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Caron’s Sunday Selection: Must-read articles from the Sunday papers

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 11th May 2014 - 9:35 am

Here’s my pick of today’s Sunday papers. Please add your own favourite stories in the comments.

In the Observer, Andrew Rawnsley asks if Nick Clegg can survive another meltdown at the polls and puts the answer squarely at Liberal Democrat MPs and whether they think they can survive next year. The article acknowledges that Nick comes across as “thoughtful, engaged and reasonable” but that nothing so far tried has lifted our position in the opinion polls. Rawnsley doesn’t really go into the fact that to ditch your leader, …

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Posted in News | Tagged sunday papers | 28 Comments

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Devo 15: 15 great achievements in 15 years of the Scottish Parliament

By The Voice | Sun 11th May 2014 - 8:43 am

Tomorrow, it’s 15 years since the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament established after may years of work and campaigning by the Scottish Constitutional Convention. In that first decade and a half, it’s done some groundbreaking and pioneering things. It has a lot to be proud of. Here are some of Holyrood’s highlights.

1. Free personal care for the elderly – Enabling older people to live at home for as long as possible

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Posted in News | Tagged devolution, holyrood, Scotland and scottish parliament | Leave a comment

Eurovision: the best of the Liberal Democrat reaction and strictly unauthorised beardiness

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 11th May 2014 - 12:43 am

Conchita Wurst’s song might not have been the best on offer tonight, but her personality, her embodiment of liberalism and authenticity, combined with a pan-European desire to stick to fingers to the illiberal east triumphed in Copenhagen. She dedicated her victory to peace and freedom. And maybe, just maybe, people start to understand a bit more about gender not being a strictly binary thing.

Here’s some of the Liberal Democrat reaction to what is a definite high day in our calendar:

Kevin Lang thought he saw someone familiar singing for the Netherlands:

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Posted in News | Tagged conchita wurst, eurovision, helen duffett, kevin lang and ryan coetzee | 12 Comments

In the next month 12 seats will short-list their wannabe Lib Dem MPs

By Stephen Tall | Sat 10th May 2014 - 5:06 pm

Here’s the full list of selection contests in the coming month available for Lib Dems on the approved parliamentary candidates’ list, together with the closing date for applications.

The following seats have selections in progress and are currently advertising for candidates:

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Posted in Selection news | Tagged general election 2015 | 6 Comments

Opinion: The irony of Labour’s “shrinking man” Party Election Broadcast

By Ed Stradling | Sat 10th May 2014 - 3:05 pm

Labour’s Party Election Broadcast has attracted plenty of attention since its launch on Wednesday, with its comedy portrayal of Nick “Claggy” as the un-credible shrinking man.

Much has already been made of the PEB’s negativity, and its silence on the question of Labour’s actual policy relating the EU (or indeed anything else) which, since the party receives public funding to develop such policy, might be considered unfortunate.

All might have been forgiven if viewers had dissolved into laughter upon watching the film, but aside from “can we hunt him?” …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged labour and party election broadcasts | 17 Comments

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76% of Lib Dem members oppose Government plans to render foreign-born terror suspects ‘stateless’

By Stephen Tall | Sat 10th May 2014 - 2:20 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 830 party members responded – thank you – and we’re publishing the full results.

Three-quarters oppose Theresa May’s plans to render foreign-born terror suspects ‘stateless’

The Government has proposed in its Immigration Bill that the Home Secretary should have the power to revoke the British nationality of those whose presence in the UK are deemed ‘not conducive to the public …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged immigration bill, isabel hardman, norman baker, terrorism and theresa may | 8 Comments

LibLink: Charles Kennedy: Britain must remain at the core of the European Project

By NewsHound | Sat 10th May 2014 - 12:14 pm

In an article for the Euro Blog marking Europe Day yesterday, Charles Kennedy wrote of the need for Britain to stay at the heart of Europe.

We’ve been hearing a lot about the jobs and the trade and the money, but Charles starts with the principles of peace and the common good:

9 May marks the beginning of a process of cooperation, which intended to make war between Europe’s nations unthinkable. We call it Europe Day The process that was set in motion that day was based on principles like democracy, open markets,

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged charles kennedy, eu, euroblog, european movement and featured | 6 Comments

Libby Local Episode 18: Standing up for Demsbury

By Libby Local | Sat 10th May 2014 - 10:56 am

“Hey Libby. Are you standing? I’ll vote for you!”

I was puzzled by the shout and thought I had not heard it correctly. I was struggling to concentrate on anything after the events of the morning, else. I waved and walked on.

I was angry, almost in tears as I dragged my way up Crow Hill. I was very grateful when the bus stopped and the driver invited me on board his overcrowded bus.

“You look exhausted, Libby,” he said …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured | 3 Comments

Liberal Democrat Muslim Network launched in Birmingham

By Issan Ghazni | Sat 10th May 2014 - 8:51 am

Muslim Liberal Democrat members and activists from across all parts of the country came together on Saturday 3 May in Birmingham to promote a strong Muslim network within the Party in support of greater inclusion, dialogue and campaigning.

The key aims of the Network are:

1. Promote the party amongst Muslim communities across the UK

2. Provide a support mechanism for Muslim members within the Party

3. Promote dialogue and greater understanding of Muslim communities in the UK

4.

…

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Posted in News | Tagged issan ghazni, john hemming, liberal democrat muslim network, meral hussein ece, qurban hussain and simon hughes | 30 Comments

“Label the behaviour not the person”: why we shouldn’t call Ukip a racist party

By Stephen Tall | Sat 10th May 2014 - 8:15 am

For once I’m going to agree with Nigel Farage. Speaking at a rally this week, he pleaded with the media and public, “from this moment on please do not ever call us a racist party. We are not a racist party.”

As rallying cries go, it’s not the most ambitious. But, then, Ukip’s not an ambitious party. As Farage himself happily boasts, it has just two policies: withdrawal from the EU and bringing back grammar schools. It doesn’t really matter, though. Ukip is defined by what it’s against, not …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged british future, featured, nigel farage, racism, sunder katwala and ukip | 107 Comments

Opinion: The Debt Trap

By Linda Jack | Fri 9th May 2014 - 5:20 pm

Yesterday I attended the launch of the Children’s Society‘s ‘The Debt Trap’ campaign, coinciding with the publication of their accompanying report, produced with Step Change, the free debt charity. Some of its findings are truly shocking and should give us all pause for thought. In one of the richest countries in the world 2.4 million of our children are living in homes with problem debt with an additional 2.9 million families with dependent children having struggled to pay their bills over the past 12 months. …

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Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments

Opinion: Why do UKIP and the ONS ignore my son?

By Mike Biden | Fri 9th May 2014 - 2:55 pm

Absolutely fed up with UKIP quoting only one side of the story – they have done it for years over the cost of the EU without taking into account the cash returns through the CAP, research grants etc.- I decided last night to check the immigration statistics.

Latest figures appear to be 27th February 2014 from the ONS. The ONS, like UKIP, conveniently forgets that Britain is IN the EU. British migrants, such as my son who went to work in Paris two and half years ago …

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Posted in Op-eds | 11 Comments

Clegg: Pro-Europeans are the real reformers now

By The Voice | Fri 9th May 2014 - 12:30 pm

Speaking at a Reuter’s Newsmaker event this morning Nick Clegg argued the case for reforming the EU, and for the Liberal Democrats to lead this charge.

The economic rationale for being in Europe should speak for itself, but making the case for IN isn’t easy. The Eurosceptic establishment has gone unchallenged for decades and before you even get to the real issues at the heart of this debate, you have to penetrate a wall of assumptions and myths.

…

Or the biggest myth of all – the idea that

…

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Posted in News | Tagged europe | 22 Comments

Labour VAT attack poster backfires badly

By Joe Otten | Fri 9th May 2014 - 11:04 am

Twitter is alive this morning with a Labour attack poster on the subject of VAT

Unfortunately for Labour

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Posted in News | 48 Comments

LibLink: Edward McMillan-Scott: EU values are in stark contrast to Putin’s

By NewsHound | Thu 8th May 2014 - 8:30 pm

Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber Edward McMilan-Scott, who is also the European Parliament’s Vice President for Human Rights, has been writing in the Yorkshire Post about the contest between the values of the EU and those of Vladimir Putin. The EU is built on democracy and liberal values while Putin seeks to build a Eurasian alliance built on homophobia and nationalism.

To understand what is happening in the Ukraine, we have to know something of President Putin’s Eurasian dream that is steering events. This involves the

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged edward mcmillan-scott, eu, nationalism, putin, russia and yorkshire post | 13 Comments

Former Tory candidate urges Haringey residents to vote Liberal Democrat in local elections

By The Voice | Thu 8th May 2014 - 7:29 pm

Labour’s record in running the Council in Haringey is not what you would call impressive. Despite charging the fifth highest Council Tax in the City, the Audit Commission marked it as the worst in London. Despite massively overspending its schools budget, its primaries schools were described as “the worst and going backwards” and they send folk off on luxury yacht trips at taxpayers’ expense.

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Posted in News | 2 Comments

Battle of the Election Videos: Lib Dems’ “Incredible Silent Man” v. “Labour’s Un-credible Shrinking Man”

By Stephen Tall | Thu 8th May 2014 - 4:20 pm

So Labour’s party election broadcast then… Titled The Un-credible Shrinking Man it mocks Nick Clegg as a deluded patsy of the posho Tories. He starts off being offered a biscuit and ends up being chased across the cabinet table by a big cat. Because he’s shrunk, y’see. And naked. I’m not sure I’m doing its nuanced subtlety justice. It’s sort-of funny, at least if you enjoy laughing at one-dimensional caricatures which fit your pre-existing bias – a bit like a sketch for Radio 4’s The Now Show. You can watch it for yourselves here.

Kudos to the Lib Dem team at Great George Street who immediately re-packaged the party’s own video The Incredible Silent Man chiding Labour leader Ed Miliband’s reluctance to take the fight to Ukip or make the case for Europe:

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Posted in News | Tagged dan hodges, ed miliband, european elections 2014, featured, local elections 2014 and nick clegg | 57 Comments

Guy Verhofstadt joins fellow Commission presidency candidates for first TV debate

By The Voice | Thu 8th May 2014 - 3:03 pm

Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian prime minister and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party nominee for the presidency of the European Commission, joined the three other main contenders for the job — Jean-Claude Juncker (European People’s Party), Martin Schultz (Party of European Socialists) and Ska Keller (European Green Party) — for the first ever televised debate between Commission presidency candidates.

You can watch a video of the debate, which was hosted by Euro News, below:

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Posted in News | Tagged european commission and guy verhofstadt | 4 Comments

Opinion: Getting a better deal for consumers from nuclear power

By Toby Fenwick | Thu 8th May 2014 - 12:56 pm

Following the vote at last September’s conference, the party now supports new-build nuclear power. This has been a hard road for many, but ultimately the UK needs to replace the 82% of UK nuclear generation capacity that is due to decommission by 2023. This is fully 51% of all UK low-carbon generating capacity, and unlike renewables today, nuclear can provide baseload generation.

It is this combination of baseload capability, capacity at lower cost than the cheapest renewables means that nuclear …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured and nuclear power | 27 Comments

Opinion: Scrap Sunday trading laws to boost the high street and the economy

By Gareth Wilson | Thu 8th May 2014 - 10:41 am

After yet another mad dash with the family around the shops last Sunday afternoon I read with great interest that members of the All Party Parliamentary Retail Group have recently tabled amendments to the Deregulation Bill currently going through Parliament to remove restrictions on Sunday trading and the launch of a new consumer-led campaign group to lobby MP’s to support these proposals.

Introduced in 1994, the limited Sunday opening hours for shops over 280 square metres were designed to protect local convenience shops from the bigger supermarkets. Fast forward 20 …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged sunday trading | 61 Comments

LibLink: Nick Clegg: This knife crime law won’t work

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th May 2014 - 8:55 am

On Monday, I wrote about the reported Coalition tension over Tory plans to bring in mandatory 6 month jail sentences for carrying a knife. I said that:

It’s important that Liberal Democrats stay in this debate and make the evidence-based case. Nobody else will do it for us. We may not be able to stop a bad law being passed, but we need to oppose it calmly, clearly and without rancour.

I would not suggest for a minute that the two events …

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged featured, knife crime, mandatory sentencing, nick clegg and the guardian | 6 Comments

Phil Bennion MEP wins Clean Air award

By The Voice | Wed 7th May 2014 - 8:05 pm

Liberal Democrat MEP and European Transport Spokesman Phil Bennion has won an award for his work in improving air quality in cities across the UK, after a successful campaign to cut deadly pollution including from diesel-powered vehicles.

Phil was given the “Clean Air in Cities Award” by campaigning group Clean Air in London after he successfully campaigned to ensure tailpipe exhaust checks are included in MOT tests under EU law. This will help detect harmful emissions and ensure that newer diesel-powered vehicles remain fitted with exhaust filters that prevent deadly particulate pollution being released into the air.

Around a quarter of pollution in the atmosphere in the UK comes from diesel engines, contributing to an estimated 7,000 of the 29,000 premature deaths caused by air pollution each year.

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Posted in News | Tagged clean air, environment, eu, phil bennion, pollution and transport | 1 Comment

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #374

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th May 2014 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 374th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (27 April – 3 May, 2014), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

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

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment

John Pugh MP writes…Why MPs should be interested in the protest vote

By John Pugh | Wed 7th May 2014 - 4:15 pm

Grown up politicians are supposed to be be bit sniffy about the protest vote. It’s a common axiom at the moment is to say the Lib Dems have lost the ‘protest vote’.

‘Protest’ voters are considered to be unthinking souls who don’t like what they see but have no coherent view of what should be in its place and thus are doomed to be unhappy with whoever is in power. A party can secure the support of these unreasonable people so long as they are not in power and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged political engagement and protest voters | 28 Comments

Norman Baker in election leaflet typo – but he has the last word

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th May 2014 - 3:10 pm

Twenty years ago, I spent about 4 solid days, and nights, in a small flat in Chesterfield with a doggedly industrious group of Liberal Democrats. There had been a mistake with the imprint on the North Nottinghamshire and Chesterfield. This had not been noticed before the 250.000 leaflets had been printed. We had to stamp over the mistake and sort them. Oh, and for good measure, agent Paul Holmes, never one to underestimate anyone’s capacity for work, had procured 40,000 envelopes for us to stuff for a by-election in Bradford.

We …

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Posted in News | Tagged elections and norman baker | 19 Comments

Why people vote for Liberal Democrat Councillors

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th May 2014 - 1:38 pm

Following on from yesterday’s launch of the Liberal Democrat campaign for the local government elections, I thought I’d offer a few reflections on why people vote for Liberal Democrat councillors. Why is it that in places like Three Rivers in Hertfordshire and Oadby and Wigston that the Liberal Democrats have been in power for years on end?

Big hearts and hard work

Our councillors are embedded in their communities. They know what’s going on, they keep themselves in touch with what people are thinking and they listen to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, independent, jeremy browne, liberal democrats and local government elections 2014 | 8 Comments

Opinion: The Gender Agenda: What Liberal Democrat Women can do for women candidates

By Alice Thomas | Wed 7th May 2014 - 10:31 am

On May 22nd I’m fighting my first local election as a candidate. I’ve been stuffing envelopes and knocking on doors for other people for 8 years, but with a seat on Islington Council in the balance, this time it seems a little more real.

But I’m lucky. I’m fighting – and fighting hard – alongside a councillor with 8 years experience, and an experienced campaigner who’s already fought a by-election. The ward has two Lib Dem councillors out of three, and if we all get elected, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged Liberal Democrat Women, local elections 2014 and the gender agenda | 116 Comments

Calling all writers – two essay competitions on liberalism and liberty coming up soon

By The Voice | Wed 7th May 2014 - 8:55 am

We bring you news of two essay competitions which may have escaped your attention.

CentreForum marks the 10th anniversary of the Orange Book

Can you believe it’s 10 years since the Orange Book? That publication is celebrated by some, reviled by others within the Liberal Democrats. It can never be accused of being boring though. It stimulated one of the biggest policy debates in the history of the party. It was also much maligned as some sort of right wing credo but people forget that Steve Webb wrote for …

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Posted in News | Tagged centreforum, competitions, liberty and orange book | 5 Comments

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