James Harper

Opinion: We must prevent another immigration “legacy”

By James Harper | Wed 9th January 2013 - 11:53 am

Is there an amnesty for illegal immigrants? Keith Vaz seems determined to prove that there is, although so far without success. But the reality behind the bluster is rather more serious.

In 2007 the Home Office ‘found’ (or so the apocryphal tale goes) 500,000 asylum cases which had not been dealt with, ‘lying around’ in a room in the depths of Lunar House, Croydon.  This backlog was termed the ‘legacy’ of unresolved asylum cases.

A new department was set up and given the grisly task of looking at and resolving these cases, some of which had been untouched for over 10 years. …

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Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Marking the great Sutton and Cheam by-election victory with Sir Trevor Jones

By Chris Rennard | Wed 9th January 2013 - 10:25 am

Just over forty years ago, the Liberal Party was on 8.5% in the polls. The chair of the London Young Liberals, Graham Tope, was the party’s candidate for the Sutton and Cheam parliamentary by-election. Few people believed that a Liberal win was possible.  We had come third in 1970, some 17,000 votes behind the Conservatives.

Some people prominent in the national party were dismissive of the ‘community politics’ campaign that was brought to the by-election by a Liverpool Councillor called Trevor Jones.  Possibly the first ‘Focus’ leaflets outside Liverpool were produced for that by-election promoting the local Liberal campaigning led by …

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Michael Moore

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 9th January 2013 - 8:56 am

Every week, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here’s this week’s edition. 

Happy New Year!

First of all I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2013. With 2012 now at an end, there is no doubt that it was a pretty special year with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic and Paralympic games providing great entertainment and a sense of pride for the whole country. While 2013 may have less to offer in terms of international sporting events and royal celebrations, I’m …

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Stephen Tall

So, about that Lib Dem wipeout in 2015 then…

By Stephen Tall | Wed 9th January 2013 - 7:45 am

GB-election-map2Ask most commentators about Lib Dem prospects at the next general election and a couple of words are sure to crop up sooner or later: either ‘wipeout’ or ‘annihilation’.

I understand why. Look at the opinion polls and the party is bobbing around the 10% mark. Compare that to the 23% we won in 2010, get your uniform national swing slide-rule out, and you can see why many folk, even quite sensible ones like Peter Kellner, will say something like this…

The Liberal Democrats are facing political extinction with

…

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Stephen Tall

So what would you ask Tim Farron about the party’s campaigning?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th January 2013 - 9:28 pm

As I mentioned today:

What questions do you have for the party president on the party’s campaigning in the lead-up to 2015? Let me know, either below or via Twitter and I’ll try and make sure we cover it…

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Stephen Tall

++ Government wins vote on Benefits Uprating Bill; 6 Lib Dem MPs rebel

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th January 2013 - 7:45 pm

There were no serious doubts the Coalition Government’s Benefits Uprating Bill — pegging increases in welfare payments at a below-inflation 1%, the same as public sector wage rises, for the next three years — would be approved. The only question was the size of majority and how many Lib Dems would rebel (I’ve been keeping a running tally here this afternoon).

There were two votes tonight. First, a Labour amendment to the Bill, defeated by 321 votes to 262, a government majority of 59. Then a vote on the unamended second reading, which the government won by 324 votes to …

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Stephen Tall

David Laws to chair 2015 Manifesto Working Group

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th January 2013 - 7:15 pm

It’s now official: Lib Dem schools minister David Laws will chair the party’s Manifesto Working Group. Lib Dem MP Duncan Hames, who chairs the party’s Federal Policy Committee, has just emailed members with the following message:

Last night at the party’s Federal Policy Committee we agreed Nick Clegg’s nomination of David Laws MP to Chair the Manifesto Working Group for the next General Election. Alongside David, we also appointed two Vice-Chairs – Sharon Bowles MEP and Duncan Brack – and nine further members of the group.

The Manifesto Working Group reports to the Federal Policy Committee, which has responsibility for preparing the

…

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Mary Reid

That ‘shirkers/scroungers versus strivers’ rhetoric

By Mary Reid | Tue 8th January 2013 - 3:54 pm

Nick Clegg coffee - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsThere can’t be a Lib Dem who doesn’t wince when the phrase ‘shirkers versus strivers’ is used. I don’t want to perpetuate this poisonous comparison, but hopefully my headline will draw in some of those taken in by the phrase and expose them to a different analysis.

While none of us would want to withhold support for ‘strivers’, aka ‘hard-working families’, we cannot allow the terms ‘shirkers’ or ‘scroungers’ to become the standard descriptions used for people who are unemployed (especially in a period of high unemployment brought about by dire economic circumstances), for people who are full-time carers, for people with mental health problems, or indeed people with other long-term health or disability conditions.

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The Voice

How to get the most out of your Lib Dem Voice comments

By The Voice | Tue 8th January 2013 - 1:55 pm

How to get a photo to appear next to your comments

You may have noticed that next to some people’s comments is a small picture of themselves, such as:


If you want a picture to appear next to your comments you need to do two things.

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Tim Purkiss

Opinion: Where do we now stand regarding mental health provision in the NHS?

By Tim Purkiss | Tue 8th January 2013 - 11:42 am

nhs sign lrgMany people are clearly still very angry at, what they perceive to be, Liberal Democrats waving through Conservative plans to fragment and privatise the NHS – despite it not being in the Coalition Agreement – and believe that, within that, mental health treatment in the NHS will inevitably suffer.

I do not think that anybody who reads these pages will believe that the party can regain every vote which we have lost because of the NHS Bill.

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Chris White

Opinion: Pickles pensions off councillors

By Chris White | Tue 8th January 2013 - 9:21 am

The winning Kendal Town CouncillorsSome of you may have heard this brief anecdote before.

Some years ago a civil servant appeared in St Albans attempting to sell some ‘new’ ideas from the Government of the day about local government. He stood up before various district and county councillors in Hertfordshire and announced that ‘in future the Government wanted councillors to represent the people to the town hall rather than the other way round.’

He said it without malice or irony and as a result was not lynched – turning up some years later to dismantle the Audit Commission.

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Stephen Tall

The Mid-Term Review: 3 further points

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th January 2013 - 8:16 am

I posted last night my initial reactions to the Coalition’s Mid-Term Review: It’s hit and miss. But the biggest miss are the wasted opportunities. Three further quick points:

1) The Coalition’s survived: that’s significant

One omission in my review, and it’s a biggie: I should have noted the significance of the Coalition having stuck as a governing entity. The fact that Nick Clegg and David Cameron are making two-party government work at all is an achievement, one noted last week even by Matthew d’Ancona not a natural friend of the Lib Dems or pluralism:

For two decades we embraced the quasi-presidential

…

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Stephen Tall

Reviewing the Mid-Term Review. It’s hit and miss. But the biggest miss are the wasted opportunities

By Stephen Tall | Mon 7th January 2013 - 8:50 pm

coalition mid term review 2013I’ve had chance only to scan-read today’s Coalition Mid-Term Review (with its rather grudging, adjective-free title, Stuck Together in the national interest), but here are some initial impressions…

The economy takes centre-stage…

This may seem a statement of the obvious. And yet it’s worth comparing with the May 2010 document, Our programme for government (ahh, that Rose Garden-inspired ‘our’) in which subjects were sorted alphabetically so that you had to wait until chapter 9 to read about ‘deficit reduction’. Back in those days the …

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Chris Richards

Opinion: Halfway to 2015 – three bits of advice for new Lib Dem Federal Party Committees

By Chris Richards | Mon 7th January 2013 - 5:23 pm

The beginning of 2013 not only marks the start of the second half of the Coalition, but also the start of the newly elected Federal Committees. Here is some advice for the three crucial ones, Federal Policy Committee (FPC), Federal Conference Committee (FCC) and Federal Executive (FE).

For FPC: Radical policy is required for 2015
Common sense says the 2015 manifesto should play it safe, yet common sense is often wrong.

A study of policy positions in party manifestos since 1971 in Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK shows: Parties in Government who adopt relatively extreme ideological positions do …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 10 Comments
Helen Duffett

Nick Clegg to join LBC for weekly radio phone-in

By Helen Duffett | Mon 7th January 2013 - 4:23 pm

LBC announced this morning:

Starting on Thursday 10th January at 9.00am, Call Clegg will be the first time a senior member of Government has agreed to be challenged by listeners every week about the big decisions being made in Downing Street.

Every Thursday morning for half-an-hour, the Deputy Prime Minister will go head-to-head with LBC 97.3 breakfast host Nick Ferrari and his listeners, who will be able to call, email, text or tweet Nick Clegg directly with their questions.

Mr Clegg said: “I’m doing this because I don’t think politicians get to hear enough from people directly. You can’t do the right

…

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Paul Walter

Coalition review – fine words, but any parsnips buttered?

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 3:23 pm

clegg cameron rose gardenDavid Cameron and Nick Clegg have just presented their mid-term coalition review. You can read the full document here. As a taster, here are the ending words of the foreword:

Today, at the half-way point in this Parliament, we are taking stock of the progress we have made in implementing the Coalition Agreement that we signed in May 2010. But we are also initiating a new set of reforms, building on those already under way, to secure

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Paul Walter

Confessing LDV team members named

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 2:53 pm

Some rights reserved by Lori GreigOn Christmas Eve some of the Liberal Democrat Voice team made public some interesting “confessions”. At that stage it was a case of “no names, no pack drills”. Readers had a chance to guess which team member made which confession. (There were a few jokers in there to make it even more interesting).

Now we can reveal the identity of each penitent:

Confession #1

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Posted in Humour and News | Tagged | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

Duncan Hames is one to watch – Independent

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 1:23 pm

Duncan Hames - Some rights reserved by Duncan HamesDuncan Hames has been picked out by the Independent as a political star of the future. John Rentoul feeds some “scientific criteria” into his machine to come up with a list of MPs to watch in the future. The criteria include performing well on TV, networking, administrative ability and ideological positioning.

Duncan comes out of the machine as the one Lib Dem pickee:

Duncan Hames, 35, who has been PPS to Nick Clegg

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Andrew De Freitas – rebel with a cause

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 11:53 am

This is Grimsby has an in-depth article on veteran local councillor Andrew De Freitas:

A year after fleeing riots in his homeland, a young political activist from British Guiana arrived in Grimsby. In the first of a new series profiling our ward councillors, Local Government Reporter Simon Faulkner speaks to the Liberal Democrat Andrew De Freitas.

“I WAS always a bit of a rebel”, smiles Andrew De Freitas, recalling his childhood in the Caribbean colony of British Guiana.

“My father said ‘this boy when he grows up is going to be a lawyer’, because I was always prepared to argue on people’s

…

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Paul Walter

Opinion: Child benefit changes – get over it

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 9:54 am

The participants of talk radio were seething this morning, as people complained that they will lose child benefit if they are earning over £50,000. There was one particular man on Radio Berkshire shouting at his phone about it.

I think we need to step back here. Child Benefit’s predecessor, Family Allowance was introduced in 1946. Part of the reason for this was to encourage or, at least, facilitate the repopulation of the country following the killing of the war. The government was particularly keen on people producing boys. My own family duly did their patriotic duty splendidly by producing seven …

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Paul Walter

Cameron and Clegg to renew vows

By Paul Walter | Mon 7th January 2013 - 8:53 am

clegg-cameron-love– That, courtesy of the FT, is perhaps the most florid of a batch of headlines this morning concerning a “relaunch”, or at least a “resomething” of the coalition.

The FT article starts:

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will today alarm some in their own parties with a whole-hearted renewal of their coalition vows, in a midterm relaunch that includes a new

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #307

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 6th January 2013 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 307th 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 (30 December 2012 – 5 January 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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Mark Pack

Here comes the Mid-Term Review (Slimmed Down edition)

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th January 2013 - 6:06 pm

Nick Clegg and David CameronRight, time to set the alarm clock extra early for tomorrow morning to do a Radio 5 Live interview as it’s the week of the Mid-Term Review.

Not the original Mid-Term Review, as was planned back in the early days of the Parliament, that is – but the Slimmed Down Super Light edition, which will contain a fair amount of ‘look how we’re doing better than Labour’ and then a clutch of new policy announcements for the second half of this Parliament.

How well or badly the former is …

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The Voice

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Sun 6th January 2013 - 4:55 pm

The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are four simple ways:

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Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “The G8 summit is also about combining a strong economy with a fair society”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 6th January 2013 - 2:05 pm

Nick’s first missive of the year to Lib Dem supporters was despatched this weekend, its message combining two stories with the same core message: the role the party and the UK must play in creating a strong economy and a fairer society.

He defends the party’s decision to send a memo to key Lib Dems with key messages for voters, arguing the party has “to be clear, simple and consistent in what we say to voters”. And he argues the G8 summit’s focus on global tax fairness and creating a level-playing field for poorer countries rich in natural resources show the party’s national imperatives playing out at the international level…

libdem letter from nick clegg

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The Voice

LibLink: Tim Farron – A party of both competence and compassion is in a unique position in British politics

By The Voice | Sun 6th January 2013 - 12:15 pm

Tim Farron speaking - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsIn today’s Observer, party president Tim Farron begins the year in chipper mood, pointing out that the political pundits are quick to predict the deaths of political parties, including the Lib Dems — yet we’ve endured it all to become now a party of government:

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s landslide, after which serious political commentators, including those writing for the Observer, speculated that Labour could never win again.

In March, we will observe the 10th anniversary of

…

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David Hall-Matthews

Opinion: 2013 – Time to think afresh about International Development?

By David Hall-Matthews | Sun 6th January 2013 - 10:15 am

Lynne Featherstone in Zambia. Photo: some rights reserved by DFID http://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/8220719712/Another year, another set of attacks on development aid in the right-wing press. Prompted by a spectacularly ill-informed paper from Civitas, the Telegraph, Mail and Spectator tried once again to argue, without evidence, that high proportions of British aid are wasted.

The truth is that, under the Coalition, far more attention has been paid to value for money in aid spending than ever before. What is more, there’s little need to speculate about where

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Stephen Tall

Women bishops in the CofE: what Lib Dem members think

By Stephen Tall | Sun 6th January 2013 - 8:45 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

84% think the CofE should allow women to be come bishops

women bishops
In November the Church of England’s Synod failed to pass a vote that would have allowed women to become bishops. Do you think the Church of England should or should not allow women to become bishops?

    84% – Should allow

…

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Stephen Tall

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

By Stephen Tall | Sat 5th January 2013 - 5:15 pm

It’s Saturday evening, so here are twelve 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.

Political predictions: as the year ends, what does 2013 hold for the main party leaders? – Andrew Rawnsley sanely assesses the 12 months to come: ‘Nick Clegg and David Cameron face more of the same. Ed Miliband’s future is more complicated. He has choices.’

No longer the dunce – Anne McElvoy whispers the …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members tell us what you think of the party’s new magazine, Ad Lib

By Stephen Tall | Sat 5th January 2013 - 1:30 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Ad Lib magazine - cover of first edition

Thumbs-up for new party magazine Ad Lib from Lib Dem members

The first issue of Ad Lib, the monthly magazine replacing Liberal Democrat News, was sent free to all members in December. What is your overall impression of it?

    20% – Positive: I will probably

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged and | 8 Comments
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