It’s Sunday morning, so here are a dozen of thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices, culled from all those I’ve linked to this past fortnight. You can follow me on Delicious here.
Immigration and the knowledge economy – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg makes the business case for immigration reform in the US, but the lesson is universal: “In a knowledge economy, the most important resources are the talented people we educate and attract to our country.”
I was one of those invited to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) this week for what was termed a ‘Small scale blogger stakeholder discussion’.
A quick reprise of why:
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The word ‘radical’ is to welfare reform what a pot of paint is to a wall full of cracks. The less you really know what to do to fix things, the more you slap it about all over the place in the hope that it will cover up things.
When you peer carefully at the detail of what is said after the roaring demand for radical reforms, you see what usually follows is either an absence of quite what form the radical action should take (‘radical, radical, we must be radical; just please don’t ask me how’) or simply by a …
On Tuesday April 16 the ping-pong stage of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill will commence in the Commons. As readers of LDV will be aware the majority of Lib Dem peers supported Baroness Jane Campbell’s amendment to the section of the bill that proposed the repeal of S3 of the Equality Act 2006, the section that sets out the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s central purpose. As has been eloquently pointed out by Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece and many others there is a clear read-across between S3 and the preamble to our Federal Constitution. There are however …
It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:
As journalists look to extend the reason to continue writing about Margaret Thatcher’s death, three quick points from me on the entirely bogus furore over whether the BBC should play Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead on Radio One…
1) Don’t buy the record
At least not in protest against Margaret Thatcher (if you just like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ please ignore). It doesn’t matter to me that it boosts Sony’s profits — though the anti-corporatist left might — but, seriously, is calling the first female prime minister a …
Senior UK Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles has called for a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry should the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) Hearing on 25 April not answer the many questions hanging over the Cyprus affair.
Bowles, who chairs the influential ECON Committee said:
We will have an ECON Committee hearing on 25 April with the Troika and Mr Dijsselbloem, President of the Eurogroup to get to the bottom of the Cyprus bailout affair. If we find the answers insufficient the Liberal Group in the European Parliament will call for the immediate setting up of a Committee of Inquiry
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Three principal authority by-elections this week, two candidates and one win…
We start with Darlington, where Howard Jones was flying our flag in Lascelles ward, one which we didn’t fight in 2011. Plaudits should go the team there, who have demonstrated that there is a vote for us out there, if we make a case. The Conservatives were pushed into third place, perhaps reflecting national opinion polls that are showing them at their lowest level in this Parliament. The result was;
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It’s been a fascinating week, hasn’t it? The death of Baroness Thatcher has been a reminder of a rather different political world, one of confrontation and ideology, of a sort that we don’t apparently see now. And, interestingly, most of the key players in the Thatcher administrations are quietly passing their days in the Lords, which made Wednesday’s tributes there rather more personal than those in the Commons.
And whilst the week has been dominated by her passing, and the reflections on her influence over our nation and its politics, there has been quite a lot going on, even though Parliament …
Heard on Radio 4’s PM earlier
BBC Reporter: But why should millions of illegal immigrants be given an amnesty to stay here?
Senior politician: Why should millions of illegal immigrants have to continue to live and work in the shadows?
Writing in this month’s centenary issue of the New Statesman, former prime minister Tony Blair writes:
Labour should be very robust in knocking down the notion that it “created” the crisis. In 2007/2008 the cyclically adjusted current Budget balance was under 1 per cent of GDP. Public debt was significantly below 1997. Over the whole 13 years, the debt-to-GDP ratio was better than the Conservative record from 1979-97. Of course there is a case for saying a tightening around 2005 would have been more prudent. But the effect of this
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I think it’s fair to say that Mail Online has excelled itself:
Though it may look like something from the Daily Mail-omatic website, this is genuine. Really. I guess I’m only disappointed that they couldn’t fit in ‘Outrage at BBC/welfare/immigrants’ as well.
(Hat-tip: Alex Massie.)
Among yesterday’s many predictable tributes to Margaret Thatcher on both sides of the house, one from Labour MP Gisela Stuart caught my ear. (Hansard)
Whole generations have forgotten what 1979 was like. I came here from Germany in the 1970s. I know that Margaret Thatcher would not want us not to learn any lessons from the battles that she had fought—some lost, some won, and some which continue. I am thinking in particular of the role of the market. It is interesting that Margaret Thatcher considered that Hayek’s book “The Road to Serfdom” should be compulsory reading. Many Government
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I’m sure readers would like to join the Voice team in sending our congratulations to Lib Dem MP, home office minister and regular LDV contributor Jeremy Browne and his partner Rachel Binks on the birth of their baby, Molly (not least because it’s an opportunity to use that photo).
However, while mother, baby and indeed father are all now fine, Jeremy and Rachel went through an experience that no new parents would wish to. This Is West Country reports:
Taunton Deane MP Jeremy Browne and his partner Rachel Binks
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A generation on, the Thatcher legacy continues to provoke and divide. One of the questions it poses for liberals is one this government is still wrestling with: does inequality matter if everyone’s getting richer?
Margaret Thatcher’s answer was that it did not — as she famously illustrated in one of her last Commons performances in response to a question from Simon Hughes:
MPs in the Commons and peers in the Lords have been queuing up this afternoon to record their tributes to Margaret Thatcher, including both Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown.
To read both their tributes, please scroll down the page.
Nick’s come in for some stick on Twitter, mostly from right-wing MPs/journalists, for instance Mark Reckless and Sarah Wollaston; even the usually fair-minded Isabel Hardman of The Spectator called it “sour”. I’ve both read and watched Nick’s remarks and don’t buy that criticism at all.
But two things do strike me. First, it’s a very perfunctory speech. The only two personal comments he makes are a nod to his Sheffield constituency (“where the mere mention of her name even now elicits strong reactions”) and a rather glib aside about her infamous “there’s no such thing as society” quote (I say glib because there’s a lot more to the quote than that: disagree with it by all means, but recognise there was a context to it).
Secondly, and more disappointingly, it tells us nothing about Nick and his views on Margaret Thatcher. Yes, of course the tribute is about her, not him; but surely everyone who grew up in the 1980s has a view on what she got right and what she got wrong? What’s Nick’s? Instead, he squirms round it equivocally: she “elicits” strong views… “whether people liked or disliked her”… “remember her with all the nuance, unresolved complexity and paradox that she possessed.” There is a studied, deliberate vagueness here. I want to know what Nick thought then; and what he really thinks now. I think the closest we probably get to that is his observation that “much of her politics was subtle and pragmatic”: that’s the aspect I suspect Nick admires.
That’s why those Clegg-critics who sniped at Nick’s tribute surprise me: there’s far too little of him in his speech, not too much.
Michael Moore has been sharing his thoughts on the referendum on the US version of Huffington Post. He writes:
Scotland is facing an historic decision in 2014: whether to remain as part of the United Kingdom or to leave and go it alone. Scotland’s nationalist First Minister Alex Salmond is in America this week and will seek to persuade Americans that Scots want independence, that it is our destiny and that U.S. relations with Scotland will only improve should it happen. On all counts, I believe that this analysis is flawed.
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With
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Team 2013 is the brand being used by the Lib Dem campaign for this year’s local elections. A bright new website has been launched to encourage you to help the campaign, even if you don’t have elections to fight in your own area.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill – Lords Amendment 37
Ping Pong stage, April 16, 2013
On March 4, the House of Lords voted by a majority of 103 for a cross-party amendment to make caste a protected characteristic under equality law (via a New Clause in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill). This is a conscience matter and I hope all LibDem MPs will support the Lords’ New Clause, as part of our commitment to the principles of liberalism.
Peers were persuaded by a report commissioned by the Government during the passage of the Equality Act 2010. It confirms that caste discrimination is …
After an extraordinarily brutal last few days, 17 year old Youth Police Commissioner Paris Brown resigned from her post at Kent Police. In her resignation statement, she said that she was ‘quitting in the interests of the young people of Kent’ after supposed racist and homophobic tweets dating back a number of years had been found by Daily Mail journalists and ran with by several other major news organisations.
There is no doubting that the tweets themselves were offensive. At no point is it acceptable to engage in homophobic or racist behaviour and the comments should not be made by someone …
Much has been made of the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party under Nigel Farage. Watch any of Mr Farage’s rabble rousing appearances on Question Time and one might feel that here is a man who speaks common sense. A man on your side – a party ready to change the three party system in this country.
Delve a bit deeper into UKIP and you’ll see a slightly sinister side more akin to the Far Right. It was only 3 years ago that, at the invitation of Lord Pearson (then UKIP Leader), the Dutch Far Right politician Geert Wilders showed an anti-Islam film in the House of Lords. Cheered on by the English Defence League, UKIP claimed that this was a victory for free speech and common sense.
The Guardian is the first off the blocks with an ICM poll asking the public’s retrospective verdict on Margaret Thatcher’s record in office. Here’s the topline figure of whether her 11-year premiership had been good or bad for Britain:
The paper also asked about specific policies, finding:
The sale of council homes and tackling of trade union power remain popular today, but people are less supportive of the fights she picked with Europe and tax cuts for the rich. Privatisation of the utilities and the poll tax remain deeply unpopular.
You can …
The latest edition of Liberator magazine (issue no.358 – April 2013) is being delivered to subscribers this week.
Here’s a summary of the new magazine’s contents:
Yesterday Margaret Thatcher died.
Predictably social media exploded with chatter about the passing of an epoch-defining politician. Perhaps it says something about the kind of people I associate with, that I found myself reading one comment after another proclaiming “Ding dong the witch is dead”. Some of my Facebook ‘friends’ have even posted grinning photographs of themselves celebrating the happy event.
Whatever it says about my social circle, it says plenty about the Left.
I grew up in a left-wing household. My parents were of the CND generation, Labour party members who supported the miners’ strikes. I had only just started school when …
The launch of our local election campaign yesterday was rather overshadowed by some other news.
Here is an extract from Nick Clegg’s speech:
Next month, in wards across the country, people will be confronted with the same choice. Despite all their stated differences, a vote for Labour or the Tories will be a vote for the same thing.
Their record in local government shows that, even when millions of families are feeling the pinch, they’ll both squander taxpayers’ money on waste, inefficiency and their own vanity projects.
A vote for the Liberal Democrats, on
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Since becoming an MP three years ago I’ve developed a greater understanding of the work that charities do, and a true recognition of the important role they play in creating and strengthening communities. In Cambridge, for example, charities such as the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Samaritans are there to offer support when people have nowhere else to turn, and many provide niche services to people who would otherwise slip through the net.
UK Sport’s World Class Performance Programme is the centrepiece of sports funding in the UK, and competition for funding is fierce. On top of this, localised funding from councils for leisure centres, athletic tracks, and swimming facilities seem to follow this trend, and are likely to support Olympic/Paralympic training facilities over other sports. The results of this mean that we are able to punch way above our weight on the Olympic and Paralympic stages.
The trouble with this strategy is that funding is only available to the few, and those who are unlikely to gain medals are penalised. Even those who are able to fund themselves may be denied Olympian status, despite hitting official Olympic qualifying standards in the UK, if the British Olympic Association deems them not capable of finishing on the podium. This is a harsh message, and means that funding for grassroots sports in the UK is very low compared to other countries in Europe.
However expected it might have been, the reality of Margaret Thatcher’s death triggered many of us to reflect yesterday. She shaped the country and, by doing so, she shaped all of us. That’s reflected in the number of Lib Dem bloggers who responded to her passing yesterday…
RIP Margaret Thatcher… and now for the pointless vitriol… (Mark Valladares)
… it’s been many years since she was Prime Minister, and a lot of the actions taken by her Government have stood the test of time. You might not like them much, especially if you were on the wrong end of them, but
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Several senior Liberal Democrats have already shared their thoughts on the passing of Lady Thatcher. We’ll collate further comments on this page as they come in.
Nick Clegg, currently on a visit to Cornwall, had this to say:
Margaret Thatcher was one of the defining figures in modern British politics. Whatever side of the political debate you stand on, no one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served. She may have divided opinion during her time in politics but everyone will be united today in
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The BBC and other outlets are reporting that Margaret Thatcher has died following a stroke. She was Britain’s first and only female Prime Minister and one who changed the political landscape. While we in the Liberal Democrats often have disagreed with her, there is much to reflect on in her lasting legacy.
Our thoughts are with Lady Thatcher’s friends and family at this time. Comments are open below for tributes only, please.
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