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Careers Guidance and Education in Schools

By Margaret Sharp | Fri 25th July 2014 - 1:01 pm

The 2011 Education Act made a radical change in provision for careers advice for young people. Responsibility had traditionally been with an external advice agency – originally the LA careers service and from 2002 with Connexions. The Act passed this responsibility on to schools with provisos that it should be ‘independent and impartial’ and involve people other than just school staff. During the passage of the Act, Lib Dems in the Lords had fought hard to make it mandatory that each young person should have a one-to-one interview with a properly qualified external careers’ adviser. We did this partly because we knew schools did not have the resources to provide the service but also because academisation and increasing competition for sixth formers meant that many schools were putting pressure on young people to stay on in school to do AS and A levels, rather than telling them about vocational and apprenticeship opportunities available through the local FE college – indeed we knew of examples where schools had refused to allow the local FE college even to distribute a prospectus to pupils.

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Posted in News | 13 Comments

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GDP above pre-crash level; strongest growth in G7

By Joe Otten | Fri 25th July 2014 - 10:14 am

Today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics show growth of 0.8% in the second quarter of 2014, bringing UK GDP above the level it was before the 2008 crash.

With GDP 3.1% higher than a year earlier, the UK has the fastest growing economy in the G7.

Cheif Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander comments

Today we are passing a major milestone on the long road back to full recovery. There is still a long way to go but Britain has recovered the economic ground lost under Labour and is forging ahead.

The main reason that we stepped forward to

…

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Posted in News | Tagged Danny Alexander, economic growth and gdp | 64 Comments

Opinion: It is the end of the two-state solution that will bring peace to Gaza

By Richard Kilpatrick | Fri 25th July 2014 - 8:51 am

There are many times throughout history where man has stood by and allowed inhumanity to win the day. One of few positives that can be taken from these days is that human behaviour can be observed, patterns emerge and those that are left can begin to understand, to learn. But there are times when lessons are forgotten. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is humanity’s greatest forgotten lesson. It is time to face up to hard truths and if we fail to do so we legitimise the deaths of thousands more men, women, children, Israeli and Palestinian. Liberal Democrats were strong advocates for a two-state solution, long ago when the facts was shrugged off by Labour and Conservative administrations. We should not succumb to the same mistake.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, israel, middle east and palestine | 20 Comments

LibLink: Charles Kennedy: Why our destiny must lie with the F word

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 24th July 2014 - 4:02 pm

The Independence Referendum campaign continues to be depressing. The only really good things associated with it tend to come from Liberal Democrats and most especially Charles Kennedy. He’s written a thoughtful and persuasive article in the Herald about the dilemma facing Scotland beyond 18th September as, whoever wins, we’ve all lost out from increasing centralism to Edinburgh in recent years.

He outlines the problem:

In the pre-devolution days of one- party Tory domination there was much legitimate railing against the excessive concentration of power within Whitehall. The centre accrued and amassed while

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged charles kennedy, featured, federalism, Scotland, Scottish independence referendum and the herald | 24 Comments

Opinion: Gaza – can anyone recall the root causes?

By Kerry Hutchinson | Thu 24th July 2014 - 2:57 pm

Israel’s current actions – indeed its actions since 1948 – are based on three core drum-beat principles; it has a right to exist; it has the most moral Armed Forces in the world; and it is surrounded by enemies intent on its destruction, But there is a fourth ‘truth’, never acknowledged by Mark Regev or other spokespersons, that Israel itself caused all of the current conflict decades ago by taking more land than the UN allotted to it in 1948 (1), and driving out …

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Posted in Op-eds | 42 Comments

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Nick Clegg: The more men speak out against FGM, the sooner we can stop it

By Newsmoggie | Thu 24th July 2014 - 1:17 pm

Cosmopolitan magazine caught up with Nick Clegg at the Girl Summit the other day. They have launched their own campaign to remember the victims of “honour killings”, surely the most inappropriate way to describe cold blooded murder. The images they’ve had designed to illustrate their campaign are extremely hard hitting.

He was asked what he thought Cosmo’s young women readers could do to help end FGM and forced marriage:

…the most powerful change of all is girls and women speaking up. Not allowing this to lurk in

…

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Posted in News | Tagged cosmopolitan, fgm, forced marriage and nick clegg | 9 Comments

Ukip may well win a seat in May 2015. But the least likely person to get elected is Nigel Farage

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th July 2014 - 11:45 am

This week saw the latest in Lord Ashcroft’s polls of the marginal battleground seats that will decide the result of the next general election. This crop focused on 14 marginal Conservative-held seats where Labour are in second place.

The overall news was half-encouraging for Labour. As it stands, Ed Miliband’s party is poised to win 11 of these 14 seats next May. The average swing from Tory to Labour of 4.5% would be enough to win 53 Tory seats, which, as as Ashcroft notes, “combined with the 17 seats my recent polling suggested they could gain from the Lib Dems, would be enough for a small overall majority”.

Of course, this poll is a snapshot, not a prediction (as Ashcroft repeatedly stresses). A similar exercise conducted by Ashcroft for PoliticsHome in 2009 pointed to a Tory majority of 70 seats and we all know how that turned out a few months later. Usually the governing party picks up support as the election nears, while the opposition party loses support. We’ll see how that historical pattern bears out in Coalition conditions and as voting becomes yet more fragmented between five national parties, as well as the nationalists in Scotland and Wales.

But the most newsworthy finding from Ashcroft’s poll was that Ukip would win two Conservative-held seats, Thanet South and Thurrock.

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Posted in News and Polls | Tagged general election 2015, lord ashcroft, nigel farage, tim aker and ukip | 21 Comments

LibLink: Tim Farron – Where have all the political giants gone?

By Nick T | Thu 24th July 2014 - 10:16 am

Over on politics.co.uk, party president Tim Farron has been expanding on some of the themes of his weekend lecture. He begins with some interesting history:

When you ask me who my political heroes are, I will reel off a list of people like Beveridge, Penhaligon, Harry Willcock (the man who brought down the ID cards scheme in the 1950s) and Paddy Ashdown. But in the last 12 months I have become attached to Harold MacMillan, when he was housing minister between 1951-1954. This admission usually raises an eyebrow or two.

Now, MacMillan is a much maligned political figure, I think that has much more to do with his association with David Cameron than to do with him. But as housing minister he was someone who, working under the post-war consensus, delivered one the best social policy achievements of the 20th century – he delivered 300,000 homes a year.

In 1951, he was appointed by Churchill to be housing minister – his task, to build 300,000 per year. It was a bold policy in the Conservative party manifesto and one many considered totally undeliverable. Famously, when tasked by Churchill, he was told: “It is a gamble. It will make or mar your political career. But every humble home will bless your name if you succeed.”

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged harold macmillan, housing and tim farron | 6 Comments

Good news: Voters places themselves and the Lib Dems in the centre. Bad news: that doesn’t mean they’re liberals

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th July 2014 - 8:00 am

“There’s no future for the Lib Dems as a party of the centre,” goes the cry from radicals on both wings of our party. So I was interested to see this polling data from YouGov (hat-tip Adam Corlett) looking at where voters place themselves on the left-right axis and where they place the parties and their leaders. And yes, I know we don’t buy into the idea of a binary left-right axis, but it can’t be entirely dismissed.

As YouGov explains, “tracking data compiled over as many as 12 years gives a clear sense of how the main parties and their leaders have been perceived as shifting on a left-right scale. The two charts below shows mean scores based on 100 being “very right-wing” and -100 being “very left-wing”.” I’ve super-imposed onto YouGov’s graphics where, on average, voters currently place themselves:

Three quick points:

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Posted in Op-eds and Polls | Tagged adam corlett, DRIP, featured, Mark Pack and yougov | 59 Comments

Nick Clegg: I want to hardwire LGBT rights into our entire human rights agenda

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 6:36 pm

The Commonwealth Games opens in Glasgow in a couple of hours and we’re promised quite a spectacle. All of Scotland is ready. Except perhaps Edinburgh, where the powers that be have decided, in their wisdom, to dig up the road outside Waverley Station, causing total chaos.

Politicians have been all over the place in Scotland today, ahead of attending the Opening Ceremony.

Willie Rennie managed to get his hands on the Queen’s Baton (see the photo on the right).

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Posted in News | Tagged commonwealth games, glasgow, LGBT, nick clegg and pride house | 13 Comments

Ayoub Khan selected as Liberal Democrat candidate for West Midlands Police and Crime Commisioner by-election

By The Voice | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 4:45 pm

A by-election is to take place on 21st August for the post of West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner after the sad death of the incumbent, Labour’s Bob Jones, on July 1st.

The Liberal Democrat candidate will be Ayoub Khan, the 41 year old barrister and former councillor who fought the election in 2012.

From the Birmingham Mail:

The 41-year-old from Aston, who administered first aid to a gun-shot victim fifty yards from his house in 2002, was called to the bar in 2005.

He was a Birmingham City

…

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Posted in News | Tagged ayoub khan, lorely burt and west midlands police and crime commissioner | 5 Comments

David Ward apologises for his tweet and calls for more action by world community to end humanitarian crisis in Gaza

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 2:58 pm

David Ward has apologised for last night’s tweet, saying that he does not condone firing rockets into Israel. Here’s his statement in full:

I utterly condemn the violence on both sides in Israel and Gaza.

I condemn the actions of Hamas, and my comments were not in support of firing rockets into Israel. If they gave the opposite impression, I apologise.

However, while I defend the right of Israel to exist and defend itself, I will continue to speak out for the rights of the Palestinian people who are facing untold suffering. More must be done by the world community to end this humanitarian crisis and protect the families living in Gaza. I can understand their plight and desperation.

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Posted in News | Tagged david ward, meral hussein ece, nick clegg and stephen williams | 39 Comments

Full steam ahead on infrastructure

By Joe Otten | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 1:16 pm

One thing that struck me about Tim Farron’s Beveridge lecture last Saturday was the scale of his ambition for investment in infrastructure.

Conservatives have often talked about their admiration of Victorian values – if only they really did admire those values, because Victorian values included ambition to build an infrastructure, to create a transport, communications and logistics backbone to our economy, to make a difference, to see a problem and not worry about whether fixing it would fit with your ideology, but to just get on and fix it.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged beveridge lecture, infrastructure, jeremy browne, race plan and tim farron | 34 Comments

The Gender Agenda #3: Is there such a thing as “Women’s Policy”?

By Alice Thomas | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 11:44 am

I was long-winded last time so let’s try brevity: yes, and no.

When people talk about ‘women’s policy’ they usually mean one of three things:

1. Policies which only affect women directly: men (apart from trans men) do not, for example, suffer FGM or need access to abortion, so they will only ever be indirectly affected by policy on those issues.

2. Policies were your gender directly determines your rights and treatment in society: that includes gender separation in schools or prisons, or access to parental leave.

3. Policies aimed at everyone, but that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, gender equality, Liberal Democrat Women and the gender agenda | 33 Comments

Ed Davey: Non-nuclear energy approach is “negligent” and “risky” #slfconf

By Paul Walter | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 10:25 am

On Monday, I summarised the appearances of Ed Davey at last weekend’s Social Liberal Forum conference in London. Here, I outline some of the views expressed and initiatives described by Ed on the day, including during a bloggers’ interview:

Using less energy

Fuel poverty is a serious issue. Energy inefficient building stock is a key cause.

The Green deal, Ed said, had not originally gone as well as it had been hoped. In Phase 1, there were just 250,000 assessments. Phase 2 is going better, and is on track to improve two million homes.

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Posted in Events | Tagged climate change, department for energy and climate change and ed davey | 26 Comments

Opinion: Beware conflating offence with racism – Don’t demand David Ward’s expulsion

By Jonathan Brown | Wed 23rd July 2014 - 8:45 am

I recently saw for the first time the new monument commemorating the sacrifices paid by the men of RAF Bomber Command during World War II. It was a moving memorial, as well as an interesting one. We don’t celebrate the deliberate firebombing of German cities these days: we are thankfully queasy about the thought of the mass targeting of civilians. But the erection of this monument shows that although we – uncomfortably perhaps – understand that those fighting that awful war were compromised morally by their actions, we nevertheless sympathise with those who believed that the missions they flew had some military and economic justification.

I ask people to bear this in mind when considering whether or not David Ward should have the whip withdrawn for his tweets expressing sympathy with Gazans (some of whom are) firing rockets at Israeli cities. Some – many – will find the implications of what he says offensive. But we should be careful about citing offense as justification for the sacking of our political representatives. Especially as liberals.

As others have said, we would not call for the expulsion of an MP who expressed sympathy for Israelis motivated to extend their period of military service in reaction to the rockets fired from Gaza. We do not call for the expulsion of MPs who defend sales of British arms to Israel, even though we know there is a strong likelihood of their being used against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territories.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged david ward, israel and palestine | 41 Comments

David Ward: “if I lived in #Gaza would I fire a rocket? – probably yes”

By Stephen Tall | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 11:00 pm

A year ago David Ward, Lib Dem MP for Bradford East, had the party whip temporarily withdrawn after he accused “the Jews” of “inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel”. Though he apologised for blanket-labelling he said he would “continue to make criticisms of actions in Palestine in the strongest possible terms” and has tonight lived up to his word on his Twitter feed:

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Posted in News | Tagged david ward, israel, jenny tonge, middle east and palestine | 75 Comments

In Full: Nick Clegg’s speech to the Girl Summit

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 7:39 pm

It’s hard to imagine the event that took place in London today happening 20 years ago. Yes, of course, we knew about Female Genital Mutilation and Child and Enforced Marriage, but it wasn’t a mainstream political issue. Now, we’re seeing concerted global action, and the UK Government is involved up to its eyeballs, as Julian Huppert told us earlier. I couldn’t have imagined Mrs Thatcher or Sir Geoffrey Howe talking openly about the need to tackle these issues. But today, David Cameron, Philip Hammond, Theresa May, Justine Greening and Nick Clegg were all present at the Girl Summit. Here is Nick Clegg’s speech which closed the proceedings.

Take some time tonight not just to read this, though. Have a look through the Girl Summit Twitter feed and look at some of the stories and experiences that were shared, of girls as young as 12 pulled out of school and forced to marry. Read about how this problem is particularly bad at the moment in the Syrian refugee camps. It’s harrowing, but you also get a glimpse of all the work being done globally to bring these practices to an end. Today’s summit must only be a staging post in a much longer journey and now that the issue has hit the political mainstream, it must not be allowed to fade until it’s sorted.

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Posted in News | Tagged girl summit, julian huppert and nick clegg | 3 Comments

Paul Burstow writes … Depression touches all of our lives

By Paul Burstow | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 4:52 pm

Depression affects as many as 1 in 4 of us in our lifetimes, 1 in 10 adults at any one time. So the truth is, it affects all of us – whether we have experienced depression ourselves, or as partners, parents, children, siblings, friends and colleagues of those who have, and may well still suffer. The misery that it brings is cruel and pernicious – we know it shatters lives. But despite the fact that depression touches all of our lives, it is still far too poorly understood.

As Minister for Mental Health, I awarded government funding to the Time to Change campaign to challenge the stigma of mental ill health and I’m pleased to say that the funding has continued throughout this parliament, and should, in my view, continue in the next. It has been very successful and has helped change mindsets in a range of fields. Celebrities and politicians have been brave enough to talk publicly about their own experiences of depression, and it has helped.

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Posted in News | Tagged depression, mental health, mq and time for change campaign | 10 Comments

Julian Huppert writes … The first Girl Summit

By Julian Huppert | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 3:43 pm

Today London hosts the first Girl Summit. Liberal Democrats in Government across every department have made the issue of gender inequality a priority. We understand that none of us can move forward if half of us are held back and this means tackling inequality and violence against women and girls wherever we find it.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) and child, early and forced marriage are two of the oldest and most extreme ways girls are stunted and harmed for life and we have made a commitment to work with Governments across the world, NGOs, faith leaders and communities to end these abhorrent practices.

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Posted in News | Tagged featured, fgm and girl summit | 9 Comments

The Right Hon Norman Lamb MP

By NewsHound | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 2:24 pm

No, that isn’t an error.

Norman Lamb has just been made a member of the Privy Council, which entitles him to be given the Right Hon treatment. That privilege is automatically bestowed on Cabinet ministers, the Leader of the Opposition and senior judges, but other ministers are added from time to time.

From my research (ie a quick look at Wikipedia), I have discovered that the Privy Council advises the monarch, and in the past was the most powerful body in the country. Today, its powers have been transferred to the Cabinet, which technically is a committee of the Privy Council.

Membership is for life and at present there are 600 members of the Privy Council. They only meet in full on the death of a monarch, or, intriguingly, when the Monarch gets engaged, which last happened in 1939.

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Posted in News | Tagged norman lamb and privy council | 20 Comments

Lord Sharkey calls for convictions for homosexuality to be posthumously disregarded

By Mary Reid | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 12:30 pm

While the attention yesterday evening was on the Lord’s debate on revenge porn, Lib Dems were also supporting another amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, this time on posthumous pardons for men convicted of homosexuality.

During the debate, John Sharkey explained that 75,000 men were convicted of homosexual acts under laws repealed in the 1960s. Legislation passed in 2012, gave 16,000 of them still alive the right to apply to have their convictions disregarded, but this left 59,000 similarly convicted, but now dead, unable to get such redress. Last year Alan Turing was given a posthumous royal pardon.

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Posted in News | Tagged john sharkey | 4 Comments

Martin Horwood writes …Tony Blair’s legacy

By Martin Horwood | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 11:18 am

Twenty years ago yesterday Tony Blair became Labour Party Leader. The man who delivered a landslide victory for Labour in 1997 is now seen as a polarising figure in British politics.

Blair loved to be seen as a ‘modernising’ force in his party. Whether it was the abandonment of Clause 4, the drinks receptions for celebrities or leading a Government which was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, this was a world away from ‘Old Labour’.

As Prime Minister, however, there is no doubt it was his approach to foreign policy that defined his premiership.

Britain’s involvement in the illegal war in Iraq left a particularly indelible mark. Blair seemed to offer Parliament a choice. But his case was built on sandy foundations: his personal word that the intelligence case presented to MPs had not been exaggerated or ‘sexed up’.

Blair had used his own personal charisma to defeat opposition to his changes to the public sector and indeed to the Labour Party itself. He used this tool once again in making the case for the Iraq invasion, alongside a particular brand of political ‘spin’ that grew to typify Labour’s approach in office.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged iraq and tony blair | 40 Comments

Opinion: Sustainability, where do we go from here?

By Michael Taylor | Tue 22nd July 2014 - 9:28 am

Our party is not addressing continued economic growth. Our leaders talk about growth solving our problems and recovering pre 2008 living standards, rather than about creating prosperity without growth. Growth through conspicuous consumption is still being sold as the road to recovery.

There are three real stumbling blocks:

High living standards and rising prosperity extolled by almost all parties are only possible by expropriating the living standards of the world’s poorest.
We depend heavily on the rest of the world, especially developing countries, for food and are still reducing farmland in the UK.
Our energy supplies depend on unstable regimes in the Middle East and Russia and we have not begun to address self sufficiency in basic energy.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged economic growth and sustainability | 52 Comments

Stephen Lloyd MP writes… The jobs agenda – a lot done, more still to do for single parents

By Stephen Lloyd | Mon 21st July 2014 - 5:00 pm

In my constituency of Eastbourne, one in four households with children is headed by a single parent. This mirrors the diversity of modern families across Britain, where families come in all shapes and sizes, and reinforces my commitment to support and promote policies which enable each and every one of these families to balance work with bringing up their kids.

I am proud of the coalition government’s record on job creation and bringing down unemployment – reflected in the latest statistics out last week which showed that unemployment had fallen to its lowest level in nearly six years – but recognise that there is still more for us to do to ensure that everyone is able to benefit from the economic upturn.

This week, single parent charity Gingerbread has published a new report, Paying the Price: The long road to recovery, which highlights single parents’ experiences in work and of finding work. In reading the report, I was struck by how motivated single parents are to work and support their families – indeed 60% of single parents are already in work – a fact which is reinforced by the stories I hear from the single parents I meet at my constituency surgeries.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged jobs, Single parents and stephen lloyd | 4 Comments

The Independent View: This is the right time to drive forward integrated health and care

By Simon Parker | Mon 21st July 2014 - 4:00 pm

The NHS is becoming too big to fail. Like a more benign version of the banks, it has become such a vital part of our national life, with such a slick lobbying machine and such a powerful public profile that it has become hard to challenge. So when the system starts to creak, everyone from MPs to doctors immediately shouts for more money. The problem is that more money may not solve the problem, but simply allow the NHS to subsist in a state of perma-crisis.

The only way out …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | 13 Comments

Liberal Democrat amendment making revenge porn a crime to be debated today – watch Hannah’s story

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 21st July 2014 - 2:29 pm

This afternoon, an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill in the name of four Liberal Democrat peers, Jonathan Marks, Olly Grender, Liz Barker and Sal Brinton, will be debated in the House of Lords. Its effects would be to make it an offence to publish a sexually explicit image of a person without their consent, punishable by 6 months to a year in prison.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged hannah thompson, jonathan marks, julian huppert, liz barker, olly grender, revenge pornography and sal brinton | Leave a comment

TTIP — the US-EU trade deal. What is it, and where is it up to?

By Nick T | Mon 21st July 2014 - 1:14 pm

At last year’s autumn conference, the Lib Dems pledged to support a new trade agreement between the European Union and the United States — known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The motion, ‘Strengthening the UK Economy’ (pdf), called on the coalition to:

Increase trading opportunities by working in the EU to ensure that the success of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, doing everything possible to revive the World Trade Organisation led Doha Development Round and further integrating the EU services market.

Since then there has been significant …

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Posted in News | Tagged featured, free trade and ttip | 28 Comments

Opinion: Is the rethink on the Bedroom Tax too little, too late?

By Jo Ingold | Mon 21st July 2014 - 11:54 am

The Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (the ‘bedroom tax’) has not met its intended outcomes. This has led to an apparent U-turn by the Liberal Democrat leadership, based on evidence published in the interim policy evaluation. This report highlighted the economic hardship experienced by those affected and that the accelerated demand for downsizing has been difficult to meet.

It is to be applauded that Liberal Democrats appear to have responded to evidence which suggests that the policy isn’t working. Also to be welcomed is the intention to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged bedroom tax and spare room subsidy | 42 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

Are the men of violence back in British politics? (Chris Nelson)
London needs more social homes – and Liberal Democrat boroughs are determined to deliver (Gareth Roberts)
Andy Burnham’s devolution reforms go only half-way (Mark Corner)
Reform donations row shows how facts get trampled at Westminster (David Vigar)
The Independent View: Turning back the tide on free speech (Jack Coulson)

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