Category Archives: Op-eds

An open letter to Jeremy Hunt, Conservative MP for South West Surrey

By Mike Simpson | Mon 5th April 2010 - 2:18 pm

As the Conservatives look set to help Labour push the flawed Digital Economy Bill into law before the election, Mike Simpson, Lib Dem candidate for SW Surrey, questions his opponent in the election – the Conservative media spokesman.

Dear Mr Hunt

Digital Economy Bill: another Parliamentary scandal?

I am puzzled: why are you and the Conservatives working with the Government to get the Digital Economy Bill passed before the election?

It can’t be because consumers will have to pay an extra £300 million for internet security to avoid being disconnected or have their bandwidth throttled. Or because

The Independent View: Introducing Hustings.com

By James Evans | Mon 5th April 2010 - 11:20 am

A lot has been written about the growing gulf between the voting public and their representatives, voter apathy and low turnout. Candidates and the media do their best to engage voters but it’s an uphill slog. At this election in particular a low turnout is a real risk because people have been put off voting at all by a succession of scandals.

A lot has also been written about how the internet may help candidates connect with voters. Who knows whether this will be seen as the first ‘e-election’. But it has struck me for a while that candidates’ online campaigns …

Also posted in General Election and The Independent View | Tagged bridget fox and hustings.com | 4 Comments

Opinion: Attack YouGov if you want to – but at least say who you are

By Niklas Smith | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 5:50 pm

Last week’s Daily Telegraph article attacking YouGov’s polling raises some disturbing issues about the quality of political debate as we fast approach the general election.

Firstly, the article’s authors seem to have no understanding about how polls should be conducted. They complain that the raw data in one large aggregated survey “were…‘weighted’ using an undisclosed YouGov formula which reduced the lead to sex per cent .” But all reputable pollsters know that their sample will not usually be representative of the population, for example by having too few women or too many Guardian …

Also posted in Polls | Tagged anthony wells, daily telegraph, peter kellner, robert winnett and yougov | 4 Comments

Pollwatch – State of the Leaders: Clegg +18%, Brown -27%, Cameron +5% (March 2010)

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 4:45 pm

Yesterday, Pollwatch looked at the state of the parties in March; today it’s the turn of the party leaders.

As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Only three polling companies – YouGov, Angus RS and Mori – this past month asked questions specifically to find out the public’s views of the three main party leaders. And each asks variants on the basic question – do you think Clegg/Brown/Cameron are doing a good job – to come up with their figures, so comparison ain’t easy. But, still, we don’t indulge in polls often, so here goes …

Here, in chronological order, are the results of the four polls published in March asking the public to rate the three major party leaders:

Also posted in Polls | Tagged david cameron, gordon brown, nick clegg and opinion polls | 2 Comments

Don’t tax sweat – An Independent View from Thomas Colignatus

By Thomas Colignatus | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 2:45 pm

With our intelligence and enterpreneurship we create micro-chips and send crafts into space, but the creation of jobs for the disadvantaged seems out of reach. The rich countries in the world still have a huge pool of unemployment and poverty at the bottom of society. A close analysis gives the insight that we actually create unemployment and poverty ourselves.

The following table gives the legal minimum wage in the US (dollars), in the UK (pounds) and in Holland (euros) as key examples for the rich world. The table is best understood from the principle of “don’t tax sweat”.

That is, workers at the minimum should be exempt from levies.

Also posted in The Independent View | 7 Comments

An Independent View from the IEA: Enterprise needs liberalism – but are the Liberal Democrats liberal?

By Richard Wellings | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 8:45 am

The Liberal Democrats should be applauded for focusing on business in their new policy paper, Enterprise in a fair society. In the context of the current economic crisis, the document reminds us that businesses produce the wealth that not only raises living standards, but also funds health, education and so on – a lesson arguably ignored by New Labour as they burdened firms with more and more taxation and red tape.

There are some excellent ideas. Of particular note is a proposal to incorporate a sunset clause into each new business regulation so that it is time limited. This could …

Also posted in The Independent View | 49 Comments

Pollwatch – State of the Parties: Lib Dems 19%, Labour 31%, Tories 38% (March 2010)

By Stephen Tall | Fri 2nd April 2010 - 4:45 pm

March may have 31 days, but it saw an extraordinary 39 polls conducted. So frenetic has been the activity, we at Lib Dem Voice even published a mid-month report to keep track of their findings. And despite all the hyped-up headlines – both in print and online – of minor fluctuations signifying some grand new trend which will transform the electoral arithmetic, the reality is that remarkably little changed in March.

As you can see from the full list of polls conducted in March, in chronological order of publication:

Also posted in Polls | Tagged opinion polls | 2 Comments

David Howarth writes … Now is the time to reform our penal policy

By David Howarth | Fri 2nd April 2010 - 10:45 am

Last month the Howard League for Penal Reform launched its Take Action 2010 campaign, with the general election in its sights. The campaign reflects a growing consensus among experts and campaign groups that penal policy has reached a crisis point.

The Howard League’s campaign covers four policy areas – investment in the community not prison, ending short prison terms, justice for children, and creating a scheme of real work inside existing prisons. All four of these themes echo Liberal Democrat thinking and I very much welcome the campaign.

Billions of pounds are spent on maintaining our prisons and …

Tagged crime, david howarth, howard league for penal reform and prisons | 1 Comment

Open Rights Group flashmob serves disconnection notice on UK Music #DEBill

By Obhi Chatterjee | Thu 1st April 2010 - 9:14 pm

Filmmaker Obhi Chatterjee, one of the team behind the Lib Dem Spring Conference emergency motion on Freedom, creativity & the internet, describes the experience:

It was while following #DEBill on Twitter on the train that, with just over an hour to go, we discovered where we had to be at 12:15. In front of London’s Dominion Theatre, near Tottenham Court Road. Bring a police helmet and clipboard if poss.

My father had struggled to understand how we could have left home knowing only that we had to be in central London at a certain time. We had aimed for Trafalgar Square.

I recognised Open Rights Group‘s Executive Director, Jim Killock, from his Facebook photo. A few people were distributing imitation police helmets and clipboards. A journalist was asking people why they were there.

The sheet on the clipboard explained what we had to do and where we had to go: the Soho offices of UK Music, a short walk away.

Once there, we were to wander up and down outside the building, looking officious. Perhaps everyone was too good-humoured and smiling a bit too much for that.

Still, there were quite a few photographers and video cameras around to record the event.

Staff heading out of the building for lunch didn’t seem to be very conversational. I can’t imagine they mistook us for MI5 …

Tagged debill, digital economy bill, facebook, feargal sharkey, jim killock, open rights group, twitter and uk music | 4 Comments

Julia Goldsworthy: we’re too centralised

By Julia Goldsworthy | Thu 1st April 2010 - 2:20 pm

The extent to which this country has become centralised is, for me, best summed up by one fact. According to evidence collected through the ‘Total Place’ pilots – a series of initiatives aimed at delivering better public services at lower cost by reducing overlap between organisations – only £350 (a mere 5%) of the £7,000 spent per head on public services each year is discretionary spending by local councils. This is the stark reality of localism after 13 years of Labour government.

By contrast, localism is at the heart of everything the Liberal Democrats stand for. It is part of our …

7 Comments

Forget hung parliaments. This is the general election result which is truly scary.

By Stephen Tall | Wed 31st March 2010 - 11:45 am

For the last month the opinion polls have been suggesting a hung parliament is the most likely outcome of the forthcoming general election. This has spooked some of those “pin-striped Scargills”, who would much rather their Tory friends were able to start slashing public spending without the restraining need to build consensus ahead of what will be inevitably painful cuts.

It’s an odd argument: in previous serious crises, whether war or depression, most people in Britan have recognised the need for petty tribal differences to be set to one side. After all, we are supposed to be all in this together.

But in the last day or so, there seems to have been a slight upswing in support for the Tories on the back of Alistair Darling’s third budget. It’s far too early to say yet that it’s a real trend, but still – it looks more likely this week than it did last week that the Tories will sneak back in with a slim majority.

And that’s the result that should worry everybody.

Tagged electoral reform | 14 Comments

Opinon: Wolf at the door – and about time too!

By Ed Randall | Tue 30th March 2010 - 5:45 pm

In his piece entitled “Back to the Future”. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times hits most nails on the head. He also sets a challenge for those who want to do more than occupy the green benches to the right of the Speaker’s chair.

He believes that Labour and Conservative politicians have simply turned their backs on the need to fashion and campaign for economic and social policies that equip the UK to meet the challenges of the decade ahead. The formula for economic growth that emerged under Thatcher, which was inherited and uncritically maintained by Blair and Brown, relied …

Tagged andrew haldane and martin wolf | 1 Comment

Opinion: After the Crash – Re-inventing the Left in Britain

By Richard S. Grayson and Jonathan Rutherford | Tue 30th March 2010 - 2:45 pm

Jonathan Rutherford and Richard S. Grayson are the editors of a new book, After the Crash Re-inventing the Left in Britain, available to download as an e-book here. Here they write about why they think all progressive voters need to join together to defeat neo-liberalism in all walks of life.

The election approaches and Britain begins the long haul out of deep recession. In such a crisis, one would expect an alternative to neo-liberalism to be riding high in the polls. Instead, the party which is ahead, the Conservative Party, offers no alternative. The Labour leadership differ only by degrees. …

Also posted in Books | 2 Comments

In Vince Cable We Trust

By Philip Sheldrake | Tue 30th March 2010 - 11:50 am

A pretty obvious statement to make on this site, “In Vince Cable We Trust”, but it’s also the name for a new campaign established by a small group of marketing, communications and technology professionals with the single stated aim of making Vince Cable the next Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The group is apolitical. In fact, despite being the leader of this merry band, I have voted for all three main parties at some point in my life. But with all government departments’ policy making being strangled by the emptiness of the public purse, the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer will …

Also posted in Online politics | Tagged featured and vince cable | 12 Comments

Ask the Chancellors: the post-match analysis

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th March 2010 - 9:29 am

Let’s start off with the sentence you’d expect me to write: Vince Cable won last night’s Channel 4 Ask the Chancellors debate. There, I’ve said it.

Of course, it’s not just me saying it. It’s also The Guardian (“Vince Cable draws first blood”), the Telegraph (both Ben Brogan and Janet Daley), New Statesman (“Cable triumphs”), Channel 4 (Cable “man of the match”), Financial Times, Spectator and Independent (“Cable comes out on top”). And I’ve probably missed a few others.

Vince Cable

Vince started off with two big advantages, and two big disadvantages.

First, the advantages: he understands the economy, and how to convey a message to voters, like no other British politician. He looks the part – a very reasonable, persuasive bank manager – but he can also twist the knife with a turn of phrase that leaves its victim sprawling and the audience smiling.

The second advantage was a much simpler one: he was stood in the middle of the set, and – as a tall man – was able to dominate the proceedings, by turns interrogator, at other times umpire. But always in control.

Now to the disadvantages.

11 Comments

Opinion: As another New Labour project dies, what will replace it?

By Chris White | Mon 29th March 2010 - 10:50 am

On 31st March regional assemblies will be abolished. There will probably be neither bang nor whimper.

I will be sad. This was one of the projects of New Labour that nearly took wings. And it leaves a void in both regional governance and in our own party’s thinking on what we do about devolution.

In the longer term there are also questions about the viability of the Union – if Scotland, Wales and to a much lesser extent London are allowed (if that is the right verb) to run themselves, why can’t the rest of England? More to the point, why must …

2 Comments

Don Foster MP: Standing at football grounds

By Don Foster MP | Sat 27th March 2010 - 1:45 pm

Football fans are getting a raw deal. 1.4 million who want to play football can’t due to scant facilities. Season tickets for top clubs are a rip-off; costing 5 times more than in Spain and Italy. Disabled fans are treated shamefully. Only two Premiership Clubs meet the recommended level of number of spaces specially designed for wheelchair users. The game is disappearing from free-to-air TV.

And fans can’t stand at matches, though many want to. According to the Football Fans’ Census, 91% of fans think they should be able to choose to stand.

Of course, none of us can forget …

Tagged featured and football | 11 Comments

How long can Boris Johnson carry on defending the indefensible?

By Caroline Pidgeon | Sat 27th March 2010 - 10:20 am

Caroline Pidgeon is a Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member and member of the London Fire Emergency and Planning Authority (LFEPA)

Walking out of a meeting as a protest is something I would not normally recommend, but last week I felt had no other option and left a key budget meeting of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA). Both the Lib Dem leader on the Fire Authority, Councillor Ed Butcher from Haringey, and I knew we had to make a protest at the decision of the Conservative Chair Brian Coleman to prohibit TV cameras from filming the meeting, and Coleman’s decision to …

Also posted in London | Tagged bertha joseph, boris johnson, brian coleman, ed butcher and london fire and emergency planning authority | 2 Comments

Is this the general election result that would usher in electoral reform?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 27th March 2010 - 8:45 am

So the polls are narrowing, the Tory lead tottering along within the range of 2-7%. As we all know, the Tories need to poll at around 40% to be sure of a working majority, or else they will have to significantly out-perform their national ratings in the key marginal battlegrounds.

And if they don’t succeed? Well, that will clearly be a disaster for David Cameron’s leadership which has been predicated on the fact that he’s the Tories’ talisman. A hung parliament with a minority Labour/Tory government, perhaps with the tacit consent of the Lib Dems, appears at this stage the …

Also posted in General Election | Tagged electoral reform | 9 Comments

Digital Economy Bill latest – two cheers for the LibDem team

By Bridget Fox | Fri 26th March 2010 - 8:08 pm

As Liberal Democrat Voice has reported in depth over recent weeks, there was a surge of debate around the party’s response to the Digital Economy Bill, leading to our open letter from PPCs, and the emergency motion passed at conference. Great joy.

Then it all went quiet.

There has of course been a little matter of the Budget. MPs and candidates have been, quite rightly, out on the hustings and the doorsteps. But if our Parliamentary party were otherwise engaged, the blogosphere was not. The dedicated campaigning of the Open Rights Group was joined by the 38 Degrees lobby. They have objected not only to the content of bits of the Digital Economy Bill, but also the obvious concerns about its process.

If nothing else, this Bill has highlighted to a new generation of voters the urgent need for Parliamentary reform. The unelected second chamber; ridiculous rush, horsetrading and lack of debate of the washup; the way a Government elected with a minority of the vote can railroad through legislation – all of this must change.

The Open Rights Group anti-disconnection rally took the issue from the screen to the streets, and I was delighted to be invited to speak on behalf of our party. As I told the crowds, we started campaigning for Freedom of Information against a Tory government; now we are campaigning for free exchange of information under Labour. When you deal with a death, there is a cycle of emotion from grief through anger to acceptance. When it comes to the death of our freedoms under Labour, as Liberal Democrats we may be aggrieved, we are angry, but we will not accept it.

Tagged 38 degrees, bridget fox, digital economy bill, don foster, julian huppert, open rights group and parliamentary reform | 16 Comments

Opinion: Opportunities abound and our opponents have rarely been so uncertain and unconvincing

By Ed Randall | Fri 26th March 2010 - 4:31 pm

Alistair Darling’s pre-budget and pre-election speech was well done. Good knock about in which he steered clear of presenting a budget. David Cameron’s response not only rivalled Darling’s in terms of vacuity, on economic policy, but was too angry by half given the emptiness of his own party’s plans and proposals.

Nick Clegg did fine. It wasn’t a riveting parliamentary performance but it was a workmanlike and honest response to the budget speech, and it did what Nick and Vince must have hoped it would do: it got out the LibDem message efficiently and ensured that key LibDem sound bites …

Tagged budget 2010 and darling | Leave a comment

£104 to read the Times online – how will the blogosphere react?

By Iain Roberts | Fri 26th March 2010 - 8:20 am

News International announced this morning that, from June, we punters will have to cough up £2 a week to read the Times and Sunday Times online – a cool £104 a year.

The sound you hear is bloggers choking on their breakfast cereal.

The move makes a lot of sense for News International. True, their online readership will plummet. But, unlike most bloggers, Murdoch’s willy-waving is based on the size of his bank balance, not his number of unique visitors. Online advertising, for everyone except Google, hasn’t proved to be the magical money-making machine we were promised, and there’s only so much …

11 Comments

Guardian readers switching to Lib Dems in droves

By Alex Foster | Thu 25th March 2010 - 11:56 am

Wednesday’s editorial for the Guardian – which I found online here – is one of those pieces you see all too often in the Guardian, the time honoured preparation of the nose peg. Hold your nose, disregard the stench and put the cross by the rose.

It tries to find some vestige of hope in the Labour party, one thing remaining that is still worth voting for. But it’s the penultimate paragraph and not its conclusion that rings truest:

The party’s activists and MPs are so obviously convinced of their own decent intentions and past record that they fail to

…

Tagged nosepeg and the guardian | 11 Comments

Home Office offers comedy response on terrorism legislation

By Iain Roberts | Thu 25th March 2010 - 9:10 am

We are pleased that the committee recognises our commitment to human rights, which are at the heart of our counter- terrorism legislation.

That’s the Home Office response to a cross-party parliamentary committee which has criticised the Government’s terror legislation and the nearly-nine-year public emergency we are still in. Who said satire was dead?

The question is, and has always been, how best to balance the need to keep society safe against the human rights of those who, whether innocent or guilty, may be caught up in those efforts.

The Lib Dem view, and now the view of the joint committee …

1 Comment

Opinion: quangos, centralisation and less democracy – who’d have predicted that from Labour?

By Chris White | Wed 24th March 2010 - 7:15 pm

The mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse. But not a very nice or useful mouse.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has at last produced a ‘policy statement’ entitled ‘The Modernisation review of public libraries’. There is little radical and little of benefit to the public, indeed precious little modernisation. The library establishment and quangoland by contrast have much to be pleased about.

The paper contains a long list of instructions for local authorities and even specifically for local authority chief executives: no role for councillors here. Local authorities must set flexible opening hours to suit the needs of local …

2 Comments

The Independent View: England Left Forward – the reason for its foundation

By Dave Dyke | Wed 24th March 2010 - 3:50 pm

One of the major successes of the past 13 years, depending on your point of view, has been devolution. The establishment of Parliaments and Assemblies has transformed the governance and the culture of three of the four nations within the Union. However, this has left a big question at the heart of government, which ash also had a knock-on effect culturally:

How should England be governed?

This is often referred to in the media as “The English Question”. It is a question that the major political parties have, so far, avoided answering in a satisfactory manner. In fact, the major parties seemed to avoid any …

Also posted in The Independent View | 36 Comments

Low earner Liberal Democrats: the rural dimension

By Mark Pack | Wed 24th March 2010 - 10:20 am

In talking about the low earner Liberal Democrats this week, I have emphasised the urban aspect:

It’s a group of people that is not that often explicitly addressed in Liberal Democrat policy debates or campaigning and messaging discussions, expect in as much as they are part of the millions who would benefit from the party’s policy of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000.

Yet these low earner households have been the bedrock of many of the party’s biggest electoral successes in the last decade. The party’s control of a string of large cities – Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Bristol and so

…

Tagged low earner liberal democrats | 4 Comments

The low earner Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Tue 23rd March 2010 - 10:20 am

Yesterday The Voice ran an op-ed from the Resolution Foundation’s Sophia Parker about the, “9.4 million working-age ‘low earners’ – those people living on an average household income of £15,800 while remaining broadly independent of state support.”

It’s a group of people that is not that often explicitly addressed in Liberal Democrat policy debates or campaigning and messaging discussions, expect in as much as they are part of the millions who would benefit from the party’s policy of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000.

Yet these low earner households have been the bedrock of many of the party’s biggest electoral …

Tagged featured, low earner liberal democrats and resolution foundation | 28 Comments

The Independent View: five key priorities for the UK’s low earners

By Sophia Parker | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 3:20 pm

Today, the Resolution Foundation launches our open memo to the next government. In it, we propose five key priorities which we believe will improve outcomes for the UK’s 9.4 million working-age ‘low earners’ – those people living on an average household income of £15,800 while remaining broadly independent of state support.

These are families who may not be the poorest in society, and they are not in crisis. Nevertheless their economic independence is fragile and they are living at the very edge of their means. 56 per cent have experienced a drop in income since the start of the recession – and …

Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged low earner liberal democrats and resolution foundation | 11 Comments

The Liberal Democrat general election prospects: what does history say?

By Mark Thompson | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 12:22 pm

I was having a look at data from previous elections recently with a particular focus on the number of seats and percentage of votes gained by the third party in the last few decades.

The first thing that is clear and which I already knew is that in the last three general elections, the Lib Dems have consistently increased their number of seats. The figures are:

1997: 46 (+26)
2001: 52 (+6)
2005: 62 (+10)

The huge leap in 1997 is often put down to our improved targeting campaign techniques championed by Chris Rennard.

There is something else interesting in the figures which I had not …

Also posted in General Election | Tagged chris rennard and featured | 20 Comments

Op-eds

Andy Burnham – new messiah or naughty boy? (Mark Hunter)
“Palestine should be run by Palestinians” so why won’t Britain reckon with what it did? (Alex Cole-Hamilton)
You can’t defend your way to a World Cup… or No. 10 (Tom Reeve)
The financing timebomb in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Britain should do — and isn’t (Rupinder Singh)
William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes (Lord William Wallace)

Advert

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

William Wallace writes: What do Liberal Democrats have to offer the…

“Build, baby, build” but don’t lower our ambitions on…

Category Archives: Op-eds

An open letter to Jeremy Hunt, Conservative MP for South West Surrey

The Independent View: Introducing Hustings.com

Opinion: Attack YouGov if you want to – but at least say who you are

Pollwatch – State of the Leaders: Clegg +18%, Brown -27%, Cameron +5% (March 2010)

Don’t tax sweat – An Independent View from Thomas Colignatus

An Independent View from the IEA: Enterprise needs liberalism – but are the Liberal Democrats liberal?

Pollwatch – State of the Parties: Lib Dems 19%, Labour 31%, Tories 38% (March 2010)

David Howarth writes … Now is the time to reform our penal policy

Open Rights Group flashmob serves disconnection notice on UK Music #DEBill

Julia Goldsworthy: we’re too centralised

Forget hung parliaments. This is the general election result which is truly scary.

Opinon: Wolf at the door – and about time too!

Opinion: After the Crash – Re-inventing the Left in Britain

In Vince Cable We Trust

Ask the Chancellors: the post-match analysis

Vince Cable

Opinion: As another New Labour project dies, what will replace it?

Don Foster MP: Standing at football grounds

How long can Boris Johnson carry on defending the indefensible?

Is this the general election result that would usher in electoral reform?

Digital Economy Bill latest – two cheers for the LibDem team

Opinion: Opportunities abound and our opponents have rarely been so uncertain and unconvincing

£104 to read the Times online – how will the blogosphere react?

Guardian readers switching to Lib Dems in droves

Home Office offers comedy response on terrorism legislation

Opinion: quangos, centralisation and less democracy – who’d have predicted that from Labour?

The Independent View: England Left Forward – the reason for its foundation

Low earner Liberal Democrats: the rural dimension

The low earner Liberal Democrats

The Independent View: five key priorities for the UK’s low earners

The Liberal Democrat general election prospects: what does history say?

Most Read

Op-eds

Recent Comments

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

William Wallace writes: What do Liberal Democrats have to offer the…

“Build, baby, build” but don’t lower our ambitions on…

Category Archives: Op-eds

Vince Cable

Subscribe

Most Read

Search

Op-eds

Recent Comments