The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Chris Huhne – Cleaning up the house

By The Voice | Tue 27th January 2009 - 3:20 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues that the cash-for-influence scandal is evidence that the House of Lords requires major reform – and a police investigation. You can read it in full here, but here’s an excerpt:

There are no adequate safeguards within the House of Lords to bring the matter to justice, as there is no easy means of suspending or expelling peers. Unlike the Commons, which was cattle-prodded into reform by Tory sleaze in the 1990s, the Lords has never had a crisis. … That is an important reason

…

Continue reading »
Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Advert
Mark Pack

Progressive London: hello over there!

By Mark Pack | Tue 27th January 2009 - 1:46 pm

Oh look, Progressive London’s round-up of blog coverage for Saturday’s conference doesn’t include this. Hmm…

Posted in London | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

‘Expel peers who have broken the law’ – Nick Clegg

By Mark Pack | Tue 27th January 2009 - 12:10 pm

From one of today’s party press releases:

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg will call for peers who are convicted of a criminal offence and face a prison sentence to be expelled from Parliament.

In a speech to Unlock Democracy entitled ‘A Politics of Trust’, Nick Clegg will say:

“The current accusations of wrongdoing that have been made against a number of peers highlight everything that is wrong with our political system. A system that too often operates on the myth that tradition should somehow always be trusted.

“The allegations of accepting payment in return for changing legislation are serious enough. But

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

How to defeat a long-serving government: lessons from Australia

By Mark Pack | Tue 27th January 2009 - 11:30 am

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

Politics doesn’t just happen in the US

Australian politics should be a fertile learning ground for those interested in British politics. Whilst it does not have the West Wing glamorous scale of US politics, it shares the US advantage of a common language – which makes access to political information much easier than for other countries. Moreover, unlike the USA, it has the mundane – but vital – importance of having a political system that in core elements is the same as Britain (two houses of Parliament, leader of the largest party in the lower house gets to be Prime Minister, no elected person more senior than the Prime Minister).

Both Australia and the US have had a long period of right-wing political dominance (Liberals and Republicans respectively), during which time the right seemed to have largely shifted the terms of political debate, come to dominate the vocabulary of issues and seen off an opposition that was often split between those who urged moderation and the centre ground as the sensible response to defeat and those who saw that very moderation as timidity and the cause of repeated defeat.

In both cases, the right finally lost – John McCain in 2008, Australian PM John Howard in 2007. But whilst lessons from the previous Democrat defeats and then Obama’s victory in 2008 have been commonly discussed in the UK, Australian politics does not get much of a look-in, although former Labour Cabinet Minister Alan Milburn was a key advisor during the 2007 Australian election. What are we missing by failing to look more often to Australia?

Continue reading »
Posted in Books and Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Why you should Google your suppliers

By Mark Pack | Tue 27th January 2009 - 9:53 am

An interesting piece in today’s Guardian with the news that Lord Sutherland, who chaired an inquiry into last year’s Sats test shambles in England, has pointed out that basic checking of the competency of a supplier can including Googling their name – but this wasn’t done when the Sats testing contract was awarded:

Giving evidence yesterday, Sutherland said: “I don’t know companies that don’t do that kind of probing, whether it’s by telephone or Googling.

“If you Google, first you get the press cuttings and then you say, ah no, that’s so and so but here’s a serious report that maybe we

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Online politics | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment
Advert
Mark Pack

Do your MEPs turn up to meetings?

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th January 2009 - 9:56 pm

Good news from the Liberal Democrat MEPs with the success this month for Diana Wallis’s campaign to get more information about Euro-MPs’ attendance records published:

welcomed the Parliament’s decision at her instigation to publish on its internet site in collated form information about all Members’ attendance at plenary and committee meetings…:

“Making such public information more accessible is a modest step for the Parliament to take, but it is an important one, particularly ahead of the next elections in June. Citizens need to have the tools to keep their elected representatives to account.”

Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged | 3 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Modern Liberty: my part in the war on hypocrisy

By Alix Mortimer | Mon 26th January 2009 - 4:40 pm

It has been a little over a week now since the government backed down on exempting MPs expenses from the Freedom of Information Act, following a sparkling example of good online campaigning from MySociety and friends.

James Graham, in the first instalment of the Carnival of Modern Liberty (can carnivals have instalments? Or is it a more fluid thing than that? Perhaps “floats”?), had something to celebrate. Week 2 of the Carnival, and he may be a little more pressed for good news, whereas bad news is around for liberals in abundance, as the

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged | 15 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Liberal techie wizards, please form an orderly queue*

By Alix Mortimer | Mon 26th January 2009 - 12:32 pm

“The revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviours.” – Clay Shirky

This has become Lynne Featherstone’s quote du jour since she took on the role of Chair of the party’s new technology board a few weeks ago. I’m really pleased with this as a guiding principle, because I think it will enable the board to keep the right balance between the medium and the message.

And that’s just my opinion – judging from the messages Facebook groups and discussion boards and the emails to Lynne, a huge number of people, both medium-specialists and message-specialists, are …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged | 9 Comments
Peter Black

Peter Black AM writes… Early days

By Peter Black | Mon 26th January 2009 - 11:21 am

As we move into week three of a new Welsh Assembly term, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are pursuing their distinctive agenda with a renewed vigour and confidence under new leadership. Whilst the Welsh Conservative group remain in disarray over media revelations about their expenses and reported attempted coups against their leadership, our new leader Kirsty Williams has taken the opportunity to make her mark.

So far our profile has been high. We have led the way in exposing increased spending by the Welsh Assembly Government on consultants – nearly double on previous years; we have highlighted poor ambulance response …

Continue reading »
Posted in Online politics, Op-eds and Wales | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

In the news…

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th January 2009 - 9:54 am

Chris Huhne is asking the police to investigate claims of “cash for amendments” in the House of Lords. (BBC)

Ken Clarke has barely got his feet under the table back in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet and he’s rubbishing the Osborne/Cameron line on the economy: “Clarke rejects party leader’s warning over loan from IMF.” (The Guardian)

Nick Clegg says the Conservatives will not offer the radical change we need. (BBC)

Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Progressive London: a front to elect Ken Livingstone?

By Mark Pack | Sun 25th January 2009 - 8:54 pm

Yesterday Progressive London held a day-long conference in, appropriately enough, London. The organisation was created by Ken Livingstone following his defeat in the last London Mayor election with the stated aim of building a broad coalition of people who share progressive views and oppose Boris Johnson and his policies. (Alix wrote an excellent post earlier today on the thorny question of quite what progressive means.)

Why did Ken Livingstone found Progressive London?

Ken Livingstone himself has been keen to present the organisation as being neither a Labour front nor a front for a future bid from himself to become Mayor once again, as for example in his interview with The Guardian, timed to coincide with the conference:

The “once and future mayor,” as Livingstone has been known to describe himself, rebuts the suggestion that Progressive London is a five-syllable synonym for the Re-elect Ken campaign and his planned journey back to his natural habitat of City Hall.

Continue reading »
Posted in London | Tagged , , , and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Recession, recession, everywhere?

By Mark Pack | Sun 25th January 2009 - 4:16 pm

David Smith’s column in today’s Sunday Times caught my eye in part because of my recent experiences with suppliers the party uses. He wrote:

Something odd is happening. Recessions are grim but you expect compensations such as quiet roads, empty trains and helpful shop assistants.

This may be a London thing, but to me roads are busier and on train and Tube journeys I get closer to fellow passengers than is comfortable. As for shops, maybe the retail trade is too miserable, though it is common to find that, when you are ready to buy, the item is not in stock.

In …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Yes, but is it progressive?

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 25th January 2009 - 10:10 am

“Progressive” is a word with many suitors.

Labour activists use it wherever possible, apparently as a synonym for “things we like and approve of” (interestingly, they use “liberal” in precisely the same way). Friday’s Progressive London conference, for all that it was supposedly a cross-party effort, may be a case in point. Dr Pack of this parish attended, and could be heard to tweet:

Dawn Butler starts session at supposed cross-party event: “I want to talk about how we get Labour re-elected”. Hmm

And the Tories would love to get in on the act,

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 37 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Lords’ cash for questions probe – which party failed the test?

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 25th January 2009 - 8:41 am

If you’ve got a few hundred thousand smackers and want something done, like a little change in the law or a question asked in the upper house, it seems there’s only one party whose peers can help you out – Labour.

The Times, posing as would-be lobbyists seeking a change in the law for a wealthy client, contacted five Labour peers, three Conservatives, one Liberal Democrat and one Ulster Unionist.

The results reflect badly not only on the House of Lords but also on the Labour party. Of the 10, four were prepared to do business

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Foster brands BBC “disgraceful” for refusal to air charity appeal for Gaza

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th January 2009 - 6:25 pm

The BBC reports on the latest developments in the ongoing row over the Corporation’s decision not to screen an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee for Gaza because it does not want to compromise its commitment to impartiality:

ITV, Channel 4 and Five are to show a charity appeal for Gaza amid a row over the BBC’s decision not to run the film. Ministers urged the BBC to recognise “immense human suffering” and show the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. … Protesters gathered outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday, and chants of “BBC, shame on you” were

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
James Kempton

Opinion: How Islington’s Liberal Democrat Council is responding to the recession

By James Kempton | Sat 24th January 2009 - 1:39 pm

Liberal Democrat councils in London and across the country have been working on ways to help their residents and local businesses through the recession. Vince Cable is leading the debate nationally, and Liberal Democrats in local government are supplying answers to the real problems on the ground.

In Islington, the Liberal Democrats inherited a basket case council from the loony-left. Labour-run Islington was the proverbial case of bad local government, with enormous levels of debt and the highest council tax in the capital. Labour Islington was a tabloid favourite with scandals, sky-high spending, and crazy policies. …

Continue reading »
Posted in Local government, London and Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Stormin’ Norman on the warpath again

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th January 2009 - 10:37 am

That tireless Parliamentary terrier, Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, has been doing what he does best, once again: demanding answers to awkward questions. The man who forced Peter Mandelson to quit the cabinet last time around has now turned his attention to two new bete-noires:

1) Gordon Brown’s refusal to answer questions, which The Guardian’s Politics Blog notes – here’s what Norman said to the House of Commons, courtesy of Hansard:

The issue of openness is crucial for democracy. We touched on it in the previous debate about MPs’ expenses. After all my years in politics, both

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged , , , and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Bus prices go up – Transport for London runs posters saying they’ve gone down

By Mark Pack | Sat 24th January 2009 - 8:55 am

A quiz question for you: back in September last year, Transport for London increased the price of a single bus ticket using an Oyster from 90p to £1. So what would you expect to see on posters on London buses during the last week?

(Pssst: the headline to this post may give you a clue.)

Yup, they are running a series of posters (spotted on more than one bus) saying Oyster single tickets have gone down in price:

Bus prices have gone up, but the posters say they've been cut

…

Continue reading »
Posted in London | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Congratulations to Peter Welch…

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 7:51 pm

… on being selected as Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Southend West, the seat of David Amess (the chicken-runner from Basildon).

Peter is a Lib Dem blogger, formerly with Liberal Review (in many ways the precursor to LDV), and latterly at his own Eastern/European blog.

The Southend Echo reports:

The Liberal Democrats have appointed Peter Welch to contest the Southend West seat. The party believes he will bring wide experience of politics at national and international level to a parliamentary seat they have always had hopes of winning.

Mr Welch said: “I am enormously pleased to be part of

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Selection news | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Another day, another survey showing Vince Cable to be the British Obama*

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 6:37 pm

In fact, this one came yesterday and we at LDV missed it. But frankly it’s becoming almost passé to note that the Lib Dems’ shadow chancellor is more trusted than any other politician to sort out the current financial crisis. Still it’d be a shame not to record the moment, as measured by a ComRes survey of 220 business leaders for the Independent:

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, who predicted that the housing and personal debt bubble would burst, enjoys more trust in the business world than Mr Brown, David Cameron, the Chancellor Alistair Darling and his Tory

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Think before you Facebook

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 6:22 pm

The St Helens Reporter brings us news of an embarrassment for a Lib Dem councillor, following online comments he made via Facebook, remarking that it was a “great shame” that two recently deceased Labour councillors did not represent Lib Dem target wards:

During the January 11 posting, wrote: “It might be three before long – at least one other is rumoured to be seriously ill – great shame their (sic) not our target seats, but at least it will give us the chance to see how strong they are and it will seriously distract them for a few months.”

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Local government and News | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

British politics and the internet: why I disagree with Seth Reznik

By Mark Pack | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 2:48 pm

Blue State Digital (BSD), one of the key firms behind Barack Obama’s campaign, is certainly an impressive outfit which gets the internet. But that makes all the more surprising the piece published today on The Guardian website by Seth Reznik about British politics and uses of the internet.

Let’s take a few quotes:

Ken Livingstone, despite his disappointing loss, was one who learnt those lessons. Working with BSD, his campaign set out a range of ways in which barriers to involvement could be torn down. Instead of hiding activist events behind password-protected firewalls, any Londoner could find information about ways to …

Continue reading »
Posted in London and Online politics | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Is David Cameron a progressive? Discuss…

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 12:51 pm

There’s some coverage today of David Cameron’s speech to the left-of-centre Demos think-tank yesterday, in which he set out how the Tory party under his leadership would follow a progressive agenda. You can read the BBC report here, and the speech in full here.

I’ll pick up two points. The first is made by Mary Wakefield over at the Spectator’s Coffee House blog, in which she praises Tory education policy but warns Mr Cameron against appearing a one-trick pony:

… when education came up during the Q and A (after an hour of generalised and fairly soporific Burkean rhetoric) Cameron’s whole demeanor changed. He had actual, even workable, policies to communicate (courtesy of the excellent Gove) and he was suddenly charismatic, believable — even a little Obama-ish?

But having energised his audience, DC’s lack of anything concrete to say on any other subject became all too woefully apparent: no economic policy but sneering at Brown’s debt; nothing on Health but a fondness for the NHS…and the speed with which he scampered away from a question about foreign policy — progressive or otherwise– was embarrassing.

This strikes me as a real danger for the Tories. Indeed, if I were a this is one of the key considerations which would lead me to urge Gordon Brown to call an election for June 2009. The plain fact is that the Tories are not yet remotely ready for government (just as Mr Blair would have struggled – even more than he did – to present Labour as a government-in-waiting in spring 2006).

And if you look at the quality of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet members in key policy areas – folk like Chris Huhne, David Laws, Norman Lamb, Steve Webb – and compare it with their Tory counterparts, I know whose line-up I have more confidence in.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

How should you moderate blog comments?

By Mark Pack | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 12:10 pm

When I talk to elected politicians, trying to persuade them of the virtues of becoming a blogger, the two most common concerns are, “how much time will it take?” and “why do I want to do something that will attract lots of eccentric or rude comments?”

The first is absolutely a sensible question to think about – blogging well takes time and you should know what you’re getting yourself in to. The fears behind the second though are often exaggerated or misplaced. In part I think this is because some of the most high profile political blogs have a very relaxed attitude to allowing through all sorts of comments, but not every blog has to be like that.

Coming up with a sensible moderation policy for comments is a wise move: if you don’t yet have a blog, it can help reassure you that comments can play a useful role without the drawbacks you fear, and if you do have a blog, deciding what rules to follow will help make your moderation sensible and consistent – always a good idea, especially if you are making swift spur of the moment decisions late at night! (Getting it wrong can also result in a new blog getting off to a shaky start, as the fuss over Derek Draper’s moderation policies on LabourList demonstrates.)

So what should your moderation policy cover?

Continue reading »
Posted in Online politics | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Gareth Aubrey

Y Barcud Oren #3

By Gareth Aubrey | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 10:40 am

A new year naturally focuses minds on new things and Wales has been no different in this respect. But the contrast between the official story and the reality in January has been stark…

The Bandwagon Departs

That official story began in the unusual surroundings of the Seaside Social and Labour Club in Port Talbot, which hosted the first public consultation event of the All-Wales Convention. This was a moment of such earth-shattering importance that the BBC even wheeled out Wyre Davies to cover it on the Six O’Clock News (in probably the first national news story about Welsh devolution since …

Continue reading »
Posted in Wales | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

UK officially in recession

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd January 2009 - 9:47 am

We can stop using caveat-heavy phrases such as ‘the looming recession’ – it’s now officially here, as the BBC reports:

The UK is officially in recession for the first time since the early 1990s, government figures have confirmed.

Gross domestic product fell by 1.5% in 2008’s final quarter, following on from a 0.6% contraction in the previous three months.

That means that the widely accepted definition of a recession – two consecutive quarters of falling economic growth – has been met.

It also represents the biggest quarter-on-quarter decline since 1980.

Still, look on the bright side … it’s Friday.

Posted in News | Tagged | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time (22/1/09): open thread

By Stephen Tall | Thu 22nd January 2009 - 10:29 pm

David Laws, Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for children, schools and families – and the brains behind the Orange Book – is the party’s representative on tonight’s Question Time (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm GMT).

David will be appearing alongside Labour’s Minister for Europe Caroline Flint (and let’s see if we can avoid mentioning Caroline’s phwoar-factor in this thread, eh?), shadow defence secretary Liam Fox (whose sexist, racist jokes keep ’em rolling about on the Tory benches), former British ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer (whose diaries revealed the extent of Blair’s Iraq hypocrisy), and Daily Telegraph …

Continue reading »
Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged , and | 15 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #100

By Stephen Tall | Thu 22nd January 2009 - 9:13 pm

Welcome to the 100th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere – yes, the Golden Dozen has reached its ton! Which means it’s almost two years since I suggested the feature to LDV founder Rob Fenwick at Westminster Liberal Drinks in February 2007. The concept hasn’t strayed much from the original brief outlined in the very first Golden Dozen:

The idea is simple enough. Each week, we’ll list the top postings which have appeared on the Lib Dem Blogs Aggregator during the previous seven days. And then I’ll hand-pick another five you might have otherwise missed to showcase the diversity of talent within the Lib Dem blogosphere.

In fact all that’s changed has been the erosion of the benign dictatorship I originally exerted over the ‘hand-picked five’ – now it’s you who nominates them, mostly via LibDig, another of Ryan Cullen‘s genius creations which allows us to share our favourite website links with other Liberal Democrat members.

Anyway, enough already with the nostalgia, and let’s get down to our belated business: revealing the most popular Lib Dem blog posts published between 11-17th January 2009, according to Aggregator click-throughs, together with your hand-picked quintet of posts that might otherwise have been missed.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down.

Continue reading »
Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Donation news round-up: Hain, Straw and UKIP

By Mark Pack | Thu 22nd January 2009 - 6:56 pm

Peter Hain has been found guilty of “serious and substantial” failures for failing to register donations to his Labour Deputy Leadership campaign. More here.

Jack Straw has been found guilty of a “clear, albeit inadvertent, breach” of the rules for failing to register a donation. More here.

And the Electoral Commission has won the right to appeal over a decision that UKIP only had to forfeit a small portion of the illegal donations it had received. More here.

Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Conservative members asked to stump up £2,000 each

By Mark Pack | Thu 22nd January 2009 - 4:27 pm

Conservative members in Bury St Edmunds are being asked to pay £2,000 each to bailout the local Conservative association, which has plunged £130,000 in to debt.

The local paper reports:

Tory insiders claim the debts – which they describe as “a mess” – arose because of the Conservative’s resource centre in Woolpit, which has not been used as much as originally planned, leaving the association out of pocket as a result.

It has now emerged the association will try and get past executive council members to stump up £2,000 each to bail it out, a move one Tory warned could lead to an

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | 2 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • cim
    The easiest way to demonstrate stability around joining the EU would be to get through the ~ten/twenty year accession process without any UK government pulling ...
  • Nigel Ashton
    I first met Simon circa 1978 when we were both on the Home Counties Regional Executive, he as the ULS rep and me as his YL counterpart. We share many of the sam...
  • Andrew Tampion
    " A clever wheeze might also be for the EU to demand we store half our gold reserves in Brussels, to be repatriated in 20 years time provided the UK has not by ...
  • Anthony Harris
    @David Allen do we have any gold reserves left? I thought that Gordon Brown sold them all at the bottom of the market? :-) He sold so many that he caused a s...
  • David Allen
    Alex Macfie: In principle, of course you are right. However, the EU will be unlikely to give us the time of day unless we find a way to make a Yes vote effecti...