There’s an interesting and pretty perceptive editorial in today’s Guardian taking a thoughtful look at the Lib Dems’ Make it Happen policy proposal paper, launched by Nick Clegg last week. (And, whether it was deliberate or not, let me take a moment to congratulate The Guardian on not rushing to judgment, but taking a reflective, carefully considered, and rounded look at the document).
And broadly it gives Make it Happen a thumbs-up, albeit in a back-handed way for those who came into the party through the SDP:
Liberal Democrats do not think of their party, as the media does, in
Latest news I hear is that following his resignation as Conservative candidate for Watford, Ian Oakley has now also resigned from the Conservative group on Hillingdon Council and will sit as an independent. All this follows the news at the weekend that he had been arrested by the police as part of investigations in to a long-running hate campaign at Liberal Democrat members in Watford.
(As before, if you comment on this please remember that he has been arrested, which is not the same as being convicted.)
An interesting article in yesterday’s Times, with former national Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell wading into the current Scottish leadership debate, and in particular the controversy over whether Lib Dems should support a referendum on Scottish independence:
Sir Menzies Campbell has warned the next leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats to oppose an independence referendum, even if the party conference votes in favour. …
Two of the three candidates in the race to replace Nicol Stephen as leader of the Scottish Lib Dems have already said they are open-minded about a ballot on breaking up Britain. Mike Rumbles has proposed
That’s the overwhelming verdict of almost two-thirds of Lib Dem Voice readers, according to our recent poll asking, “Do you think Gordon Brown will get to enjoy a second anniversary as Prime Minister?” However, a fairly significant minority – 21% – dissented, taking the view that the Labour party will choose to ditch their leader within the next 12 months.
Here are the results in full…
We asked:
“Do you think Gordon Brown will get to enjoy a second anniversary as Prime Minister?”
You said:
No – the Labour party will dump him as an electoral liability: 119 (21%)
No – he will …
Liberal Democrats in Watford have been on the receiving end of a harassment campaign since 2005 (indeed, it’s over a year since I blogged about a £5,000 reward being offered by the police).
Yesterday events took a dramatic turn as the Watford Observer reports:
Ian Oakley, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Watford , has been arrested in connection with a hate campaign directed at the town’s local Liberal Democrat group…
A police statement, released today (Saturday) said: “We can confirm a 31-year-old man from West Drayton was arrested on Friday, yesterday, in connection with a series of criminal damage and harassment
A story LDV didn’t get round to covering this week was the Mail on Sunday’s suggestion that Margaret Thatcher is to be honoured when she dies with a state funeral, the first British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to be afforded such an honour. This prompted a flurry of commentary from friends and foes taking fairly predictable positions.
* “all that pomp and ceremony in her honour, plus a day off for school kids, will be very, very wrong.” (The Mirror)
* “Thatcher did succeed … like Churchill, the country owes her a 19-gun salute.” (Harry Phibbs …
Labour is to delay repaying its “cash for honours” loans for up to a decade as it attempts to plug a £16m black hole in its finances…
Accounts due to be published at the end of this month will show the party still has a net deficit of £16m and will need to slash spending this year – despite an existing programme of cuts meant to ensure Labour was living within its means.
The party has axed next year’s spring conference to save £250,000 and plans to cut retainers to firms such as the advertising giant
Well, if the press and media reaction is anything to go by, the launch of the Lib Dems’ Make it Happen policy paper has succeeded way beyond the party’s expectations. No need for LDV to round them all up, as Centre Forum’s Freethink blog rounds up the newspapers’ responses, while Julian H’s Orange By Name has the blogosphere’s first reactions.
Why such a media splash? (And I admit the term splash is relative; but the tendency of political reporters to ignore a party which attracts almost one-quarter of the national vote means we Lib Dems get a little …
Earlier this week the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, published her report into the near-collapse of Equitable and the resulting financial losses incurred by many of Equitable’s customers. Her conclusion is that the regulators made repeated mistakes over the years:
I have alerted Parliament to the injustice which I have found in this case resulted from serial maladministration on the part of the former Department of Trade and Industry, the Government Actuary’s Department and the Financial Services Authority.
As a result, people lost money unfairly and she therefore has called for them to be compensated. The Government isn’t obliged to implement this, …
A sign that politics is now all about the economy is that a story with words ‘fiscal rules re-writing’ can lead the morning news bulletins. This from the BBC:
The government is considering re-writing its own rules on how much it can borrow in order to counter the effects of the economic slowdown.
The new framework, which could be announced in the Autumn pre-Budget statement, would permit more borrowing as an alternative to increasing taxes. … the Treasury stressed no decision had yet been taken.
The Lib Dems’ shadow chancellor Vince Cable has once again called on the Government to place …
Coruscating criticism from the Information Commission of the idea of putting together a huge new database of all our emails, mobile calls and internet use hasn’t put Labour off the idea.
Instead government minister Lord West has told Parliament that, “it is very early days as to where we go on this.” In other words – we are still thinking about going ahead with this.
And therefore – we need to keep up the pressure on this issue. It’s very easy to write to your MP, and here again are our top four arguments you can use:
The sun shines on London Pride, as fellow London Euro-candidates Dinti Batstone, Christopher Le Breton, John Pindar and I march with members of the LibDem LGBT campaigning group, DELGA. They have arranged a stall right in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. While Nick Clegg addresses the rally there, our Euro-team hands out special focuses, highlighting Sarah Ludford MEP’s call for the US to end its entry ban on people living with HIV/AIDS. I’ve vowed I won’t set foot in the States again until that iniquitous prohibition is lifted. By the end of the afternoon, the boys and girls miling around are in the mood for some serious partying, but I am sensible and head off to Eltham for the Greenwich LibDems’ summer barbeque. Keeping in touch with local parties and reminding them about Europe is a high priority.
The party website has a blue mast-head, a youthful leader and a call to cut taxes for low- and middle-income earners: yes, the Lib Dems’ leader Nick Clegg has today launched the party’s new ‘Make it Happen’ policy and consultation document, and made an unequivocal pitch to voters wanting to kick Labour out of office and mistrustful of the Tories’ ability to marry economic competence and social justice.
Over on PoliGeeks I’ve done a brief posting about some of the latest traffic statistics regarding Twitter. In brief: usage is continuing to grow extremely quickly and Twitter is now (on at least one measure) more widely used in the UK than in the US.
Welcome to the 73rd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (6th-12th July), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.
The next general election may be only a matter of months away. In the seven months since becoming Leader I’ve been concentrating on making sure that the Party is ready for the election whenever it is called.
This means working hard to develop strong new policies and clear messages. It also means strengthening our capacity to campaign so that we can achieve our ambition of doubling our number of MPs in two general elections.
Simon Hughes, Chris Rennard (Chief Executive and Chair of the General Election Campaign) and I set up the Bones Commission early this year to come …
Nick Clegg used his two questions to the Prime Minister today to challenge Gordon Brown on what used to be his strong suit: the economy. What Nick has done repeatedly at PMQs , and to increasingly good effect, is to link Big Issues back to everyday concerns, today focusing on energy and food prices, and starting with a punchy line straight from the Book of Vince:
The Prime Minister promised to abolish boom and bust, but now we have got both: inflation is booming, the economy is bust.
I’m not alone in being impressed by Nick: The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, not always the greatest friend to the Lib Dems, scored today’s PMQs as a victory for Nick. Fraser also acutely picks out a flaw in the Prime Minister’s lazy responses:
Brown was, as always, caught between his two responses on the economy. Response A is “it’s bad out there, your Great Helmsman will guide you through the storms.” And then there’s Response B, “I’m a great Prime Minister, things are really good here, record employment, lower inflation than anywhere in the world.” Unwisely, he chose Response B … Brown is tiptoeing closer and closer to Callaghan “crisis? What crisis?” territory.
As for David Cameron, it was as ever a fluent, often witty routine, aided by one of the poorest, most incoherent performances I’ve seen by a politician at the despatch box – that Gordon Brown is Prime Minister would astonish an impartial observer watching his ducking, clunking, stuttering replies today.
And yet Mr Cameron does insist on ruining it. A couple of weeks ago I expressed the (clearly naive) hope that the Tory leader was learning to “ his performance, attempting to tone down the shrill posturing and cheap jibes which have all too often marred his superior debating skills”. Not today. Twice he referred casually and pettily to the Prime Minister as “useless”. Whether you agree or not, I expect more serious behaviour from the man who wants to present himself as the next elected Prime Minister. Mr Cameron is doing himself no long-term good with such easy union-hack retorts.
Anyway, you can judge for yourselves below, via YouTube and Hansard:
Lord Lester had an interesting exchange with a minister in debate last week. Lord Lester, you may remember is the Lib Dem peer who embarrased the Labour government into finally bringing forward legislation for civil partnerships in the UK by writing his own bill on the subject. When Labour finally acted to introduce the unions for gay couples, it was following Anthony Lester’s model.
It appears the Government are actively arguing at European level that there should be fewer protections for gay people and gay couples. The Government does not believe that rights to family life should be extended through court action to the gays. The exchange, taken from Public Whip, follows after the break
It looks like ‘well-placed sources’ have given The Times a sneak preview of reforms Nick Clegg wants to adopt streamline/centralise* decision-making within the Lib Dems:
He is determined to overhaul an internal structure that allies say severely curtails the powers of the leader and splits internal controls between a series of committees.
Mr Clegg, who became leader in December, plans to turn the party’s traditional structure on its head, centralising all decision-making under a new “chief officers group” and diluting the roles of its committees. Sources said that the move risks causing a serious rift between Mr Clegg and Lord Rennard,
LabourMatters has the details of the latest twist in Labour’s financial problems. Not having a group of activists and MPs together in one place where they can mutter their unhappiness with Gordon Brown is of course one other effect of cancellation…
The poll from The Daily Telegraph shows Labour holding the seat with the Liberal Democrats in third place, but importantly ahead of the Tories.
This has been an interesting campaign and one where there has been such immense media interest.
There are four TV appearances for our candidate Ian Robertson, with the first having taken place as you can see here. The Scotsman rated Ian as coming out best in the debate, giving him 9/10:
Emerged as the surprise star of the show. He was effective, forthright and intervened sharply across his opponents.
• a 100 or 80 per cent elected chamber
• options for direct elections: first-past-the-post, alternative vote, single transferable vote and a list system
• the primacy of the House of Commons must remain in any reform process and the reformed second chamber should not rival or replicate the Commons
• proposals on eligibility and disqualification, including recall ballots for elected members of the second chamber and similar arrangements for appointed members
• members should normally serve a single …
Duncan Brack and Ed Randall, authors of the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, have kindly agreed to let us publish extracts on Lib Dem Voice. Last month, the Institute of Economic Affairs; this month Henry David Thoreau. The entire book is available on Amazon here and can also be bought at the Westminster Bookshop.
Conrad Russell was an academic and Liberal Democrat peer who helped to define and assert the Liberal Democrats’ philosophical and historical roots after the merger of the Liberal Party and SDP.
Key ideas
Liberalism as a philosophy is primarily concerned with the use and dispersal of power.
JONATHAN M Well put, Miranda! I live, and have done so for many years in Australia, but still consider myself a 'former' Liberal Party supporter (nowdays a current Liberal...
JohnMc Labour MPs have already reportrd the Greens to the police, but as i am confused about definitions here I cant dee how that works. As opposed to actual racist st...
David S All that allowing (for instance) corporations to engage in environmental destruction for a fee, or a tax, or whatever you call it does is to make the government...
David S Re: "We shouldn’t tell murderers how to live their lives?"–The very first paragraph of Kobe's message said "As long as they don't hurt anybody else." I feel...
expats By Kobe Bibbon | Thu 8th October 2026 - 3:03 pm..............We are all sickened to see what is happening in Gaza- there is no doubt about that. These horrendou...
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Labour's recovery in by-elections continues.
Vote Tory, get Reform?
Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker discuss Gone to Earth and its restoration
Looking good!
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