Fifty-six Lib Dem PPCs have put their name to an open letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin:
Dear Mr Speaker,
As Parliament continues to be dragged down by the allowance system, and its rules, the role of those in public service across the country is being undermined.
We are Liberal Democrat candidates seeking to be elected to Parliament and yet we find ourselves disappointed, and frustrated, at the way in which this matter is being handled. Every day our residents are telling us loudly that this must stop and this must stop now.
I don’t mean, “Why did he think the public should pay for them?” but “Why did he need 16 bed sheets?” I mean, what would you do with 16 bed sheets?
That’s enough to change your sheets every day for a fortnight, without doing any washing, and still have a couple spare. Even if the country voted in a referendum to give MPs as many sheets as they like, 16 would still seem a bit excessive. So what …
As Lib Dem president Ros Scott has alluded, this is indeed a sad week for British politics. Yet again sleaze has smeared the political canvas, but this time the stuff is flying about at such speed that even we Liberal Democrats seem to be in the thick of it. However, it seems the electorate agrees that, while we are in it, we’re not quite as bad.
But should we rejoice in the likelihood of coming second in next week’s opinion polls? I rather suspect not given that it will come at the expense of the rise in the BNP …
I have come to the conclusion I am a Liberal Democrat, but have not yet pulled my finger out and joined the party. I am a student studying politics and have recently begun to question my political alliances.
Back in September, at the beginning of my degree, I joined the Labour party – mainly due to its cheap member’s fee. I no longer have any faith in the Labour party or Gordon Brown, whilst I would never consider voting Tory. Naturally my only remaining option was Lib Dem. Of course I could have aligned myself with a minority party, the Greens …
The Scottish media has been widely reporting the growing controversy in the Church of Scotland over the campaign by a vocal minority on the Church’s evangelical wing against the appointment of an openly gay Minister. This article in today’s Scotland on Sunday gives a flavour of what is going on. The matter will be discussed by the Kirk’s ruling body, the General Assembly, next Saturday.
The Scottish Blogosphere has also weighed in with some exceptionally high quality debate on this including Stephen’s thoughtful and personal posting from last week’s Golden Dozen.
This is of particular interest to Liberal Democrat Voice …
The Eurovision Song Contest was last night but, Eurovoting and Eurovisual fans, you can still get your entertainment fix. (You’ll have to bring your own music though):
The European Parliament is treading bravely into the world of social networking in order to get the kids involved in the exciting world of European politics.
Bureaucrats have created profiles on popular social sites including Facebook, MySpace and photo sharing site Flickr. There will also be ad-word campaigns and banner ads on MySpace.
Elections run from 4 to 7 June, and the primary purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of those dates as well as improving young people’s understanding of the European Parliament and the work of MEPs.
The YouTube channel includes a short series of videos called “At the polling station” – these major on the speed and ease of voting, rather than the purpose or politics of the European Parliament. Short and almost non-verbal, they seem to be aiming for viral appeal. The “screaming” one is a bit much, though.
On the other hand, anything featuring both pedals and polling stations gets my vote:
Over at The Observer, Nick Clegg argues, after a tumultuous week in politics, that the public must be given more power than the politicians. Here’s an excerpt:
We are in the eye of the perfect storm: an economic crisis followed by a total collapse of public faith in politicians. One way or another, MPs’ self-serving expenses will now, thankfully, be changed for good. But this must be a moment for fundamental change, not just tinkering to eliminate the worst excesses of the past. The uncomfortable truth is that these revelations are merely the tip of an iceberg – our whole political
Lib Dem leader has become the first party leader publicly to call on House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin to quit. The BBC has the story:
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has called on Commons Speaker Michael Martin to stand down, saying he has become an obstacle to much-needed reform of Parliament. Mr Clegg said the speaker should do the “decent thing” and step aside, saying he was not the “right man” for the job. He criticised the speaker for “dragging his feet” over the issue of MPs’ expenses, causing such public anger. …
Welcome to the first Sunday outing for The Voice’s new daily post series highlighting two big stories from the media and two “must read” blog posts from Liberal Democrats. As it’s a Sunday, there’s also a bonus extra supplement. If you spot anything for future posts, do let us know on [email protected]
2 Big Stories
Indian elections
The big election story of the week is India: massive democracy, increasingly influential in the world and located right next to some of the world’s trouble spots which most make their impact felt here in the UK.
The election results, which have been coming through on Saturday, are looking good for the Congress Party. Indian politics are sufficiently complex and different from the UK’s that for Liberal Democrats it isn’t a simple matter of cheering on one party in particular, but overall it looks like religious extremists are faring poorly. The BBC has an extensive write-up of news as it came in, including the person with a majority of over 350,000, the political analyst who commented that expert predictions turned out to be less accurate than astrologers, the Twittering candidate and links through to lots more detail.
Parliament and Labour in race to the bottom
It’s a tough call at the moment as to who is taking the worst battering: Parliament’s reputation or the Labour Party, who are plumbing new polling depths and now bumping along in the low 20s. There are stories aplenty in the Sunday papers, but the one I’d pick out is The Observer’s round-up as it contains perhaps the oddest comment from a Minister:
“This has been Gordon being too scrupulous: it’s not that he doesn’t get it, but he has felt you have to take parliament with you,”
Silly me, I thought he’d tried to bounce Parliament with his expenses reform proposals and had to pull key parts after it turned out hardly anyone supported them.
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
Is our electoral system partly to blame? Mark Reckons asks the question and does some analysis, concluding that the safer an MP’s seat, the more likely they are to have abused the system – and of course our electoral system means that many MPs have safe seats.
Our political system is still getting some things right
Meanwhile, Caron’s Musings rightly highlights that there is more to our political system than MPs’ expenses and lists some of the good things that MPs have done in the last week.
Sunday Bonus
For a bit of Sunday enjoyment, here’s a great spoof advert from last year’s American elections:
Welcome to the second in our series of LDV Friday memes coming to you today, erm, Saturday. Ahem. Anyway, here goes…
First political memory
I can recall waving an old-fashioned white dishmop from the window of my grandparents’ house, and calling out, “Look, it’s Michael Foot!” I’d have been about four. After that, the next memory is the miners’ strike, and my parents impressing on me the importance of turning out the lights “so that Arthur Scargill doesn’t win”.
First time you voted
Local elections, May 1995 – Church Ward, Sefton Borough Council, Liverpool. (I voted Labour.)
First party election broadcast you remember watching
This one:
If there’s an advantage that comes from not being either a current MP, nor an aspirant MP, it is at least that I can ask a question like this without being lynched by the baying mob.
And I’m not going to delve in here to the issue of ‘cheque-book journalism’ – everyone will have their own views about when it’s justified and when not. My personal view is that, though the issue of MPs’ expenses is very clearly in the public interest, for the Telegraph to have paid a source some £100,000 for seemingly stolen information which includes personal and …
The House of Commons used to be filled with men of renown. Sir Christopher Wren was an MP. So was Sir Isaac Newton – and John Stuart Mill.
It’s an easy jibe to make – ‘MPs aren’t as good as they used to be’ – but his examples seem to me to be rather badly chosen. John Stuart Mill, I’ll grant you, was a man of renown and an admirable, hard-working MP who used Parliament to promote the causes he believed in.
Cleaning, food, interest, mortgage, payments, repairs… those are the sorts of things that this debate has been about so far: the more often a word appears
Okay, so it’s not the most controversial headline you’re going to read on a Lib Dem blog all week. But, still, I think it needs saying – because though we Lib Dems, especially in the blogosphere, tend to be quite good at criticising our leadership, MPs and other ‘powers that be’, I’m not sure we always spread the love when it’s deserved.
I kept my powder dry during the leadership campaign, didn’t declare my voting intention, have never publicly disclosed it since. I felt both candidates – Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne – had very real strengths. I also thought each …
Required reading for your Saturday morning if you want to understand exactly how we’ve got to where we are, from investigative journalist Heather Brooke in the Guardian:
I did one request for travel information (refused), then for the names and salaries of MPs’ staff (this was blocked personally by Speaker Michael Martin) and then finally one for information on second homes. Initially I asked for the details for all MPs, but this was refused, so then I narrowed it down to 10 – the leaders of the parties and a few ministers.
Blimey, you catch up on your Wire Season 4 viewing and all hell breaks loose. It is with heavy heart and limp jaw that bring you Richard Younger-Ross:
His expenses files show he claims on his Additional Costs Allowance for his £1,556 monthly rent but has also put in receipts for a series of high-cost furnishings.
In May 2004 he put in an invoice for a £1,475 chest of drawers and a £725 free-standing mirror bought at John Lewis. They were made from solid cherrywood by the leading French furniture maker Brigitte Forestier.
Today’s election broadcast from the Conservatives simply features David Cameron talking to camera about MPs and their expense claims. The message is meant to be about him facing up to the problems and talking frankly about them.
But listen to his language:
I want to start by saying sorry … sorry for the actions of some Conservative MPs…
principle of thrift should apply to Conservative MPs too. So from now on I want them to claim what is reasonable to do their job…
Members of my Shadow Cabinet, including Michael Gove, Oliver Letwin and Andrew Lansley, have agreed to pay back money…
The current leaflets feature a section titled “Why we’re all voting BNP” with photos accompanied by a bit of text, presumably this is to encourage people to think BNP voters are just like you. Unfortunately for the BNP none of these voters are real and you can prove it by using web-based reverse image searches.
Rather unfortunately for the *British* National Party, it looks not only as if none of the people are real supporters, but several of the photos are most likely of people who are not British. Ooops.
Here’s the story from the Not The Barnet Times blog:
Yesterday, Not The Barnet Times broke the story that Mike Freer was wasting £10,000 of taxpayers money providing legal services for a councillor being investigated by the Standards Committee. The real scandal of this story was that the council’s insurers were willing to provide a lawyer at no cost to the taxpayer, but the councillor in question wanted one of the biggest London firms to act for him instead.
Our friends at The Barnet Times followed this up with an article of their own in which
The Liberal Democrat President, Ros Scott, has emailed out the following message to party members:
It has not been a good few weeks to be a be a politician. Liberal Democrat parliamentarians have made mistakes and errors of judgement. I would like to apologise to you – the members of our party that tirelessly contribute so much to our cause – for those mistakes. At the meeting of the Federal Executive on Monday we will discuss the issues of expenses and the party’s reaction to it. I can guarantee it will be a full and frank exchange of views.
Suspicions that the Liberal Democrats are to lead a move to oust the Speaker grew today after a top party figure hinted that a critical Commons motion could be lodged.
Vince Cable, the party’s deputy leader, disclosed that there would be a party statement about Michael Martin next week after Chris Huhne, the Home Affairs spokesman, made an outright call for the Speaker to go.
Mr Cable said that he and the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg were expecting to make a statement on the issue of the Speaker on behalf of the party within the next few
As if my shopping list for Nick Clegg’s priorities wasn’t already long enough, I also think this whole expenses furore is the absolutely perfect hook for the root and branch electoral reform the Liberal Democrats have been advocating since the dawn of recorded time.
It’s maybe not one for immediate execution, while public anger abates and basic reparations and undertakings are being made (see my previous post).
But the kind of systemic corruption that has been exposed over the past week is clearly linked to our topsey-turvey electoral and constitutional system. Cicero explains in
Let’s start by giving praise where it is due – Nick Clegg may not have done the truly brave thing and published everyone’s expenses before the Telegraph could, but he did haveone real, concrete response ready for the expenses scandal and it was this: Liberal Democrat MPs will pass all gains from their second homes back to the taxpayer on sale. Talking of concrete, I was impressed by the “ton of bricks” imagery, which clearly went down well with the Metro.
The Liberal Democrats at Westminster are engaged in two main tasks. In both Houses, the details of individuals’ claims are being gone through to ensure that they comply with existing Parliamentary rules. Nobody is going to be hung out to dry on the say so of a newspaper. The second task is to reform the existing system, something
Our daily review and preview of the day’s big stories…
2 Big Stories
MPs’ expenses dominate the headlines … again
Another day, another bleak day for Parliamentary politics. Former Agriculture minister Elliot Morley was suspended from the Labour party for claiming £16,000 in expenses on a mortgage he had paid off. Meanwhile, Andrew MacKay, a senior aide to Tory leader David Cameron, resigned after claiming tens of thousands of pounds in second-home expenses on a London property that his wife, Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, designated as her main home. And as if that wasn’t enough, the House of Lords took the exceptional step …
When things go wrong or bad news breaks, it can be tempting to hunker down and say nothing. If you’re a blogger, particularly one who allows comments, the idea of having to write something for your blog can be very off-putting. The thought of ignoring the keyboard and just wishing that time would move on more quickly can be very alluring.
But is that the right response? It is a situation on which I have advised various people over the years, and nearly always the best advice is actually, “keep blogging”.
Forever delayed but back at last in the wake of the most important Wednesday of the Welsh political year (and I’m not referring to Lembit’s council tax summons…)
Here’s Your Starter For Spring, All Conferring
The Assembly has of course been off on recess, which gave everyone time to get through the rest of spring conference season. Having survived Tory attempts to Welshify themselves at a cricket ground and Plaid’s efforts to cast off the cottage burning we were first to the plate in the second half.
But one thing that sticks uppermost in my mind is that I spent a goodly chunk of Saturday night in the bar talking to the executive member for education – in Blaenau Gwent. So don’t tell me we haven’t grown and don’t matter outside Mid Wales and the cities…
And then it was Labour’s turn, closing things off in Swansea with not so much a conference as a leaving do in the staff canteen. With Rhodri heading towards voluntary retirement and Labour generally hurtling towards involuntary booting out on their arses, they had little option but to mutter, mutter against the dying of the light. Paul Murphy did his best “You’re Welsh, You’ll Vote Labour” routine, but the BBC’s sermon metaphor rather hit the nail on the head of that one.
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Get Out Of The Cock-Up
News just in from Burnley where the local Liberal Democrats have put out this press release:
COUNCIL DRAMA: BNP, TORIES AND LABOUR IN UNHOLY ALLIANCE
Councillors from the BNP, Tories and Labour parties tonight joined together to try to unseat Coun Gordon Birtwistle as leader of Burnley Council – but failed after one opposition councillor abstained.
There was tension in the chamber as the votes were counted, with the four BNP, six Tory and eleven of the twelve Labour councillors voting against Coun Birtwistle. But for the abstention of a single senior Labour councillor, the vote could have seen the Council without a …
PM "I firmly believe that silence on Brexit is what lost Labour the May 2024 elections."
Presumably you mean the May 2026 elections?
Only a Lib D...
Richard Church I joined ULS 50 years ago this month, at Reading University, but didn't join the Liberal Party until a year or so later. The things that attracted me? Industria...
Tim Rogers Interesting polling by YouGov last week had a massive 91pc of LibDem voters drawn to a closer relationship with the EU short of full membership or CU or SM. It ...
BigTallTim Congrats Simon. I can only claim 45 years activism, having joined the SDP at its launch. Including the pleasure of being a Councillor for 26 years - 1986-96 and...
Geoff Reid Interesting to hear of Simon being Treasurer of the Union of Liberal Students. I was the North Regional Treasurer of ULS in 1967. After my appointment the bank ...
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