Last week, over in the Guardian, Vince Cable wrote:
A common complaint I hear when I am out and about meeting sole traders or entrepreneurs is the struggle to get finance through mainstream sources. This is a serious challenge to UK growth.
It’s why I have made it one of my priorities to get credit flowing again and why only last week I announced further detail of the government-backed Business Bank. This will facilitate the provision of loans to more firms
…
We all know Britain’s relationship with Europe is a fault-line for the Conservative party. Equally, we know that Labour has its own divisions. In both parties, the split is between pro-Europeans and anti-Europeans, between staying in Europe or getting out of Europe.
Affirmation of the Liberal Democrats’ pro-European position comes from the findings of a survey I conducted among 457 Liberal Democrat councillors in the South West region at the beginning of September, which delivers an unambiguous message of support for the Party’s Europe policy*.
However, one revealing division in …
Dear Eric
You always give a fine performance. Yesterday you told us with passion how you became a Conservative. It was a nice story, but does your claim to have a developed a “burning dislike of oppressive state bureaucracy” match the reality?
Do you remember localism? You did not mention it yesterday. The great localism project, you might recall, was launched on the twin platforms of the Big Society and Open Source Planning. The Big Society has slipped through the cracks of the political stage, but you enshrined localism in the Localism Act 2011.
I passionately believe in the railways. They have the potential to bring the UK huge economic and environmental benefits. But ever-increasing train fares could also turn people away and back onto the roads. As a sustainable form of transport, trains need our support and in return they will help deliver growth and a cleaner, low carbon economy.
It’s so important that we let rail passengers and the public know that we really are on their side.
Ending inflation-busting rail fare hikes has been a Lib Dem policy for a long time, …
George Osborne’s statement that senior Liberal Democrats have agreed in principle to a further £10bn of welfare cuts in 2015-16 has prompted a strong reaction from many party members and a TV rebuttal from Nick Clegg.
But the issue is one worth pausing on, for it raises some important questions for Liberal Democrats.
Starting at the beginning, the first question raised is how we wish to close the deficit that will now exist in the first years of the next Parliament following the Chancellor’s decision in last year’s autumn statement to push back the period in which the
…
The news that Sussex teacher Jeremy Forrest has been arrested in Bordeaux on suspicion of abducting pupil Megan Stammers is a timely reminder of the value of EU cooperation to fight crime. The maths teacher, who now faces imminent extradition, joins a long list of suspects caught with a European arrest warrant and swiftly returned to face justice in the UK. But the Conservatives’ dogmatic opposition to all things European is now putting the safety of Britons at risk.
The European arrest warrant, in operation since 2004, has succeeded in cutting average extradition times in the EU from one …
Last week the results of the elections for positions within the English Party were emailed to members of the English Council.
Given that for all of these positions, with the exception of the role of representative to the Federal Executive, the number of nominations matched or were less than the places available, all candidates were elected unopposed.
The results were as follows:
Chair of the English Party – Peter Ellis has been re-elected Chair unopposed.
Chair of the English Candidates Committee – Margaret Joachim has been re-elected Chair unopposed.
Representative to the Federal Conference Committee and to the Federal Policy Committee – Geoff Payne has been …
In the Tory hothouse of Birmingham, this has to be the most delicate flower which has bloomed so far. Politicshome.com reports:
Employees could be able to buy shares in the companies they work for if they give up their employment rights, George Osborne has said.
In a speech to the Conservative party conference the Chancellor announced a consultation on the plan, which could also see the shares being immune to capital gains tax.
The days of being the ‘nice party’ – the all-things-to-all-people party – are well and truly over. Sharing in government has seen to that. Thankfully, contributors at the Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting in Brighton, about the next manifesto, were commendably realistic. Discussion focused on suggestions for new signature policies, like a penny on tax for education of yesteryear or (say it softly) tuition fees last time.
The Abortion Act 1967 Act was passed when I was nine months old. Women of my generation have grown up believing our rights were safe and our bodies were our own. Even those who had never heard of a backbench MP named David Steel had reason to be grateful to him for ensuring that women could not be forced by the state to continue with pregnancies they did not want.
Women of my generation and others now have to wake up and realise that the settlement, we thought was so safe, is no longer. Thanks to the Coalition, the Health Service is now in the hands of
Writing for the European Council on Foreign Relations, YouGov’s Peter Kellner highlights an important polling finding:
In July this year, YouGov asked this question: ‘Imagine the British government under David Cameron renegotiated our relationship with Europe and said that Britain’s interests were now protected, and David Cameron recommended that Britain remain a member of the European Union on the new terms. How would you then vote in a referendum on the issue?’…
The fiasco over the West Coast Mainline contract has exposed a long-running sore at the heart of government: the problem of public/private contracting.
Rail and Information Technology are merely prime examples of the troubled and costly contractual relationships that often exist between the public and private sector.
The Liberal Democrats have a policy review of public services under way – but will it tackle the real issues? For if contracting at
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 294th 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 September – 7 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 the best of Lib Dem blogging.
As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:
1. Running away from Michael Crick rarely works.
2. Running away from Michael Crick whilst he has a camera crew in tow even more rarely works.
3. Running away from Michael Crick into the wrong room and then having to turn around and walk back past the camera even more rarely works.
4. Running away from Michael Crick into a wrong room for the second time takes the odds of success into the realms of the never never.
5. But if you are going to do that, remember not to turn round at the end and give a short answer sounding out of breath and without looking at camera or questioner. Because that always looks so convincing.
All of which means of course no-one would ever do 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Oh, hang on:
Every couple of years the Lib Dems hold internal elections in which conference representatives choose members of key party committees. As one of the seemingly few Lib Dems neither standing for election nor with a vote, I thought our readers might like an update on where we’re at…
What does it do?
The formal answer: ‘The Federal Executive is an elected committee responsible for directing, co-ordinating and implementing the work of the Federal Party.’ (From the party website.)
The informal answer: What does the Federal Executive do? by Alison Goldsworthy
Who’s standing?
There are 36 candidates (26 men, 10 women) competing for …
After the moving and amazing presentation and big “thank you” to the Lib Dems from Citizens UK on the Sunday morning of conference, for ending the detention of children of asylum seekers, what could possibly follow it?
The next day the newly formed “Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary”, along with Citizens UK, met in a nearby Church Hall. Those who had been, and were going through, the asylum process in the UK and were connected with both Citizens UK and Movement for Justice had come down to tell their stories. There to listen were members of the House …
Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – a little study from New Zealand about how even an uninformative photo helps convince people about the truth of a statement.
The British Psychological Society’s blog has details:
Trouble ahead on tax as Osborne opposes a mansion tax:
We are not going to have a mansion tax, or a new tax that is a percentage value of people’s properties.
Before you rush to spot the loophole in that – what about adding extra higher bands to Council Tax? – he opposed that too. Given Osborne made much of his reputation as was by opposing changes to inheritance tax, perhaps it is on capital gains tax that there will be room fro an agreement with the …
Here’s a forthcoming event to anticipate…
On Wednesday 21 November, from 6.30pm, as part of Parliament Week 2012, Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, and his former speechwriter, Dr Max Atkinson, will share their experiences of how party leader and speechwriter worked in synchrony at the highest level, and the specific techniques they used to inspire their audiences through the power of the spoken word.
The meeting
…
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: Which other politics blogs (if any) do you read? Please tick all that apply.
…
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is at the centre of a new row this morning after giving an interview to The Times in which he said his personal view is that the legal abortion limit should be cut to 12 weeks. Here’s how the Telegraph reports it:
“Everyone looks at the evidence and comes to a view about when they think that moment is, and my own view is that 12 weeks is the right point for it,” Mr Hunt told The Times. … “It’s just my view about that incredibly difficult question about the moment that we should deem life
…
It’s Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…
5 Years On: The Election That Never Was – Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s former spinner-in-chief whose must-read blog is essentially a memoir-by-instalments, recalls the week in 2007 that turned the new Prime Minister from hero to zero.
Jimmy Savile: The birth of a paedophile hoax on “Have I Got News For You” – John Fleming recounts the curious tale of how some invented, ‘censored’ scenes achieved such wide currency on the internet, eerily anticipating the past week’s revelations.
Look round the room at the next Liberal Democrat event you attend and ask yourself how many people in the room will have their names recorded in places that future political historians can find. A few, certainly, especially if they have been elected to public office.
For most, however, their contribution to a political party slips away through the cracks of the historical record, disappearing as the direct personal memories people have of them fade and then end with death.
Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?
Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. However if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.
As I said in my speech to our conference in Brighton, wherever I go I find Liberal Democrats who are infinitely more upbeat, positive and determined than anyone in the media thinks we should be. We have every right to be upbeat.
Never have our Liberal Democrat voices and values been so important. Never have Liberal Democrat victories been so necessary. Britain needs the Liberal Democrats more than ever. I know that together we can do this. We can make Britain fairer, greener and more liberal.
As I watch Labour (or ‘blank page’ as I call them at the moment!) in Manchester, …
I wrote recently of a very emotional and heartwarming presentation at Conference in Brighton by Citizens UK who came along to thank the Liberal Democrats for what we had done to end child detention for immigration purposes. Nick Clegg and Sarah Teather both spoke in response. To cheer you up on an autumnal Friday afternoon, here is the whole thing in video. Enjoy.
It is true that things were always better at sometime in the past. Or at least, it feels like that, especially as you get older. But perhaps it is. In the period since World War II, government, at national, state and local level, has provided more and more in the way of support to indivdiuals, organisations and communities, mostly for reasons widely supported to be of public good, sometimes for more cynical reasons, occasionally because it can. In a growing economy, such interventions are sustainable.
However, Robert Black, the former Auditor General for Scotland, in a lecture at the David …
The atmosphere in Brighton was stormy. Not, as journalists would have you believe, inside the hall but on the Brighton seafront.
It had started well. On Saturday, with temperatures soaring into the 20s, delegates debated early years, schools and House of Lords reform – all solid Lib Dem territory. Excellent speeches from a succession of mothers and grandmothers highlighted how childcare costs skew the economics of working, and delegates overwhelmingly backed investment in free early years education when finances allow. Debating Lords reform, Conference endorsed Nick Clegg’s withdrawal of support for constituency boundary changes, and Lord Tyler put forward a popular …
We’ve all seen poll after poll regularly showing a massive drop in support for our party since the general election – most have us on 8-12% (with the exception of ICM suggesting 14-15%). The president of YouGov claims 10% would reduce us from over 50 MPs to just 10 in 2015. Many of us (myself included) have accepted this as fact – it makes sense. It’s what the polls say. It’s true.
Except, it isn’t.
Last week I heard a new “Wisdom Index” ICM poll had us at 18% and I was stunned. Such levels of support have been unheard of …
Flying isn’t something most people do for fun but connections are good for business and prosperity. Thankfully the Committee on Climate Change says that aviation can expand without risking our ambitious climate change targets.
Hub airports are particularly important. They draw in passengers from a range of places, making flights to many destinations viable. The one flight from Wuhan to Europe – to Paris – relies on transfers at Charles de Gaulle. That flight gives Paris a head start in attracting the European HQs of firms from Wuhan. I want …
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
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'
Paul R 
Michael BG 
Suzanne Fletcher 
Robyn Peel 
PM 
