they haven’t denied it. As I argued a few days ago, the Lib Dems have no claim to be morally superior to any other party. We didn’t want to go back on commitments and promises but, like Labour and the Conservatives, we have done.

But is that u-turn a betrayal of students?

Or, to put it another way, is the result of that u-turn that students get a worse deal than they’d …

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Tagged higher education, nus, tuition fees and universities | 93 Comments

Opinion: Interpreting the internal election results

By David Hall-Matthews | Tue 16th November 2010 - 3:57 pm

The bare bones of the internal party election results were set out here on Saturday showing who had been elected by conference reps to the various committees.

The detailed results for the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee, hosted by Colin Rosenstiel, show some revealing trends when compared with previous years’ election results.

This year, in the Federal Executive elections, Evan Harris came top on first preference by a long stretch with 263 votes. Following him was David Rendel (107) and Ramesh Dewan (77) with others on 55. Evan is clearly identified with the progressive, Social Liberal wing …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged david rendel, duncan brack, evan harris, gareth epps, linda jack, ramesh dewan, sandra gidley, social liberal forum, susan gaszczak and tony greaves | 38 Comments

Steve Webb writes… Why Liberal Democrats should welcome the welfare reforms

By Steve Webb MP | Tue 16th November 2010 - 10:27 am

Many Liberal Democrats may be wondering what to make of last week’s announcement by Iain Duncan Smith to replace a whole raft of working-age welfare benefits with a Universal Credit. As a Lib Dem Minister at the DWP, I thought it would be helpful to offer my perspective.

As a party we have long talked about integrating the tax and benefits system. As a first step, we surely need to integrate the benefits system with itself. The Universal Credit approach sits comfortably with our own policy to introduce a single working-age benefit, and will provide a basic allowance topped up by additional elements …

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Tagged iain duncan smith and welfare reform | 64 Comments

Opinion: Clegg has not betrayed us!

By Mat Smith | Mon 15th November 2010 - 2:56 pm

Many left-leaning liberals in the media are outraged at what they consider to be broken pledges on the part of Nick Clegg.

Johann Hari writes in The Independent, “In just a few days after the election, he cleared a space in his swanky new ministerial offices and staged a bonfire of his principles”.

Aside from the fact this article is laced with hyperbole (look carefully – barely a paragraph without some emotive language!), I can’t help thinking this is exactly not what the country needs.

I don’t mean that in a patriotic sense; I believe this country will operate perfectly well …

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Tagged john hari and nick clegg | 148 Comments

Opinion: A good news story – and a clear justification for the Pupil Premium

By John Howson | Mon 15th November 2010 - 10:22 am

Why are ministers turning stories into bad news? Perhaps the ‘age of austerity’ has addled their brains or are they are still operating in ‘opposition mode’. Nick Gibbs’s announcement of the Key State 1 results is a case in point.

Now I know Nick Gibbs has an agenda to mandate synthetic phonics as the only way to teach reading – see the DfE Business Plan – and the contradiction between that level of prescription and ‘freeing up the curriculum’ is but one part of the muddle that is policy-making within Sanctuary Buildings at present.

But, that’s not the story here.

Rather there …

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Tagged nick gibbs and pupil premium | 14 Comments

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