Liberal Democrat Voice

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone – mobile money opens new opportunities in Africa

By Paul Walter | Mon 18th February 2013 - 11:23 am

Lynne Featherstone writes on Huffington Post about the exciting innovation of mobile money:

There is money in the air in Mozambique. The deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and I have just watched Nilza and Herculano transfer 100 meticais (about two pounds) via mobile phone. They may both be standing in front of us for this demonstration, but in a country where less than 12% of adults have a bank account, the benefits of these mobile money systems can be large.

The Department for International Development (DFID) supported the launch of M-Pesa mobile money transfer when it was first launched in Kenya

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged africa | 1 Comment

Advert

Eastleigh campaign borrows slogan from Chicago 1951

By Paul Walter | Mon 18th February 2013 - 9:53 am

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of all the weekend’s news (18 Feb)

By Stephen Tall | Mon 18th February 2013 - 8:25 am

The penultimate weekend’s campaigning was frenetic at the Lib Dems’ Eastleigh HQ…

Over 530 Lib Dem volunteers passed through its doors in just this weekend (to add to the 1,000+ who’d visited in the previous week). Visitors included an upbeat Nick Clegg (BBC report and video here) and others — as this video shows:

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged eastleigh by-election, john o'farrell, Maria Hutchings, mike thornton, nick clegg and vince cable | 2 Comments

Doctors criticise Tory Eastleigh candidate

By Paul Walter | Mon 18th February 2013 - 7:31 am

The Guardian reports:

The Conservatives have been forced on to the defensive in Eastleigh byelection campaign after doctors signed a letter condemning its candidate for suggesting the local state schools were not good enough for her son who wanted to become a surgeon.

A letter from cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, another surgeon and six named GPs states: “As GPs and surgeons who all started their education at state-funded schools, we are proof that Maria Hutchings’ assertions are not true. The education system in this country provided us with the knowledge and skills we needed to follow our dream career.

“It’s such a

…

Posted in News | 3 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #313

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th February 2013 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 313rd 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 (10 – 16 February, 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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

Advert

What Google reveals about the current state of play in Eastleigh

By Mark Pack | Sun 17th February 2013 - 5:34 pm

The search results thrown up by Google often provide a neat little insight into what angles of a story are dominating coverage and people’s attention. The angles that get the most prominent coverage and the most interaction and responses are the ones that rise to the top of the search results. So what do they tell us about the current state of play in the Eastleigh by-election?

Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged eastleigh, featured, google, john o'farrell, Maria Hutchings, mike thornton and stephen tall | 7 Comments

Libby Local, Episode 11: “Door knocking”

By Libby Local | Sun 17th February 2013 - 4:15 pm

“It’s lovely to see a face on the door step.”

The genial middle-aged woman had invited me out of the bitter cold into her hall after I had explained that I was standing for in the May elections.

“And it’s lovely to see someone under fifty in politics,” she added.

It took me a little time to extract myself from her house, but I walked away with a promise of her vote and completed survey form. I felt distinctly cheerful, which was quite a turnaround as the day had not started well.

After a hectic morning trying to catch up …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured and libby | 3 Comments

Your essential weekend reader — my personal pick of the week’s must-reads

By Stephen Tall | Sun 17th February 2013 - 1:35 pm

It’s Sunday lunchtime, so here are a baker’s dozen of thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from all those I’ve linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here.

The lesson from Poundland: work pays – Tim Harford looks at the workfare which didn’t work and the workfare which did work. Guess which one the Government scrapped? ‘It is ironic that this is one of the few areas where the government is carrying out rigorous tests of what …

Posted in News | Tagged featured and weekend reader | 1 Comment

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “From Eastleigh to Africa – and back again!”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 17th February 2013 - 11:00 am

Nick’s latest weekly missive focuses on two places: his visits as party leader to the Lib Dem by-election campaign in Eastleigh, and his visit as Deputy Prime Minister to Mozambique and Ethiopia to focus on ‘the three Ts’ – tax, transparency and trade. Here’s his letter in full…

Like so many of you, I’ve been to Eastleigh this week. I was there to visit a local college with our excellent candidate Mike Thornton on Monday, and after a brief stop off to see the kids, I headed straight

…

Posted in News | Tagged africa, eastleigh by-election, ethiopia, featured, G8, letter from the leader, lynne featherstone, mike thornton and Mozambique | Leave a comment

Opinion: Oh no! Ed’s got us!

By Mark Thompson | Sun 17th February 2013 - 8:45 am

Well he has hasn’t he? I mean this ruse to force a vote on the a mansion tax is piece of political genius surely? The Lib Dems will look like fools traipsing through the lobby with the government whilst Labour dangles something that the party in general and Vince in particular has wanted to bring in for years.

Won’t they?

There’s no denying it’s an eye-catching move clearly designed to embarrass the Lib Dems. But of course the party’s MPs will (largely – a few backbenchers may peel off of course) vote with the government on any opposition motion of this nature. …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged ed miliband, mansion tax and political shenanigans | 58 Comments

LibLink: Nick Thornsby – Why Miliband’s tax move is good news for the Lib Dems

By NewsHound | Sat 16th February 2013 - 6:20 pm

Over at the New Statesman, LDV’s Thursday editor Nick Thornsby has looked at Ed Miliband’s proposal to cut taxes for the low-paid funded by introducing the Lib Dems’ mansion tax proposal. Far from being upset by the plagiarism, Nick argues that Lib Dems will be “secretly rather happy” for two reasons:

First, it shifts the political debate to the area where the Lib Dems are at their strongest: tax policy. For whatever else the party has done in government, it is the implementation of a £10,000 tax-free allowance that is cutting through the fog and being recognised by voters as

…

Posted in LibLink | 8 Comments

Opinion: David Jones is wrong on same sex parenting

By Linda Jack | Sat 16th February 2013 - 2:54 pm

It’s been a long time since something riled me so much I headed straight for the keyboard but the news of the comments made by Welsh Secretary David Jones regarding same sex couples bringing up children did it. For anyone who missed it, t he said :

I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can’t do.

He has now claimed that he was quoted out of context given that elsewhere he lauded civil partnerships …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged adoption, david jones, fostering and same sex parents | 162 Comments

Saturday Forum: Genetic Engineering

By Joe Otten | Sat 16th February 2013 - 1:04 pm

The debate on Genetically Modified Organisms has been raging, largely unchanged, for some years – Frankenstein Foods are coming to your plate if they are not already there. Aficionados of science fiction may point out that Moreauesque foods may be a better term, since Dr Moreau did genetic engineering, whereas Dr Frankenstein merely assembled a living organism from body parts, all of the same species. But I digress.

Greenpeace lead the charge saying

While scientific progress on molecular biology has a great potential to increase our understanding of nature and provide new medical tools, it should

…

Posted in Op-eds | 13 Comments

LibLink…Danny Alexander: The Liberal Democrats are the only fair tax party

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 16th February 2013 - 9:55 am

Ed Miliband’s speech on tax the other day sparked bemusement amongst Liberal Democrats. For years, Labour have passed off the Liberal Democrats as the sellout Spawn of Satan and here they were embracing Vince Cable’s Mansion Tax and trying to make out that they knew how to make the tax system fairer.

Amongst those bemused Liberal Democrats is Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, the man who has given 23 million people a tax cut by raising the threshold at which they start to pay tax. For the tax year beginning in April, this will amount to £600 being cut …

Posted in LibLink | Tagged fairer tax | 23 Comments

The LDV Friday Five: 15 February 2013

By Helen Duffett | Fri 15th February 2013 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

Mike Thornton selected for Lib Dems in Eastleigh (37 comments) by Helen Duffett
+++ Neck and neck: first Eastleigh constituency poll (47 comments) by Mark Pack
Three things we’ve learned from today’s opinion polls (115 comments) by Stephen Tall

Posted in Friday Five | 1 Comment

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the week’s campaign news

By Stephen Tall | Fri 15th February 2013 - 3:45 pm

It’s only just over a week since the Eastleigh by-election was called. But this first Lib Dem / Tory by-election battle of the parliament has attracted a lot of interest. One aspect that hasn’t been noted much in the media is the level of enthusiasm within the Lib Dems to fight this by-election, and fight it to win.

As the party’s weekly briefing itself noted, Mike Thornton’s campaign has broken the party’s by-election records, with “more volunteers, more money raised and more campaign literature delivered in the opening days of the Eastleigh by-election campaign than any other”.

Here a few of the stats:

Well over 1,000 Lib Dem volunteers have visited the by-election HQ since it was officially opened on Saturday morning.
On Thursday alone, 2,200 phone calls were made to prospective voters and activists knocked on 1,700 doors.
More than 650 individual donations have been received through the party’s website and through email appeals in the last six days.
21 of the party’s 57 MPs have already visited: Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander, Ed Davey, Vince Cable, Sir Malcolm Bruce, Sir Nick Harvey, Tim Farron, Jo Swinson, David Laws, Duncan Hames, Andrew Stunell, Simon Wright, Sir Robert Smith, Stephen Gilbert, Tom Brake, Roger Williams, Don Foster, John Leech, Tessa Munt, Mark Williams, John Pugh and Adrian Sanders.

Huge amount of action this morning at our HQ! Amazing turnout. #eastleigh instagr.am/p/VtMPkhhtpR/

— Mike Thornton (@Mike4Eastleigh) February 14, 2013

Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged andrew sparrow, Danny Alexander, eastleigh by-election, ed davey, featured, julian huppert, liberal youth, matt downey, mike thonrton and vince cable | 11 Comments

Stephen Williams MP writes… Making tax taxing again – 2013 is the Year of Tax Justice

By Stephen Williams | Fri 15th February 2013 - 2:50 pm

“I do believe that as leaders, we all have a common interest in being able to tell our taxpayers who work hard and pay their fair share of taxes, that we will make sure others do the same…But to achieve this will require strong political leadership…I hope we can be ambitious.”
(David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Letter to G8 Leaders, 2 January 2013)

This year the UK holds the Presidency of the G8, with the world’s top leaders coming to Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June. This is a momentous and perfectly timed opportunity to turn public anger, evident around the …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged action aid, david cameron, fairer tax, G8 and starbucks | 1 Comment

Lord Avebury writes… Gay asylum-seekers: we’ve come a long way, but much still left to achieve for LGBTI people around the world

By Eric Avebury | Fri 15th February 2013 - 1:28 pm

It is estimated that worldwide more than 175 million people, some three times the population of the UK, are at risk of persecution because of their sexual orientation. Seventy-six countries criminalise consensual same sex relations, among them 54 countries of the Commonwealth.

Hatred against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is deeply entrenched in the culture of these countries, and their elected governments reflect the prejudice of the masses. They know that persecuting LGBTI people is contrary to international law, and leads to friction with donor nations.

In the case of Gambia, when EU representatives were due to …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged asylum, equalities, gay rights, LGBT rights, uganda and uk border agency | 27 Comments

Caroline Pidgeon AM challenges London Mayor over unpaid congestion charges

By Mary Reid | Fri 15th February 2013 - 11:05 am

Caroline Pidgeon AM, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly, has challenged the London Mayor over congestion charges that have been evaded by embassies in the capital.

In answer to Caroline’s written question the Mayor admitted that embassies currently owe around £68 million. By the end of the year they will owe the equivalent to almost £10 to every Londoner.

The majority of embassies have some charges to pay. Two years ago the Liberal Democrat group studied the data gleaned through a Freedom of Information request and found that about a quarter of all embassies in London refuse to pay any charges at all. These persistent evaders include some of the richest countries in the world – US, Russia, Japan and Germany. To date the American Embassy owes over £7 million in unpaid charges

Posted in News | Tagged Caroline Pidgeon, congestion charge and mayor of london | 7 Comments

IFS verdict: Labour’s 10p tax idea “has no plausible economic justification”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 15th February 2013 - 8:00 am

Ed Miliband’s announcement yesterday that Labour will re-introduce a 10p starting rate of income tax paid for through the introduction of Vince Cable’s mansion tax has received a tepid response from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The IFS put out a note yesterday headed simply, Better options exist to help low earners than 10p tax rate:

A 10p tax rate would reduce taxes for those on low incomes and strengthen their work incentives. A far simpler and more sensible way of achieving these aims would be to spend the same

…

Posted in News | Tagged ed miliband, featured, income tax, institute for fiscal studies, mansion tax, national insurance, tax and vince cable | 12 Comments

LibLink…Paddy Ashdown: If you’re opposed to drones, then think again

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th February 2013 - 1:56 pm

In Liberal Democrat circles, when Barack Obama is discussed, it’s generally agreed that he’s doing a grand job except for the not insignificant matter of the extra-judicial killings and the use of unmanned drone attacks.

Paddy Ashdown has expressed a different view writing in today’s Times describing drones as the most “democratic” weapon ever invented.

As a lifelong peace-loving hippy, you’d expect that I would have been the first to head Paddy’s advice:

war is a revolting practice and cannot be discussed without using revolting words. So the squeamish and those morally offended by all violence should look away now.

I didn’t, though. Partly …

Posted in LibLink | Tagged drones, military intervention, paddy ashdown, President Obama and the times | 19 Comments

Opinion: Let’s stop pussyfooting over property prices

By Neville Farmer | Thu 14th February 2013 - 12:35 pm

According to a report published by Shelter this week, if the price of an oven ready chicken had risen as fast as the price of the average house since 1971, it would cost £51.18. House prices simply have to fall if we’re to find any way out of our economic mess and many of those with mortgages are going to have to take a hit. What we need to do is to ensure that the pain is borne by those who can best afford it… and who caused the problem in the first place.

We need to get over our obsession …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged don foster and property prices | 50 Comments

Rejoice! Labour has a policy. Even better it’s a Lib Dem policy.

By Stephen Tall | Thu 14th February 2013 - 11:35 am

Yesterday at PMQs Ed Miliband channelled Ronald Reagan. Today he’s channelling Vince Cable:

Labour does have a policy after all. Two in fact! It’s just that they’re both Lib Dem policies: tax cuts for low-paid funded by mansion tax.

— Stephen Tall (@stephentall) February 14, 2013

Here’s what Ed has just announced:

Let me tell you about one crucial choice we would make, which is different from this government. We would tax houses worth over £2 million. And we would use the money to cut taxes for working people. We would put right a mistake made by

…

Posted in News | Tagged Centre for Policy Studies, ed miliband, featured, ronald reagan, ryan bourne, tax and vince cable | 31 Comments

Lib Dems should lead the European push for a US trade deal

By Nick T | Thu 14th February 2013 - 10:23 am

President Obama’s public statement in favour of a US-EU trade agreement should be welcomed by all liberals. Free trade is a cause with a long and proud liberal history, and such a deal has the potential to increase prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.

There will be some countries in the EU less keen on such a deal than others: our French neighbours being the most obvious example. Many countries in the EU have a vested interest in not creating a truly free market within the EU, never mind across the pond. Agriculture has long been a major impediment …

Posted in News | Tagged free trade | 4 Comments

Notice: Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats’ AGM going ahead with new venue

By Nick T | Thu 14th February 2013 - 9:16 am

The following recently dropped into the Voice’s inbox, and may be of interest to readers:

The Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats are going ahead with their Annual General Meeting this Saturday (16th February) but have changed the venue to the party HQ at 8-10 Great George Street, Westminster, SW1P 3AE. The AGM will start at 11.15am sharp!

Afterwards members are encouraged to join us on a minibus to campaign in the Eastleigh byelection.

We postponed the EMLD / Social Liberal Forum conference on race equality – which was due to take place this Saturday – in order to prioritise Eastleigh.

For more information check the

…

Posted in News | Leave a comment

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the latest campaign news (13 Feb)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 13th February 2013 - 9:00 pm

Here’s a round-up of news from the past 24 hours in the Eastleigh by-election…

Mike Thornton’s campaign in full swing

The Lib Dems’ Mike Thornton — pictured here (by Jon Aylwin) with 1994 by-election victor David Chidgey — has been focusing on how the pupil premium, the party’s flagship education policy, has been helping Eastleigh schools:

Lib Dems boost Pupil Premium (Southern Daily Echo)
The policy introduced by the Liberal Democrats has invested £1.7m in Eastleigh schools, and is aimed at ensuring every child has a fair start in life.

Just one of the reasons why volunteer help has been pouring in to help Mike retain the seats for the Lib Dems:

Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged david chidgey, david laws, eastleigh by-election, isabel hardman, john o'farrell, Maria Hutchings, Mark Pack, michael crick, mike thornton, robin brand and steve webb | 12 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #312

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th February 2013 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 312th 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 (3-9 February, 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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

Mark Pack to appear on Question Time as @BBCExtraGuest

By Stephen Tall | Wed 13th February 2013 - 4:15 pm

Congratulations and good luck to Mark Pack, my co-editor here for another fortnight, who’s in the virtual hot-seat as this week’s @BBCExtraGuest, tweeting opinions and answering questions before and during this week’s edition of BBC1’s Question Time (Thursday, 10.35 pm):

Full panel this week – Maria Miller, @marycreagh_mp, @susankramer, @georgegalloway, @frasernelson and @bbcextraguest @markpack. #bbcqt

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) February 13, 2013

You’ll be able to follow Mark’s tweets as @BBCExtraGuest here.

Congratulations, too, to Lib Dem blogger Richard Morris, whose open letter maybe reminded the BBC …

Posted in News | Tagged bbc question time, Mark Pack and susan kramer | Leave a comment

Caron’s pick of the Federal Spring Conference agenda

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th February 2013 - 2:59 pm

It’s just over three weeks until Liberal Democrats gather in Brighton for our annual Federal Spring Conference. This morning the agenda landed on my doorstep and I thought I’d share my highlights with you.

If you can, it’s worth trying to get there for 3 pm on Friday 8th March for the consultation sessions. This is an important part of the policy making process, where ordinary party members can have their say as policy documents are being written. Most of them are on issues which apply to the …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged Jo Swinson, nick clegg, paddy ashdown, shirley williams and spring conference 2013 | 3 Comments

Lib Dem peer Avebury on working in your 80s

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th February 2013 - 1:28 pm

Yesterday’s Guardian carries a feature on three people who have worked way beyond the age when they can collect their State Pension.

One of those is Liberal Democrat Peer Eric Avebury, who has written several articles for Liberal Democrat Voice.

At 84, he’s still attending the House of Lords 4 days a week.

He talks of the driving force that keeps him going:

As I have got older I have become more and more keen on the idea of equality. The evidence shows that most of the ills of society – such as crime, mental illness and so on – are deeply correlated

…

Posted in News | Tagged eric avebury, guardian and house of lords | 1 Comment

Op-eds

A call for reform with a small “r” (Keith Creswell)
Liberals debate (Lucas North)
What do we think of Ed Davey’s tax cut announcement? (Caron Lindsay)
What does a Lib Dem “trans activist” look like? (Caron Lindsay)
Winning back a generation starts with fixing the broken student loan system (Tom Gordon MP)

Advert

What does a Lib Dem “trans activist” look like?

Caron’s kitchen table diary

Victoria Collins MP writes.. The ask that changes everything

To get Britain growing, we must cut business costs

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone – mobile money opens new opportunities in Africa

Eastleigh campaign borrows slogan from Chicago 1951

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of all the weekend’s news (18 Feb)

Doctors criticise Tory Eastleigh candidate

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #313

What Google reveals about the current state of play in Eastleigh

Libby Local, Episode 11: “Door knocking”

Your essential weekend reader — my personal pick of the week’s must-reads

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “From Eastleigh to Africa – and back again!”

Opinion: Oh no! Ed’s got us!

LibLink: Nick Thornsby – Why Miliband’s tax move is good news for the Lib Dems

Opinion: David Jones is wrong on same sex parenting

Saturday Forum: Genetic Engineering

LibLink…Danny Alexander: The Liberal Democrats are the only fair tax party