Chris Huhne MP

Chris Huhne writes … Geert Wilders is best ignored

By Chris Huhne MP | Sat 17th October 2009 - 10:45 am

Back in February, the Home Office’s decision to ban Dutch MP Geert Wilders provoked controversy – not least here on Lib Dem Voice, after the party’s shadow home secretary Chris Huhne backed the government’s decision. This week an immigration tribunal overturned the government ban, so we invited Chris to set out his views …

The Home Secretary’s decision to block Geert Wilders from entering the country was controversial for all sorts of reasons. For libertarians, it was appalling to deprive anyone of freedom of speech. For many Moslems, it was astonishing that anyone could fail to see the need …

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Posted in Op-eds | 24 Comments
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Mat Bowles

What’s the best blogging platform for new bloggers?

By Mat Bowles | Sat 17th October 2009 - 7:20 am

Young woman, blogging by windowWelcome to part two of our “Introduction to blogging” guide for Liberal Democrat bloggers or would-be bloggers. It’s appearing each Saturday between now and Christmas, with all the posts available via this page. The series will then be revised and collated into an e-book, so please do post up your comments as the series progresses. Today it’s the turn of Mat Bowles, advising on the technical side of getting started with a blog.

So, you’re thinking of starting a blog of your own. You could do what most people seem to do at this stage, and go sign up directly to Google’s Blogger service and just get writing. Personally, I don’t think that’s necessarily the best idea. I’m a Lib Dem, my membership card says on the back:

No one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity

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Posted in Blogging guide | Tagged , , , , , and | 13 Comments
Stephen Tall

Members of the public who believe Lib Dem MPs behaved worst over expenses? ZERO PER CENT

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th October 2009 - 7:10 pm

PoliticsHome (yes, I’m still reading it, despite everything) published an interesting poll today, taking the temperature of public opinion on MPs’ expenses, post-Legg:

… suggests that more than half the population believes the recommendations were ‘not tough enough’, 57% have ‘no sympathy whatsoever’ and 60% are as interested in the story as they ever were. The LIberal Democrat MPs are perceived to have behaved the best.

The survey is split down into categories of voter identification – Lib Dem, Labour, Tory, none – and generally there is little marked difference in the attitudes of party supporters:

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Posted in Polls | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five (ish): 16/10/09

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th October 2009 - 6:45 pm

What could be simpler: five categories, each with five links. And it’s Friday.

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. Opinion: A Cooperative Coalition (111) by Sara Scarlett
2. Lib Dem MPs: what the Legg letters said (10) by Stephen Tall
3. Heath and Burstow table urgent Commons questions about Guardian injunction #Trafigura #CarterRuck (6) by Stephen Tall
4. Tom Watson writes … on the Royal Mail and postcodes (15) by Tom Watson
5. Opinion: Muslims won’t play with the gays! (21) by Andrew Reeves

5 recent Lib Dem tweets

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Posted in Friday Five | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Bedford Mayoral Election … Lib Dems’ Dave Hogdson WINS!

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th October 2009 - 3:28 pm

Result just in …

First preferences:

Lib Dem 9428
Con 9105
Indy 7631
Indy 4316
Lab 3482
Green 1183

After second preferences:

Lib Dem 13352
Conservative 11543
Turnout: 30%

Many congratulations to Dave Hodgson and his team on a fantastic victory!

Update: Nick Clegg has issued his congratulations …

This is a sensational victory for Dave Hodgson and I congratulate him and the Bedford Liberal Democrats for an outstanding campaign. By electing Dave Hodgson as Mayor the people of Bedford have put their trust in the Liberal Democrats to work hard on their behalf.

“The fact that the Tories are losing in their South of England heartland is proof the General Election is not the foregone conclusion they think it is.

“Dave has lived in Bedford for thirty years and has built an outstanding record of action for local people. As Mayor he will work hard to keep Bedford’s roads safe, cut waste and make sure that the people of Bedford get the quality local services they deserve.

“People told me and Vince Cable at our visits to Bedford that they are enthusiastic about our message for real change

“This result shows how misplaced the Conservatives’ complacency about the next election really is. The Liberal Democrats have never taken a single vote for granted. With Labour lagging behind at a disastrous fifth this is yet more evidence that the real choice is now between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.”

You can watch a video of Nick congratulating Dave here:

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged , and | 31 Comments
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Stephen Tall

Bedford mayoral election … Lib Dems’ Dave Hodgson ahead on 1st preferences

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th October 2009 - 2:17 pm

Yesterday saw voting in Bedford for the new elected mayor, with the Lib Dems’ Dave Hodgson the bookies’ favourite. Counting started this morning, and we’ll be reporting the result as soon as we receive it. Alternatively, you can do what we’re doing and follow the Twitter stream …

The good news so far is that Dave was ahead on first preferences, with Labour trailing badly in fifth place, and the Greens losing their deposit. However, as no candidate gained more than 50% of the votes cast, second preferences of the losing candidates are now being counted – so we …

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Five of the seven top seats for graduate population have LibDem MPs

By Mark Pack | Fri 16th October 2009 - 12:20 pm

A new analysis of how many graduates there are living in each Westmister Parliamentary constituency shows that five of the seven seats with the highest proportion of graduates amongst their working age population have Liberal Democrat MPs.

The figures, from the University and College Union, show that overall 29% of the working population have degrees with Susan Kramer’s Richmond Park constituency topping the list at 63.61%.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments

Opinion: Après les conférences

By David Lawson | Fri 16th October 2009 - 10:55 am

I doubt if the conference season has changed the political landscape. The Liberal Democrats were ill-disciplined; Labour was defiant in face of expectations of defeat; and the Conservatives were trying not to be overconfident — with only partial success.

Peter Riddell, The Times, 9 October 2009

It is easier to write from a position of ignorance rather than knowledge. Unlike Riddell this was the first time I have been to a party conference but that may leave the view clearer. The general opinion is that Lib Dems and Tories missed a chance and Labour avoided disaster by ignoring reality.

The Liberal Democrat and Conservative leadership made the same strategic judgment to tackle head-on the problems raised by the blooming budget deficit and both offered at least some practical indications of where the pain might be felt.

Why was the Liberal Democrat conference perceived to be worse? Partly, because the Lib Dems do not have the same practical need to face up to the budget crisis, but was it “ill-discipline”?

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

David Owen: Lib Dems should “campaign for a role in a government of national unity”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 16th October 2009 - 9:55 am

To be a fair, a former Labour minister, ex-SDP leader and Tory voter is probably the natural person to advocate a national unity government – and that’s exactly what David Owen has done today in an article in The Times:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, and his deputy, Vince Cable, need to position themselves as ready to shoulder the burden of responsibility for hard economic choices, and help to provide, with one of the big parties, the principled, practical government that the country so sorely needs. That means talking to voters about participating in a government of national unity.

The

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 16 October 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 16th October 2009 - 7:00 am

2 Big Stories

Wilshire to stand down amid expenses allegations

A Conservative MP accused of paying more than £100,000 of public money into his own company announced last night that he would stand down at the general election.

David Wilshire called the allegations “deeply hurtful and unjustified” and predicted he would be cleared by the Commons standards watchdog.

But in a brief statement, he said he had reluctantly decided it would not be “sensible” to seek re-election as the MP for Spelthorne.

(Independent)

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Do university tuition fees deter the poorest?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 15th October 2009 - 7:20 pm

The issue of tuition fees exploded into the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth, when Nick Clegg appeared to suggest he was rowing-back on the party’s long-established commitment to abolish them.

I’ll state clearly my position: I support tuition fees, and believe they are the only possible way of funding world-class higher education for UK students. As and when extra public money is available, I believe it would be much better invested in early years and adult education programmes if we are serious about combating the real causes of social inequality. I am equally clear that I’m in a small minority in the party, and that bulk of opinion is with our existing policy.

I noticed this article in today’s Independent, Universities finally open their doors to the poor. This shows that, over the past decade – and therefore since the introduction of tuition fees, and then top-up fees – the proportion of young adults reaching university from the poorest backgrounds has increased significantly:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 22 Comments
Stephen Tall

Unemployment: Lib Dems on the bleak national picture

By Stephen Tall | Thu 15th October 2009 - 6:50 pm

Three separate Lib Dem press releases ping into the Voice’s inbox, each of them them telling a depressing story about the human impact of the recession.

First up, Lib Dem shadow work and pensions secretary Steve Webb on the doubling of long-term unemployment in the last year alone:

Ministers try to spin the slower rise in headline figures as progress, but long-term unemployment has doubled in a year and if it is not tackled now it will be a devastating legacy of this recession.

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Posted in Scotland and Wales | Tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

Glasgow North East Lib Dems launch by-election campaign

By The Voice | Thu 15th October 2009 - 6:20 pm

From the BBC:

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have launched their campaign for the Glasgow North East Westminster by-election. Former social worker Eileen Baxendale, 64, will fight the seat which was left vacant by the resignation of former Commons Speaker Michael Martin.

Ms Baxendale said she could give people “something different” and it was “a disgrace” the constituency had been without an MP for 115 days. The by-election has been scheduled to take place on 12 November.

The Lib Dem campaign was launched by Scots leader Tavish Scott, who said his party was the only one with “proposals for real change”.

…

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

More Hansard quotes about #Trafigura

By Alex Foster | Thu 15th October 2009 - 4:55 pm

Yesterday we brought you links to discussion in Parliament about disreputable oil company Trafigura’s legal shenanigans to prevent discussion of their activities on the Côte d’Ivoire.

Today here’s a little more, courtesy of Private Eye’s blog. Ian Hislop, the editor of the magazine, appeared with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger at a select committee hearing discussing the damage injunctions can do to real, investigative journalism. An unedited verbatim transcript can be found here, with the juicy bits starting around Q850, about halfway down the very long page.

In it, Hislop talks candidly about a number of incidences where …

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Alex Foster

Lib Dem Bloggers Unconference – sign up now

By Alex Foster | Thu 15th October 2009 - 3:00 pm

Some weeks ago we asked for your initial views about a “Lib Dem internetty meet up thing.”

Some good ideas emerged from the comments, and I am pleased to announce that after weeks of work for m’colleague Helen Duffett, we are able to set up the first of these meetings.

Some of the details are a little sketchy, but here’s what we know for sure:

Venue: Edinburgh – Scottish Lib Dem HQ, 4 Clifton Terrace EH12 5DR. Map here.

Date: Saturday 21 November 2009

Time: 10am-4pm

Facilities: Wireless network will be available, meeting room and (tbc) a smaller breakout room

Transport: …

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Posted in Events | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

How do you get people to do things?

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th October 2009 - 1:00 pm

Here’s a smattering of experimental research findings, courtesy of the Fostering Sustainable Behaviour site (which also provides sources for the data):

  • When asked if they would financially support a recreational facility for the handicapped, 92% made a donation if they had previously signed a petition in favor of the facility, compared with 53% for those who had not been asked to sign the petition.
  • Residents of Bloomington, Indiana, were called and asked if they would consider, hypothetically, spending three hours working as a volunteer collecting money for the American Cancer Society. When these individuals were called back three days later by

…

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Tagged | 4 Comments
Lucy Parsons

The Independent View: Road to recovery

By Lucy Parsons | Thu 15th October 2009 - 11:45 am

At a Reform event this week, Vince Cable gave his response to our new report on infrastructure. On the key points there is much we agree on. Infrastructure is critical for economic growth, and with a £175 billion government budget deficit, greater private finance is urgently needed to fund infrastructure investments. Government has a role to play in infrastructure, but bureaucratic, interventionist policies will be a barrier to productivity.

The report finds that the UK is in the infrastructure slow lane, ranked 34th in the world on the quality of its infrastructure in a recent competitiveness study. Road to recovery suggests that politicians of all parties have been blinded by the “green heat of technology”, moving towards a more interventionist approach in infrastructure markets.

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , , , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

The Lib Dem Legg letters – the missing 30

By Stephen Tall | Thu 15th October 2009 - 10:30 am

On Tuesday, LDV began compiling a full list of the findings of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiries into MPs’ expenses as they related to the Lib Dems’ 63 MPs. We are adding to this list as information is received by us or published elsewhere.

We understand the party’s whips office has recommended all Lib Dem MPs publish a statement on their website. As of Thursday, we have information on just over one-half of the Parliamentary party, 33 MPs – but this leaves 30 MPs whose Legg letters we don’t know about. Can LDV readers help crowd-source this information on ‘the missing 30’, by letting us know about those who have published statements we’ve missed, or if local papers have published articles?

Naturally MPs or their staff can contact us direct to help us establish an accurate and transparent record: please leave a comment in the thread to update us, or alternatively email us at [email protected].

As of Thursday, here’s the scores on the doors:

Clean bill of health letter received from Sir Thomas Legg:

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Callum Leslie

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #10

By Callum Leslie | Thu 15th October 2009 - 9:55 am

Last month – in Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #8 – Ruaraidh Dobson wrote about the upcoming Freshers’ season, and how it was an exciting time to be in student politics. He wasn’t disappointed.

Liberal Youth Scotland and university societies across the country signed up droves of new party members, and vastly increased our university presence. St Andrews in particular, a society which had been in the doldrums for many years and has only recently been re-started, is now the largest political society at the University.

Aberdeen, who only re-started in January, signed up 60 new members to their society, making them one of the biggest university societies in the country. Glasgow University Lib Dems signed up 57 new party members, more than any other society in the UK in 2008.

These societies were all supported in their efforts by Liberal Youth Scotland, providing materials and manpower to help achieve these phenomenal successes. However, the work does not stop here.

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Posted in Op-eds and Scotland | Tagged , , , , , and | Leave a comment
Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 15 October 2009

By Alex Foster | Thu 15th October 2009 - 8:00 am

Good morning? Is it? Pah. I got the date wrong when I started writing this, and looked up all the exciting facts on Wikipedia. So, here, have some exciting facts about yesterday instead:

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View, on this, the DAY AFTER THE 943rd anniversary of the fateful day when King Harold got something in his eye in the opening foray of what turned out to be the Norman Invasion. 723 years AND ONE DAY later, George Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day whilst revolutionary fervour swept much of the world. Birthday boys today yesterday included Steve Coogan and the late e e cummings.

Anyway, more importantly than all that, it’s Thursday, so it’s polling day in a couple of local by-elections in Barnsley and Basingstoke – and also for that very rare of political occurrences, a by-election for an elected mayor. All the very best to Dave Hodgson for taking Bedford today – and do pop by his website or his town if you think you can help out.

2 Big Stories

MPs’ expenses: Tory David Wilshire pays £100,000 to company he owns with girlfriend

Ah yes – MPs expenses – the story that keeps on giving for the Telegraph.

Mr Wilshire claimed for more than three years for office assistance provided by “Moorlands Research Services”. Parliamentary expenses rules forbid MPs from entering into arrangements which “may give rise to an accusation” of profiting from public funds. But on Wednesday night, Mr Wilshire – the MP for Spelthorne in Surrey – admitted that he and his partner, Ann Palmer, were sole owners of the business.

The Telegraph has established that, between 2005 and 2008, Mr Wilshire paid up to £3,250 a month to the business. Extra invoices were also submitted and the total paid to the firm was £105,500. However, there is no official record of the company’s existence and it has never filed public accounts.

NB, this story is about David Wilshire, the Tory MP for Spelthorne, and not about the Tory MP for Wiltshire (North) who is a cad for a whole different set of reasons.

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Posted in Daily View | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Tory councillors suspended: Tony Arbour and Bertha Joseph

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th October 2009 - 11:51 pm

In Richmond, it’s Conservative councillor and London Assembly member Tory Arbour who has been suspended for disclosing confidential information, whilst in Brent it is Conservative Mayor Bertha Joseph for misusing charitable donations by spending them on clothes for herself. Oops.

Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Millennium Elephant

Millennium’s Credit Crunch Diary… September: Party Games

By Millennium Elephant | Wed 14th October 2009 - 5:30 pm

Well, the recession is nearly over just in time for the economy to become the BATTLEFIELD for the forthcoming General Election. So we’ve had the Party Conference season now, and we’ve seen the three large Westminster Parties draw up their battle-lines.

What is INTERESTING is how each of the three has a very different DIAGNOSIS of the cause of the credit crunch, and that very much decides what their POLICIES are going to be.

So, if I might rather dramatically summarise, what the three economic spokespersons had to say (presented in the order that they said it) was:

Mr …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 7 Comments
The Voice

Nick’s Commons statement on Afghanistan

By The Voice | Wed 14th October 2009 - 3:30 pm

The BBC reports on Gordon Brown’s statement today to the House of Commons on the situation in Afghanistan:

Gordon Brown has announced plans to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan – but only if key conditions are met. The troops will be sent as long as they have the necessary equipment, if other Nato allies boost their troop numbers and more Afghan soldiers are trained. …

There are currently about 9,000 UK troops stationed in Afghanistan. There are also 150 reserve troops in the country which the Ministry of Defence said would be available for further temporary deployments.

Below is the text of Nick Clegg’s statement in response:

We on these benches have argued that we cannot continue to fight this war on half-horsepower with half-measures and half-baked thinking. Time is running out for the mission in Afghanistan and we need a radical change in direction.

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Posted in Parliament | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Nick Clegg: Sir Thomas Legg must re-open MPs’ expenses files

By The Voice | Wed 14th October 2009 - 2:30 pm

Over at the Daily Telegraph, Nick Clegg urges Sir Thomas Legg – heading the Parliamentary inquiry into MPs’ expenses – to go further than he has to date, and “take on the biggest abusers of the expenses regime”. Here’s an excerpt:

’ve instructed Liberal Democrat MPs to cooperate fully with Sir Thomas’ investigations, and abide by any reasonable requests for repayments. But when the Legg process was first announced, I think most people expected the worst offences to come under the toughest scrutiny – MPs who avoided Capital Gains Tax, claimed cash for mortgages that didn’t exist or ‘flipped’ their second home so they could claim for renovations on house after house. Legg’s review, which is still ongoing, will simply not be credible if it doesn’t do all it can to investigate these offences.

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 18 Comments
Mark Pack

The Obama grassroots campaign: glass half empty or glass half full?

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th October 2009 - 12:50 pm

Time for a bit more probing underneath the figures about how big, amazing, awesome and must be copied the Obama 2008 Presidential campaign was. (See in particular my previous post about his fundraising.)

New figures which have seeped out this month from a confidential report by Catalist, one of the big data and technology suppliers to Democrat campaigns, show that 49 million adults were contacted more than 127 million times.

So far, so big.

But let’s put that in a UK money. Pro rata, it is equivalent to around 13,000 people per Westminster constituency being contacted an average of 2.5 times. That’s pretty …

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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Vince’s 5-point spending cuts plan

By Stephen Tall | Wed 14th October 2009 - 11:50 am

In today’s Guardian, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable asnwers five questions that outline the party’s approach to implementing the spending cuts which will be necessary in the next few years while protecting frontline public services. Here are the filletted highlights:

On restoring professional autonomy …

One key step to getting the NHS and education working better is to motivate those who work there. Top-down, command-and-control management has done great damage. Staff have much to contribute but are currently treated as a cost rather than as a resource.

On cutting bureaucracy …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

#Trafigura – the Hansard transcript

By Stephen Tall | Wed 14th October 2009 - 10:15 am

Astute readers may have noticed one or two mentions on the site yesterday concerning Trafigura, its lawyers Carter Ruck, and their attempts to impose a gagging junction on The Guardian preventing the reporting of Parliamentary proceedings.

Not only was the issue promptly picked up by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, but two of the party’s MPs, David Heath and Paul Burstow, were also quick off the mark in pledging to ask questions in the House of Commons – an action which, as Alix Mortimer has remarked, was perhaps decisive in forcing Trafigura to back down.

So here for your delectation is the Hansard transcript of the Commons’ exchanges which took place yestrday afternoon, starting with the Labour MP whose question sparked the whole farrago:

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Posted in Parliament | Tagged , , , , , and | 13 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MPs’ Legg letters: scores on the doors

By Stephen Tall | Wed 14th October 2009 - 9:30 am

Yesterday, LDV began compiling a full list of the findings of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiries into MPs’ expenses as they related to the Lib Dems’ 63 MPs. We will be adding to this ist as information is received by us or published elsewhere: please leave a comment in the thread to update us, or alternatively email us at [email protected].

As of Wednesday, we have information on almost one-half of the Parliamentary party, 29 MPs – here’s the scores on the doors:

Update: by Thursday, we have information on half of all Lib Dem MPs …

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Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged | 7 Comments
Iain Roberts

Daily View 2×2: 14 October 2009

By Iain Roberts | Wed 14th October 2009 - 7:30 am

Everyone had fun yesterday watching the previously low profile Trafigura score a spectacular own goal as relatively obscure claims about dumping toxic waste on the Ivory Coast became common knowledge to millions around the world.

But that’s had enough coverage on LDV, so let’s look at something else.

Two big stories

Nick Clegg won’t be winning too many friends around Westminster as he calls for another look to be taken at MPs who indulged in flipping second homes and claiming for sometimes non-existent mortgages.  If we’re going to retrospectively re-write the rules for gardening and cleaning, Clegg’s argument goes, let’s have …

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Posted in Daily View | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Let’s all say “Thank you” to #Trafigura with a postcard

By Stephen Tall | Tue 13th October 2009 - 6:58 pm

As Helen Duffett already blogged earlier today on Lib Dem Voice, a combination of the Guardian’s legal team and Twitter users worldwide combined today to restore some element of common-sense to the law – allowing the media to report a Parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farrelly asking about the publication of the Minton Report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

LDV trafigura TYIn one sense, Trafigura and its lawyers Carter Ruck behaved shamefully in attempting to gag newspapers from reporting on Parliamentary proceedings. But in another, more profound, sense we should be grateful. As a result of their cack-handed attempts to silence The Guardian, hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people now know about the serious allegations against Trafigura. Quite simply, this would not have been possible without the active role played by Trafigura and Carter Ruck.

It seems entirely appropriate, therefore, to say thank you to Trafigura for its role in exposing the company to far greater reputational risk than could have ever been achieved by one article published in a single newspaper.

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
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