Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past few days…
Chris Huhne’s ex-wife Vicky Pryce pleads not guilty (BBC News)
Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of Chris Huhne, has pleaded not guilty to taking the former energy secretary’s penalty points for a 2003 speeding offence. The Eastleigh Lib Dem MP did not enter a plea because he will try to dismiss the charge against him at a future hearing, Southwark Crown Court heard. The pair, who were married for 26 years, face charges of perverting the course of justice. A date for the trial, due to last up to two weeks, has been set for 2 October.
Clegg addresses Tory MPs’ dinner (BBC News)
Last Tuesday, in dining room C of the House of Commons, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg did something rather unusual. He addressed a private dining club of Tory MPs. … Mr Clegg spoke for about 10 minutes before taking questions, and many of the 20 or so MPs present said they had come away rather impressed. One reported: “It was a reminder of how much we have in common. Nick was very clear that the over-arching mission of the coalition is to fix the deficit and avoid financial crisis.” … One MP said Mr Clegg had been prepared to joke about his support for reforming the House of Lords. “It is wrong to say that I am obsessed with the House of Lords,” he reportedly told the MPs. “I sometimes just wish it would go away.”
Ming warns: Immigration rules could cost UK (ITV News)
British universities could lose out on millions of pounds annually if immigration policies are not changed, senior education figures have warned David Cameron. The letter written to the Prime Minister on behalf of 68 chancellors, governors and university presidents says Britain attracts around one in 10 students who study outside their home country, generating around £8 billion a year in tuition fees, according to The Daily Telegraph. Signatories include former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell, chancellor of St Andrews University, as well as broadcaster Lord Melvyn Bragg, chancellor of the University of Leeds.
Canterbury Lib Dem tries to show thugs caught on film (ThisIsKent.co.uk)
A VIDEO of drunks fighting, shouting, swearing, knocking on doors and urinating through letter boxes was not allowed to be shown to councillors. Liberal Democrat Nick Eden-Green had been planning to show the evidence to members of the Canterbury Area Member Panel last week. But the council’s legal team vetoed it. Instead Mr Eden-Green handed out copies to the press. Afterwards he stormed: “It is scandalous the council wants to stop this from being recorded. It has been on the BBC and is in the public domain.” Liberal Democrat leader Alex Perkins shouted from across the hall: “I am going to put it on YouTube.”
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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8 Comments
“Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of Chris Huhne, has pleaded not guilty to taking the former energy secretary’s penalty points for a 2003 speeding offence.”
According to the report quoted, her plea will be that she is not guilty because she was coerced by her husband.
“Ming protests immigration rules”? Have we crossed the Atlantic? Maybe we need immigration rules for Americanisms.
The only possible British English meaning of the above is “Ming protests that immigration rules”.
Why does it take so long for a case to come to court.? Chris Huhne was a talented Minister and, assuming that the court finds him innocent of the charge, the nation as a whole will nevertheless have been penalised through his absence from front line politics..
Not that I am arguing that celebrities alone should get preferential treatment. Right now there must be hundreds, maybe thousands, of ordinary people up and down the country who are having their lives disrupted while they wait to establish their innocence – and not only the accused but also the family and others at the work place who have to cope with a person under stress
In the military a serviceman is up before the commanding officer within 24 hrs of being charged and back at work the same day. Serious cases and appeals have to go to court martial but even so the delay is nothing like that in civilian life. If the armed services can do it, why are civilians so timewasting in administering justice ?
I would think “Ming protests against immigration rules”. The two that really get me are ” He is appealing the decision” (omitting ‘against’ ), and “This development will impact the UK seriously” (rather than ‘have an impact on’ or similar).
Obviously I cannot comment, because I cannot know, the guilt or otherwise of Vicky Pryce & Chris Huhne but from what one sees on television the idea that a woman of the strength and presence of Ms Pryce can be ‘coerced’ by her husband stretches cedulity.
“Obviously I cannot comment, because I cannot know, the guilt or otherwise of Vicky Pryce & Chris Huhne but from what one sees on television the idea that a woman of the strength and presence of Ms Pryce can be ‘coerced’ by her husband stretches cedulity.”
If her plea is marital coercion, that will be quite an important question for the jury to decide, so it’s probably wisest to steer clear of discussing it here.
Obviously Huhne is charged with perverting the course of justice, not with coercing his wife. For obvious reasons, it wouldn’t be any defence for someone in his position to suggest his wife was too strong a character to be coerced.
Rather than discussing the rather sloppy style in which Ming’s comments re immigration were reported , is it not more important to discuss what he actually said? I am appalled at the number of MPs and other Lib Dems, who talk only about the needs of our universities and other institutions rather than looking at what immigrants might actually need .At its most extreme form we see UKBA putting immigration numbers before the needs of individual asylum seekers resulting in charter flights returning young men to countries like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, both of which are considered unsafe by the UN.(A returned asylum seeker was murdered in Sri Lanka recently and the UK refuses to monitor returned asylum seekers, claiming it cannot interfere in a soverieign country by doing so).Overseas students choose to come to the UK because our universities offer them an excellent education and a British degree is highly regarded (long may this continue).They are not motivated by a desire to prop up an underfunded higher education sector though in fact this is what they are doing.How sad that some politicians see them only as lucrative means of funding rather than as intelligent students bringing cultural diversity to our higher education sector.I agree with Ming -let them come but not simply for the cash they bring.
I am sorry,Janet, not to have reached your standards of seriousness over this. I am afraid I rather take it for granted that such abuses occur. I also feel we have not really made the great impact we were trying to make on the Tories’ overall immigration and asylum policies, or on the humanity with which we treat visitors to our country, often in the most vulnerable of circumstances. One has only to look at the viciousness with which Clegg and the Lib Dems were attacked by much of the media following the first TV debate in 2010, to see what we are up against. We are struggling hard to maintain any moral high ground, I feel, although we must go on trying.