Category Archives: Op-eds

Jim Killock

The Independent View: Liberal Democrats should oppose the Digital Economy Bill

By Jim Killock | Wed 10th February 2010 - 8:12 pm

Last week we reported that, following the concessions forced on the government, Don Foster MP is broadly happy with the Digital Economy Bill’s proposals on illicit downloads. Jim Killock of the The Open Rights Group has a different take on the situation:

The Digital Economy Bill should be opposed by Liberal Democrats. Mandelson’s Bill seeks to reduce illicit downloads by punishing innocent people, removing any chance of a reasonable defence, and by disconnecting people.

Let’s start with this first idea, of disconnecting ‘infringers’.

Let’s say you pay BT, for broadband and somebody else downloads a number of copyright music tracks. You, your family, and …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 25 Comments
Seth Thevoz

Opinion: saving General Election night – a mistake?

By Seth Thevoz | Wed 10th February 2010 - 5:27 pm

Democracy has been saved “at the eleventh hour” – that’s right, the cross-party “Save general election night” campaign has successfully lobbied the government to stop councils from delaying counting votes until a day after the election.

It seems many Liberal Democrats are welcoming the right outcome for the wrong reason.

There are two main possible justifications for this:

(1) Counting the votes as soon as possible, to minimise the risk of someone tampering with ballot boxes.

(2) Feeding the frenzy of wanting instant results broadcast as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, the campaign has been geared towards the latter, and most Lib Dem MPs who’ve supported …

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Also posted in General Election | 19 Comments
Chris White

We must defend the arts against right-wing cuts

By Chris White | Wed 10th February 2010 - 12:25 pm

Keynes was both a serious Liberal and a serious man. His work in two world wars and their aftermath is the stuff of legend. His contribution to economic thinking, recently somewhat vindicated, makes him a giant. Bertrand Russell found him intellectually formidable.

But he also built the Cambridge Arts Theatre and was the first Chairman of the Arts Council, created by the postwar Labour Government.

It would be too easy to say merely that a great man needs a hobby like anyone else. The Classical world and civilisation since have shunned the suggestion that somehow culture was an add-on, like sitting down …

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Stephen Gilbert MP

Opinion: A very modern problem – Cornwall Council, Sita UK and the incinerator

By Stephen Gilbert MP | Wed 10th February 2010 - 11:20 am

PFI has created a very modern problem – how should councils manage relationships with contractors when they stretch over decades and involve multi-million pound sums but also remain responsive to political change, advances in technology and moving priorities? It’s a problem that has come to the fore in Cornwall.

In 1998 consultants outlined a vision for Cornwall’s waste management that included incineration. In 2002 a waste plan was adopted by the council. In 2006 the council appointed a contractor, Sita, to run the contract in a £400 million 30-year deal. In 2008 Sita submitted a planning application to build an incinerator in …

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Mark Pack

An intriguing list – so get voting

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th February 2010 - 2:50 pm

Cross-posted from the Power 2010 blog:

If all it took to sort out our political system was to produce a list of proposals we’d have the best political system, ever.

Over the last few years, there has been no shortage of wish lists, most of which have promptly disappeared never to be thought of again.

So I’ll readily admit to being a little sceptical of Power 2010 when it was launched intending to, yes, put together a list of proposals.

To its credit, though, Power 2010 has put together an imaginative approach: trawling widely for ideas, then getting a cross-section of the public …

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Mark Pack

Why politics should be about personalities

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th February 2010 - 12:20 pm

Tony Benn’s lament that politics should be about issues, not personalities, is one echoed even by many who would struggle to find any issues on which they agree with him.

But it’s not a view I share. Why? Because the detailed policies of election manifestos or conference speeches frequently get swept aside in power by events. It’s not just the unexpected new event, it’s also the fallibility of forecasts which mean that decision making is often made from a very different perspective from that used to draw up pre-election policy promises.

Take the economy. It’s hard enough to know whether it is …

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Stephen Tall

Tories’ policies recalled as economic model proves unroad-worthy

By Stephen Tall | Tue 9th February 2010 - 10:50 am

(With thanks to today’s Guardian).

The Tories were today forced to recall a consignment of hybrid policies following widespread complaints that their economic model failed when it encountered bumpy or slippery surfaces. The party is already facing criticism over the recent recall of many of its other policies, including marriage tax-breaks, which have been affected by the potentially dangerous acceleration towards an election.

The Tory leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne are due to give details of their latest recall today, and on most other days leading up to 6th May. “We’ve tried applying the brakes,” they admitted, “but the …

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Also posted in Humour | Tagged | 5 Comments
Iain Roberts

Are the Tories resigned to pushing lobby fodder?

By Iain Roberts | Tue 9th February 2010 - 10:24 am

Look at a Lib Dem election campaign, whether it’s a sitting MP or target seat challenger, and you’ll invariably find a hard working local campaigner, a local champion, and leaflets full of local stories.

That’s not at all what you see in Conservative literature. Across many seats the Tories have all but given up promoting their local campaigning credentials, or selling their candidate as the best person to be the MP. True, you’ll always find a few token stories, but the vast majority of material hitting doormats promotes Cameron, and Cameron alone.

Most of their firepower pushes the message that …

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Also posted in General Election and News | Tagged | 6 Comments
Iain Roberts

The John Terry Plan

By Iain Roberts | Sun 7th February 2010 - 3:34 pm

Here’s the plan. We take a bunch of teenage lads. We pay them tens of thousands of pounds a week, tell them how wonderful they are and have 40,000 fans chant their names at football matches each week.

We eagerly follow their testosterone and cash-fuelled antics as they do the sorts of things lads in their late teens and twenties across the country do: get drunk, cop off and all the rest of it.

We happily encourage young women to see them as a meal ticket that’ll at the very least show the ladies a good time and …

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Tagged | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Pollwatch – State of the Leaders: Clegg +15%, Brown -31%, Cameron +10% (Jan. 2010)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 7th February 2010 - 2:15 pm

Yesterday, Pollwatch looked at the state of the parties in January; today it’s the turn of the party leaders. As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Only three polling companies – YouGov, Mori and Angus RS – regularly ask 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 …

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Also posted in News and Polls | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Pollwatch – State of the Parties: Lib Dems 18%, Labour 29%, Tories 40% (Jan. 2010)

By Stephen Tall | Sat 6th February 2010 - 11:15 am

A total of 13 polls were published during January. Now, as our readers know, LDV doesn’t cover them with the same breathless excitements as other parts of the media. Most poll movements are within the margin of error, so it is only looked at over a period of time that you can detect whether there has really been any significant movements between the parties. With those caveats in place, let’s succomb to the inevitable and start poll-obsessing …

Here are January’s polls in chronological order:

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Also posted in Polls | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

The Saturday debate: Let’s just admit it – our society actually is broken

By Stephen Tall | Sat 6th February 2010 - 8:15 am

Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a new Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

Here’s what David Marquand had to say in a recent issue of the New Statesman:

The truth is that the left commentariat’s default position – social permissiveness combined with economic regulation; toughness towards bankers, but softness towards cannabis hawkers – was always incoherent and has now become disastrous. Of course, the right’s alternative – economic permissiveness combined with social regulation – is equally incoherent. But for the left to rely on that kind of yah-boo retort only deepens its current malaise. After all,

…

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Chris White

Opinion: will councillors watch over private companies?

By Chris White | Thu 4th February 2010 - 3:06 pm

First Capital Connect has been in the news. Commuters have finally lost patience with poor service, high costs, questionable pricing policies and overcrowding. An overtime ban coupled with a feeble reaction to recent snowfalls has compounded the situation into one of genuine public anger.

Railways in many parts of the country are monopolies. You buy a house away from where you work, relying upon public transport to get you to and from your place of employment. The car is often not a realistic alternative. Other railway lines may well not be available.

What does the public do when faced with a monopoly? …

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Mark Pack

Social media’s impact on politics, part two: where to find the big impact

By Mark Pack | Thu 4th February 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to the concluding part of a two-part series about the real impact social media (or social networking) is having on politics in Britain. Last week I looked at the groups which face extinction; today it’s why pundits searching for the impact of social media on politics in 2010 are looking in the wrong place.

For the third general election in a row, people are lining up to debate whether or not this one will be the internet election; the election when politics radically changes in the face of the technological change that has already swept the world.

Here’s my prediction. …

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Also posted in Online politics | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

The Lib Dems and the 2010 general election … ‘The future’s bright, the future’s gold.’

By Stephen Tall | Wed 3rd February 2010 - 6:45 pm

I have an article published in the January edition of the Government Gazette, the monthly magazine of the Centre for Parliamentary Studies, looking at the Lib Dems’ prospects for the coming general election. Here’s what I say …

A missed opportunity. That was the consensus, inside and outside the Liberal Democrats, on the party’s general election results in 2005.

The disappointment was the greater as realisation dawned that the unique set of circumstances of that election – an unpopular government and an even more unpopular opposition – might never again be repeated. What could have been the Lib Dems’ breakthrough …

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Also posted in General Election | Tagged | 17 Comments
Baroness Ros Scott

Ros Scott writes … Party President’s report to members, January ’10

By Baroness Ros Scott | Tue 2nd February 2010 - 8:15 pm

In the two months since my last report, the election campaign has started in all but name.

After a phenomenal amount of work by the manifesto team – led by Danny Alexander, the party’s policy unit headed by Christian Moon, and the Federal Policy Committee – we have now established the broad outlines of our campaign:

  • Reform of the tax system to create a fairer base,
  • introducing the pupil premium to give all children a fairer start in life,
  • creating sustainable housing and jobs and
  • political reform to bring in a fairer voting system, and

…

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Also posted in Party Presidency | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Huw Dawson

The second biggest fight in Wales: Ceredigion

By Huw Dawson | Sat 30th January 2010 - 4:50 pm

The Liberal Democrats have four seats in Wales. Everyone’s heard of Lembit Opik, MP for Montgomeryshire. Then you have Jenny Willott, MP for Cardiff Central. Roger Williams is the MP for Brecon & Radnorshire and Mark Williams is the MP for Ceredigion. Most people in Britain wouldn’t be able to find these places on a map, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m only going to talk about one – Ceredigion.

Mark Williams won a victory in 2005 that, quite frankly, was a complete surprise. You might have caught Kirsty Williams AM (Who is totally unrelated, I hasten to clarify) bursting into …

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Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: it’s no longer about market versus state

By Mark Pack | Sat 30th January 2010 - 8:50 am

Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

For the last hundred years the big organizational question has been whether any given task was best taken on by the state, directing the effort in a planned way, or by businesses competing in a market. This debate was based on the universal and unspoken supposition that people couldn’t simply self-assemble; the choice between markets and managed effort assumed there was no third alternative. Now there is. Our electronic networks are enabling novel forms of collective action, enabling the creation of collaborative groups that

…

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Paul Walter

Opinion: The Equality Bill & religious faith – Church v State? Not so much.

By Paul Walter | Fri 29th January 2010 - 2:42 pm

This has been, for me, a very sad and confusing week. Last weekend I received an email asking me to sign a petition about amendments to the Equality Bill “which potentially will take away the right of every citizen to live according to their religious faiths and consciences.” The email contained the phrase: “By not signing the petition you are inviting your own oppression” – aimed at church-goers.

Naturally I was very alarmed by this email and commenced research on this subject.

Demurring from signing the petition, I watched the relevant House of Lords debate very closely.

Quite frankly I am still confused …

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The Independent View: Why Lib Dem, Labour and Green progressives must work together

By Anneliese Midgley | Fri 29th January 2010 - 10:20 am

Anneliese Midgley of Progressive London argues that 2010 is a crucial year for all progressives, regardless of party label, to stand up to the right.

Given the sheer scale of the issues facing our society – from the worst global economic crisis since the second world war through to the enormous challenge of climate change – it is essential if we are to move forward that we discuss those issues where we can forge a common progressive agenda.

In London our different electoral systems for the mayoralty and the London Assembly have already driven a debate about the …

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Also posted in The Independent View | 47 Comments
Stephen Tall

If Gordon’s a “glum optimist” and Dave’s a “perky doom-monger”, can Nick be the “honest optimist”?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 28th January 2010 - 1:55 pm

Here’s how The Economist’s Bagehot characterised the performances of Gordon Brown and David Cameron at their respective press conferences this week:

On Gordon Brown: “… was his usual funereal self (even if he did manage a decent joke about the date of the general election). I thought he looked exhausted. But what he had to say was relatively upbeat: the recession is over; the government has plans for the “job-rich prosperity” that is just around the corner and an expanded middle class.

On David Cameron: “… was his usual breezy self, cracking jokes, remembering journalists’ names, etc. But what …

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Also posted in General Election | Tagged , , , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Social media’s impact on politics, part one: the groups that face extinction

By Mark Pack | Thu 28th January 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to a two-part series about the real impact social media (or social networking) is having on politics in Britain. In part one I look at the groups which face extinction, whilst in part two I will look at why pundits searching for the impact of social media on politics in 2010 are looking in the wrong place.

What impact has the introduction of cheap colouring printing technology had on British politics? Almost none. Certainly many more leaflets are colour than used to be the case, more target letters contain colour inserts and a generation of amateur designers have had the …

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Also posted in Online politics | Tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
Chris White

Opinion: MPs should keep out of local rag debate

By Chris White | Wed 27th January 2010 - 6:41 pm

MPs were debating what are sometimes called ‘council newspapers’ last week. None was supportive.

At first sight it is easy to see why. Administrations exploit the legislation which forbids party political propaganda on the rates. So long as the rag doesn’t actually say ‘Vote Conservative’ it is usually quite within the letter of the law. So a publication featuring mainly the leader of the council and only positive stories may irritate the opposition (and the voter) but will not cause the monitoring officer to stir.

But this isn’t why it is open season on these publications. Trinity Mirror and other regional publishers …

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John Cross

The Independent View: Close the Freedom of Information loophole

By John Cross | Wed 27th January 2010 - 1:50 pm

John Cross from the MySociety team writes about their latest campaign:

On New Year’s Day 2005, when the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force it was described in the Government Press Release as “one of the most generous Freedom of Information regimes in the world.” The reality has been mixed, information released has lead to thousands of news stories but there are still too many loopholes that can be used to avoid or delay the release of information that really ought to be made public.

I recently wrote to MP about one of the worst of the loopholes which …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged | 2 Comments
Iain Roberts

Tip: if you want to be credible, avoid claiming the NHS is a Nazi/Communist plot

By Iain Roberts | Tue 26th January 2010 - 11:40 am

There are times when it’s difficult to get a handle on where a pressure group is coming from. Do they have sensible ideas (even if you disagree with them)? Are they based on good evidence and research? Is there an intelligent debate to be had?

On other occasions it’s just that little bit simpler.

Say you wanted to reform British healthcare. Fair enough – you’d be hard-put to find anyone who thought it was perfect.

So you and your colleagues, full of reforming zeal, get together for a bit of brainstorming.

“How shall we get our message across, and persuade …

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Iain Roberts

100 days to work, 100 days to win

By Iain Roberts | Tue 26th January 2010 - 9:05 am

One hundred days until the local elections and the most likely date for the General Election: May 6th.

And, whilst blogs, websites, Facebook and the rest of it will play a supporting role, our real battles will be fought on the ground in Liberal Democrat held and target seats up and down the country. It will be fought with leaflets, target mailings, canvassing, posters, phone calls and getting the vote out on polling day. Even email – extremely effective at reaching local audiences in marginal seats – needs that ground work to build up the list of addresses in the first …

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Also posted in General Election | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: we need more ideology

By Mark Pack | Sat 23rd January 2010 - 8:50 am

Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a new Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

Disdainful comments about political motivations and ideological fixations abound. But what Britain needs is more ideology, not less. Because it’s having a core of ideological beliefs that gives those in power a plan for action that is more than simply responding day to day to events or taking on board completely the agendas, assumptions and perspectives of those running the machinery of government. Ideology provides a model that can make different ideas hang together in a coherent whole that is more than the …

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Iain Roberts

Was Britain more broken under the Tories?

By Iain Roberts | Sat 23rd January 2010 - 8:05 am

Britain is broken, David Cameron tells us, and of course he claims a Conservative government will mend it.

How can we tell if he’s right?

Crime is still a problem, certain crimes in particular. But – like pretty much every western nation – the UK has seen a big fall in crime since the ’90s.

Having grown sharply through the Thatcher years, crime peaked in the UK in 1995 and has been falling since – quickly at first and more slowly in recent years, but still falling.

So not crime in general.

Cameron raised the horrific case of two young …

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Stephen Tall

So George, tell us, when exactly did you decide to back Obama’s banking reforms?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 22nd January 2010 - 7:25 pm

The Tories’ shadow chancellor George Osborne was proud to declare on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that he had been in favour of banking reforms now being championed by President Obama – to break up the big banks – “since last July”. This will come as something of a surprise to anyone who’s been following Tory policy on the banking industry over the past six months.

In fact, let’s take a look at what the Tories were saying last July, the month the party launched its white paper on financial regulation. Mr Osborne put forward six policy …

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Tagged , and | 2 Comments
The Voice

Opinion: UK Border Agency plunges colleges into crisis

By The Voice | Fri 22nd January 2010 - 2:20 pm

I wrote recently about the train-wreck that is happening before our eyes with the new student visa rules.  Well, there has been a new development. The UK Border Agency has abruptly suspended the visa-sponsoring licences of more than 50 private colleges without giving reasons. All over the place, crisis talks are taking place in the colleges affected, as people try to work out what on earth is happening. Is this more of the deep-rooted incompetence that we have all come to expect from the Home Office, or has a political decision been taken to expel lots of dark faces and …

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