Following Labour’s trouble in Redbridge, where a Labour candidate was elected and has then had to resign because they were a council employee and so barred from standing, the same again has happened in Barking.
This time it is Goresbrok ward, where Labour’s victory was particularly notable because it involved ousting BNP councillor and GLA member Richard Barnbrook.
By-elections are due in both councils.
The following list of MPs backing different Deputy Leader candidates only lists those who have declared their support in public so far. If you spot any more, please do post up a comment along with the source of the information and I’ll update this post as news comes in.
Tim Farron (11)
Suddenly the British political chatterati are catching up with a fact that’s been known by Lib Dems for years: David Laws is a deeply impressive politician.
David’s pivotal role in the Lib Dem negotiating team, combined with his unshowy economic and intellectual self-confidence, has quickly marked him out as an early star of the cabinet, earning an excellent profile in today’s Guardian by Allegra Stratton. It’s well worth reading in full, but here’s a fascinating snippet:
Laws is one of Ashdown’s friends from “the winter days, not the summer days”. He joined the party at the same time as Nick Clegg and Jeremy Browne under Ashdown’s leadership, when the Tory party was illiberal and even more Eurosceptic than most. Laws has told Tory colleagues recently that he would have been one of them were it not for their party’s policy on section 28, the controversial law banning the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools. Evan Harris, one of Laws’s former colleagues before he lost his seat at the last election, agrees. He said: “Compared to Vince he is fully socially liberal on equality, abortion and faith schools and on religion and the state. Also he’s very sensible on the discrimination issues and sex education. Whereas someone like Vince is more of a social conservative, he’s not at all. He’s probably much more pro-choice than Vince.”
Some Conservatives (indeed, a handful of Lib Dems) appear still to harbour the misapprehension that he’s actually one of them: but just because he can add up doesn’t make him a Tory. However, there’s no doubt the glances of envy in the Lib Dems’ direction that it’s our party which has provided the biggest economic talents sitting at the cabinet table: ConservativeHome admires his talent for culling pot-plant expenditure, while Iain Martin whispers “the words ‘potential future prime minister’ don’t sound entirely silly.”
You can watch David in action in three videos, below …
First up, is his virtuoso performance in the Commons this week which has grabbed the sketchwriters’ headlines:
Nine new Lib Dem peers have just been announced …
Working Peers List
…
According to the Number 10 website (and if they don’t know, who does), here are the new Liberal Democrat peers:
Working peers list
* Floella Benjamin OBE DL – actor, presenter and campaigner for children’s issues
* Mike German OBE AM – former Deputy First Minister (Wales)
* Meral Hussein Ece OBE – Local Government Councillor in Islington, advocate of equality issues
* Sir Kenneth (Ken) Macdonald QC – former Director of Public Prosecutions
* Kathryn (Kate) Jane Parminter – former Chief Executive of Campaign …
It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:
1. Vince Cable stands down as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats (55) by Helen Duffett.
2. Bright spots of the 2010 election result: growth in number of winnable seats (26) by Mark Pack.
3. Tim Farron runs for deputy leader; Campbell and Munt back him (28) by Mark Pack.
4. The Liberal Democrat special advisers (16) by Mark Pack.
5. NEW POLL: Who do you want to see as the next Lib Dem deputy leader? (47) by Stephen Tall.
Choosing our London Mayor and AMs . . .
Membership numbers
September conference – How long should I go for?
LDV forum design/layout
Rape defendant anonymity
1. Women Liberal Democrats
2. LibDems for free university tuition
3. For a truly liberal asylum & immigration policy
4. Sustainable Futures: Energy, Development and the Environment
5. LD2010
(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)
Liberal Democrats are celebrating after they won all 28 seats in Today’s deferred Kendal Town Council Elections – gaining three seats from Labour, re-gaining one from the Greens and one from an Independent.
Liberal Democrats gained Strickland, Fell and Romney from Labour and won in Underley from the Independents. The Lib Dems also re-gained Far Cross ward from the Green Party.
Tim Farron, Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale said:
Four years ago we didn’t even have a majority on Kendal Town Council, now
…
The Liberal Democrat candidate for Oldham East and Saddleworth in the 2010 General Election has challenged the result.
Elwyn Watkins has submitted a petition for a hearing of an election court, alleging a breach of the Representation of the People Act (1983).
What can we expect from the Government on tax avoidance and evasion?
Cast your mind back to the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto launch in April. A major theme was the plan to raise £4.6 billion by tackling tax avoidance.
This has been reduced to a single bullet point in the coalition’s Programme for Government, a promise to “make every effort to tackle tax avoidance, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals.”
Vince Cable remains committed, telling the Telegraph soon after his appointment as Business Secretary that, “tackling tax avoidance by businesses is essential and this is an area that I …
The following article is written by Martin Shapland who is a Candidate for Chair of Liberal Youth.
In an article on Wednesday, Richard Heinrich and Phil Jarvest – two of my competitors for the Chair of Liberal Youth – sought to open up a policy discussion about our Higher Education funding policy.
For the record I do fully support our current policy to abolish fees. I believe that education is the great driver of social change and individual liberty. I believe that widening access to quality education is fundamentally important, not just at higher education, but at Primary and …
Simon Hughes, MP for Southwark and Old Bermondsey has announced his intention to stand for the position of Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats.
From his campaign flyer:
Labour have made it clear they want to rewrite history, ignoring the reality of their time in office. They claim to be the only home for progressive voters. I will not let them get away with it.
My experience representing an inner city constituency tells a different story: of too many broken promises and too many people
…
Welcome to the ninth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
The equalities section continues a theme common throughout the coalition document: if this section was presented to Liberal Democrat conference as the party’s policy in this area, people would be generally pretty happy with it. It doesn’t include everything the party wants, but that is balanced out by it being a list of policies which the government is actually going to put into practice rather than being just a policy motion wish list. Added …
We made the right choice to go into coalition – although I have to say that it took me a few days to come to terms with it!
Our choice to go in to coalition is in the national interests, I am standing for Deputy Leader because I’m determined that it should also be in the Lib Dems’ interests too.
The role of the Deputy Leader will be quite different now that we are sharing power. There will be a role in Parliament, but it will be all the more important out in the country and in the TV and radio studios. …
As Big Ben chimes seven, it’s time to celebrate the day 151 years ago, that the famous bell was drawn on a carriage pulled by 16 horses from Whitechapel Bell Foundry to the Palace of Westminster.
To show that cuts in Westminster are nothing new, the cost of the bell was reduced by recycling the metal from the previous, faulty bell:
George Mears, then the master bellfounder and owner of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, undertook the casting. According to foundry records, Mears originally quoted a price of £2401 for casting the bell, but this was offset to the sum of £1829 by the metal he was able to reclaim from the first bell so that the actual invoice tendered, on 28th May 1858, was in the sum of £572.
If you’d like to know what Big Ben itself has to say today, you can follow it on Twitter: @big_ben_clock.
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
The result of the Thirsk and Malton delayed election has just been announced:
Anne McIntosh has been elected as the Conservative MP for the new constituency, having previously represented Vale of York.
The votes cast were as follows:
Conservatives: 20,167 (+1%)
Liberal Democrats (Howard Keal) 8,886 (+4.5%)
Labour: 5,169 (-9.9%)
UKIP: 2,502 (3.5%)
Liberal 1,418
From the notional figures, this result shows a 2.6% swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems, and a swing of 11.6% from Labour, with the Liberal Democrats moving from third place to second.
Mike Beckett, Chair of Thirsk and Malton Liberal Democrats said:
This result is an endorsement of the coalition,
…
Welcome to the eight in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
Despite the importance of rural constituencies to the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary ranks, DEFRA (Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs) is one of the few government departments with no Liberal Democrat ministers. That makes the wording of the coalition agreement on policy in this area particularly important.
In content it is very similar to the energy and climate change section; that is, a long list of Liberal Democrat policies, with some amenable Conservative ones added …
So far, the Deputy Leadership election looks to be shaping up as a contest between Tim Farron and Simon Hughes. Tim is the one public candidate so far and there’s plenty of chatter about other possible candidates. In particular, there is an impetus from some quarters for a female candidate to balance out the all-male Cabinet team. However, that is rather muted by both the Party President (Ros Scott) and Chair of the Parliamentary Party (Lorely Burt) posts being held by women and the combination of circumstances, such as being a minister or holding a marginal seat, which rules out …
The prophets of doom had an off day this week with Camden Liberal Democrats winning the delayed Haverstock election. They held all three seats against a Labour challenge and even scored a small swing from Labour compared to the last Camden council elections.
The next election test in London will be south of the river in Lambeth for, as the Evening Standard reports,
A London Labour councillor has been arrested by police on suspected child porn charges. Toren Smith, 42, was arrested at his home and questioned before being released on bail. His computer was seized for further examination. He has resigned
…
The most illiberal policy in the Lib-Con deal is the plan for a cap on immigration. Now, we all know that as part of a coalition we have to put up with policies we dislike, the real problem with this policy is not just that we dislike it but that in the words of the IPPR, it is “unworkable” (see “The Limit to Limits: is a cap on immigration policy a viable policy for the UK?” March 2010). Here’s why:
1) A cap is a clumsy, inflexible mechanism, owing more to Soviet style central planning than to the needs of …
News from the Tim Farron campaign camp:
Following the announcement by Vince Cable that he will be stepping down as Deputy Leader to concentrate on his new role as Secretary of State for Business, Tim Farron MP has been urged by colleagues to stand for the position of Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Commenting Tim said:
“Having served as Vince Cable’s PPS during his eight glorious weeks as acting leader, I am fully aware of what a difficult act he will be to follow and I’m so grateful to Vince for what he has achieved in the role.
“His new …
Welcome to the seventh in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
The ultra-quick summary of this section: a long list of Liberal Democrat policies – and then a bit about nuclear.
The longer version is that however questionable the Conservative Party’s commitment to green issues looked at times before polling day (particularly when Conservative Party conference was expressing its opposition to green taxes), out of the negotiations has come a firm commitment from the Conservatives to back a long, long list of green measures. Many of …
This article is written by Matt Folker, who is a candidate for the chair of Liberal Youth. It is a response to this article which appeared yesterday.
Lib Dem Voice welcomes articles from any candidates in the Liberal Youth elections.
One of the things which believe makes Liberal Youth and the Liberal Democrats so special is that the Chair or leader of the party does not determine the organisations policies, indeed no one member does. The policies of the organisation are and should always be determined by conference, the beating democrat heart of our organisation. Therefore I would welcome any motion …
It’s early days – Vince only announced he was stepping down as the party’s deputy leader last night, in order to focus on his cabinet responsibilities – but who would you, LDV’s readers, like to see take over from Vince?
Of course the electorate for the deputy’s post are the party’s 57 MPs (party members choose our leader and president), and I imagine and hope there will be four criteria uppermost in their minds:
1) Ensuring a ‘balanced ticket’ for the party leadership. Nick and Vince have worked well together precisely because they look, sound and are different. Their combined blend of …
Former Cumbrian Lib Dem councillor and education advisor to the party, Patrick Short, died on Monday in the tragic school bus accident in Keswick which claimed the lives of two teenage children.
The BBC reports:
Tributes were also paid to the car driver killed in the crash – Patrick Short, from Braithwaite. His wife Wendy described him as a “generous, principled man”.
“He loved me and the family and was committed to his work with Barnardo’s. As a parish councillor, chairman of Cumbria Rural Choirs and a former church warden, he was dedicated to the local community,” she said.
Lib Dem leader …
Yesterday I covered the news that Liberal Democrat Lord Lester is going to table a bill to reform libel law. He’s now released details of what approach the bill will take:
- Introduce a statutory defence of responsible publication on a matter of public interest;
- Clarify the defences of justification and fair comment, renamed as ‘truth’ and ‘honest opinion’;
- Respond to the problems of the internet age, including multiple publications and the responsibility of Internet Service Providers and hosters;
- Protect those reporting on proceedings in Parliament and other issues of public concern;
- Require claimants to show substantial harm, and corporate bodies to show financial loss;
- Encourage the speedy settlement of disputes without
…
Good morning, and welcome to Daily View on the day which sees New York’s Chrysler Building celebrate its 80th birthday. Completed in 1930, it was the tallest building in the world for all of 11 months, before being replaced by the Empire State Building. After 9/11, it is once again the second tallest building in New York.
Also celebrating birthdays today are the chef Jamie Oliver (who is currently applying for planning permission to build a restaurant in Nottingham I will probably never be able to afford to eat in); West Wing actor Richard Schiff and the Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron. Some have speculated he might be in the running to replace Vince Cable as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats; he tweeted last night that as Vince Cable’s PPS, he got to hear the “Stalin to Mr Bean” gag in rehearsal. Tim is 40 today.
Coalition government sets out radical welfare reforms
So says the Guardian headline, anyway, but the article is light on detail if heavy on mood music. A lot of people will be watching anxiously for the detail.
Duncan Smith says he is to propose to the Treasury a radical scheme that includes simplification of the complex benefits system designed to make it financially worthwhile for unemployed people to work, including in part-time jobs.
Last night the Liberal Democrats won all three seats in Camden Council’s delayed Haverstock West election, beating Labour and improving their share of the vote by six percent.
This means that the Liberal Democrats are now the official opposition to Labour on Camden Council.
Full results, courtesy of ALDC:
LD Jill Fraser 1462 / Matt Sanders 1326 / Rahel Bokth 1291 (45.3; +1.7)
Lab 1257 / 1202 / 1114 (39.0; +4.6)
Con 259 / 250 / 236 (8.0; -3.1)
Green 246 / 240 / 181 (7.6; -3.2)
Majorities
…
Labour’s plan to replace the existing councils in Exeter, Norwich and Suffolk with new unitary authorities has been cancelled by the coalition government.
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles today announced that the existing local government structures would remain.
The argument for the decision seems to be that the move to unitaries didn’t have the support of the local populations, two didn’t have the support of the independent boundaries commission and they were going to cause a lot of hassle for very little savings.
The real meat on this story looks to be down in note 4 to …
Vince Cable has stood down as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats in order to concentrate on his role as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
The text of Vince Cable’s letter to Nick Clegg is below:
Welcome to the sixth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
Despite the importance of the two areas, these are two of the shortest sections in the agreement, reflecting how there are a small number of dominating issues.
For defence there is the Trident compromise – it will be replaced unless there is a better value for money alternative. What the wording leaves unclear is the extent to which any alternative has to meet Trident like-for-like in terms of destructive power and constant instant availability. Whether …
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
A national care service – questions for Burnham (and us) (Ruth Bright)
Opportunity at the heart of our vision in local government (Callum Robertson)
Vince Cable writes: Drill, baby, drill…or not (Vince Cable)
123 days in power: putting our new strategy for urban Britain into practice (Victor Chamberlain)
Andy Burnham’s speech was good: Here’s how Lib Dems can make the implementation better (Caron Lindsay)
So many questions over Burnham's agenda
The disturbing folklore behind Alan Garner's stories
The Burnhamites will not hurt them for they are tough as leather
The geography of Liberal Democrat potential (LDN#214)
The sun still shines on PM Burnham
The Joy of Six 1584
Vampire Weekend: Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Farage fails the cool, calm leadership test
Adrian Collett 
Jana 
Mary Reid 
Chloe 
theakes 
