The Independent View: What do we do when children are taught racism at home?

By Chris Meredith | Thu 22nd November 2012 - 8:45 am

Racism is an uncomfortable and emotive subject to discuss. To its victims it is absolutely devastating and can affect entire communities. In Britain it is considered socially unacceptable but despite this, and the numerous laws designed to prevent discrimination, racism is still worryingly commonplace. I’ve witnessed it myself on duty more times than I can count; the culprits are usually adults, which is shocking and unpleasant enough, but for me, the truly worrying cases are those involving children.

Last month I spoke to an officer who specialises in groups with extremist views. He told me about a child living in the …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem peers help inflict defeats on Government in Lords over secret courts plans

By Stephen Tall | Wed 21st November 2012 - 9:10 pm

On Sunday we reported that Lib Dem members were none-too-impressed with the Government’s plans for secret courts. This morning we reported that 172 Lib Dems had written to The Times to protest. This evening the Lib Dem battle found its voice in the House of Lords, as the Guardian reports:

Government proposals to expand secret courts suffered a series of damaging defeats in the House of Lords on Wednesday, significantly narrowing the scope of the justice and security bill. By margins of more than a hundred votes, peers opposed to the bill significantly limited the government’s power to

…

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Caron Lindsay

Arise, Sir Malcolm*

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st November 2012 - 7:27 pm

Gary Barlow and Kate Winslet are very lucky. Not only did they get to meet the Queen today as they received their respective CBE and OBE medals at Buckingham Palace, but they were in the same batch, if that’s the right word, as our very own Sir Malcolm Bruce.

It dawns on me that Barlow and Bruce are quite close to each other in the alphabet so they may even have been sitting near each other.

Sir Malcolm and Lady Bruce enjoyed a celebratory lunch with family and

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George Kendall

Missing elections? Here’s 3 more chances to help in a by-election

By George Kendall | Wed 21st November 2012 - 4:08 pm

I really like helping in by-elections, large and small.

I love the buzz of campaigning with others from around the country. I love the knowledge that I’m making a real difference in a campaign that will be in the media spotlight. And by-election campaigns have taught me a lot: much that I know about campaigning has come from helping in them.

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Helen Duffett

AD LIB: A new magazine for Liberal Democrats

By Helen Duffett | Wed 21st November 2012 - 2:43 pm

Cover of AdLib issue 1

Last month I asked for your views on the new members’ magazine to replace Liberal Democrat News.

We got loads of really good feedback and we’ve tried to get as much of it into the magazine as possible.

Of course, no one has ever made 100 per cent of Liberal Democrats happy 100 per cent of the time, but we sincerely hope AD LIB lives up to most (if not all of) your expectations.

We’re not giving away too much about the content yet, but Twitter and Facebook profiles for AD LIB are up and running and for a teaser we’ve released the front cover (above right).

I know, I know, as defenders of transparency in public life how can we justify keeping the contents secret?

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: We need all parties to work together to solve London’s housing crisis

By Joe Bourke | Wed 21st November 2012 - 1:36 pm

Sarah Teather’s recent interview in the Observer graphically reminded us of the social impact of the housing crisis on large numbers low and moderate earners in London.

Vince Cable, on the Andrew Marr show, emphasised both the need to counter the tabloid rhetoric of benefit scroungers and restrain the growth in the welfare budget. Vince pointed to the urgent need to expand the provision of affordable housing in the …

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Michael Moore

Michael Moore’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 21st November 2012 - 12:30 pm

Every week, Michael Moore MP, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here’s the latest edition in which he is too modest, however, to draw attention to the fact that he won Best Scot at Westminster in the Herald’s Scottish Politician of the Year awards,  

Post Offices

In recent months a number of my constituents have written to me

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Caron Lindsay

172 Liberal Democrats write to the Times to oppose secret courts

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st November 2012 - 11:30 am

As the Justice and Security Bill is debated in the House of Lords for the second day this week, 172 Liberal Democrats have written to the Times to express opposition to the proposals for secret courts and their letter has been published today (£). Although only five names are given in the paper, the full list of 172 who signed before the letter was sent and more who signed subsequently is published on the Lib Dems against secret courts website.

What’s interesting about the list is that it contains such a broad range of

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Mark Pack

David Howarth: liberals should increase indirect taxes

By Mark Pack | Wed 21st November 2012 - 10:25 am

David HowarthMartin Tod recently drew my attention to a short publication from David Howarth published over the summer about levels of public spending: Spending and Growth – a response to David Laws.

As the title suggests, it is primarily a response to someone else’s views on appropriate levels of public spending:

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Tim Purkiss

Opinion: Can Labour be trusted on mental health?

By Tim Purkiss | Wed 21st November 2012 - 8:55 am

In my last two articles for Liberal Democrat Voice I wrote about the current under provision in mental health treatment in the country and why it is important that properly addressing mental health is brought into the political mainstream.

Thankfully in recent weeks this has started to happen. Of course there was Ed Miliband’s speech to the Royal College of Psychiatrists in which he spoke of the need for improved provision in mental health treatments across the country. Many people will of course welcome this state of affairs and it is encouraging if Miliband is intending to put improved …

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Stephen Tall

George Bridges: my part in the Tories’ downfall. As a Lib Dem, I approve this message

By Stephen Tall | Wed 21st November 2012 - 8:25 am

There’s a fascinating article today in the Telegraph by George Bridges: The Tories have gone astray – and I helped. Who’s George Bridges, you ask? Here’s his summary of his political career to date:

First a researcher for the Conservative Party machine, then a tour of duty in the bunker of No 10 for the last three Major years, followed by a few years advising Michael Howard and David Cameron.

It’s a hefty 1,000-word ‘Consevatism: my part in its downfall’ mea culpa, and it’s fascinating in two ways.

First, for its call to arms for Conservatives to ignore the polling …

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Stephen Tall

How you can take part in LibDemVoice’s exclusive party member surveys

By Stephen Tall | Wed 21st November 2012 - 7:55 am

LibDemVoice’s surveys of party members signed-up to our discussion forum have been running for well over three years now. (I posted yesterday the final set of figures from our most recent poll.)

Our surveys are a way of testing members’ views on a variety of hot topics. And as they’ve been running throughout the first half of the Coalition they’re also an interesting record of changing views on how the Coalition is regarded within the party.

If you would like to take part in the LibDemVoice surveys, there are simply two steps you need to follow:
1) Be a current Lib …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 3 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Just when you thought the SNP’s scomnishambles was over…

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 20th November 2012 - 6:55 pm

Scotland’s SNP Government is having a bit of a torrid time at the moment.

There’s been allegations of ministerial bullying, then the First Minister gets caught out not only misleading Parliament, but doing so in smug and gloaty style, and then the Education Secretary has to make a grovelling apology for an earlier transgression. Not very edifying at all.

So it must have been really gratifying for Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil to get a tweet from someone called @SirIanBlair saying how well the SNP were doing …

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat Michael Moore named “Best Scot at Westminster”

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 20th November 2012 - 4:37 pm

It’s been a good few weeks for Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore.  First of all, he was described as Westminster’s answer to James Bond by John Rentoul in the Independent for his role in bringing about the Edinburgh Agreement which set the process for Scotland’s independence referendum. Rentoul said:

Salmond has been underestimated before, although support for independence in opinion polls has rarely exceeded one third of the electorate. But he may have met his match in Moore, as skilful in judging the politics of Whitehall as he is the mood of Scotland. It may be that, after the referendum, Moore will be counted the most successful Liberal Democrat in the Cabinet, and, even, the man who saved the United Kingdom.

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Andy Strange

Reporting back from English Council’s 17 November meeting

By Andy Strange | Tue 20th November 2012 - 3:29 pm

This is a report of the meeting of the Liberal Democrat’s English Council held last Saturday (17th November 2012) 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.

Review of Police and Crime Commissioner elections campaign

The main topic of discussion at this meeting was how the English Party should respond to the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.

There was general agreement that the way the Party had handled the run up to these elections had been, shall we say, less than …

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Opinion: Are Nick Clegg’s emails to members too little, too late?

By Former Organiser | Tue 20th November 2012 - 2:26 pm

Nick Clegg has started sending weekly emails to my inbox.  As I research political communication, I was interested to see that Clegg and his team had taken a new approach to the mass membership email.

I recently carried out a large survey of Liberal Democrat members. Oddly, a large proportion of respondents commented that they weren’t too keen on the emails from Party HQ.  I was initially puzzled as much of the research in this area suggests that emails are an effective way of building up a relationship, and encouraging activists to do more.  The common view suggested that they were

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Stephen Knight

Opinion: It’s time for Liberal Democrats to embrace the Living Wage

By Stephen Knight | Tue 20th November 2012 - 12:29 pm

Earlier this month was Living Wage Week which was the first ever UK-wide week devoted to highlighting the need for employees to receive a wage they can live on.

The week saw the campaign generate much publicity, starting with Boris Johnson announcing an increased rate of the London Living Wage to £8.55 an hour (compared to its national rate of £7.45) and Ed Milliband pledging to extend its implementation through Government contracts.

More Liberal Democrats need to learn why the campaign for greater take up of the Living Wage is so important.  While we have praised those employers …

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Richard Wingfield

Opinion: Prisoner voting and the rule of law

By Richard Wingfield | Tue 20th November 2012 - 11:25 am

Liberal Democrats have always been proud defenders of the rule of law. As our manifesto stated in 2010, the values of ‘fairness and the rule of law’ lie at the heart of our foreign policy. However, just as we call on other states such as Burma, Belarus and Zimbabwe to respect the rule of law, so we must be ever vigilant that there is no weakening of this fundamental principle at home. The Liberal Democrat policy on the Justice and Security Bill at conference in September was a powerful reminder to the leadership on how seriously we, as a party, take this issue.

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David Thorpe

Opinion: We must dismantle BBC to reform it

By David Thorpe | Tue 20th November 2012 - 10:14 am

If the BBC has been feeling a little cursed of late it can at least feel blessed in having Rupert Murdoch as an enemy. For the truth is that the BBC and Murdoch need to each other to justify their own world view and block any threat to seriously reform either of their vast empires.

In much the same way as the Labour and Tory parties use each other’s existence to drown the genuinely radical voices out of British public life whilst they tinker at their edge of whichever of

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Chris White

Opinion: we must campaign to win in every election

By Chris White | Tue 20th November 2012 - 8:57 am

Those of us who have been around a while will remember fighting nationwide elections we knew we couldn’t win. European elections were always like this until the nineties, when we suddenly made a (minor) breakthrough even before PR voting was introduced.

So in the scheme of things Thursday’s PCC elections were nothing new.

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Stephen Tall

4-in-10 Lib Dem members want to see the railways fully nationalised

By Stephen Tall | Tue 20th November 2012 - 7:45 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.

Just 1-in-20 Lib Dems opt for full privatisation

LDV asked: In general, would you like to see more or less government involvement in running the country’s railways?

    41% – I would like to see the railways fully nationalised

    34% – I would like to see more government regulation than there is currently, but

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged , and | 22 Comments
Dinti Batstone

Opinion: Job share MPs – an idea whose time has come

By Dinti Batstone | Mon 19th November 2012 - 8:24 pm

As regular LDV readers may know, I’ve long advocated the idea of allowing candidates to put themselves forward for election on a job-share basis (letting constituents decide whether they want to elect job-share MPs). Today a Bill making this possible will be presented to the House of Commons.

The Representation of the People (Members’ Job Share) Bill will be introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by Labour MP John McDonnell. It will be interesting to see how much cross-party support the Bill gets. Individual Lib Dems have certainly been sympathetic to its aims. Mark Williams MP tabled an Early Day Motion …

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Paul Walter

Tribute to the contribution of David Rendel

By Paul Walter | Mon 19th November 2012 - 4:53 pm

The Newbury Weekly News very kindly published the following letter from me in a recent edition. I reproduce it here in case it is of interest to a wider readership:

Through your columns, I’d like to pay warm tribute to the extraordinary contribution to the Liberal Democrats and West Berkshire which David Rendel has made over an unprecedented 28 years as our local parliamentary candidate or MP (that, of course, includes time during the existence of our predecessor party).

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Adam Corlett

CentreForum’s proposals for the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement

By Adam Corlett | Mon 19th November 2012 - 3:20 pm

Ahead of December 5th’s Autumn Statement, we have suggested £17 billion of revenue-raising measures for the coalition parties to consider. Our proposals offer ways to narrow the deficit with as little pain as possible, and further measures to unlock growth.

These include what might be called “wealth taxes” – those on property, inheritance, and financial assets. One of our key themes is that substantial revenue can be raised simply by ending wealth and income tax breaks. Spending cuts should therefore include cuts to ‘tax expenditures’. Many of the measures below would make the tax system simpler, fairer and more efficient …

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Nick T

The Justice and Security Bill goes back to the Lords with last-minute amendments

By Nick T | Mon 19th November 2012 - 1:24 pm

One of the government’s most controversial bills of this session – the Justice and Security Bill – goes back before the House of Lords today for Report Stage consideration. The second part of the Bill makes provision for civil cases to be heard in a ‘closed material procedure‘, with one side (and the public) barred from hearing the evidence of the other if a judge deems that it would be damaging to national security if it became public.

Liberal Democrat members, of course, overwhelmingly passed

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Stephen Tall

The Economist: ‘Grassroots Lib Dems are much keener on coalition than Tories’

By Stephen Tall | Mon 19th November 2012 - 12:30 pm

The Economist’s political commentator ‘Bagehot’ this week surveys the attitudes of Lib Dems towards the Coalition at the mid-term point — I particularly like its opening:

THE Somerset village of Chew Magna, with its sleepy pub and Georgian houses, seems an odd setting for prognostications about Britain’s political future. But prognosticate the local Liberal Democrats do. “In 40 years’ time, people will look back and ask: what was all the fuss about being in coalition?” says Dine Romero, a councillor. Her colleagues nod. Multi-party government, they agree, is here to stay. “I like coalition—on principle”, asserts a sprightly 91-year-old.

We all …

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Mark Pack

Eliminating the structural deficit is aiming for the wrong target

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th November 2012 - 10:53 am

HM Treasury logoThere is an appealing simplicity behind the idea of having a zero structural deficit. It is the policy the government is committed to, with its plans to eliminate the structural deficit. And it’s also wrong.

For all the problems in measuring the structural deficit accurately, the concept is a useful one – to measure what the deficit is, once you have allowed for where we are in the economic cycle. Or, as the FT puts it, “A budget deficit that results from a fundamental imbalance in government receipts and expenditures, as opposed to one based on one-off or short-term factors”.

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Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Liberal Democrat News RIP

By Chris Rennard | Mon 19th November 2012 - 9:53 am

In 1945 the Liberal News was a receipt for your weekly Liberal Party subscription. As a weekly newspaper, it outlasted Conservative and Labour Party rivals by some decades. Week by week party members, and a handful of others, were reminded of what the Liberal Party was up to when the mainstream media paid scant attention to it.

At times, when Liberal members could only dream of the days when the party might return to Government, Liberal News (and then Liberal Democrat News) reported on the great by-election breakthroughs like Orpington, Edge Hill, Eastbourne, Newbury and Brent East. At other times, the best that it could do to sustain hope was to feature an occasional parish council by-election win.

As someone who helped to organise many of the most spectacular by-election wins, I knew that the party paper also helped to bring

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Ethan Roeder

The Independent View: A reply to Mark Pack from Obama’s Director of Data

By Ethan Roeder | Mon 19th November 2012 - 8:53 am

The Crystal Ball chart blogged by Mark Pack highlights the interesting cases of Alaska and Utah. These outliers make sense given the dynamics of the race (the large Mormon population in UT provided a boost to Romney while the absence of Sarah Palin from the ballot hurt Republican performance in AK relative to 2008). But why do we not see more turbulence in the battleground states?  Surely the gobs of money spent in these states along with the monumental ground efforts of the Obama campaign would push these states away from the crowd? The answer to this apparent disconnect …

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Posted in LDVUSA, Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Eric Avebury

Lord Avebury writes… World Toilet Day and sanitation: an unspoken problem

By Eric Avebury | Mon 19th November 2012 - 7:33 am

Today is World Toilet Day and it is important to remember that 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. One in three women across the world risks shame, disease, harassment and even attack because they do not have a safe place to go to the toilet. This is unthinkable in the UK, but a reality in the developing world and the impact is devastating. Absence of clean toilets and inadequate sanitation facilities are key causes of diarrhoeal disease, the second largest killer of children worldwide, causing around 760,000 child deaths every year. Diarrhoeal disease is also a contributing factor to malnutrition, which in turn can lead to stunted growth and impede cognitive development.

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