Category Archives: Op-eds

Duwayne Brooks

Opinion: Who is really responsible for the lack of BAME Councillors and MPs?

By Duwayne Brooks | Tue 3rd August 2010 - 11:15 am

There is a popular saying out there, expressed in many ways but always conveying the same message: ‘Black people don’t read’.

Before we criticise any individual political party in London, in my humble opinion we need to persuade black voters to adopt a different approach to elections. They should first find out who are the candidates; then vote for those they believe have a better understanding of their own issues

At the last election, too many black voters displayed total ignorance about the people whose names were on the ballot paper. They just went out and voted on purely national issues …

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27 Comments
Dan Roper

Opinion: A liberal approach to the Jon Venables case and rehabilitation

By Dan Roper | Mon 2nd August 2010 - 4:05 pm

The Jon Venables case – one of the two children convicted in 1993 of the murder of James Bulger – raises challenges both to liberals and for liberals.

This is apparently a high profile repudiation of rehabilitation, particularly given enhanced levels of resources dedicated to supporting and apparently “curing” this individual. A second challenge for the liberal is how to respond to the baying sections of the press and public demonising a single offender.

The natural liberal reaction is to reject the “demands of the mob” as the way offenders are treated carries multiple messages about the values of …

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9 Comments
Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes … Labour’s staggering hypocrisy on the Alternative Vote

By Tim Farron MP | Mon 2nd August 2010 - 1:45 pm

The decision by what remains of the Labour high command to vote against legislation bringing a referendum on the Alternative Vote is one of the most hypocritical and staggeringly self-interested political decisions in recent years.

After 13 years of promising reform, in which precious little materialised, each and every Labour MP campaigned at this election on the promise of a referendum on AV. That referendum has now been proposed by the Coalition Government and a Bill to make it happen put forward, yet Labour’s shadow cabinet has now decided to oppose the legislation.

What an astonishing decision.

It is even more astonishing given …

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Stephen Tall

The Saturday Debate: What do we mean by middle-class?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 31st July 2010 - 9:25 am

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

Class has always been an intangible concept in the UK.

While most countries would define it quite simply as a function of income, in our class-hungover country there are all manner of other factors: state or privately educated, your profession, whether you have a degree, your postcode, your family circumstances (‘where you came from’), even your accent. So while carpenters and plumbers may well earn more than university lecturers there’s no doubt which of those would be regarded as the middle-class occupation.

How …

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David Thorpe

Opinion: Economic data a vindication of Coalition strategy on the economy

By David Thorpe | Wed 28th July 2010 - 2:40 pm

Amid the gloom of cuts, the opinion polls and the encroachment of dull weather this week it’s easy to grasp at any positive straw one can find to cheer us up.

But the recent economic growth figures which were announced really are a positive on several levels and a vindication of the strategy which the coalition is pursuing.

The principal criticisms of the coalition plans have been that withdrawing support from the economy too early could lead to a double dip recession, the latest growth figures indicate that the economy is entering a period of more robust growth, and with …

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Stephen Tall

Is the Coalition Government’s honeymoon really over?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 27th July 2010 - 7:25 pm

Forget the Lib Dems’ current poll-ratings for a moment – though today’s 19% from ICM will have done a fair amount to repair nerves frayed by YouGov’s poorer recent scores – and let’s focus on the Coalition Government as a whole.

Last week, YouGov’s Peter Kellner stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. His logic was simple enough:

Over the past four weeks, the coalition’s approval rating has slipped slowly but remorselessly. Our latest figures report a net rating of plus four (approve 41%, disapprove 37%). In just over two months, the coalition’s rating has declined to levels that were not

…

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Also posted in News and Polls | Tagged , , , and | 39 Comments
Stephen Tall

Paywall vs ‘Freemium’: why Parris, Finkelstein et al may rue Rupe’s decision

By Stephen Tall | Tue 27th July 2010 - 3:20 pm

Will The Times’s paywall work? It’s the question that’s been asked ever since Rupert Murdoch’s News International announced its intention to place The Times and The Sunday Times websites behind a paywall, blocking any user not prepared to pay a subscription for access.

Last week saw publication of early unofficial statistics which were extrapolated at length in The Guardian and suggest The Times’s website now attracts somewhere between 84,800 and 195,700 daily unique users – compared with c.1.2 million daily unique users pre-paywall.

It’s stating the obvious to point out that’s a huge drop: after all, the point of the exercise is to make money from the few, not be free to the masses. So far, it’s understood there are 15,000 paying users – though whether that figure includes those who signed up for cheap one-month trial offers is not certain – in addition to 12,500 iPad users.

Assuming The Times can retain all those paying customers (which is a big assumption), it’s estimated the paywall could attract revenues of £1-2m a year. I’ve not yet seen, though, a reliable figure showing what the cost in lost advertising revenue associated with a fall in online circulation will total – which make it difficult as yet to work out if News International will generate an immediate net profit from the paywall. That, after all, would be Mr Murdoch’s ultimate response to the naysayers.

What I don’t understand is why News International decided to go all out for the paywall at The Times without at least first testing the market by adopting a ‘freemium’ model, making basic content available free, but charging for premium content.

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Sarah Teather

Teather: Pupil Premium is a real Liberal Democrat achievement

By Sarah Teather | Tue 27th July 2010 - 1:50 pm

I came into politics to make a difference for the most disadvantaged in our society. It is over three years since I, as Liberal Democrat education spokesperson, championed the Pupil Premium as our flagship education policy and debated it at Conference. I never dared imagine a time when I would be unveiling it as Government policy and then actually implementing it. But this week, the Coalition Government announced that a Pupil Premium, funded from outside the schools budget, will be introduced next September. It will mean that from next year, schools taking disadvantaged children will get the additional money they need to provide them with the extra support they deserve, no matter where they are in the country. This could mean more individual tuition or catch-up classes, but it will be for the school to decide, we won’t be telling headteachers how to spend the money.

This is a real Liberal Democrat achievement. It was the centrepiece of our education policy during the election campaign, and it is now being implemented in Government. While the Conservatives had a similar policy, it was the Liberal Democrats who pushed for it to be funded from outside the schools budget, and for it to feature specifically in the coalition agreement. And it’s no secret that it was one of the sticking points of the negotiations with Labour – they simply refused to agree to it.

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Fred Carver

Opinion: Lib Dems should abstain or campaign for “No” on AV referendum

By Fred Carver | Tue 27th July 2010 - 12:20 pm

I’m passionate about PR. But when it comes to PR AV is, at best, a red herring.

Be very clear, AV is not one jot more proportionate than what we have now. It is a system of first Past the Post pure and simple. It does have other positive characteristics (although personally I think both our current FPTP and AV are systems I’d score at 0 out of 10) but it is not one iota more proportionate than the system we have now.

Some people have said that it is likely that AV will produce more proportionate outcomes. I think there are four things to bear in mind here:

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Iain Roberts

Coalition tension is good for the Lib Dems and good for democracy

By Iain Roberts | Tue 27th July 2010 - 9:20 am

Former Tory leadership contender David Davies believes the Coalition isn’t right wing enough and rumours are spreading of a “Brokeback Club” to make trouble.

Former Lib Dem Deputy Leader contender Tim Farron has referred to the “Toxic Tories” and Simon Hughes, who won the vote to become Deputy Leader, has said the party wouldn’t have supported the Academies Bill if it were in opposition.

In a sense, Hughes’ comment is stating the obvious. A coalition means voting for some of their policies you can live with but don’t like, because otherwise the other lot won’t vote for yours. It’s …

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30 Comments
Andy Mayer

Opinion: A lucky escape from the graduate tax?

By Andy Mayer | Mon 26th July 2010 - 4:35 pm

If the BBC is correct there is sufficient opposition within the Coalition to stop a graduate tax seeing the light of day and instead come up with a system that is like fees, but not fees, and retains some kind of link between student and university. On that we will have to wait and see what it is before commenting.

I do not though fully understand why a reputable economist like Vince Cable gave the National Union of Students’ graduate tax proposal serious consideration. Apart from the clear inconsistency and hypocrisy, Vince presided over a party tax …

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Chris White

Opinion: Reasons to be cheerful

By Chris White | Mon 26th July 2010 - 11:45 am

As some of us head for the beach at the end of a very long term, it might be a good idea to see whether there is any light in the current political gloom.

I can count no less than 6 ‘reasons to be cheerful’.

First of all, last week saw the initial meetings of the new Westminster policy teams, designed to facilitate dialogue and communication between the Liberal Democrats in government, especially ministers, and interested parliamentarians, councillor representatives and the Federal Policy Committee.

The ones I attended were workmanlike – and anyway are a great deal better than anything our Coalition …

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Fiyaz Mughal

Opinion: Syria’s ban proves nothing to British niqab critics

By Fiyaz Mughal | Sun 25th July 2010 - 3:50 pm

As the Syrian Government introduces a ban on the niqab in universities, the debate on Islamic veils has moved beyond Europe and into a wider discussion about personal freedom and national identity.

A niqab ban in a Middle Eastern country will give weight to those British critics who claim that their objections are grounded in values, not race, and the UK’s Muslim community will face scrutiny once more. The opinion formed by armchair pundits is that the niqab is not acceptable to our British values, but is it a threat to them?

The government of Syria saw veils as a destabilising force, …

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Iain Roberts

How dare she follow the rules, thunders Mail on Sunday

By Iain Roberts | Sun 25th July 2010 - 11:45 am

In a thundering attack this morning, the Mail on Sunday lays into Harriet Harman, acting leader of of the Labour party for…erm… doing nothing wrong at all.

Ms Harman, it appears, accepted money legally and properly given by a Labour Party supporter and then, as is one of the jobs of an MP, assisted the same person with a problem.

The whole affair, which the Mail on Sunday would really like you to think is some sort of sordid scandal, is summed up in the first few paragaphs of their story:

Harriet Harman was last night facing damaging claims that she lobbied

…

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Ben Stephenson

Opinion: Why are we campaigning for AV?

By Ben Stephenson | Sun 25th July 2010 - 10:25 am

We have never really been able to call the UK a true democracy. We have an unelected second chamber, made up of Lords Spiritual (Bishops), Lords Temporal (those granted hereditary peerages and selected by unelected party leaders) and Lords Surprising (Messrs Sugar and Prescott). The electorate in this country is allowed to vote for a change in government, so far, only at times that suit the government of the day and we have no codified constitution that outlines, irrevocably, a list of rights and freedoms.

The most obvious and fundamental issue with our democracy, however, is obviously the extent to which …

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David Thorpe

Opinion: Motorway tolls – a step on the road to a progressive, green and Liberal Britain

By David Thorpe | Sat 24th July 2010 - 11:20 am

Privatisation and progressive politics are not always natural bedfellows, so Tory veteran Tim Yeo’s suggestion that motorways could be privatised and tolls erected in the interests of the fight against climate change was always likely to be greeted with a mixture of suspicion and scepticism by Lib Dems.

But like most privatisations – if done correctly – Mr Yeo’s proposals could lead to a fairer, greener and more Liberal Britain.

The existing tax on road usage is road tax, which is essentially regressive as it doesn’t take income and amount of usage of the road network into account. While road tolls …

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Will Straw

The Independent View: Labour and Lib Dems must show a willingness to work together

By Will Straw | Fri 23rd July 2010 - 1:50 pm

As a long-term believer in the need for a more progressive politics, I take no great joy in the spate of polls showing the Liberal Democrats in free fall.

The latest projections from UK Polling Report show that a Lib Dem collapse to 15% in the polls would deliver a Conservative majority of 18 and the balance of power being held by the Tory right rather than the Lib Dem right. The Lib Dem concessions on inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and Europe – for which they should be praised – would go in a flash.

But the Lib Dems …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 42 Comments
Malcolm Wood

Opinion: No Need for a Graduate Tax

By Malcolm Wood | Fri 23rd July 2010 - 11:50 am

For a decade or so now governments have been firmly fixed on the idea that students should pay for their own education. So firmly fixed, in fact, that it’s easy to forget that until 1998 Higher Education was funded from general taxation and was, to the student, completely free.

It’s true that most taxpayers are in no further need of Higher Education. But that doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from its existence. Since most tax payers will one day be dependent on a pension (public or private) it’s in their interests that the next generation of wealth …

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Mark Pack

Worth a second outing: Can Google’s dominance be broken?

By Mark Pack | Fri 23rd July 2010 - 10:50 am

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message. Today’s is about Google. I’ve updated the social network usage figures.

Google dominates the search engine market, both in the UK and internationally. Although there are some countries where a local search service has the lead …

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Mark Pack

Alright, assuming we get an elected second chamber, what can we do before the election that follows?

By Mark Pack | Thu 22nd July 2010 - 11:57 am

The good news: the Liberal Democrat have secured a commitment to introduce elections by PR for the Upper House. The bad news: the Liberal Democrat record at fighting PR records is decidedly mixed. So what should we do?

There plenty of campaigning still to be done to ensure that an elected Upper House happens, but that needn’t stop thinking about the elections too.

As with the AV referendum, one of the most important acts of preparation is upping the number of local election candidates we stand because of the impact that has on the public’s perception of whether or not we are a party that can win things. As I wrote about the AV referendum, if people go to vote in a local election but find no Lib Dem on the ballot paper:

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David Hennigan

Opinion: Why I am so pleased Yarl’s Wood Immigration Prison will be closed for families by this Government

By David Hennigan | Wed 21st July 2010 - 7:45 pm

Today, at Prime Minister’s Questions, the spotlight was on Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Being the first Liberal to speak to the Commons from the despatch box in place of the Prime Minister was a weird and wonderful thing.

Jack Straw was expected to come out on top, yet his ranting, especially about Sheffield Forgemaster’s, was a confirmation that Labour in opposition continues to put petty, political interests in front of the national interest. Nick Clegg stood up well: he wasn’t brilliant, but did far better than many of the media expected.

The continual baiting of Nick and …

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10 Comments
Stephen Tall

How the Westminster Village media is still struggling with concept of coalition

By Stephen Tall | Wed 21st July 2010 - 6:40 pm

It can be surprisingly easy to excite some journalists. Today is a case in point. Nick Clegg stood in for David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions. During his exchanges with Jack Straw (who was standing in for Labour’s Harriet Harman), the Deputy Prime Minister referred to the invasion of Iraq as “illegal”.

To most people watching this is not a surprise. The Lib Dems’ opposition to the Iraq war, which was supported by both Labour and the Tories, is pretty well-documented, I think it’s fair to say. The fact that the Lib Dems and Conservatives have reached a coalition agreement does not alter the past, nor does it alter politicians’ individual views. Why should it?

And yet the response from some journalists has been to label this a “gaffe” – a term otherwise known as a politician saying something he believes which a journalist hopes to be able to spin into a story.

Indeed, it’s interesting to see how a story like this can develop.

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Also posted in PMQs | Tagged , , , , , and | 56 Comments
George Gosling

Opinion: Ending the ban of gay men giving blood – a liberal cause in waiting

By George Gosling | Wed 21st July 2010 - 11:20 am

A new group of Facebook is picking up numbers and making itself known. It is called ‘We Want the Gay Blood Ban Debate’ and its speedy growth is impressive for a specifically Lib Dem campaign. It’s a campaign to try and force a debate at conference about the restrictions on who is fit to give blood.

Many people are not aware of the fact gay men can’t give blood. I am from personal experience. The week after the local nurse talked to my sixth form, a group of a dozen or more of us went to give blood together. For …

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Iain Roberts

Sloganizing the Liberal Democrats

By Iain Roberts | Wed 21st July 2010 - 10:20 am

Each of the two major parties enjoys the support of a substantial core of voters who are undisturbed by issues, candidates, meetings and literature…The typical voter is loyal to an “image” which his party has built up by annexing a limited range of sloganized issues.

Mark Abrams, 1951, reported by David Kynaston

The Lib Dem core vote has always been a lot lower than that of the other main parties, and has for some time stood at around 12%. Labour and the Conservatives have a core vote of around 30% of the population.

That gives those parties a huge advantage. …

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20 Comments
Baroness Joan Walmsley

Opinion: Get your facts right Polly

By Baroness Joan Walmsley | Wed 21st July 2010 - 9:20 am

In yesterday’s Guardian Polly Toynbee criticises “casual law-making by arbitrary diktat” in relation to the unseemly haste with which the Academies Bill is being shunted through the Commons. She claims the bill was “catapulted” through the Lords (where, by the way, we debated it for a full 31 hours!) and that there is now “no revising chamber: a redundant House of Lords whipped this Bill through with as little scrutiny as it will get in the Commons”. Wrong!

Far from being redundant, the House of Lords obtained five important amendments and numerous significant statements on the record, one of them …

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Also posted in Parliament | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Where next for Lib-Lab cooperation?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 20th July 2010 - 12:35 pm

Two former Labour leadership possibles-never-contenders have talked in the past week about the future prospects for the Lib Dems and the Labour party forming a coalition at some point in the future. Their differing stances say a lot about the current state of British politics. But what they say about the future?

First up, John Denham, the shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, who made plain his anger at the Lib Dems last week, according to a report in The Independent:

Labour would demand the resignation of Nick Clegg before doing a deal with the Liberal Democrats in a future hung

…

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Colin Challen

The Independent View: The government must go further on climate change

By Colin Challen | Tue 20th July 2010 - 11:50 am

Colin Challen was Labour MP for Morley and Rothwell 2001-2010 and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group:

I am living in hope that Chris Huhne has not been handed a poisoned chalice. From my time in parliament I know Chris to be a dedicated environmentalist who understands the issues as well as being open minded. Of course, as a former Labour MP I had differences of opinion, but on the substantive issues like the need for a proper global framework on climate change or the uselessness of nuclear power we were agreed. It is also true that on legislation …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Why suddenly telling the truth is damaging politics

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th July 2010 - 8:50 pm

It’s better that Labour figures are starting to tell the truth in public about the Brown-Blair infighting years than if they were continuing to claim they’d always got along fine, government had never been hindered and Blair loved the idea of Brown becoming Prime Minister.

However, telling the truth is, I fear, coming at a considerable cost to the reputation of politics. Because we’ve now got a succession of people saying, in effect, ‘Don’t bother with what I told the public at the time. Of course that was nonsense. The truth actually was the opposite’. That fits right with the very …

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Caron Lindsay

Florence and Precious Mhango – a campaign to prevent a mother and daughter being deported

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 19th July 2010 - 8:45 pm

By the time you read this, I’ll have been in a rainy Glasgow attending a humanitarian vigil in support of Florence and Precious Mhango.

This mother and her 10 year-old daughter have lived in the city for seven years since Florence left her husband because of his violence towards her. In that time they have become a much loved part of their local community. They currently face imminent deportation to Malawi after being refused asylum in this country.

If they are deported, Precious, who speaks only English, faces …

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10 Comments
Tim Farron MP

Graduate tax is the fairest way of abolishing tuition fees

By Tim Farron MP | Mon 19th July 2010 - 5:25 pm

I was one of the lucky ones. When I went to university in the late 1980s and early 1990s I didn’t have to pay tuition fees. I left for the world of work without thousands of pounds of student debt hanging over my head.

I would like nothing more than to be able to abolish fees for good and make universities free for all. But to suggest that it is possible to do so now wilfully ignores reality.

The fact is the higher education sector has changed beyond all recognition in just a few short years. Universities face a funding …

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