Ken Clarke is coming under pressure from the Red Tops about his plans for sentence reform. According to Conservative Home, even David Cameron is getting cold feet. But Liberal Democrats, it is assumed, are bound to be backing Ken.
This might be thought a given as Liberals are, from the point of view of the media, supposed to have a benign, Panglossian view of human nature which unkind souls might call unrealistic or wet.
Wrong on both counts!
I have long thought the only good moral reason for punishing someone is that they deserve it and that the state is …
In these straitened times it is very tempting to look at trying to reduce the benefits bill. A lot of attention is focussed on benefits paid to people who – for whatever reason – are out of work. However, I think we should also look at the benefits paid to people in work and whether it is right that they should be claiming benefits at all.
Fear not, this is not a proposal likely to be supported by the Daily Telegraph. It is more about attacking the principle of low pay. The coalition government – thanks to …
How many nationalities can vote in the UK (and no the Scottish aren’t a nationality in this context!)?
• 2? British and Irish? No.
• 27? European Union? Closer, although most can’t vote in parliamentary elections.
• 54? The Commonwealth? They can’t vote in European elections…
In the UK it’s a great example of our tolerance and inclusion by giving people a say in their adopted communities and the politicians who affect the area where they live. Even my own council Liberal Democrat …
The Conservative Chair of the London Fire and Rescue Authority announced this week that fortnightly waste collections are a fire risk. The reason, he tells us, is that they attract arson attacks.
Meanwhile I have received a number of hostile letters because I suggested in a council meeting that there was no retail crisis at the north end of St Peter’s Street in St Albans. That, far from there being a blight of empty shops, somehow caused by parking charges which rose only modestly last April, footfall is in fact increasing and void tenancies are decreasing. And anyway St Albans is …
Although it must be hoped the Coalition is successful in reducing the nation’s deficit through savings and is able to increase economic activity to provide increased tax income, the unexpectedly high borrowing last month does not stimulate confidence.
There is no doubt the Coalition is creating an environment more conducive to business activity and small businesses, which require little finance, will find niches in the market to be able to flourish. However, with the banks still reluctant to lend and the giant corporations having grabbed so many of the business opportunities – it will be only the most inventive and …
Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
I was struck by this recent article by the Economist’s political columnist Bagehot, headlined When progressive actually means misanthropic, reflecting on the Lib Dem conference, and specifically the debate on free schools.
Highlighting that, while the party may have lacked power at Westminster, the Lib Dems have for decades now been a major player in local government, it observes that:
… local government occupies much of the mental space taken up by national politics in the Labour and Conservative parties. … more
I’ve been surprised how little trouble Europe has caused the coalition so far. For all that we were vilified as ardent Europhiles during the election, it’s not really been mentioned since. In allowing it to drop off the radar, I think we’re now missing an opportunity.
Labour were always too scared of mention the E-word; so paralysed by their terror of the Mail’s wrath were they. Cameron too seems content to let the issue lie. The Coalition agreement makes it clear in no uncertain terms that this government won’t go anywhere near changing our current relationship with the EU – both …
My native Ireland enjoyed a period of unprecedented economic growth in the late ‘90s and early nougties, and while many of the reasons are similar to the reasons Britain enjoyed periodic growth in the same period, one factor in the growth which was unique to Ireland were the use of Social Partnership agreements.
These agreements were principally negotiated between the private sector employers, the government in a dual role as both government and large employer, the unions and social groups and organisations.
Agreements such as these typically last about four years, and the benefit to the economy is that there is a …
What difference does it make having Lib Dems in power? How are Lib Dems actually making cuts “fairer”? One example is what we have done in Bristol, when we reviewed redundancy terms. The statutory redundancy payout is a week’s salary – up to a cap of £380 per week – per year worked. Bristol Council had a much more generous scheme: twice the weekly salary, with no cap.
This sounds great until you look at the effects of this a bit more closely: at the bottom of the officer pay-scale the Bristol scheme was about twice as generous as the statutory …
I write this having just got back from a very successful Lib Dem Conference in Liverpool. Everyone seemed to be in good heart, and keen to see what a Liberal Democrat government minister really looked like. Conference is a great occasion to talk and listen to activists directly, and so I really got stuck in. On more than one occasion I was “doing a Simon Hughes” and trying to attend multiple meetings at once! But, though we covered a diverse range of topics, there were two recurring themes – localism and the Big Society.
Localism shouldn’t need any explanation for Liberal …
Marie Claire (and where else would I go for my news) reports
Shocking 37% rape increase in London
As the article later explains, all may not quite be what it seems. The 37% increase is in reports of rapes in London over the last 12 months.
Is that terrible, or is it a good news story? From that statistic alone we just don’t know. It could be that there have been 37% more rapes in London over that time – that would be a shocking increase over any period, even more so in just one year.
So, Labour has a new leader, and as he enjoys his honeymoon the party is experiencing a surge in the polls. This is to be expected; indeed, it would be an odd thing if Labour slumped in popularity in the immediate aftermath of such an event. They experienced the same effect following the elections of Blair and Brown, and a fine thing it can be for energising the activists and uniting the party. It can also be an effective way of repackaging a failing brand. Changing the leader gives the impression that the past is now ancient history and the …
At our fringe event at last week’s Lib Dem party conference in Liverpool we were pleased to hear fulsome support for the work of charitable and voluntary organisations, and encouragement for them to get more involved in public life and in public service delivery.
And both Sarah Teather and Simon Hughes emphasised something very important in their remarks – David Cameron may have coined the phrase ‘Big Society’ but it’s a concept that chimes with beliefs about responsibility and community held by all parties.
Simon Hughes reminded us the UK had a long history of charitable organisations …
By Ramis Cizer
| Thu 30th September 2010 - 12:23 pm
I not a massive fan of the term “Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME)” and in an ideal political world it probably wouldn’t exist. But we don’t live in an ideal world and the term is required to designate certain segments of population in order to address inequalities – an uncontroversial statement in my opinion – so why does it cause such heated discussion? Too complex to answer here so I will leave it to someone else but I have some ideas on why the Diversity Motion caused a stir at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference.
So what are we as Lib Dems going to say on the doorsteps to voters during the next General Election campaign to justify ourselves in reply to the ‘I voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out’ challenge? I can imagine it will be a common enough question, especially in close Lib Dem/Conservative constituencies where we appealed to Labour voters to ‘lend us their vote’.
To me the answer seems quite simple. We reply to the voters “We asked you to vote Lib Dem to help keep the Tories out, and it worked. Thank you and well done.”
We don’t have a Tory government; we have a Coalition government – a very different thing. In voting for us in such large numbers, our supporters achieved their aim of preventing a Conservative majority. So that means no £1 million Inheritance Tax threshold, no fiddling with the tax system to promote marriage, no brushing the expenses scandal under the carpet. It means instead raising the level people start to pay income tax, having Lib Dems in the Treasury to help ensure fairness in the upcoming cuts, and the cleaning up of our political system. As a party, we must make it clear just how different things would have been if there had been a Tory majority, and the hugely important part our supporters played in preventing that.
But what then when Mr or Ms Hypothetical voter on the doorstep accuses us of jumping into bed with the Tories?
‘Red Ed’? Congratulations! To all the newspapers that preferred easy rhyme over rigorous analysis. Because anyone who watched or read Milliband Minor’s Conference speech can see where he is aiming to position Labour: “This new generation that leads our party… will fight for the centre ground…”. And it’s this aim that shows why we must disagree with Nick.
At conference Nick Clegg quite rightly rejected creating “some synthetic differences” that would trade short term headline wins for long term damage to the Coalition. But that ‘synthetic’ misses the point. When the two other parties are leaping into the centre ground, playing …
In your speech today you warn against “the destruction of a 200-year-old constitution” and give this as a reason to oppose AV.
But aside from our voting system, there is another part of that 200 year old constitution that is also currently up for change before Parliament.
200 years ago the size of Parliamentary constituencies varied hugely. Much more than 5% or 10% and not simply on islands or in the Highlands. Massive variations were built into the system, specially to protect particular vested interests.
So if you are wanting to protect our 200 year old constitution, I …
One of the fringe meetings I spoke at during the Liverpool conference was ResPublica’s on the topic of “Growing a civil economy through a civil society”. Accompanying ResPublica’s fringe program is a pamphlet with pieces accompanying the talks we all gave and here is my piece from it.
Both a successful market economy and a healthy democracy require individuals from all walks of life to feel they have the power to change the future. The belief that you can make a success of your own business, that your firm can innovate and that existing suppliers are not locked in to permanent dominance creates the vibrancy which generates wealth in a market economy. The optimism that your voice can count and your actions can alter your community gives live to a democracy, making it more than a token intermittent meeting of pencil and paper in the polling booth.
Our economy and our democracy therefore present us with a common challenge – to tackle that lack of confidence in your own ability to alter the future which suffocates far too many communities and far too many parts of society. Removing that malaise requires a mix of many policies, only a few of which I highlight in this piece.
One of the most important is improving education in people’s early years. Those formative early years leave intellectual and psychological marks that can be very hard to shift in later years. It is a tough question for government, because so much of the evidence shows that what matters above all is the commitment of parents to their children. That is a deeply private and personal affair which the state can only touch the edges of. Nick Clegg’s commitment to the Pupil Premium to channel extra funds to help educate the most disadvantaged children is one example of the exceptions to that where the government can take effective action.
A second strand is the sort of political reform the coalition government is embarked on, devolving power from Westminster to local councils, to the Scottish Executive and offering a referendum in Wales. Going too is the worst sort of insular political elitism –one of the two houses of Parliament still completely locking out the public from electing its members. It shows a fantastic contempt by for the public that when MPs are booted out at a general election, how does the political establishment react? By giving a good number of those defeated MPs a seat for life in Parliament courtesy of the Lords.
A third strand is – or should be – tackling the elitist insularity in the commercial sector. Whether it is the deeply lopsided rules that give the favoured company directors a huge head-start in elections or the widespread use of “commercial confidentiality” clauses to keep scrutiny at bay, what would cause outrage if tried by a politician is far too often par for the course by those who like to look down on politicians.
Tying the different strands together needs to be a stronger sense of how people can successfully work together, because so often the collective voice has the strength and skill to succeed where lone individuals are thwarted. Whether it is the Community Politics of the Liberal Democrats or the Big Society of the Conservatives, success will come not from seeing voluntary collective action as an excuse for cost cutting but as a means to a vibrant and successful country.
By Andrew Reeves
| Tue 28th September 2010 - 7:16 pm
I resigned from Stonewall many years ago when I realised that they don’t speak for me or much of the UK’s LGBT community and is too blinkered and led by its own politics, rather than campaigning for what their members want.
Ben Summerskill and Angela Mason before him only appear to do what Labour wanted, when Labour wanted it.
In recent weeks we have seen Stonewall attacked for their silence on the issue of gay marriage, but I want to throw in an extra attack on them before I get onto gay marriage.
When the Big Society entered mainstream political debate a few short months ago the concept was relatively vague. Many people no doubt grasped that it was something to do with what government was or wasn’t going to do. And what we might be expected to do for ourselves or organise at a neighbourhood level. Beyond that things got rather murky.
The process of elaborating the concept continues, but at a practical level things move on apace. The June budget cuts, and the prospect of worse to come, have triggered many local councils to reflect upon their role as service provider …
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 28th September 2010 - 4:35 pm
The election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader — despite losing the vote among Labour party members and MPs/MEPs — presented an easy target for the Lib Dems, a party which has always believed in one-member-one-vote, and where the views of our MPs carry equal weight as any other party member.
However, there is another election about to take place within the Labour party: for the 19 places available in their shadow cabinet. All MPs are eligible to stand, and the electorate comprises their colleagues; a separate ballot will decide who will be the Labour chief whip. So far it’s …
By Helen Duffett
| Tue 28th September 2010 - 11:37 am
Politicos use Twitter to communicate with voters, activists and the media. It’s sociable and fashionable. It’s useful but it has its limits.
And if this was Twitter I’d stop there, for the paragraph above is a 140-character summary of the popular micro-blogging service and its emerging role in politics. Having the luxury of a whole chapter, rather than a couple of lines, I can expound a bit. But sometimes I relish Twitter’s brevity and the way it gives me both the discipline and the excuse not to write at length.
Twitter was to the 2010 General Election what blogging had been to the previous one: novel, topical, conversational, personal. Blogging, in long and short form, is good for quickly spreading campaign messages, news and rumours and it’s freely accessible for anyone with an internet connection.
When I first subscribed to the service a couple of years ago, few news outlets or political candidates were tweeting, although the three main parties were already using it to link to party information and election results.
Over the past year, Twitter has been increasingly taken up by MPs and councillors, bloggers and journalists, even government departments, but crucially by thousands of people who are none of the above, but want to converse with them on an equal footing.
The parties continue to tweet, but now candidates, MPs and party leaders themselves are using the medium, with varying degrees of skill.
One of the most commonly made comments about insurgencies such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq, and most famously Vietnam, is that in order to win the insurgents simply need to survive. It’s a piece of conventional wisdom challenged in a thoughtful piece in Foreign Affairs, based on looking at 89 insurgencies over the last fifty years:
Many have assumed that insurgents invariably win by simply holding out. This is incorrect. Historically, governments have won more often than insurgents in the long run. And even wars that seemed to be spiraling inexorably toward defeat, such as Colombia’s against the Revolutionary
For too long, policymaking has been monopolised by civil servants, self-serving pressure groups and sensationalist journalists. We get a vote once every four or five years and we’re expected to be satisfied with that.
Public services are too important to get lost in headline issues, and too big to leave to those who have the time and energy to write letters or sit on committees. The best communication happens when it’s easy to do, and when it’s a conversation, not just a complaint.
The Liberal Democrats have an image problem. We are predominantly a party of middle class members, which I know because I’ve met a lot of members and they nearly all talk like me.
Because of the depressingly predictable socio-economic data, this also means that, since our members are better off, they are more likely to be male, white, and able bodied than your average Briton. The only conventional diversity stream that is not underrepresented purely by means of the economic correlations is LBGT, and this group is well represented in the party which hopefully also has something to do with Liberal …
By Joss Garman
| Mon 27th September 2010 - 1:14 pm
The Guardian reported last week that Chris Huhne is having to do battle with the Treasury on a number of policy fronts to save his department from drastic cuts, including to clean energy budgets. According to the newspaper, “When all government departments were asked to model the effect of 40% cuts over the summer, officials at Decc told ministers that cuts of that level to its £3.2bn budget would make it unable to stand alone as a viable entity.”
A Yougov poll, commissioned by Greenpeace, and published here exclusively on Lib Dem Voice, shows that Chris Huhne has his …
This article is appearing in The Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK 2010-2011, which is available from Amazon.
Just as people running political campaigns often learn from other disciplines, those active in other disciplines can learn from political campaigns. Much has been written (including by myself, such as in the Hansard Society report http://scr.bi/hansardsociety) on how social media was used in the 2010 general election campaign; far less common have been pieces looking at the lessons that those outside politics can learn from the deployment of social media in that election.
By Iain Roberts
| Mon 27th September 2010 - 9:10 am
There are two different economic debates to be had with Labour politicians these days.
One of them is a sensible debate about how fast, and how far, cuts should go. Alistair Darling, just a few months ago, told us that Labour wanted to cut deeper and longer than Thatcher did in the 1980s, with talk of a 25% cut in public spending over seven years and hefty tax rises.
The Coalition Government takes the view that the pain of cuts should be slightly shorter and sharper than Labour had planned – still 25%, but spread over five years rather than …
By Malcolm Bruce
| Sun 26th September 2010 - 4:11 pm
It is a fact that women are living in some of the direst circumstances in situations of conflict. Not only is poverty often most severe in conflict situations, but women are frequently deliberately targeted for violence in order to fuel conflicts and undermine prospects for peace, development and human progress. Without addressing violence against women, we’re not going to get people out of poverty, and we’re not going to end conflicts.
I visited a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is supported by the European commission and also our government. 90% of the work of that hospital was about …
By Eric Avebury
| Sun 26th September 2010 - 1:36 pm
With the 10 year Millennium Development Goal Review Summit taking place this week, now is a good time to take stock of the Coalition Government’s International Development policy so far.
The Coalition Government promised, in their “Programme for Government”, to commit to the internationally agreed goal of 0.7% of Gross National Income spent on aid by 2013 as well as supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and prioritising “aid spending on programmes to ensure that everyone has access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare and education; to reduce maternal and infant mortality.”
As Joint Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for …
Mick Taylor @Russell. The UK already has almost the worst state pensions in Europe even with the triple lock. We pay out millions in supplementary pensions, housing benefit...
William Wallace Jana:
Investing in strong research and development in key sectors (which is where China is soaring ahead), rebuilding training, apprenticeships and early edu...
David Raw @ Russell "First, by dumping the triple lock".
Are you sure you've posted this on the correct website, Russell ? In the meantime I sincerely hope you never ...
Laurence Cox Our motto should be "not just higher taxes but fairer taxes". Individuals should be taxed exactly the same on their income whether that comes from earned income...
Russell By committing to not raising the 3 main taxes but then raising taxes by over £70bn on stupid taxes Labour have done a lot of unnecessary damage to the UK econo...
Our economy and our democracy therefore present us with a common challenge – to tackle that lack of confidence in your own ability to alter the future which suffocates far too many communities and far too many parts of society. Removing that malaise requires a mix of many policies, only a few of which I highlight in this piece.
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"His glamour tarnished, his boorishness came to notice": On being the monarch's second son
Reform adopt the Trump agenda on elections
Mick Taylor 
William Wallace 
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