International Development minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest one…..
The Liberal Democrats in Government have helped businesses create over one million jobs. Now we are working to create one million more!
Work is so important to individuals and families in the UK. It pays the bills, gives us purpose and fulfilment, and provides security for our long term futures.
I was so happy when I got my first job with a small design …
As a candidate for next year’s local elections in Rotherhithe, I and my colleagues across Southwark have some excellent targets. They take the form of a campaign grid, which helpfully channels our collective and individual energy as we work towards the finishing line now set for 22 May 2014.
Pioneered in Hull, our grid targets include manageable voter contact numbers, aspirational targets for fundraising and, of course, a core aim of recruiting more members.
It is the latter target that got me thinking… Why join a political party? …
This week was the week of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Perhaps more importantly for the Coalition’s self-confidence was the erasure from the economic records of the double-dip recession. Nick’s letter this week is bullish about the Lib Dems’ record on the economy: “Creating jobs. Stopping the build up of Labour’s unsustainable debts. Getting the economy back on track”. It is also savage of Labour’s record, not just in government but their last three years in opposition, too: “They don’t have a credible economic plan and it’s no wonder people don’t trust them with their money.”
Combine this with Danny Alexander’s assault on Labour’s pensions policy and David Laws’ publication of that infamous hand-written note by Liam “there’s no money” Byrne, and it’s clear the party is upping the ante in taking the fight to Labour (ironically as Labour continues moving its position closer to the Lib Dems’).
Here’s Nick’s letter in full…
Money, jobs and investment dominated the agenda this week. On Wednesday, the chancellor set out details of the Spending Round: the last set of savings we will have to announce in this Parliament. On Thursday, Danny Alexander followed up by announcing massive new investment in our roads, rail, housing and infrastructure.
Many thanks to the 12,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here’s our 7 most-read posts…
Nick, we’re not a bunch of unrealistic hippies desperate for opposition, you know… (68) by Caron Lindsay
‘Red lines’ v ‘a long shopping list’: Clegg sets out plan for slimline 2015 manifesto (68) by Stephen Tall
Interview: Nick Clegg on the economy, welfare, Cleggism and the “superb” Kung Fu Panda films (7) by Nick Thornsby
Tory rebels launch their own alternative Queen’s Speech as helpful reminder of
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File this story under one of two categories, according to taste: ‘How did we miss this at the time?’ or ‘Why are you even bothering to tell us now?’
Here at LibDemVoice we try and keep you up-to-date with all Lib Dem affairs. And speaking of affairs… according to the Daily Telegraph of 11th June (yes, I’m afraid I don’t regularly read its ‘Home > Women > Sex’ section) Nick Clegg is the most attractive of the party leaders to women on the look-out for “a bit of extracurricular” …
Congratulations to Tim Leunig — these days a senior adviser in the Department for Education, but until recently chief economist at the CentreForum think-tank — whose report Bigger and quieter: the right answer for aviation was the winner this week of the economic and financial category at Prospect Magazine’s Think Tank of the Year Awards 2013.
Tim’s report, published jointly by CentreForum and Policy Exchange, examined all the options for increasing airport capacity in the UK. It supports placing four runways immediately west of the current Heathrow site, doubling the existing capacity to 130 million passengers, and cementing it as Europe’s premier hub:
We argue that the first best solution is to build four new parallel runways, arranged in two sets of pairs, immediately to the west of the existing Heathrow airport. These would run above the M25, and Wraysbury reservoir. The Poyle industrial estate and a relatively limited amount of housing would need to be demolished. Clearly the problem with Heathrow at present is noise. Moving the runways west reduces noise over west London, since the planes will be higher over any given place. We will reinforce this noise reduction by banning the noisiest planes. This is not possible in the short run, but could be achieved by 2030, a plausible date for this airport to open.
In addition, narrow bodied planes will be required to land more steeply, as they do in London City. Again, this means that they are further up when they are above any particular place, reducing the amount of noise that reaches the ground. Finally there would be an absolute ban on night flights.
Interested in reading more? Here’s the link, and below’s the full document…
Could Labour be about to “do a John Smith” to the Tories over the timing of an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union?
In the 1990s, Labour wrought havoc on the fourth-term Tory government by (cynically) teaming up with the right-wing ‘Maastricht rebels’ to inflict damaging Commons defeats on their common enemy, John Major.
Could Ed Miliband try and do the same to David Cameron? That’s the hint in today’s Guardian:
Labour is considering backing an in-out referendum on Europe as early as
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This week’s announcements were both a preview of the coalition’s spending plans for 2015/16 and a sign of the government’s direction of travel. For cities, the spending review was mixed. Despite the Government delivering the Single Local Growth Fund devolution was fairly limited, with an emphasis on central government control rather than local autonomy, and most of the policy announcements lacked a focus on ‘place’.
Wednesday’s announcement of the Single Local Growth Fund was an important move towards greater localism, but the allocation of £2bn a year for five years was paltry compared with the £49bn over four years Heseltine …
The London Evening Standard reports:
Police should target “cutters” who perform genital mutilation on girls in Britain, rather than the parents who pay for it, International Development minister Lynne Featherstone says.
The minister, who this week visited Kenya to see how female genital mutilation is being stamped out there, said Britain needs to speed up the first prosecution here to send a warning that the practice will not be tolerated. FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985 but nobody has
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This week’s spending review settlement again guaranteed funding for the NHS with another increase in funding by £2.1bn in cash terms for 2015-16. But we know these are challenging times for the NHS and for care services. A&E departments are facing rising demand and local authorities are having to make tough decisions on care. That is why as part of the settlement we announced a £3.8bn pooled health and social care budget to join up care around people’s lives. It doesn’t matter who provides the care – what matters is that people get the care they need and they don’t …
Listening to the Commons debate, secured by Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather, I felt relieved that I live in Scotland where the measures don’t apply. The big issue that’s hit the headlines is the withdrawal of choice of solicitor, but there are many more problems with it including the one year residence test. As Sarah Teather pointed out, how would representation be secured for a baby who is the subject of care proceedings.
Sarah talked about the effect of the measures on refugees:
Were it not for the intervention of lawyers, many refugees would be homeless at the very time when the
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It’s not often that we at Liberal Democrat Voice have cause to link to the Daily Star, but we feel the need to inject some facts into that publication’s headline which screams:
Liberal Democrats impose sex ban on randy activists
This concerns this weekend’s Liberal Youth’s Activate conference being held in Oxfordshire and it suggests that sexual activity has been banned from the shared sleeping accommodation.
So, now for the facts. It is common, because young people don’t often have huge amounts of money, for activists to sleep on the floor of a village hall or the like. In my day, my …
Stephen Tall told us all about the private members’ bills brought in by Tory MPs in their “alternative Queen’s Speech” – everything from burka banning to reintroducing the death penalty to naming the August Bank Holiday after Margaret Thatcher.
I thought I’d look into the measures the Liberal Democrats who were successful in the Great Parliamentary Raffle are hoping to bring into law. As you might expect, they’re a bit more practical and relevant.
Sir Malcolm Bruce’s Bill is all about improving communications support for deaf people. Signature has more details:
Sir Malcolm is a tireless advocate for the deaf community
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Nick Clegg has an article over at PinkNews.co.uk, in which he highlights how the forthcoming same-sex marriage legislation means this weekend’s Pride in London celebrations will be a “landmark” event. However, he contrasts the strides of progress made here with continuing repression against LGBT people around the world. Here’s an excerpt:
Civil partnerships were a huge stride forward, but only the right to marry – if you choose – is real equality. This isn’t just a ‘gay issue’. It’s about the kind of society we want to be.
This year we are flying
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There’s an interesting interview with Tory defence secretary Philip Hammond in this week’s House magazine. Two snippets in particular will be of interest to Lib Dem readers.
Let’s start with the defence department and horses. In the lead-up to the spending review when tensions were spilling over between the treasury and the spending departments, Danny Alexander remarked in an interview: “Of course, in a department that has more horses than it has tanks, there are room for efficiency savings without affecting our overall military output.”
Danny’s jibe stung …
This week, and much to the surprise of many political commentators in Wales, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood and I held a joint press conference announcing that we are to join forces to negotiate with the Welsh Labour Government on next year’s budget settlement.
In the National Assembly, the Welsh Government has exactly half of the Assembly Members. Therefore, each year the Welsh Government needs the support of at least one of the opposition parties to pass their annual budget. In the past, this has given the …
At a time when we are seeing some of the biggest government cuts in a generation it may seem to belittle the suffering people are facing to complain about the effect of the spending review on the science budget. As the government is trying to reduce our debt to income ratio, they have cut the deficit but we also need to create long-term sustainable economic growth. For this to happen investment in science and innovation is key. Our spending on research and development is vital to drive forward economic growth and reverse the current stagnation we see in our economy.
In …
Here’s your usual round-up of comments from Lib Dem party groups following yesterday’s spending round announcements.
Both Liberal Reform and the Social Liberal Forum issued press releases. Here’s what the SLF said:
Danny Alexander MP will tomorrow announce details of capital spending plans, a result of hard-fought negotiations led by Vince Cable and others. The Social Liberal Forumm recognises that further cuts to current spending in the Chancellor’s Spending Review today are unlikely to repair public finances in the absence of robust economic recovery. Today’s announcements are insufficient to tackle our real economic challenges following the banking crisis and the alarming collapse
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Video by hmtreasuryuk on YouTube.
Yesterday, we set out a Spending Round that delivers Liberal Democrat priorities on investment and improving our public services while making responsible choices to deal with the financial problems Labour left us. It demonstrated that the Liberal Democrats will remain firm in our commitment to tackling the deficit, but fair in the way we go about it. Our number one priority in Government has been to fix the economic mess we inherited from Labour.
Today I have set out how we will invest in our country’s economic future by creating balanced growth and delivering lasting prosperity. I have announced the most comprehensive, ambitious and long-lasting capital investment plans this country has ever known.
In doing so we are putting long term priorities before short term political pressures and we are ending the culture of short-termism that plagued so many of our predecessors.
Hopefully by the time you’ve read this you’ll be aware of the details I announced this morning to secure the future of energy supply for the UK – if not, and excuse the pun – let me enlighten you.
As you know already, we have a plan in the form of the Energy Bill that is progressing well through Parliament. The plan essentially addresses a major issue – we need to attract £110 billion of private sector investment to replace the supply we lose as a result of 20% of our power stations closing by the end of this
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Nick Clegg has written a piece for the Sun about jobs and helping people finding work. They have a Sunemployment campaign which aims to match people up with jobs in their area through a series of roadshows.
Every year, the Sunemployment campaign helps thousands of people find work. The roadshows that take place in the summer offer a chance to get advice and find out about opportunities.
Since 2010, the Government has helped to create over 1.3 million jobs in the private sector, across all sorts of sectors – from science to IT, communications to manufacturing.
These are jobs that have been created
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The ‘minister for bees’ must announce an urgent plan to save Britain’s most precious pollinating insects
Bees are in decline. 47 of our wild bumble and solitary bees are listed as threatened, we’ve lost some bee species already and according to the British Beekeepers’ Association, last winter was the worst on record for the loss of honey bee colonies, with more than one-third not surviving hibernation.
Their decline is worrying – especially the wild varieties that don’t live in managed hives – they are one of our most valuable pollinating insects. Scientists at the University of Reading recently estimated that were …
Liberal Democrats are well used to arguing for changes in how our public elections are run, because we know the rules you use for a contest have a big impact on how desirable its outcomes are. That isn’t just about the voting system (important though that is!) but also a question of who gets the vote, how much influence those with money to spare can wield and so on.
It is just the same with the rules for our own …
Our number one priority in Government has been to fix the economic mess we inherited from Labour. Today, we set out a Spending Round that delivers Liberal Democrat priorities on investment and improving our public services while making responsible choices to deal with the financial problems Labour left us. It demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats will remain firm in our commitment to tackling the deficit, but fair in the way we go about it.
When we entered Government in May 2010, we inherited from Labour an economy that was on the brink. We set out a plan to get our economy …
It is reported today that, in a further attempt to control spending, George Osborne is proposing further changes to public sector pay and conditions. Before he does though, perhaps he ought to make time for a little light reading…
Last week, the National Audit Office (NAO) published the extravagantly titled “Building capability in the Senior Civil Service to meet today’s challenges”, which sounds, on the face of it, to be a white knuckle, edge of your seat kind of read. And yet, if you’re keen to change the way that we are governed, …
Yesterday, MEPs and national ministers in Brussels agreed on the new EU research and innovation programme “Horizon 2020”.
Horizon 2020 is structured around three ‘pillars’;
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This is a report of the meeting of the Liberal Democrats English Council, held on Saturday at University College London.
The English Council is the governing body of the Liberal Democrats in England and meets twice a year to consider matters of importance to the English Party.
Speech from Nick Clegg
The day started with a speech from the Deputy Prime Minister. Before heading off to chair meetings at the G8, Nick Clegg had stopped into University College London to give a message of optimism to …
PoliticsHome’s Paul Waugh reports the Tory distress at the axing of one of their favourite parts of The Sun:
the long-running News In Briefs section of Page 3 of the Sun (it’s been going since 2003) is, I can report, no more.
The section was missing from today’s paper, now under a new editor, and I understand there are no plans to resurrect it.
Several Tory MPs are already in mourning. The party’s popular ‘Breakfast Club’ of MPs (which numbers ministers as well as backbenchers) has a tradition whereby
…
And they say that you shouldn’t go back… But relax, gentle reader, it’s only as a locum day editor due to a clash of commitments and some deranged word processing software which keeps Caron busy elsewhere. Don’t worry, she’ll be back before you know it, and I can spend more time with my lemur friend.
So, what do we have for you today? Well, at the time of writing, not as much as I’d like, I’m afraid. However, that will doubtless change as the day goes on, so …
As my Voice colleague Mary Reid notes, today’s Telegraph was keen to alert readers to the contingency plans drawn up by the Tories to carry on governing in the event that Nick Clegg were defenestrated as party leader.
I assume one of those contingency plans was the laughably blatant attempt by Michael Gove to try and undermine Nick Clegg last month and so distract the media from the Tories’ own ongoing internecine warfare over Europe.
Still, it should be a very exciting next couple of months for we Lib Dems if the Telegraph is to be believed …
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