Mary Reid

David Cameron says “I can be Prime Minister without Nick Clegg”

By Mary Reid | Tue 25th June 2013 - 5:06 pm

David-Cameron-and-Nick-CleggThe Telegraph has the news that the Tories have drawn up plans for a minority Government, should Nick Clegg be ousted and replaced by someone who is less sympathetic to the Coalition.

Apparently, Cameron’s advisers have told him that he could stagger along to 2015 without Nick Clegg, because the Liberal Democrats would still support the key reforms to state pensions and long-term care.

What they haven’t revealed is how much of the programme would have to be ditched.  I cannot imagine a full timetable of legislation in those circumstances.

The article once …

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Mary Reid

Investing in support for troubled families

By Mary Reid | Tue 25th June 2013 - 3:58 pm

Danny AlexanderYesterday Danny Alexander announced a major increase in funding for the Troubled Families programme, with an extra £200 million to be invested into the service.

He says:

Reforming how services are delivered is going to be a central part of this week’s Spending Round.

The Troubled Families programme is a radical example of how, by spending a bit more in certain areas, we can save much more in others and by doing so create a stronger economy and a fairer society.

Extending this intensive help to 400,000 more families will enable us to tackle

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David Allen

Opinion: What if?

By David Allen | Tue 25th June 2013 - 2:07 pm

The Coalition has hurt us.  We can surely agree that now.  It has left us no clear public image, other than supporting the EU and electoral change, in our own favour.  Breaking up Coalition will be so very hard to do, whether now or later.  If we leave it until 2014-15, we will have no time to establish a credible separate identity.  Clegg, if still leading, will defend the Coalition’s record.  It is only a small step on from there to promoting Tory-led Coalition out to 2020.

“Centrist” (i.e. pro-Tory) Lib Dem loyalists usually dismiss strategic

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Julianne Marriott

The Independent View: In tough times, parents need the government to help them, not to judge them

By Julianne Marriott | Tue 25th June 2013 - 12:38 pm

fifties-familyBackbench Conservative MPs are causing trouble and the marriage tax allowance is rearing its ugly head again. First, the so-called Alternative Queen’s speech would introduce tax breaks for married couples, alongside other excruciatingly right wing measures such as a Margaret Thatcher Day and the reintroduction of the Death Penalty. Also this week Tim Loughton has tabled an amendment to the Finance Bill which would introduce a tax break for married couples with children under five, where one parent is a breadwinner and the other is a

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NewsHound

David Laws – “I thought the note was a joke”

By NewsHound | Tue 25th June 2013 - 10:59 am

no money leftITV has revealed the contents of the infamous note left by Liam Byrne for David Laws. Unfortunately it is not possible to embed the video in this post, but you can watch it here.

Three years ago David Laws reported that his predecessor had written ‘There’s no money left’, but it seems that wasn’t quite what the note said.

 

 

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Caron Lindsay

Jo Swinson and Duncan Hames expecting Christmas baby

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 25th June 2013 - 9:55 am

swinson and hamesLovely news, via the Kirkintilloch Herald that Jo Swinson and Duncan Hames are expecting their first baby and he or she is due to put in an appearance on Christmas Day.

The Lib Dem MP made the announcement exclusively to the Herald, two years after marrying fellow MP Duncan Hames.

Jo (33) became the youngest MP in the House of Commons when she won the East Dunbartonshire seat in 2005 at the age of just 25 – continuing to be the so-called ‘Baby of the House’ until July 2009.

Now the MP,

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William Hobhouse

Opinion: Liberal Democrats must stay firm on deficit reduction

By William Hobhouse | Tue 25th June 2013 - 8:59 am

Osborne - Some rights reserved by altogetherfoolGeorge Osborne will stand up in the House of Commons on Thursday to announce the government’s intentions for public spending for the 2015-16 financial year in circumstances he neither anticipated nor wished for.

As a result of weaker economic growth and a revision to the estimates of the capacity of the British economy, the structural deficit that the coalition had hoped to eliminate by the time of the next election will exist well beyond it, meaning further spending cuts and tax rises.

Liberal Democrats must spell …

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: A Peace Plan for Syria

By Joe Bourke | Mon 24th June 2013 - 4:54 pm

Nick Clegg has said about Syria “I am very proud that, as a country, our reaction isn’t just: ‘Oh this is happening, it’s got nothing to do with us. We want to wash our hands of it.’ We struggle with what can we do. It is the wonderful thing about Britain. We don’t stand by. We don’t walk the other side of the street. We want to get stuck in and sort stuff out.”

I think there may be a way to bring about a ceasefire and political negotiations that avoids the obvious dangers of arming rebel groups.

Turkey has called for …

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Leo Watson

The Independent View: rheumatoid arthritis and public awareness

By Leo Watson | Mon 24th June 2013 - 3:29 pm

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system attacks the body instead of defending it, causing inflammation that often results in serious damage to bones, joints and tendons, and can also affect internal organs like the heart, eyes and lungs. Currently the disease affects an estimated 690,000 people across the UK.

To coincide with the launch of the first national Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Week, NRAS has today published a major new report on public awareness of the disease called ‘Breaking Down Barriers’, which includes a ComRes survey of over 2000 members of the British …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged | 4 Comments
Caron Lindsay

An equal marriage video guaranteed to make you smile

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 24th June 2013 - 2:12 pm

It is a very long time since I have felt this good on a Monday morning. I am full of happiness, joy and smiles. Why? Believe it or not, it’s all down to 3 minutes and 28 seconds of  feelgood video from Scotland’s bright and positive Equal Marriage campaign.  Set to the song Pride by Amy MacDonald, it takes in Broadway,  the Coronation Street set, Lorraine Kelly’s dressing room and, most importantly, real places and real couples across Scotland. All Scottish political party leaders feature too. There is a slight irony in that the slogan “It’s Time” was used by the SNP in their winning Holyrood election campaign in 2007 but we’ll put that to one side for the moment.

The video has been released to celebrate 5 years of the equal marriage campaign and to mark the SNP Government introducing its own equal marriage bill later this week. Watch and enjoy. You will be glad you did. For me, it’s very much move over Idina Menzel and West Wing videos, I have a new You Tube favourite.

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Nick T

Interview: Nick Clegg on the economy, welfare, Cleggism and the “superb” Kung Fu Panda films

By Nick T | Mon 24th June 2013 - 1:02 pm

CleggWe brought you a taste of the Voice’s exclusive interview with the deputy prime minister yesterday. Here is the full interview, covering the economy, welfare reform, pensions, Cleggism, our approach to the manifesto, Kung Fu Panda and Clegg’s cooking.

Nick Thornsby: What’s your take on where the economy is now, three and a bit years into the coalition?

Nick Clegg: My overall assessment is that it is healing. There are signs of confidence slowly seeping back into the sinews of the economy. Some of the latest data on consumer confidence are better …

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Eric Avebury

Eric Avebury writes… Light on the horizon for some gay asylum seekers

By Eric Avebury | Mon 24th June 2013 - 11:03 am

In 1995 our immigration law was amended so that asylum applicants from countries that were designated as ‘safe’ no longer had a right to appeal against refusal unless their case was ‘certified’ by the Secretary of State. With a Border Agency prone to error, a risk arose that people with good cases might be unjustly be detained, speeded through a truncated process and deported.

Even the Home Office recognised that in some designated countries, there was endemic persecution of women. In 2005 an Order was made adding some countries to the list of those deemed safe, but for men only. …

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Mark Pack

Have you got the new Lib Dem poster?

By Mark Pack | Mon 24th June 2013 - 8:58 am

There’s a good reason why time and again people who produce really successful campaigning literature talk about the importance of having good photos. It’s because communicating a message visually can be extremely effective. Yet when it comes to what the party is achieving in government, the answer used to be produce slabs of text or highly inconsistent leaflets.

That’s why last year I produced an infographic instead (and kudos to the party, and the policy team in particular, for starting to use infographics themselves more widely since, partly inspired by mine).

Now there’s a 2013 version, put into …

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #331

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 331st  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 (16-22 June, 2013), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, 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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Caron Lindsay

Letter from the Leader: Get on the inside and govern

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 6:06 pm

libdem letter from nick clegg

Unsurprisingly Nick’s Letter from the Leader this week concentrates on his speech to the Liberal Democrat Local Government Conference in Manchester this weekend. Here’s what he said to members and supporters.

There are still people who talk about the Liberal Democrats being in power as if it is a new and unusual phenomenon. That’s remarkable enough when you think that we have been in Government in Westminster for three years, but it’s even odder when you remember how Liberal Democrats have been in charge in Scotland, …

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Caron Lindsay

Nick, we’re not a bunch of unrealistic hippies desperate for opposition, you know…..

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 5:15 pm

While I broadly agree with Stephen Tall that Nick Clegg’s speech to the Liberal Democrat local government conference in Manchester yesterday had much that was on the right track, I do wish Nick could frame his remarks without it looking like he’s taking a good old swipe at Liberal Democrat members and activists. Stephen says that’s how you get the journalists interested. The trouble is that some of the people who are offended by that kind of talk may be too angry to read behind the headlines – and these are exactly the people that Nick needs to help …

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Stephen Tall

Two thoughts on Clegg’s Manchester speech (2 of 2): edging towards the right narrative

By Stephen Tall | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 4:15 pm

Two parts of Nick Clegg’s Manchester speech particularly caught my eye. The first — how not to repeat our mistake on tuition fees — I’ve blogged about here. Here’s the second:

Governing has carried a cost. We have taken a hit; Our opponents try to use the fact we are in government nationally against us locally. And I cannot stress enough how proud and grateful I am for the grace and determination with which you have absorbed all of that.

But I also know that if we try and turn back the clock… Hankering for the comfort blanket

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Stephen Tall

Two thoughts on Clegg’s Manchester speech (1 of 2): how not to repeat the tuition fees mistake

By Stephen Tall | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 2:15 pm

Nick Clegg’s pitch to the Lib Dems’ local government conference in Manchester yesterday was given the kind of build-up that seems to be an inevitable part of leaders’ speech-making. Nick was going to ‘deliver hard truths’ to his activists, ‘issuing a warning’ that we shouldn’t return to the safety of opposition, and urging us instead ‘to embrace the future’. That’s the way you get journalists’ attention, y’see.

But the billing wasn’t so very wide-of-the-mark. Nick Clegg did in fact offer the party a stark choice. And as the vigorous comments thread on my post yesterday attests, it hasn’t been …

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The Voice

Vince vs Danny and Osborne?

By The Voice | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 1:46 pm

From the Observer:

Vince Cable is refusing to accept deep cuts to his departmental budget without a guarantee of billions in funding for job-creating capital projects, as arguments over this week’s spending review reached a new pitch.

With just three days before George Osborne is due to announce £11.5bn of cuts for 2015-16, the business secretary was said to be in no mood to back down in a dispute he regards as crucial to the government’s economic credibility.

Cable is arguing, in talks with Treasury ministers and officials, that the coalition must have “a strong story to

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Nick T

Clegg shares his concerns over legal aid plans – full transcript

By Nick T | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 12:31 pm

I spent half an hour on a train with Nick Clegg yesterday, chatting to him about a range of subjects for an interview that will run on the site later this week. After the interview I tweeted about Clegg’s interesting answer to my question to him on legal aid, and a journalist I know from the Mail on Sunday got in touch to say the paper was running a story on the subject and would be interested in seeing his answer. Here’s the Mail’s take:

A cabinet split over plans to cut legal aid deepened last night as Deputy Prime

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Stephen Tall

The right to privacy: “in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 6:30 pm

With news today of yet further alleged intrusion into private citizens’ communications — GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world’s communications (Guardian) — here’s how The West Wing anticipated the past week’s furore…

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Caron Lindsay

Teather, Rogerson, Beith and Huppert speak against new family migration rules

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 4:05 pm

Last week I wrote about a new report, contributed to by Liberal Democrats Sarah Teather and Sally Hamwee, which outlined the heartbreak and suffering the new family migration rules are causing. The income threshold of £18,600 with extra for each child, and the narrow methods by which this is calculated is stopping many people from being able to live with their spouses in this country.

Earlier this week, four Liberal Democrat MPs took part in a Westminster Hall debate to try to persuade Home Office minister Mark Hunter of the inequity of these plans. Here are some extracts from their …

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Douglas Nicol

Opinion: Should we offer to pay university fees for doctors who commit to NHS?

By Douglas Nicol | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 12:25 pm

The dire need in the NHS for qualified high level medical staff could be given a much needed boost by offering medical students free university fees if they commit themselves to working solely for the NHS for a number of years after qualifying as a junior doctor.

Even as they progress through the NHS as junior doctors they are still being taught and trained in NHS hospitals by senior doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists and registrars. Some then go on to be the elite in the world of medicine, being in demand to do heart and liver transplants, neuro-surgery, plastic surgery etc – …

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Stephen Tall

‘Red lines’ v ‘a long shopping list’: Clegg sets out plan for slimline 2015 manifesto

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 9:55 am

Nick Clegg will be speaking today at the party’s local government conference in Manchester (Nick Thornsby will be covering it throughout the day here on LDV) and The Independent is one of the newspapers which trails what he’ll say.

Here’s my quick take on the top lines on which they’ve been pre-briefed…

The Deputy Prime Minister will take on his internal party critics by demanding a slimline manifesto at the 2015 election setting out the Lib Dems’ non-negotiable “red lines” in another coalition rather than a long shopping list of policies.

There’s been much discussion recently about ‘red lines’ in …

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Nick T

Local Government Conference live blog

By Nick T | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 9:50 am

Good morning from the Mercure Hotel in Manchester, where Liberal Democrats from around the country are gathered at the Local Government Conference jointly organised by ALDC and the Lib Dem contingent of the LGA.

The agenda for the day is here (pdf). I’ll cover as much as I can of some of the talks, as well as some comments from Don Foster, Gerald Vernon-Jackson and others. There will be a bit of a break mid-morning while I interview Nick Clegg for the site (we’ll publish the interview this week).

I’ll also try and post on the Lib Dem Voice twitter account

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NewsHound

LibLink..Lembit Opik: We are not alone

By NewsHound | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 8:54 am

This article deviates from our normal style of LibLink, but I thought that the fact that it’s the weekend, and Solstice Weekend at that, permitted it.

The UFOlogist at The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, that’s The Artist Formerly Known as Lembit Opik to you and me, has been writing over at the Huffington Post on the occasion of the closure of the Government’s desk dealing with claimed alien encounters. Could there, he asks, be other life forms across the galaxies. He seems to think so:

We live on a single planet in a galaxy which may have about

…

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Amna Ahmad

Opinion: The week after the Morrissey Report – what will you do?

By Amna Ahmad | Fri 21st June 2013 - 3:59 pm

Last week Helena Morrissey published the results of her inquiry into how the Liberal Democrats handled allegations of sexual harassment. In our 24 hour news cycle, this may already seem like old news. But it is vital for the future of women in politics that do not allow the report and its conclusions to be forgotten. The change cannot only be top down – it must also be a grassroots movement.

The Lib Dems are not the first institution to be found to have mishandled allegations of sexual harassment. It is particularly galling for party members though, as the picture …

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Caron Lindsay

Ah, maybe this explains Nick Clegg’s awkwardness over Nigella yesterday…

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 21st June 2013 - 3:34 pm

Nick Clegg has taken a mostly unjustified pasting in the media over the past couple of days for his answer to the question:

If you had been in the restaurant eating close by to Nigella and Saatchi when he disturbingly put her hands around her neck, what would your reaction had been?

Stephen Tall was right to say yesterday that his response was a bit ill thought out and incoherent. I preferred to think of it as him taking the pony to get to the point rather than the helicopter, something that he does quite a bit. Nick did get there in the end and made it clear that if he saw someone being violent to their partner, he hoped he’d intervene to protect the weaker person.

Nobody could be justified in thinking for a second that Nick would ever condone domestic violence. Yes, Yvette Cooper, that would be you I’m talking about. Dr Sarah Wollaston MP was as bad.

There’s another dimension to this, though, that I’ve become aware of today: Nick’s wife, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez and Nigella are friends. They knew each other before they did a video for The Stylist way back in 2011. Nigella had taken over the site as editor for that issue and she and Miriam cooked croquetas together. There’s even a You Tube video.

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Nick T

TOMORROW: Join us for coverage of the Lib Dem Local Government Conference

By Nick T | Fri 21st June 2013 - 2:32 pm

The Local Government Conference organised jointly by ALDC and the Lib Dem LGA group takes place tomorrow in Manchester. As you can see from the agenda (pdf) there is a packed schedule, with numerous MPs including Nick Clegg, Tim Farron and Ed Davey in attendance.

I will also be there, covering things for the site. I’ll have a live blog running here where I will bring you coverage of some of the talks, and hopefully some interviews from some of the participants. I’ll also try and tweet, both from my own twitter and the Lib Dem Voice account.

If you …

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Paul Tyler

Lord Paul Tyler writes…Never on a Sunday?

By Paul Tyler | Fri 21st June 2013 - 12:59 pm

Some little Englander MPs, as we know, are incredibly jumpy about anything they think might have come from Europe.  The latest in the line of Brussels bogeymen is the worrying advent of public activity at the weekend, which could – they say – cause all kinds of terrible problems.

The British Social Attitudes survey (not the dangerous ‘Eurobarometer’) has found that 45.7% of the public regard themselves as belonging to ‘no religion’.  Of those who do profess some faith, 57.5% say they ‘never or practically never’ attend meetings or services connected to their religion.  A further 20% say they do …

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Recent Comments

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