Category Archives: Op-eds

Mark Pack

Capitalism as if the world matters: Jonathan Porritt’s prescription for sustaintability

By Mark Pack | Tue 18th January 2011 - 10:25 am

First published in 2005 and issued in a revised edition in 2007, Jonathan Porritt’s Capitalism as if the world matters has played an important part in arguing the case that not only can capitalism and sustainability go together, but that a reformed version of capitalism is essential to achieving sustainability.

This view sets Porritt apart from many of his former colleagues of his from his six years as chair of the UK Ecology Party (now the Green Party) and another six heading up Friends of the Earth. It made – and makes – his book controversial in many green circles …

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Also posted in Books | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Rob Blackie

Opinion: Sharing maternity leave – our most popular policy since the coalition was formed?

By Rob Blackie | Tue 18th January 2011 - 8:55 am

Yesterday Nick Clegg has announced that couples will be able to share maternity leave. This is a rare example of a policy which is principled, popular and incredibly talkable.

Parents and grandparents, that is most of the population who are over 35 years old, have extremely strong views on childcare and maternity leave. After all it has a huge impact on us, our careers and our relationships with our families.

This is a superb policy for several reasons.

Firstly, it recognises that modern fathers want to spend more time with their children, and are constrained by an incredibly outdated legal framework that implicitly …

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Tagged | 38 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion:We’re in government – get used to it

By Paul Walter | Mon 17th January 2011 - 8:03 pm

Consulting my calendar recently, I was astonished to see that I visited the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election for the first time on 17th and 18th November. A long time ago. I don’t mention this to boast (oh, all right I do!) but to highlight that the Liberal Democrat campaign started in earnest very early. I remember wistfully that “GUILTY” tabloid – that word in red dominating the front page in size 94 font (I think). A classic of understatement.

My return for a couple of days at the beginning of last week confirmed that our campaign was as good as …

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Also posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , and | 59 Comments
Jason Mehmet

Opinion: On Liberal Democrat e-campaigning

By Jason Mehmet | Mon 17th January 2011 - 2:33 pm

The internet is a regular topic on LibDem Voice and one of the most incisive comments I’ve seen about the how the internet applies to the Liberal Democrats was written here:

…at a local level – whether for council or parliamentary elections – email and Facebook, blogs and Twitter, websites and YouTube can each make a real difference to an individual candidate’s campaigning efforts, offering them the chance to motivate supporters, and communicate directly with voters. None of these are a replacement for regular Focus leaflets and door-to-door personal contact; but they are an increasingly essential addition to our traditional

…

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7 Comments
Neal Lawson

The Independent View: Confusing, exciting and terrifying times for those on the liberal left

By Neal Lawson | Mon 17th January 2011 - 11:25 am

These are confusing, exciting and terrifying times for those on the liberal left. By the liberal left I mean those of us who want to see people flourish, to make the world as they see fit – to do it individually but also collectively and therefore democratically and all that requires in terms of greater equality of power and resources.

The confusion is that few of us saw the Conservative-dominated Coalition coming and even fewer are aware yet of its effect on each party and British politics. But it will be profound.

Looking back I find it incredible that my Party, Labour, …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 98 Comments
John Brace

Opinion: Standing your ground against legal threats

By John Brace | Sat 15th January 2011 - 4:55 pm

Freedom of speech is a topic I talked about at last year’s Spring Conference (and got a few laughs for doing so). The Trafigura / Carter-Ruck episode showed how gagging orders on the press are used to suppress embarrassing information. After writing recently about the local Labour Party, I have found myself threatened in a similar way by a PR company (who strangely are paid for out of taxes).

My local authority sold its housing stock to a limited company (let’s call this Company A) which is tens of thousand of properties in the Borough. This company now receives about £43 …

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11 Comments
Stephen Tall

After Oldham: what does the result mean for the party’s targeting strategy?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 15th January 2011 - 2:25 pm

After all the anticipation and build-up, yesterday’s Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election was a bit of a damp squib.

Labour retained the seat with a decent and improved majority, as would be expected of the only major opposition party. The Lib Dems held our own, Elwyn Watkins nudging up the share of the vote he received in May 2010, but not surprisingly proving unable to break the 30-year run of governing parties not gaining at by-elections. And the Conservative vote collapsed after a half-hearted campaign, provoking a few squeals from activists and a shrug of indifference from their party leader.

Looking …

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Also posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 86 Comments
Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: Do we pay too much attention to news from the US?

By Mark Pack | Sat 15th January 2011 - 8:55 am

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

The tragic killing of six and injuries to thirteen others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, have received heavy coverage in the UK media, not only in response to the shooting itself but also following up the story subsequently. Yet other recent political deaths from countries around the world have received, at most, very little media coverage in the UK.

There are partial explanations – such as the murdered Nigerian politician being a local government figure rather than a national figure and the

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes… Oldham proves rumours of the Lib Dems’ death have been greatly exaggerated

By Tim Farron MP | Fri 14th January 2011 - 6:00 pm

Last night, at 3am, I got to do the job of telling everyone how well we did in Oldham despite the fact that we lost… I’m aware that there are few things more clichéd than a politician who loses an election and makes this statement, but in our case it’s actually true. This result provides a good stepping stone towards the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and English council elections.

In Elwyn Watkins we had first class candidate and I am hugely impressed by the way he has handled this by-election and everything that lead up to it. By taking on Phil Woolas and challenging his dirty campaign, Elwyn made a significant leap in the fight towards cleaning up politics for good and for that we should all be grateful.

The election in Oldham East & Saddleworth has been the perfect opportunity for us as a party to come together after what has been, let’s be honest, a very difficult few months. Vast numbers of volunteers descended on Oldham to lend a hand from across the country and many more who could not make it to Oldham, got involved in other ways from telephone canvassing to addressing envelopes!

It was great to see Nick out rallying the troops and walking up and down the icy lanes to speak to voters and deliver leaflets, as well as many of our fantastic team of ministers joining the ranks, such as Scottish Secretary Michael Moore – who got stuck in to the polling day knock-up yesterday getting our voters out to the polling stations! Never before has a by-election been more cathartic and unifying for our party.

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Also posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 72 Comments
Mark Pack

Want a copy of Parliament’s rules? That’ll be £268.40

By Mark Pack | Fri 14th January 2011 - 12:25 pm

Erskine May is the House of Commons rulebook – but if you want to get a copy, it’ll cost you £268.40 from a commercial publisher, and Parliament has said no to a request for a free electronic copy from a member of the public.

The origins are typical of the British constitution. Erskine May started off as a unofficial guide written by an assistant librarian in the House of Commons. Over time it established itself as the reference work and is now treated just like an official rule book. But unlike Hansard – another Parliamentary publication which originated with …

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Also posted in Parliament | Tagged and | 21 Comments
Iain Roberts

The Lib Dems need to complete their economic story

By Iain Roberts | Fri 14th January 2011 - 10:05 am

All parties strive to have a narrative that makes sense to the voters and gets across the key messages the party wants the voters to hear.

The Lib Dems have a narrative – a story – about the economy, but it’s not being heard by enough of the people the party needs to win back. One reason is that the story has a beginning and a middle but lacks a proper ending.

The three main parties all have their economic stories for voters.

The beginning of each is a tale of financial woe. In Labour’s version (at least until …

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Tagged | 69 Comments
Alex Marsh

Opinion: Should we be concerned about the Government’s attempted quangocide?

By Alex Marsh | Thu 13th January 2011 - 1:20 pm

Quangos – Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations – occupy a strange place in the British political landscape. They tend to proliferate because governments can’t resist seeing new commissions for this or advisory panels for that as essential, while rarely deciding that existing bodies have outlived their usefulness. Yet, the term “quango” inhabits the same discursive space as “bureaucracy”. There is an engrained association with waste, inefficiency, red tape and pointless interfering. In many people’s minds, and frequently in political rhetoric, “quango = bad” by definition. (For a discussion of a similar equation regarding bureaucracy, see here on my blog.) So, the …

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Also posted in Parliament | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Ed Long

Opinion: fix our school system and stop uni-bashing

By Ed Long | Thu 13th January 2011 - 11:01 am

As a former constituent and activist in Bermondsey and Old Southwark I greatly enjoyed campaigning on behalf of Simon Hughes and have a lot of respect for his approach to policy and the hard work he puts in, especially meeting face to face with local voters and community groups. I was shocked, however, to read quotes from Simon on the front page of Saturday’s Guardian calling on universities to ‘cut intake’ from independent schools in order to match nationally ‘representative’ proportions: 7.2% was his quoted figure for the proportion of students we ought to aim at coming from an …

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Mark Pack

The email the party could have sent to members and supporters

By Mark Pack | Thu 13th January 2011 - 8:55 am

When doing my series of posts at Christmas about the party’s challenges for 2011 one issue I picked up on was using members and supporters as a campaigning resource:

The party is not exactly short of opponents to overcome when it comes to implementing Liberal Democrat beliefs in government, yet we are not using the party’s grassroots strengths to help win those struggles.

The Conservative Party is, to take one example, split on civil liberties. Many key figures take a similar view to the Liberal Democrats, yet there are also many opponents of what a Liberal Democrat majority government would

…

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Also posted in Online politics | Tagged , , , and | 9 Comments
Tom Paul

Opinion: Liberal Democrats should stop using the word ‘progressive’

By Tom Paul | Wed 12th January 2011 - 2:18 pm

The decline of Labour as a coherent intellectual force is one of the defining features of recent British politics. No doubt the next few years will see a healthy process within Labour to seek to heal the wounds and to re-focus. I suggest that under the banner of ‘progressivism’ this process has started.

2010 saw commentators for the first time in the UK judging political propositions on the basis of whether they are ‘progressive’ or not. Ed Miliband’s own analysis is that in government Labour “…lost that sense of progressive mission.” But what on earth does progressive mean? What kind of …

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Tagged , and | 31 Comments
Ed Maxfield

Opinion: campaign spending – did the Lib Dems get it right?

By Ed Maxfield | Wed 12th January 2011 - 11:29 am

You can, famously, prove anything with statistics. But the figures for General Election expenditure, released by the Electoral Commission in December, raise some interesting questions for Lib Dem campaign managers.

It was an extraordinary election in many ways. The TV debates, Cleggmania,the economic crisis and the MPs expenses scandal. All of this perhaps made it a particularly difficult election for the party to manage. Marshalling scarce resources in an unpredictable environment is a tough challenge.

The Lib Dems were always going to be out-gunned on the national stage but did we allow ourselves to be out-gunned and out-manoeuvred …

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Mark Pack

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Margaret Wintringham

By Mark Pack | Wed 12th January 2011 - 10:25 am

Listen to Liberal Democrats make speeches and there are frequent references to historical figures, but drawn from a small cast. Just the quartet of John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, David Penhaligon corner almost all of the market, especially since Bob Maclennan stopped making speeches to party conference. Some of the forgotten figures deserve their obscurity but others do not. Charles James Fox’s defence of civil liberties against a dominating government during wartime or Earl Grey’s leading of the party back into power and major constitutional reform are good examples of mostly forgotten figures who could …

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Johnny LeVan-Gilroy

Opinion: Alarm Clock Britain – identifying the vote is right, but reforming capabilities is key

By Johnny LeVan-Gilroy | Wed 12th January 2011 - 9:55 am

Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister gave his pitch to a demographic which has played a pivotal part in many electoral successes. Underlining this, Nick Clegg sought to identify to the party’s base where he envisages the party’s best chance of strategically positioning itself for 2015 is.

It appears that a key factor Nick Clegg must have taken in account in drawing up ‘Alarm Clock Britain’ is which demographic Lib Dem policies will affect best. As well as this, underneath appears to be a coded message to the growing concerns within all parts of the party as to ‘where are the voters …

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Tagged | 26 Comments
Mark Pack

Which Way’s Up? The long-term future of the coalition

By Mark Pack | Tue 11th January 2011 - 10:25 am

The rapid appearance since the formation of the Coalition of Conservative MP Nick Boles’s book Which Way’s Up? is a tribute to the speed with which Biteback turns round books – recognising that the previous slothful pace of much political publishing meant books were no longer able to capture the political weather. Boles’s book, by contrast, certainly does that and attracted immediate headlines about his support for a two-term coalition and for an electoral pact.

The heart of the book, however, is about policy rather than political tactics. Boles himself has long been a Conservative moderniser – “a Cameroon before …

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Also posted in Books | Tagged , , and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Control orders, tax exiles and extraordinary rendition: political vocabulary as messaging

By Mark Pack | Mon 10th January 2011 - 1:55 pm

“Control orders” could be called “secret detention directives”. “Tax exiles” could be called “tax fugitives”. “Extraordinary rendition” could be called “government-sponsored kidnapping”.

In all three cases a fairly benign phrase has been adopted by both sides of the debate, despite the phrase very much favouring one. Having a bit of order doesn’t instinctively sound too bad. Exile even has a whiff of the honourably martyr about it. And “extraordinary”? Well, that’s usually a good thing, isn’t it? Especially if we’re talking about “rendition”, i.e. a word that is well outside common usage.

Does it matter? Not if an issue is at the …

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Tagged | 4 Comments
David Boyle

Opinion: The next big idea – humanity

By David Boyle | Mon 10th January 2011 - 10:25 am

The cacophony from Facebook, the blogosphere and all the rest of the Twitterati sometimes drives out what is most significant.  But every so often someone writes something that you know is important for the future.

Neal Lawson is an indefinable character.  His Compass campaign group is a fountain of new ideas designed to revitalise the Labour Party.  He is no friend of the Liberal Democrats, but neither is an enemy or party to the destructive game of name-calling and innuendo that characterises the Labour campaign in Oldham East and Saddleworth.

I also believe his article in the Guardian, with a slightly …

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Prateek Buch

Opinion: Liberal Democrats in government are protecting free speech and other cherished civil liberties

By Prateek Buch | Sun 9th January 2011 - 4:50 pm

The Institute for Government was the setting for Deputy Prime Minister’s keynote address on the Coalition Government’s plans for protecting civil liberties – and for those of us keen to see Britain’s tarnished international reputation on personal freedoms restored, Nick Clegg’s speech was enough to brighten even the most dismal of days.

Nick began with a nice touch, telling us why his belief in civil liberties sprang from an upbringing that “made sure that my brothers and sister and I grew up certain of one thing: you must never take your freedom for granted.” This personal insight helped set …

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Richard Clare

Opinion: One good reason to vote Lib Dem

By Richard Clare | Sun 9th January 2011 - 12:50 pm

With the looming by-election in Oldham East & Saddleworth and each candidate eager to win, with each of their respective parties hoping to be able to boast about the win for years to come, I’d imagine the people of OE&S are probably scratching their heads. A Labour party that endorsed the Phil Woolas who combined pretty much everything we hate about politicians in his lies intended to stir racial tensions? A Liberal Democrat party that, let’s be honest, is not the most glamorous of groups at the moment, still reeling from scandals and broken pledges? A Conservative party barely even …

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Also posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , and | 49 Comments
Simon Hughes MP

Simon Hughes writes… Why I’ve taken up a government post

By Simon Hughes MP | Sun 9th January 2011 - 10:25 am

There are many good and legitimate arguments to be had about tuition fees and whether they are the best way to fund our higher education system. These include the big concerns about intergenerational inequality, and whether the market system is the best way to drive forward excellence in our higher education institutions. Liberal Democrats have long opposed tuition fees for these and other reasons, including of course the additional concern that fees are a barrier to access into higher education.

But the one criticism that cannot be levelled at the government’s proposals is that it will make university unaffordable for future students. The system of financing for the teaching of higher education which …

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Paul Walter

Opinion: Neal Lawson and the Good Society

By Paul Walter | Sat 8th January 2011 - 6:56 pm

On Comment is Free, Compass’ Chair Neal Lawson has outlined his ideas for the “good society” which he sees as a vision for the centre left. This follows on from an early December essay entitled “Welcome to New Socialism”  in the New Statesman penned with John Harris, which I reviewed previously on Lib Dem Voice.

In his CiF article, Neal Lawson fleshes out his philosophy for the “good society” mentioning Aristotle and the need for a more meaningful existence beyond what he succinctly sums up as our “learn-to-earn-to-spend culture”.

The philosophical bit is all very laudable and nothing with which most …

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Antonia Mochan

The Independent View: How do you know what to say about Europe?

By Antonia Mochan | Sat 8th January 2011 - 2:25 pm

Rightly or wrongly, the Liberal Democrats are as seen as the most pro-European of the three main political parties. The UK debate on the European Union is often framed in terms of “Europhiles v Eurosceptics”. However, it’s my experience, after 2 and a half years as the European Commission’s head of media in the UK, that most people don’t really have much of an opinion either way. They care about things that affect them personally, and probably don’t see the EU very present in their daily lives. European debates, either in the UK or at EU level, have a tendency …

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Also posted in Europe / International and The Independent View | Tagged and | 11 Comments
John Howson

Opinion: Control orders – not the only problem with restrictions on liberty

By John Howson | Sat 8th January 2011 - 10:55 am

How far do we want to permit detention without trial? If Control Orders are regarded as an unacceptable deprivation of liberty under Article 5 of the ECHR legislation, what are we to make of police officers who summarily impose long curfews on those arrested but not charged with any offence?

Fanciful as it may seem, it is perfectly possible for a police officer to arrest someone, take them to a police station, have an interview with them, and then release the person on police bail for four weeks but impose a curfew from 9pm to 6am requiring the person to …

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Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: Drugs

By Mark Pack | Sat 8th January 2011 - 8:55 am

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

Government policy on drugs: what should it be?

Tagged | 36 Comments
James Lloyd

Opinion: It ain’t what you do…

By James Lloyd | Fri 7th January 2011 - 9:09 am

I’m currently listening to the Bananarama / Fun Boy Three version of the song “It Ain’t What You Do It’s The Way That You Do It” and I can’t help but think that Nick Clegg should have this playing on repeat in his office.

Remember how well he performed in the debates? Remember how, even on difficult issues like immigration he found the example of a special care baby unit that had the equipment but didn’t have the staff to look after babies due to immigration restrictions? It was masterful explanation of policy that brought to life something …

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Dan Roper

Opinion: Green Paper on Crime – “Breaking the Cycle”

By Dan Roper | Thu 6th January 2011 - 3:44 pm

The government published the Green Paper on reforming the Criminal Justice System “Breaking the Cycle” in November with most news coverage centring on proposals for “payment by results” and putting physical work apparently at the centre of prison life. However, behind the headlines this is in many ways the most thoughtful government document on crime in years, a clear move away from “Prison Works” and a return to increased professional discretion as opposed to Whitehall dictats.

The paper is not without its problems. The headline of prisoners working a forty hour week is totally unrealistic given current prison structures, issues …

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