Category Archives: Op-eds

Iain Roberts

Opinion: Leave them swingers alone, Dr Pugh

By Iain Roberts | Tue 23rd October 2007 - 7:48 pm

The Sir Bufton Tuftons of this world hark fondly back to a golden age when you knew what was what with people’s sexuality.

Sex within a good Christian marriage was acceptable. Any other sort of sexual activity – from masturbation to homosexuality, sex before marriage to flagellation – was an excellent indicator that someone was mad, bad, dangerous to know (or quite possibly all three), and would benefit greatly from a spell in prison or an asylum. Needless to say the rules didn’t apply to the ruling classes, and as long they kept it out of sight, no-one minded too much.

Today’s Bufton Tuftons see that the world has gone to pot. First, we had the pill and legal abortions tempting innocent young girls into lives of vice and depravity. Then homosexuality became acceptable. More recently – horror of horrors – these homosexuals have been permitted to have sex when other people are present, and they even hold hands and kiss in the streets.

You won’t be surprised to learn that these aren’t opinions I hold and, thankfully, neither do most Liberal Democrats. A long, hard (and ongoing) battle has been fought to allow the millions of people whose sexuality strays from ‘the norm’ to do what they want as long as it doesn’t harm others.

Unless, it would appear, you live in Southport and you’re a swinger – at least as far as Southport’s Lib Dem MP, Dr John Pugh, is concerned.

John Pugh is a fine MP, and someone for whom I have a great deal of respect – he’s no reactionary. Which is why I’m all the more concerned that Dr Pugh is actively campaigning against a swingers’ club in Southport. His petition opposes a Southport swingers’ club on the grounds that it is “wholly inconsistent with the image of Southport as a family and quality leisure resort.”

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Tagged | 14 Comments

100 days of Plaid in power

By Dominic Hannigan | Mon 22nd October 2007 - 12:16 pm

Several months ago, I wrote a piece for LDV setting out what I thought was a golden opportunity for the Welsh Lib Dems following a disappointing night in May.

Now, 100 days have passed since Plaid decided to kick the prospect of alternating government in Wales into touch and instead prop up a discredited and unpopular Labour administration.

The “one-Wales” government as it is known has had nothing but gentle times so far. The position within the year and the Welsh electoral cycle have not presented the real and serious challenges to the stability of coalition politics. And yet, relations between the two governing parties have been anything but amicable. It all started when Peter Black pointed out the immature and almost laughable way in which back-bench Plaid AMs were failing to adhere to the principal of collective responsibility. They were openly attacking government announcements and claiming that because they were made by Labour Ministers, their party bore no responsibility for them. It beggars belief what the relationship will be like when times actually begin to get tough.

Those within our party who argued against joining Plaid and the Tories in Government, were particularly concerned by the lack of clear costings and affordability of Plaid’s manifesto. The party’s immaturity was clear when it offered a succession of promises to the Welsh public such as free laptops for kids and big grants for first time buyers. This “happy-meal” politics as Kirsty Williams called it, took no account whatsoever of the tougher budgetary times ahead. With the CSR announcement earlier this month, it has become clear that the one-Wales agenda is worryingly unaffordable.

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Also posted in Wales | Tagged and | 12 Comments
Laurence Boyce

Opinion: An inappropriate truth

By Laurence Boyce | Mon 22nd October 2007 - 8:13 am

Notwithstanding the somewhat tenuous connection between peace and the weather, I was more than happy to see Al Gore scoop this year’s Nobel prize for his tireless efforts to raise awareness of the threat posed by global warming to the future of life on Earth. But, in my view, his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth is totally unsuitable for viewing in schools, and it puzzles me that anyone ever thought otherwise. It’s got nothing to do with last week’s court ruling. While it is certainly unfortunate if the film contains “nine scientific errors,” they are unlikely to register strongly in the minds of children. Most people, while accepting the judge’s clarifications, will see them as essentially nit-picking. No, the problem with An Inconvenient Truth in the context of schooling, is that it is so clearly and overtly political in character.

The first of many side-swipes at the Bush administration comes seven minutes into the film. Then, after about half an hour, we are treated to a reprise of the farcical 2000 presidential election. We see Gore making his final concession speech – “While I strongly disagree with the Court’s decision, I accept it.” The clear implication is that he was robbed. Further on, we see clips of Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior, indulging in a spot of climate change denial. Republican Senator James Inhofe suggests that the threat of global warming might be, “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” These guys are the baddies, make no mistake about it. The Philip Cooney affair – where scientific research papers were doctored by a White House official connected to the oil industry – is covered in some detail, again placing the administration in a very poor light.

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24 Comments

Opinion: The four key issues which will determine who I vote for

By Steve Goddard | Fri 19th October 2007 - 9:17 am

Who should be our leader? Every Lib Dem is thinking about it, but I suppose I have more reason than many for giving it the most careful consideration.

After all, as I am candidate in what my local team has turned into our top marginal in the country – Oxford East – the person we elect is likely to become my boss. Of course, if Mr Brown had let us have the election most were expecting and some, like myself, were hoping for, I might be there now. As it is, my team and I are ready for that battle, whenever it occurs – but we know that who our next leader is will help shape our destiny over the next few years.

It is, of course, too early for me to endorse any candidate: as I write, only one has declared formally and while others have ruled themselves out, there remain others to rule themselves in. Let me say: I liked Charles and I liked Ming – we owe them both a huge debt of gratitude. Whoever follows them will have both to live up to their achievements and to take us to a further level of success.

What I can give you at the moment is the view from Oxford East – the issues I’m hearing on the doorstep and the issues where we have the policies and should be shouting them from the rooftops.

For me, there are four key issues – the three Hs and the Environment. The Hs are Housing, Health and Human Rights, or civil liberties. These are unashamedly issues that matter in my constituency but there ones on which we need to make our national voice heard.

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Also posted in Leadership Election | 6 Comments
Harry Hayfield

Opinion: A humble appeal to all Lib Dem leadership candidates

By Harry Hayfield | Thu 18th October 2007 - 2:39 pm

I live in the constituency of Ceredigion located on the western coast of Wales, and in 2005 we were one of the 16 Liberal Democrat gains that helped propel the Liberal Democrats to the best ever performance by the party in over 80 years. And yet the reason it was a gain was that in 1992 the newly founded Liberal Democrats lost the seat to Plaid Cymru.

During the next few months, we will be told by all the candidates standing how they will appeal to Conservative voters, how they will appeal to Labour voters, and how they will appeal to …

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Also posted in Leadership Election | 9 Comments
Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: Time to revisit the Trident debate

By Geoffrey Payne | Wed 17th October 2007 - 6:05 pm

In the coming leadership campaign, I would like to see a revisiting of the replacement of Trident debate where the party settled on a policy of fudge. Reluctantly I have to accept that we cannot do this before the next general election, but I am sure that whoever wins will be leader for at least the next two general elections, and he will have a big say in how the policy develops.

I believe that the current fudge of a policy gave the SNP a stick to beat us with in the last Scottish elections – and for them it worked. …

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10 Comments
Gareth Epps

Opinion: Let’s Get Honest With Ourselves

By Gareth Epps | Tue 16th October 2007 - 8:48 am

The departure of Ming Campbell gives a tremendous opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to be honest with themselves: an opportunity that only arises rarely in the middle of a Parliament.

The media will ignore it, but the leadership contest can and must be used by those who have been spelling out the obvious, critical issues of central organisation which are fundamental to the success of the Party, to do so quickly and publicly, before bandwagons get started for any candidate (and I haven’t been contacted by one and will want to see their answers first).

The point needs to be made that even Ming’s strongest critic would not pretend that the issue lay entirely with one personality. There are a number of questions that needs an answer by any candidate worth her or his salt, if we are truly serious about building on the platform of 2005 and going on the offensive from then on.

Questions such as:

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Also posted in Leadership Election | Tagged | 76 Comments
Stephen Tall

Setting the election timetable

By Stephen Tall | Mon 15th October 2007 - 8:59 pm

Tonight, I think most of us are catching our breaths following the resignation of Ming Campbell as Lib Dem leader.

Though there had been a growing inevitability about it all in the last few days, the speed with which his resignation was brought about was surprising. It’s entirely to Ming’s credit that he foreclosed on the growing speculation before it started seriously to destabilise the party.

The speculation will swiftly turn to what happens next. At this stage, I have only one plea: no swift leadership election.

Whatever follows next needs to be both a contest of ideas, as well as …

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Also posted in News | 28 Comments
John Pugh

What do you think of Lib Dem News?

By John Pugh | Mon 15th October 2007 - 8:17 am

For quite some time now I have been referring to Lib Dem News as “Pravda”. Did it coincide with the departure of Lord Greaves?

However this week it has excelled itself. I can cope with the consistently unfunny cartoons, tired rhetoric, pictures of people holding up placards and/or recanting their membership of other parties. Embarassing predictions of an election cancelled last Saturday only serve to tell us about ludicrously early print dates.

Perhaps the cartoon of Cameron lamenting his poll ratings is meant to be deeply ironic and there is a good article by Duncan Brack about John Stuart Mill’s …

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37 Comments
Michael Meadowcroft

Opinion: Why I joined the Liberal Democrats

By Michael Meadowcroft | Sat 13th October 2007 - 7:24 pm

Twenty-first century politics are a mockery of the rigorous and committed process that is required if our society and our communities are going to have a chance of surviving the challenges that dominate the agenda today. I happen to believe in politics and in the innate ability of men and women to work together in political organisations in order to create a secure and sustainable environment within which their life chances can be enhanced. To achieve that we need a far better quality of politics than we get from the two major parties today.

Spin, image and focus groups have dulled the public appetite for involvement in the political process – even at the most basic level of voting – and the electorate sees politicians as cynical chancers who will embrace any tactic that will give them a chance of power. Over the past twelve years new Labour has abandoned any semblance of an ideological anchor in progressive politics.

There was a time, before Blair, when, even if one did not agree with its proffered solutions, Labour could be trusted to have an instinctive response which would differentiate it from the Conservative right. Helping the poor, empathising with the developing world, being gentle with refugees, defending civil rights, building houses to let and espousing comprehensive education, could all be expected to be part and parcel of Labour’s agenda. But today all this has gone and the pragmatic dissection of its honourable past means that nothing is too illiberal or too harsh for Labour.

I discovered my personal Liberal millstone very early on. Once identified, we happy band of instinctive Liberals have no choice: it’s a lifetime of commitment and struggle. I joined the party way back in 1958 and after very few years it was a case of finding jobs that would keep me in politics. Over the thirty years to the merger I reckon to have done just about every task within the “backroom” and in the “frontline”, and to have written on just about every subject. It’s all on my website. Faced with those who lacked confidence in the potential of their Liberal beliefs, the task was to provide them with the material with which to triumph in debate and on the hustings.

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22 Comments
Stephen Tall

The power of blogs, or the weakness of journalism?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 11th October 2007 - 9:19 am

When does a story become worth reporting? I ask the question in the light of today’s Indy story, ‘Delayed election revives criticism of Lib Dem leader’, which quotes extensively from Jo Hayes’ blog posting, ‘Time to take stock’.

Here’s Jo’s conclusion:

“To go on indefinitely working for our success I need to be sustained by the belief that we have a leader who is a potential Prime Minister. Is it not time that our MPs moved to propose someone new?”

To be clear: I have no problems with what Jo has written, or her decision publicly to speak her …

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Also posted in News | 26 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MP: “We have to think about where we want to be in 18 months’ time”

By Stephen Tall | Mon 8th October 2007 - 10:00 am

From today’s Guardian:

there are now also questions over the fate of the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ming Campbell, 66, who has failed to push up his party’s fortunes in the opinion polls in recent months. He was chosen in 2006 to provide a safe pair of hands after Charles Kennedy had to resign – but he also has younger MPs who are keen to take the job. …

One Lib Dem MP said last night: ‘This election decision is going to have big ramifications for us all. We will have to take a good hard look at our own party,

…

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Also posted in News | Tagged | 68 Comments
John Pugh

Opinion: THE RESULT, Media 1 (o.g. G. Brown) Democracy 0

By John Pugh | Sun 7th October 2007 - 12:48 pm

At the Brighton Conference a very well respected former BBC journalist described to me talk of an early election as ‘lazy journalism’. He argued that much of the media was losing interest in government and the effects of policy and preferred to cover events and personalities. They thus wanted an autumn election and will probably punish Brown for not holding one.

Closeted with the press pack for three weeks over the conference season few politicians dared express anything other than a macho enthusiasm for a fight – often expressed in pathetic schoolboy language – ‘wimp’, ‘bottle’ etc. – nothwithstanding the constitutional …

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Also posted in General Election | Tagged | 8 Comments

An Indian Intervention

By Gavin Whenman | Wed 3rd October 2007 - 11:38 pm

The monks have gone, transported to northern prisons or shot dead, and “normalcy” has returned to the streets of Burma, in the word of the country’s United Nations ambassador. But is there more the international community, in particular its neighbour’s, could have done to force the hand of the military junta and bring democracy to Burma? Yes, there is, and the answer lies in India.

During the protests in Burma over the past two weeks, the UN showed how ineffective its current structural system could be. Meetings were held, debates were had, but in the end no concrete action was taken, doubtless because Russia and China would have vetoed it anyway, just as they vetoed a resolution criticising the regime in January of this year. Even if they had the political will, the US and UK are not equipped to launch a military expedition to Burma in defence of democracy – forces are too tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment. So, another country needs to be willing to intervene, but which one?

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Stephen Tall

Opinion: Will the Gordon backlash start here?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 29th September 2007 - 12:52 pm

It’s certainly looking like the cautiously prudent ex-Chancellor is about to prove what a reckless gambler he is now he’s made it to the top, and become Prime Minister.

The momentum behind an early general election appears to be unstoppable. Having marched his troops to the top of the hill it’s hard to see how Gordon can march them back down again without destroying his credibility as a strong, British leader who is proud of the British strength he has gained in this strong Britain.

Labour’s dream scenario is of course this: our granite-faced, crisis-tested Prime Minister, having caught his political opponents on the hop, will romp to victory with a bigger majority than Tony Blair achieved in 2005. Which may yet happen.

But how will the media, and indeed the public, react to a cut-and-run election from a man who has carefully cultivated his image as the anti-Blair, an unspun, straight-talking dour doer? Mr Brown has deliberately spent the last three months trying to lose the reputation for slick opportunism Labour acquired under his predecessor. How will he justify his rush to the polls at the first sniff of victory?

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Also posted in General Election | 11 Comments
Dinti Batstone

Opinion: Mind the Gender Gap!

By Dinti Batstone | Thu 27th September 2007 - 7:55 pm

Surprisingly, fewer women (18%) than men (21%) support the LibDems, while for both Labour and the Tories the opposite is true.

Why?

Perhaps an explanation lies in Ming’s remark in Brighton last week that “we can’t represent a country if we’re not representative of it”.

School-gate mums and working parents are an important demographic, but not one of our parliamentarians is a mother of young children. It’s hard to show we empathise with family issues when women juggling politics and family life are all but invisible in the Lib Dems.

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Tagged | 16 Comments
Tony Vickers

Opinion: Where for Land Value Tax after conference vote?

By Tony Vickers | Thu 27th September 2007 - 3:37 pm

A week after the Lib Dem Conference debate on “Green Tax Switch Mark 2”, how does our tax policy look from an ALTERnate perspective (i.e. not Chris Rennard’s)? Well, I’ve almost sold out of my book’s first printing (would someone like to post a review on Amazon?) and most LVT supporters who were there agree that having Vince Cable claim membership of ALTER and fulsome support for its aims in his summating speech was worth more than any show of hands in the conference hall.

Even Arnie Gibbons, who until recently used to move away – or mutter most foul – on hearing any discussion at Conference about Land Tax, was quite nice about us. We are accepted in polite circles – well Liberal ones anyway.

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Also posted in Conference | 2 Comments
Mary Reid

Opinion: Bring back the suppressed blogs

By Mary Reid | Sun 23rd September 2007 - 12:42 pm

I was pretty shocked to learn, via Colin Ross’s blog this morning, that a councillor’s blog has been taken down. In fact, his webhost has been shut down as a result of an international legal action which had nothing at all to do with him.

Bob Piper is a Labour councillor in Sandwell and I have dipped into his feisty blog from time to time. It’s just the kind of campaigning local blog that councillors should be doing; it keeps democracy alive and lively, and I value that even when I disagree with what he writes.

The story revolves around …

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5 Comments
Rob Blackie

Opinion: Calling time on Labour for their nasty campaigning

By Rob Blackie | Sun 23rd September 2007 - 8:47 am

I occasionally get very angry when Labour’s sympathisers in the media talk about Labour’s liberalising of Britain.

Quite apart from the fact that it will soon be illegal to go to the shops without an ID card in your pocket, the Labour party is deeply illiberal in its campaigns. I’m sure many of you will have experienced campaigning at local level that demonises asylum seekers, gays or gypsies. We should be more willing to attack Labour for their disgusting campaigns – and make an issue of the character of the people who run them.

Anyone who has read The Political Brain (a study of the neuroscience of politics – the best political book of this year in my opinion) will remember that smears work because they are semi-conscious. Drew Western, the book’s author, makes the point that if you want to beat a smear (assuming it’s worth mentioning) then you have to take it head on and make an issue of the person doing the smear.

We successfully did this in the Cheadle by election when the Conservatives used some outrageous smears against our candidate, now MP, Mark Hunter. We should do it more.

I challenged a Labour activist friend on this recently, and he said that while this might have happened in the past he was sure it didn’t happen these days. Well here are some examples from the last couple of years:

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49 Comments
Stephen Tall

Opinion: Is political journalism broken?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd September 2007 - 1:51 pm

The Lib Dem conference felt united this year. I’m not talking about our policies – heaven forfend. No, we were united against the media’s reporting of our conference, which was, almost without exception, drearily inane, pathetically irrelevant and lazily inaccurate.

Sitting on the train back from Brighton, I overheard one Hampstead-chic journalist talk about why she chose her profession. It was, she said, because she wanted to change the world, and the media is so much more able than politicians to make people sit up and take notice. Noble sentiments, indeed.

But how far do she and her journalist colleagues live up to this enlightenment standard?

I’m not going to indulge in a rant, tempting though it is, dissecting each and every injustice inflicted on the Lib Dems by the media in the past week.

And I’m aware that the conference can sometimes become a self-deluding bubble, with party members snuggling up together in comfort-blanket group-think. Think IDS’s last Tory conference as leader in 2003, his speech interrupted by an absurd 20 standing ovations. Or think CK’s last Lib Dem conference in 2005, when members returned from Blackpool bemused by claims his leadership was being questioned by our MPs.

However, I’m confident this time was different. Why?

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7 Comments
Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: My conference awards

By Geoffrey Payne | Sat 22nd September 2007 - 12:24 pm

Best Fringe meeting:

The Liberator/ Lib Dem peace group “War on Terror”, with Craig Murray, former ambassador to Uzbekistan. There were some terrific fringe meetings this year, but this one was breathtaking.

Craig Murray was sacked from his position in Uzbekistan because he was determined to speak out against the appalling abuses of human rights in this country.

Uzbekistan is an “ally” in the war “against” terror and an important strategic country for the mining and transportation of important natural resources. It is also a totalitarian state with an appalling human rights record that easily compares with Iraq under Saddam Hussein or North Korea.

Craig spoke of how the government there claims that the opposition is part of Al-Qaeda. The government uses torture to force alleged opponents to admit they know a list of people they have never heard of before, and this “intelligence” is used by western intelligence agencies to “prove” that Al Qaeda is operating in Uzbekistan, and hence we support the government there. The “intelligence” services even know this is the case – because Craig told them – but they prefer the narrative to the truth.

The words “45 minutes” spring to mind.

I would like to write more, but it is best to read his own words in his book.

The meeting was at times very funny, and at other time horrific.

Most Important Fringe meeting:

Reinventing the State book launch – since the publication of the Orange Book, some Lib Dem members have got over-excited and started proclaiming the Lib Dems as a doctrinaire free market party. David Laws himself has claimed that his controversial chapter was misunderstood, and this fringe meeting proved to be an important correction. The anti-state rhetoric of both the Tories and the Lib Dems may sound similar at times, but the Conservative preference for a small state is very different from the Lib Dem preference for a decentralised state.

It was good to see such a wide range of speakers including Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg. And now I sense the party is a left-of-centre party again, as Ming said it would be under his leadership.

This fringe meeting was a book launch so here is the link.

Best speeches:

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Paul Walter

Opinion: Ming should face down blog critics

By Paul Walter | Tue 18th September 2007 - 2:37 pm

Nice as it was to chew the fat with our esteemed leader, with the other LibDem blog of the year shortlisters, in the Margaret Thatcher Near-death Experience Suite on Sunday, it was all a bit too cloistered for my liking.

All right, fair enough. Dear old Ming gave up 30 minutes of his time and was very friendly, charming and, when pressed a bit, animated. As Mark Webster, LibDem communications confirmed, Ming is best when he is under pressure.

So, let’s have him head-to-head with Laurence Boyce, Nich Starling and Linda Jack then. (With acknowledgements to James Graham, who has written …

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Tagged | 9 Comments

Opinion: The Middle East peace process must start in Hebron

By Peter Small | Sun 16th September 2007 - 10:40 am

The financial burden of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is secretly crippling the Israeli economy. But the price exacted by 40 years of occupation goes beyond a monetary debt – no more so than in Hebron.

40 years of West Bank occupation are causing Israel and Palestine to fragment. The Biblical imperative that settlers use to justify claims to the West Bank, the rejection by Israel of the applicability of the Geneva Convention – all this is now exacting a price Israel can no longer afford to pay, financially, socially or morally. As for the Palestinians – they have long been broken financially and politically and have nothing more to give.

And the moral bankruptcy is nowhere starker than in Hebron.

In this small city in the West Bank, some 5000 Israeli militia may not intervene to curb settler violence against the majority Palestinian population because they are there to protect these 500 settlers. Meanwhile Palestinians in Old Hebron may not use their own front doors to enter their streets let alone drive down them. Last month, when the Army gave orders to forcibly evacuate illegal settlements, soldiers refused to obey the orders. Law and order is as rare a commodity in Hebron as water in the Negev Desert.

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2 Comments

Opinion: Women prisoners deserve decent treatment

By Debbie Enever | Sun 16th September 2007 - 8:45 am

At the Lib Dem conference in Brighton this Monday (11.25 am), Women Liberal Democrats will be proposing a motion focusing on Women in Prison. The full text of the motion is reproduced below. Debbie Enever, Vice-Chair of WLD, explains why the issue needs to be addressed:

Sometimes people need to be treated differently to be treated equally. Women make up a tiny percentage (about 5%) of the total prison population and consequently tend to be treated as an add-on to the male system.

While changes are needed across the prison system if we are to reduce reoffending and address overcrowding, women have particular needs which have so far been overlooked.

There are three main differences between male and female prisoners.

1) Men and women are very different types of criminals. Overall, women have very little involvement in violent or organised crime. Our motion recognises that prison is not the right place for women who do not pose a risk to the public and that it will be more effective to prevent women from falling into crime in the first place by supporting women at risk of offending.

2) Women (and their families) are disproportionately affected by their being imprisoned. As there are fewer women prisoners there are consequently fewer women’s prisons. This means that women have to be sent further away from their homes and families and visiting is made more difficult. This is especially traumatic for the two-thirds of women prisoners who have dependant children under the age of 18 – half of whom have under-5s! 95% of these children have to leave their homes in order to be cared for – penalising the child for the mother’s crime. 30% of women loose their accommodation (and sometimes all their possessions) while they are in jail. Our motion would stop children being punished for their mother’s transgressions – making sure that women are only sent to prison for serious offences. When women are detained this would be in smaller local custodial units where they are better able to retain links with their families and particularly their children.

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Also posted in Conference | 3 Comments
Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: Europe – is Ming playing with fire?

By Geoffrey Payne | Sat 15th September 2007 - 10:10 pm

This I am writing just before the Lib Dem conference gets started in Brighton. Events will take their course, and I do not know where the Lib Dems will end up by next Thursday. But I for one am feeling rattled already.

The Liberal Democrats have never been seriously divided over Europe before. Whilst Labour and the Tories tear themselves apart, the Liberal Democrats have been left sitting pretty, even though the electorate have been largely unsympathetic to our policy. Never mind, we reassure ourselves, the electorate don’t care about Europe anyway. To a large extent that is true, but it would obviously be better if they positively supported our policy.

Now all of a sudden, the most pro-European party may well inadvertently find itself supporting policies that lead the country out of the EU. How did it come to this?

The way in which the Lib Dems choose whether to support referenda or not is certainly something that I find confusing. We could have had a radical coalition in Scotland with the SNP, introducing the Local Income Tax, opposing the replacement of Trident and introducing radical Green taxes.

All that was thrown away because the party did not want a referendum on Scottish independence, which we were told would create uncertainty that would damage the Scottish economy. Now we are told that we support a referendum on whether or not to stay in the EU. What effect on the uncertainty of the outcome would that have on the economy?

Quite a bit more I would have thought!

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9 Comments
Jeremy Hargreaves

Opinion: The things to watch out for in Brighton

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Sat 15th September 2007 - 9:04 am

I’m off this morning to Lib Dem Conference in Brighton. It seems to me that this has the opportunity to be one of our most interesting and engaging conferences for a while.

There are some really quite interesting discussions which it’s quite difficult to call which way they will go. It has been a criticism that I and others have made in the past of conference that sometimes too much of it could be predicted in advance and isn’t saying anything too much new. But that certainly can’t be said of this year, which contains plenty of new and strong thinking.

So some of my predicted highlights for the week are below. If you’re not coming to conference you might want to watch out for some of them.

But if you won’t be there, I wouldn’t trust too much to what the mainstream media will tell you about the conference, because I can tell you now what they will be saying.

They will be saying firstly that the Leader’s authority is on the line, pending a possible defeat on the conference floor on something, and secondly that everyone is talking about how the Lib Dems will position themselves in the event of a hung Parliament after the next General Election.

I know this because this is what the media have said people are talking about conference at each of the 13 previous conferences I have been to. This will not be true. These discussions are not on the agenda and will not be seriously discussed. But it is a standard feature of Lib Dem conferences (and for all I know the other parties’ ones too) that those who have spent the week at them come to home to find media coverage describing an entirely different event than the one they have been at.

The media also have their own news priorities which rarely coincide with a full and balanced approach to reporting this event. A journalist unwittingly put it very well to me last year when he said in answer to a question about what story his paper would be running the following day, “Well if Ming loses the vote tomorrow we’ll be writing about that; if he wins it then we’ll be running on what’s happening in Lebanon”.

So if you have find yourself hearing a reporter say that “all the talk in the conference bars tonight is of…” then trust me, it isn’t. I can honestly say that over the years I have devoted my fair share of effort into researching what people are talking about in the bars at conference, and I can tell you quite clearly that whatever it is on any particular night, it jolly well isn’t what the media are reporting it is.

So, what are my particular tips for interesting debates next week:

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Also posted in Conference | 2 Comments
David Howarth

Opinion: Why Lib Dems Need To Reinvent The State

By David Howarth | Thu 13th September 2007 - 11:25 am

The new book Reinventing the State is an attempt to update social liberalism for the present day. The origins of social liberalism lie in the party’s re-creation of itself in the early 20th century as a party not just of political reform but also of social reform, when radical Liberals added a commitment to social justice and democracy to the older Liberal commitments to expanding civil and political rights. The question is what that tradition means now.

Unlike socialists, liberals never allowed the desirability of greater equality to undermine their …

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Also posted in Books | 8 Comments
Don Foster MP

Opinion: How the Lib Dems can help tourism thrive

By Don Foster MP | Wed 12th September 2007 - 5:45 pm

It may be easy to forget when it’s on your doorstep every day, but the UK is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. You only have to think about the stunning views from the Brecon Beacons, the tranquillity of the Norfolk Broads or the thriving cultural scene in Liverpool to understand why that’s the case.

The coming years boast some fantastic opportunities for tourism in the UK. At conference, Liberal Democrats will debate our tourism policy outlining how to make the most of them.

Tourism is one of the UK’s largest industries, employing over two million people. The benefits of tourism are clear. A thriving visitor economy can provide employment, investment, tax revenue and regeneration in a range of communities. For every £1 we spend promoting tourism, we gain £5 in re-investment. But tourism’s benefits are not purely financial. It can also help to preserve our national heritage and encourage cross-cultural understanding.

Tourism once boomed in this country. But despite the UK’s potential, Britain’s share of the global tourism market has fallen by 16% over the last 20 years. Only London is currently immune from falling visitor numbers. The amount of money UK citizens spend abroad far exceeds the amount overseas visitors spend here – known as the tourism deficit. Under Labour, this deficit has quadrupled, currently standing at £18 billion.

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Also posted in Conference | 3 Comments
Ming Campbell MP

Opinion: Leading the fight against climate change

By Ming Campbell MP | Wed 12th September 2007 - 12:45 pm

Climate change has risen to the top of the UK’s political agenda in recent months. The Prime Minister talks about it, the leader of the Conservatives talks about it. But the role of our Party on this issue has always been to lead the way and we will continue to do so. Not only that, we’ll continue to press for Britain to take global leadership on fighting climate change.

At our Conference we will be debating our new policy paper ‘Zero Carbon Britain – Taking a Global Lead’. This paper encapsulates the vision, determination and political will of the …

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Also posted in Conference | 9 Comments
Tony Vickers

Opinion: Lib Dems must support LVT

By Tony Vickers | Wed 12th September 2007 - 7:45 am

I’ve been asked to preview the conclusions and argument for my book Location Matters: Recycling Britain’s Wealth here. If you subscribe to Liberator or Challenge (the Green Lib Dems’ journal) you will get reviews by others of the book before Conference. In the current Challenge you will also see a piece by me about how the Liberal Democrats’ Tax Commission got in such a depressingly non-radical place with Land Value Taxation (LVT) – which is what my book is about.

What I want to do here is explain the conception of the book, its purpose and what I hope happens next. But first, as requested, in a single sentence: conclusions and arguments. If the Liberal Democrats do not go into the next General Election campaign with a pledge to retain some form of nation-wide property tax at the same time as scrapping Council Tax, they will have betrayed their forebears and – more importantly – future generations of British people and will not deserve the support of voters.

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Also posted in Books and Conference | Tagged | 6 Comments
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