Mark Pack

New party magazine to replace Liberal Democrat News

By Mark Pack | Wed 17th October 2012 - 1:25 pm

There are many people in party HQ who have to try to work miracles with sparse resources, especially the party’s newspaper team, producing Liberal Democrat News and its predecessors on a shoestring for decades.

All the more impressive if you have ever looked at the range of raw materials sent them; the press releases and photos available to choose from have not always been of the best quality, shall we say.

Picking through the party’s financial accounts each year, it’s no secret that the various incarnations of the …

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Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 11 Comments
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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb writes: Time to change

By Norman Lamb MP | Wed 17th October 2012 - 12:54 pm

Over the next few weeks’ telly-watching you may see adverts encouraging people to talk about mental health. For those of you that can’t wait, you can watch them online here. These adverts are part of the Time to Change campaign, England’s biggest ever attempt to end the stigma and discrimination that faces people with mental health problems. This is a brilliant campaign. I remember speaking at its launch back in 2008. In the time since then, it has made a real difference.

It can be extraordinarily tough to talk about mental health problems, and this only adds to the hardship caused by the illness itself. I welcome the fact that more and

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Iain Roberts

Is liberalism wrong – and how would we know?

By Iain Roberts | Wed 17th October 2012 - 11:58 am

A couple of hours on Twitter is more than enough to see the acolytes of political philosophy A assuring the world that everyone who believes in political philosophy B is stupid, immoral or more than likely both. The favour is typically returned in kind.

And yet anyone who’s acquainted with that slightly curious place known as the “real world” knows there are many highly intelligent, moral and clear-thinking people in pretty much every camp. Anyone who thinks Burke, Mill or even Marx had nothing worthwhile to say is a fool.

Who’s actually right? Are our political philosophies just religions in which we must

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 22 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Scottish Liberal Democrats launch vision of federal UK, home rule and local empowerment

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 17th October 2012 - 11:24 am

Photo: Graeme LittlejohnLast year, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie asked Menzies Campbell MP to head up a Home Rule Commission to set out our view on how Governments within the UK should work and what they should be responsible for. That report is published today and can be read in full here.  Menzies Campbell launched it at the Scottish Parliament this morning.

Far from being dry, constitutional stuff, Liberal Democrat values of empowering local communities and freeing people from poverty …

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Posted in News | 15 Comments
Dave Page

Opinion: Open standards: a liberal approach to technology

By Dave Page | Wed 17th October 2012 - 9:56 am

As we look at how we use technology to campaign as Liberal Democrats, we should consider the use of open standards.

Most people know something very basic about the World Wide Web – it was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. But the key to its success was not just the skill of its inventor; the standards behind the web were open, meaning that anybody could write a web server, web browser or web page. Dozens of programmes sprung up, all of them able to talk to each …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 17 Comments
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Antony Hook

Opinion: public contracts should not go to companies linked to human rights abuses

By Antony Hook | Wed 17th October 2012 - 8:55 am

I recently spoke in Canterbury against the Conservative City Council’s decision to consider giving its waste handling contract to a company whose Israeli affiliate are alleged to be linked to human rights abuses in Palestine.

The Council is refusing to consider the ethical issues on the basis of an interpretation of European law that prohibits taking such matters into account. The correct interpretation of the law is disputed but members of the public formed the distinct impression that the Conservative Council …

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Mark Pack

Information Commissioner sounds warning over Draft Communications Data Bill

By Mark Pack | Tue 16th October 2012 - 8:27 pm

An important intervention today in the debate over the Draft Communications Data Bill. The Information Commissioner has issued a strongly-worded warning about its impact if implemented:

Plans to monitor all Britons’ online activity risk uncovering “incompetent criminals and accidental anarchists” rather than serious offenders, the information commissioner has warned…

Christopher Graham said the “really scary people” could simply avoid detection by changing their behaviour…

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The Voice

Clegg on McKinnon: “A day for celebrating”

By The Voice | Tue 16th October 2012 - 7:25 pm

Nick Clegg has just emailed Liberal Democrat members about today’s announcement that Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US:

In opposition, we were unequivocal: Gary McKinnon should not be extradited. I said at the time that he was too vulnerable to be uprooted from his friends and family and sent across the Atlantic, and if there was a case to answer it should be here in the UK.

So today I am absolutely delighted by the Home Secretary’s

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 5 Comments
Simon McGrath

Opinion: Abu Hamza isn’t Gary McKinnon but we should still be concerned about his extradition

By Simon McGrath | Tue 16th October 2012 - 4:42 pm

The extradition of Abu Hamza and 4 other men to the US seems to have given almost universal pleasure and there is no doubt that he seems an extraordinarily unpleasant man, with a long criminal record and deeply repellent views.

But it is in just these sorts of cases that a Liberal needs to be careful and not just go with popular opinion. When you look at what crimes he and the other men involved are accused of it is impossible not to be concerned. It is, interestingly enough, quite difficult to find exactly what they are accused of; the best summary I have found is here.

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Posted in Europe / International, News and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Paul Haydon

Opinion: We shouldn’t take peace in Europe for granted

By Paul Haydon | Tue 16th October 2012 - 3:50 pm

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU on Friday was met with predictable derision from the likes of Nigel Farage, who described it the decision as “baffling,” and leader of the Tory MEPs  Martin Callanan, who said it was “a little late for an April Fools’ Joke.”

Admittedly, the current social unrest across Southern Europe made the award seem a little incongruous, especially coming just days after Angela Merkel’s visit to Greece was met with violent protests in Athens.

Yet in fact, this was …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 18 Comments
Daisy Cooper MP

Opinion: Clegg’s cock-up over Page 3 – he should sign the “No More Page Three” petition now

By Daisy Cooper MP | Tue 16th October 2012 - 2:22 pm

In a BBC Radio 5 Live interview last week, Nick Clegg declined to back “the campaign to ban page 3 girls from the Sun,” on the grounds that the state should not dictate the content of newspapers. But the campaign in question- entitled Take the Bare Boobs Out of The Sun but better known by its twitter handle “@NoMorePage3” – ISN’T calling on the government to ban page 3. It is appealing directly to The Sun’s editor Dominic Mohan to stop printing it, on the basis that it simply isn’t appropriate to “show the naked breasts of young women in a widely read ‘family’ newspaper” for the purpose of the reader’s gratification.

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 67 Comments
Caron Lindsay

The unsung hero of the Edinburgh Agreement

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 16th October 2012 - 11:53 am

As I watched the events unfold in the Edinburgh sunshine today, as Alex Salmond and David Cameron signed the historic Agreement on the process for the Independence Referendum, my thoughts were with the man who actually put the leg work in on this.

To put it bluntly, if we’d waited for David Cameron and Alex Salmond to reach agreement, we’d be waiting until people were telling their grandchildren about the day Hell froze over. In fact, only recently the Tories were murmuring about the UK Government running its own referendum. That, believe me, would not have ended well.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 12 Comments
Tracy Connell

Employee share ownership – open letter to Vince Cable and Nick Clegg

By Tracy Connell | Tue 16th October 2012 - 10:53 am

We, the undersigned, are extremely concerned by the employee share ownership policy. We call for this bill to be amended to remove the part where workers have to give up their rights for share-ownership and, rather, for the proposal to mirror that agreed by the Liberal Democrat conference in this document.

The proposal appears to allow for workers to give up their rights in return for company shares, as detailed on the HM Treasury website:

Under the new type of contract, employees will be given between £2,000 and £50,000 of shares that are exempt from capital gains tax. In exchange, they

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 80 Comments

Opinion: Sex education must be reformed to combat sexual abuse

By Anne Smith | Tue 16th October 2012 - 9:55 am

This post carries a trigger warning for domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape. 

The author’s name has been changed to protect her identity. 

The allegations of Jimmy Savile’s serial sexual abuse of young girls have been met with universal outrage. It has helped many more women to speak up about their own horrific stories. Rape and sexual harassment happens to women daily across the country, the majority of whom never speak up.

I was raped by a friend from university earlier this year. He never apologised and I suffered abuse from his friends worse than the incident itself. They routinely mimicked my screams …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 25 Comments
Stephen Tall

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

By Stephen Tall | Mon 15th October 2012 - 8:14 pm

LibDemVoice’s surveys of party members signed-up to our discussion forum have been running for well over three years now. (I posted at the weekend 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 two years 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 …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 2 Comments

Opinion: Regional planning – it mattered not one jot

By Andy Boddington | Mon 15th October 2012 - 4:53 pm

It is a general rule of life that the longer a document is, the less it matters. I have just read all 1,374 pages of the Strategic Environmental Assessment for the revocation of the South East Plan, published last week. Does this document matter? Not one jot, except for one important lesson, which I’ll come to in a moment.

Everything regional is out of favour at the moment. Quite rightly, too. When I lived in Oxfordshire I did not feel that I belonged to “the South East”. Now I live in Shropshire, I do not for a moment

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Kirsten de Keyser

Opinion: Calling All Bloggers – Don’t make me a tax avoidance accomplice

By Kirsten de Keyser | Mon 15th October 2012 - 3:23 pm

According to Vince Cable “No one keeps their cash in tax havens for the quality of investment advice; these are sunny places for shady people.” True to form, Vince hit the nail squarely on its head with a whammy of a quote, and how we all clapped enthusiastically. But who actually piles the cash into these rogues’ coffers in the first place? It could be you.

Many of our enthusiastic clappers routinely rock up outside Boots, on a sunny Saturday, aggressively jabbing angry posters-on-sticks skywards, in tandem with chants of

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Dinti Batstone

Final Call – Applications For Campaign for Gender Balance’s “Future Women MPs” Weekend

By Dinti Batstone | Mon 15th October 2012 - 2:55 pm

This has already been widely publicised through CGB’s mailing lists and at joint WLD/ CGB events in Brighton, but, for any LDV readers who may have missed it, here are details again. Please note the deadline for applications was today but has now been extended until Monday 22 October.

FUTURE WOMEN MPs WEEKEND

23rd – 25th November 2012

London

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Vince Cable

Vince Cable MP writes… My view on George Osborne’s employee ownership scheme

By Vince Cable | Mon 15th October 2012 - 2:18 pm

Last week at the Conservative Party conference the Chancellor announced a new equity ownership scheme. His proposed scheme, targeted at small companies, is entirely voluntary and cannot be forced upon employees. It would offer employees shares (from £2,000 to £50,000) in their business in exchange for certain employment rights. The shares are Capital Gains Tax free – which if the company grows extremely fast is a valuable offer.

The scheme has had a mixed reaction. However a few

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 76 Comments
Richard Davis

Opinion: Apps – a new weapon in the campaigning arsenal

By Richard Davis | Mon 15th October 2012 - 1:53 pm

In the 2010 general election it was the norm for all candidates to have a website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter account. Social media were spreading, even back then, and becoming a way for politicians to reach out to the people they represent, not just as a news outlet, but, as Tom Brake recently wrote on Lib Dem Voice, a method for opening a two-way communication with the electorate.

But now, with the spread of smart phones, we are entering an age where the politicians can add another weapon to their

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Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments
Ruth Bright

Opinion: Three-in-one leader’s speech

By Ruth Bright | Mon 15th October 2012 - 12:23 pm

Editor’s note: This composite leader’s conference speech was written last Thursday, well before Andrew Rawnsley published a similar piece.

Today we gather in a generic city with a bit of regeneration.

It is good to get out of the Westminster bubble.

It’s hard being outside the bubble.

Some people outside the bubble don’t like us.

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Posted in Conference, Humour and Op-eds | 12 Comments
William Jones

Opinion: The challenge ahead for Nick Clegg

By William Jones | Mon 15th October 2012 - 10:53 am

The right-wing, who have been rocking the leadership boat for David Cameron, have been dealt with. With some PR mastery, that has relaunched him. Even the threat of Boris seems to have melted away.

Cameron is now considered a “real Tory” amongst activists after Osborne provided some red-blooded Tory announcements. He has removed any questions about his leadership, for now, if he can steamroller the Lib Dems with a further £10bn of benefit cuts, the shelving of any taxes

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Paul Walter

The Sun’s “Hero of the week” is a straw man

By Paul Walter | Mon 15th October 2012 - 9:23 am

The Guardian reports:

Nick Clegg has declined to back the campaign to ban page 3 girls from the Sun, on the grounds that the state should not dictate the content of newspapers. In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, the deputy prime minister said it would be “deeply illiberal” for the state to dictate what appears in newspapers…Clegg was asked by Shelagh Fogarty, the Radio 5 presenter, if he would support the page 3 ban during a live broadcast from Sheffield. “No, no, no,” he said. “I’ve got three little sons so I don’t have page 3

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 29 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #295

By The Voice | Sun 14th October 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 295th 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 (7-13 October, 2012), 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

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Stephen Tall

What do The Independent, Channel 4 and BBC Radio all have in common?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th October 2012 - 2:15 pm

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

BBC Radio, Channel 4 and The Independent top our poll for best-quality political coverage

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

The European Union deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

By Mark Pack | Sun 14th October 2012 - 10:50 am

Something I wrote back last autumn is rather applicable to my views of the Nobel Peace Prize going to the European Union:

Sat on a shelf a few metres away from me is a box containing the various military medals won by my relatives over previous generations. The medals criss-cross Europe, coming from different countries, over the three wars that had a German-French conflict at their centre. To British eyes that count of three wars may seem odd at first, but for the German and French politicians building new European structures in the aftermath of the Second World War, their

…

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged and | 39 Comments
Stephen Tall

Who’s up, who’s down? How party members rate the performances of leading Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th October 2012 - 8:50 am

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

LDV asked: How would you rate the performances of the following leading Liberal Democrats and government ministers?

This was the first post-reshuffle survey of what members think of the new Lib Dem ministerial team. As it was conducted mere days

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg blocks Tory bid to opt out of European policing measures

By Mark Pack | Sun 14th October 2012 - 8:25 am

More on the story here.

Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Should Nick Clegg have appointed more female government ministers?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th October 2012 - 6:35 pm

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

44% say ‘gender is irrelevant’; but 35% say Clegg should have appointed female cabinet minister by now

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Conservatives campaign plans: lots of leaflets, limited number of Lib Dem seats

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th October 2012 - 4:45 pm

LetterboxDuring the week I blogged about how it looked like the Conservatives would be throwing their national kitchen sink at only around 10 Liberal Democrat held constituencies.

That compares to 38 seats won by the Lib Dems in 2010 in which the Conservatives finished second, and would mean quite a few Liberal Democrats MPs not facing an all-out nationally-backed challenge in their seat – undoubtedly good news for the party.

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