Category Archives: Op-eds

Opinion: Press picture hides same old nasty Tories

By Serena Hennesy | Tue 12th December 2006 - 1:01 pm

We keep reading in the Westminster-centric press about the “resurgent” Tory party but what’s really going on?  Like lots of you I’ve been riveted by the conservativehome website and what appears to be meltdown in the conservative associations out there in the sticks.  OK only four associations have come seriously unstuck, but is this the tip of the iceberg?

I always thought Dave was going to run into trouble with his grassroots.  Think about that solid 30% of the electorate who stuck with the Tories through all the wilderness years.  They really hate Europe.  They truly believe in low taxes, small government and the welfare state as a simple safety net for the indigent.  They think being green means support for foxhunters because they “look after the countryside” (you bet they do, how else are there still going to be foxes to hunt?).

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Tim Gordon

Opinion: State funding of political parties would lead to creeping centralisation

By Tim Gordon | Fri 8th December 2006 - 2:28 pm

MoneyRunning local parties must be one of the least lauded jobs in Britain.

Its hard work. There are (rightly) increasing numbers of checks (especially on the money), some with potential legal implications. Its not as glamorous as being a Councillor, and there is no allowance attached. And if you’re a Tory, there’s a high chance that CCHQ will come down on you if you misbehave and do something terrible like select a popular local candidate.

I was reminded of this when I attended the London New Local Party Officer training. I was impressed by both the calibre of the trainers – in the case of Treasurers the estimable David Allworthy – and the enthusiasm of the various participants (its still early days!).

Ultimately getting good local party Execs is critical to both the ability of a party to campaign -but also to the political health of the UK as a whole. They are the ones who sweat to make things happen, who ensure that the right candidates get selected to (ultimately) run the country and whose day-to-day activity keeps the whole democracy show on the road. And these are often the same community-minded people who might also run a local charity or the village fete.

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Why I’m glad Nick Griffin was acquitted

By Charles Anglin | Sat 11th November 2006 - 11:40 am

Nick Griffin, the Leader of the BNP, was acquitted yesterday of charges of inciting racial hatred. In 2004 Griffin made a speech to BNP activists in which he described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and said that Muslims were turning Britain into a “multi-racial hell hole”.

Griffin is a racist, he espouses an ugly creed based on fear and ignorance, almost every word he says is offensive. But being offensive shouldn’t be enough to land you in jail.

Yesterday, Mizanur Rahman, a young radical Islamist was jailed for his part in the protest earlier this year over the Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Rahman waved banners and chanted into a megaphone shouting “Annihilate those who insult Islam” and “Behead those who insult Islam.”

Although he apologises now, Rahman’s remarks were full of hate, they were grotesque, offensive and shocking. But being shocking shouldn’t be enough to get you convicted.

I’m a black gay man and much of the anti-hatred legislation that Griffin and Rahman were prosecuted under was designed to protect people like me. But freedom is a delicate thing, and I believe that our current raft of hate crime laws in danger of undermining the very freedom they aim to protect.

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“The party certainly owes Charles Kennedy a great debt, and it is £2.4 million.”

By the founding editor | Wed 1st November 2006 - 5:16 pm

In the event that the Electoral Commission, more than a year and a half after Michael Brown’s £2.4m donations were received, DO decide they must be repaid, then it seems likely following Menzies Campbell’s performance on Sunday A.M. this week that the party will appeal the accompanying court order.

The Times reports that the party is making arrangements to create a fund to help fight any such appeal.

One interesting line from the story: “The Lib Dem leader is privately furious with his predecessor for leaving the party with the damaging saga.” Clearly not that privately, as it’s …

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Richard Huzzey

Local Government reform

By Richard Huzzey | Thu 26th October 2006 - 10:04 am

The Government’s new proposals for local government sound like decentralisation. Councils will get the power to create their own by-laws, and public services will get more scrutiny from the public.

But on closer inspection, it’s the sort of decentralisation one would expect from Labour. Without a reform of local government finance, Westminster still plays the tune as it pays the piper. The by-laws are spun as a new way to fine people for anti-social behaviour, as if Labour haven’t realised that enacting more and more laws is not as effective a way to curb crime as better policing of the laws we have.

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Richard Huzzey

‘Troops out’ – but we still have responsibilities

By Richard Huzzey | Fri 13th October 2006 - 10:10 am

Lib Dems Say NoSir Richard Dannatt’s comments about British presence in Iraq are welcome and overdue in public debate.

On the issue itself, Sir Richard is doubtless right that ‘coalition’ (Anglo-American) forces in Iraq are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Seen as a hostile occupying force, our troops are increasingly counter-productive to the stated goal of founding a united, peaceful, liberal democracy.

However, the problem is, who will replace them? The Iraqi civil war is clearly so advanced that peacekeeping forces will be necessary long into the future. Withdrawal of British and American forces is now vital, but we need international support to do so. No matter how much the invasion of Iraq was a grave error, only the most irresponsible detractor would support an action that made its future even worse. The attrocity of invasion is a national sin, and the long-standing opposition of millions of Britons cannot erase our communal responsibility for the future of Iraq; that means that we should be unfaltering in our genuine committment to rebuilding Iraq, but our troops no longer contribute to that goal.

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Can you spare £30, gov? Lib Dems biggest donor was “entirely fraudulent and had never traded”

By the founding editor | Thu 12th October 2006 - 11:28 am

Times OnlineThe Times reports today:

“THE business that gave the largest financial gift to the Liberal Democrats was entirely fraudulent and had never traded, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.”

and:

“The Electoral Commission, which polices political donations, said last night that it will study the judgment in detail. It has the power to ask the courts to force parties to surrender gifts. Under election law, corporate donations may be accepted only from companies “carrying on business” in Britain.”

Rather hilariously, Iain Dale interprets this as “LibDems Stare Bankruptcy in the face.” Two things on that.

1) If we were forced to repay all of the donations, that would require each Lib Dem member to fork out about £30 to get the party out of a hole. I’d open my chequebook now. The major party donors would do the same, I’m sure.

2) Our party is the only one of the big three that ended its last reporting period solvent. Unlike Labour and the Conservatives, we don’t have eye-watering debts beyond our wildest dreams. We can find £2.5m in extreme circumstances.

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A lack of ambition for the BBC?

By Martin Hoscik | Wed 11th October 2006 - 1:46 pm

BBC NewsWhy does it so often feel as if the party has a lack of ambition for the future of the BBC? It seems that the only time we comment on it is when we’re attacking the Government or their proposals. It’s hard to recall when we last put forward imaginative plans to “secure the BBC’s status as the envy of the world”.

Actually I should probably quote that statement in full: “We can only secure the BBC’s status as the envy of the world by introducing a single, independent regulator for all public service broadcasters.” – Don Foster, 15 March 2006

The problem is the statement makes no sense. It starts from an assumption that the BBC already HAS status as “the envy of the world” under the decades old model of internal regulation but goes on to suggest that such status can only be secured and developed by handing regulatory responsibility to an outside body.

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Follow the money – cleaning up MPs interests

By Colin Walklin | Tue 10th October 2006 - 1:27 pm

The growing disconnect between the voters & the politicians they elect is one of the seemingly intractable problems facing political parties today, and  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard some hand-wringing politician crying crocodile tears about the “you’re all in it for yourselves mentality” which prevails amongst the general public.

Of course this is unfair, but public perception is unfair, and MPs are nowadays all seen as sleazy & out for themselves.

This is why we as Lib Dems have to mark out a distinctive difference here between our approach & that of the NuLabCon parties.

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Richard Huzzey

Two climate challenges

By Richard Huzzey | Sat 7th October 2006 - 7:44 pm

The struggle for action against climate change is one Lib Dems have played their part in, with a proud environmentalist tradition that has only got stronger in recent years. In arguing that climate change science is compelling, we are happy to make common cause with people from any other political stripe. To demonstrate the problem, that’s quite proper. There are still climate-change deniers (usually funded by Exxon-Mobil) and dismissing their propaganda is vital.

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Richard Huzzey

Thoughts on The Amazing Mrs Pritchard

By Richard Huzzey | Wed 4th October 2006 - 8:31 am

Last night, I watched the first episode of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard – the BBC’s new comedy drama about a supermarket manager who becomes a non-partisan Prime Minister. I wonder if I’m the only viewer who was disappointed by it?

The basic premise – for those who didn’t see it – was that Mrs. Pritchard, after witnessing Tory and Labour candidates physically fighting outside her store, decides to stand for Parliament. Even though she knows nothing about policy problems, she thought she could do better than the male-dominated political parties, who were all the same. Her idea catches on, and lots of other apolitical women stand for parliament, along with (female) defectors from existing parties. The episode ends with her election and succession to 10 Downing Street, as her ‘Purple Alliance’ sweeps the country.

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A Liberal approach to a free market NHS?

By Grace Goodlad | Tue 3rd October 2006 - 8:53 pm

StethoscopeOliver Letwin has hit the headlines again for his “no limits” approach to privatisation of the NHS.

This isn’t exactly a huge difference from what Labour are currently doing, with “Private Treatment Centres” being given growing volumes of work, PPP putting the NHS in debt to private investor capital, and huge volumes of privatisation of non-frontline services such as finance, logistics, catering, cleaning…

We all know the problems that privatised cleaning services have caused.  There are frequent, and sadly true, horror stories of dirty wards and horrific MRSA and related superbug infection rates – just this week a hospital in Patricia Hewitt’s own constituency has been hit, with tragic results for some of the unlucky patients.

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Compulsory voting: time to think again?

By Gavin Whenman | Tue 12th September 2006 - 7:50 am

Faced with the problem of an historically low turnout, Gavin Whenman asks what we can do about it. Is compulsory voting the answer? And / or an extra bank holiday?

Turnout in the 2005 UK General Election was 61.4% of the electorate, up on the 2001 figure (by 2%) but still historically speaking very low. Such a low turnout undermines the legitimacy of our elected politicians and disconnects them from the concerns of their constituents. If they know that certain demographic groups are more likely to vote, for example the elderly and the middle class, they will listen to that group more than they will listen to the other groups, for example young people and the working class.

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Alex Wilcock

It’s about… money

By Alex Wilcock | Sat 9th September 2006 - 8:29 pm

It’s everything from “monstrously idiotic” and “insultingly tokenistic” to “well-argued and full of practical steps built on clear principle.” Why then, asks former Federal Policy Committee Member Alex Wilcock, is more attention not being paid to the paper produced by the Meeting the Challenge debate?

This September, the Liberal Democrats debate their two most crucial policy papers between the last General Election and the next one. So why is all the debate about a 50p rate of tax? You’d think it was either a holy relic or the last wicked bastion of socialism, depending on which overexcited commentator you read last. Yes, tax is an important battleground, but when our whole political direction is up for grabs, it’s bizarre to focus on one detail in one policy area and to ignore the rest. Besides, while everyone’s arguing about the tax paper being ‘a shift to the right’ – which it isn’t – the other key paper is lurching in a quite different direction.

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