There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…
Here’s Nick Clegg meeting U2 frontman Bono. What do you think might be being said or thought here?
Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Jeremy Browne “Wiff Waff’s Coming Home” Edition.
Perhaps it’s a pre-Leveson softening up exercise. Or perhaps we’ve activated a Lib Dem sleeper agent at the heart of Wapping. Whatever the explanation, Nick Clegg has been awarded the accolade — for the second time in three weeks — of being The Sun’s Hero of the Week. I’m not sure the reasons for which the paper has saluted him will do him many favours with all Lib Dems, but (simply in the spirit of sharing) here goes anyway…
Notwithstanding the fact that he was our Hero of the Week just three weeks
Three pieces of news on the selection front for the 2015 general election: congratulations to Sandy Walkington, reselected from a field of five in St Albans, and farewell to Ed Fordham and David Rendel, who have decided they won’t go for re-selection in, respectively, Hampstead & Kilburn and Newbury.
The Andrew Mitchell Gate-Gate story started off simply enough: politician does stupid thing, bungles apology and faces heavy pressure to quit. Add to that what I’ve heard from people who have worked with him, and it all seemed a straight forward story of a person with an unpleasant streak getting found out.
But you know what? The longer this has gone on, the more sympathy I have with him. Hard to believe, but consider two salient facts.
It’s Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…
No, you’re not entitled to your opinion – Patrick Stokes at The Conversation argues that proper debate relies on contested claims based on relevant expertise: just holding to your own view ain’t enough.
Is The Economist left or right? – its digital editor Tom Standage answers the question ‘yes and no’: which can
It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:
To mark World Arthritis Day, Jamie Hewitt, Government Affairs Manager at the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) peers into Norman Lamb MP’s ministerial inbox and takes a look at the forthcoming Long-Term Conditions Outcomes Strategy.
Things move on quickly in politics. Just shy of one year ago today I posted a blog for Liberal Democrat Voice on the subject of a live webchat we had conducted with the Minister for Long-Term Conditions at the time, Paul Burstow MP.
During our public tête-a-tête the Minister was challenged squarely about the merits of introducing a musculoskeletal strategy and indicated that the Coalition Government …
In the spring and summer I blogged about how underwhelmed I was by the exceptionally tight campaigning restrictions for Unlock Democracy’s internal elections which blocked contact between candidates and voters (the irony given the organisation’s name!), leaving just a fairly uninformative booklet to guide my votes:
Now having the ballot mailing for the council and for the related limited company in front of me, things are even worse. Why? Because I’m left with almost no decent information on which to decide how to cast my vote. Sure, I’ve got a
…
Dear Nick
Like most people I have spoken to this week I had imagined that Osborne’s announcement of “shares-for-rights” was for the Tory conference audience, and would not see its way into government policy, not at least while the Liberal Democrats are part of the government.
Yet today I read in Tim Gordon’s weekly update that we actually are supporting this as a promotion of employee ownership! Nick, it is anything but!!
It looks as though this column may be going down in flames, now that the Lords have appointed a new Media & PR Officer, but until we do…
Days 7 and 8 of the Committee Stage of the Financial Services Bill dominate the week. And, as I still don’t understand it, I’m going to see if I can get an explanation. Watch, hopefully, this space… However, Amendment 197, to be moved by Lord Flight, requires banks to transfer accounts to a new institution, if requested, within ten working …
The New Statesman’s fair-minded political editor Rafael Behr has written a post-conference post mortem for each of the three parties here. Noting how Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell’s outburst against police ‘plebs’ hijacked the news agenda, reviving the ‘nasty party’ jibes (“Many Lib Dems didn’t seem to mind their demotion down the news agenda and revelled in the Tories’ discomfort”) here’s what he has to say of the Lib Dem outlook from the vantage of Brighton:
Lib Dems miss the moral high ground
Nick Clegg’s strategists
…
Lib Dems have gone remarkably quiet about Europe, whilst the Conservative Euro-sceptic agenda gains ground, certainly within its party conference, and probably within its party at large. Euro-scepticism flourishes in large swathes of the UK media. This swing of opinion is fuelled by the perspective that the Eurozone economy is in dire trouble, that the Euro might not survive, and that the UK was very sensible to have kept out of it. We are told all this every night on Newsnight. Gillian Tett wrote recently in the FT, that her father was correct in dismissing the Euro project as unworkable 16 years ago, and she had been wrong in her Euro enthusiasm.
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.
As the distinction in much of the news media between straight reporting and comment becomes increasingly less clear, and in-depth analysis is replaced by instant comment, reliable, neutral and well-informed analysis of big policy issues becomes more difficult to lay one’s hands on. That is even more true when it comes to Parliamentary business.
Unbeknown to many outside the Parliamentary Estate (or at least to me until fairly recently!) are the documents produced by the Commons and Lords libraries. All the documents produced …
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.
Liberal Democrats in the Budget Committee of the European Parliament voted against a proposed 6.85% increase in the EU 2013 budget yesterday. George Lyon, MEP for Scotland and Vice President of the Budget Committee, said:
There is still much uncertainty over the Commission’s estimates on what it needs in 2013 to pay the bills from Member States. The prudent approach at a time when there is huge
Writing in the Financial Times, liberal leader in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt and his colleague and fellow contributor to this new book Daniel Cohn-Bendit (leader of the Greens) set out their vision for the future of the EU after the Eurozone crisis:
The crisis has shown up the key weaknesses in economic governance at EU level where a monetary policy was introduced without a parallel fiscal policy. Unlike other global currencies such as the
…
>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: Do you think Ed Miliband is doing well or badly as leader of the Labour party?
Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie writes for local newspapers in his Mid Scotland and Fife constituency:
The excitement surrounding Team Europe’s victory in the Ryder Cup should bring the opportunity that comes our way at Gleneagles in two years time into sharp focus.
250,000 people poured onto the course between the first strike of the ball during the practice rounds and the last putt of the final pairings.
So, I was all prepared to write an article on the International Day against the Death Penalty, as it’s something that I feel very strongly about. Then I discovered that Alistair Carmichael, who is by day Deputy Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and by night lurks in the shadows of the Palace of Westminster as the Liberal Democrats’ chief whip, had got there first, in today’s Scotsman. And let’s face it, his will be better than anything I can produce.
Alistair has campaigned against the death penalty for many years after visiting Kenny Richey on Death Row. He met the family of Troy Davis, executed in Georgia last year even though the evidence against him had all but evaporated, both in the US and in
Here’s a question which tends to get lost amid the heat and noise generated around the issue of Lords reform – what do the members of the second chamber actually do?
Or at least, what are the Liberal Democrat peers doing on a daily basis? And this isn’t meant in a facetious way. Unless you’re in the gainful employment of the party’s peers, or a broken leg has left you with far too much time in front of BBC Parliament, chances are you might not know how the Lords are working to ensure that every piece of legislation which crosses their …
We know that the Tories went on and on before the election about how they were going to reward marriage in the tax system.
We know that Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats don’t think much of this idea.
We know that since the Coalition Government was formed that no such marriage tax break has been introduced.
It was therefore not unreasonable to conclude that the Liberal Democrats have stopped the Tories from implementing their prized policy.
There was no talk this year of banning champagne at the Conservative Party Conference. Perhaps there was no danger of exuberance among delegates. As recalcitrant Tories sought one-in-the-eye against Nick Clegg by erasing Lords Reform from the Coalition Agreement, their party’s treasured redrawing of the UK electoral map was duly jettisoned too. Without a stronger second chamber to challenge the executive, it would have been wrong to reduce the size of the House of Commons, thereby increasing the proportionate dominance of the government’s ‘payroll’ within it.
Clearly, the failure of the most comprehensive attempt to reform the composition of the Lords …
Party conference seasons are rarely memorable. Apart from Cameron’s “call that election – we will fight, Britain will win” bluff, which prompted Gordon Brown to call off the “election that never was” in 2007. Apart from a few leadership shocks – Ed Miliband’s pipping of his brother to the line on the shoulders of the trade unions in 2010 and the foundering of David Davis’ leaden leadership bid in 2005.
It may be premature to pass judgment on this conference season just yet. But it is a season that will be remembered for three things. Nick
Yesterday, in the Swat region of Pakistan, a 14 year old girl was shot. Her name is Malala Yousafzai, and she was walking home from school with her friend when she was shot in the side of the head. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the shooting.
The question on all our minds is ‘Why would anyone try and kill a 14 year old girl?’.
Because Malala Yousafzai stood up for something that scares and horrifies the Taliban – she dared to speak out for girls’ right to an education.
Malala was 11 years old when she started writing about life under the …
The former defence minister, Nick Harvey, has reignited the debate about the replacement of Trident or, more specifically, the ballistic missile-carrying nuclear submarines which convey it.
Ironically, the Conservative Chancellor George Osborne has greatly helped the case for not renewing Trident, by placing the £25 Billion cost of the successor submarine in the main Defence budget, to compete with conventional arms for money. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chiefs of the three services are reported to be going cold on the idea of a like-for-like replacement.
Today saw the publication by the IMF of its latest growth forecasts. UK growth prospects are downgraded once again. Growth in 2012 is now forecast to be -0.4% (the most recent quarter’s strong showing is anomalous) and an anaemic 1.1% in 2013. As The Spectator’s Jonathan Jones observes, the only thing new here is that the IMF is falling ‘into line with the consensus’.
On the face of it this is bad news for the Coalition, further evidence that the economic strategy of deficit reduction driven forward by David Cameron and George Osborne, and endorsed by Nick …
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Conference or What? (Roderick Lynch)
Where next on the Triple Lock? (Shaun Ennis)
I watched Ed Davey’s speech. Here’s why it matters (Kamran Hussain)
Citizens abroad and party strategy (Tom McAdam)
How to capture the Tonbridge Tories (Cody Butler)
Alan Garner: The Edge of The Ceiling
My days in the Lib Dem News broom cupboard with Jock Gallagher
Children and their parents need holidays
The Joy of Six 1581
Jeremy Clarkson left red-faced over 'stolen' sheep that were never even missing
Lib Dems come from third to win by-election in Katie Lam's constituency
Brexit was a 'unilateral declaration of political impotence'
Ken Farnes: The forgotten England fast bowler who died in WWII
Local campaigner wants to see the River Teme given rights
Paul R 
Michael BG 
Suzanne Fletcher 
Robyn Peel 
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