Rachel Coleman Finch

Opinion: Conference crèche keeps parent activists

By Rachel Coleman Finch | Mon 1st October 2012 - 3:54 pm

A baby in a sling makes an amazing Conference icebreaker. Over the five days I lost count of the number of people who stopped to admire my darling and ask questions, to the point where occasionally I gave the answers without being asked (“11 weeks”, “Nicholas”, “no, not after the Leader, after his father’s uncle). During the day, when I wasn’t carrying him, I frequently got stopped and asked “where’s your baby?”

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments
Advert
Sean Davey

Opinion: Strong communities are the key to reducing anti-social behaviour

By Sean Davey | Mon 1st October 2012 - 2:54 pm

From littering to binge drinking to sexual harassment, as a society we suffer when individuals show a lack of restraint and self-discipline when interacting with each other and with their local environment.

How many women do you know who have suffered sexual harassment? From wolf whistles in the street to full-on physical harassment, too many of my female friends don’t feel safe to walk down the street at night, and, more often than not, have experienced harassment of some kind in

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 12 Comments
Paul Walter

Romney campaign: Writing the “How not to” manual

By Paul Walter | Mon 1st October 2012 - 1:24 pm

The Mitt Romney campaign in the US has an interesting approach to some of the accepted campaigning golden rules:

Before televised debates, you lower expectations of your candidate

…That way when they do reasonably well, everyone is surprised and your campaign gets a bit of a lift. So what did Romney’s campaign do? Well for weeks we have been told that Romney is closeting himself away with advisers for long sessions to prepare

Continue reading »
Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Caroline Pidgeon

Ban on wheel clamping on private land coming into force in England and Wales today

By Caroline Pidgeon | Mon 1st October 2012 - 12:16 pm

I spend most of my time arguing for our roads to be made safer and more attractive for cyclists and pedestrians and making the case for improvements in public transport.

However, reducing car traffic and making our towns and cities more attractive for local residents does not mean defending indefensible practices against motorists.

From today one of the worst injustices facing motorists has been ended, with a ban on wheel clamping on private land coming into

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Paul Walter

Conference Skype* speeches – a must have

By Paul Walter | Mon 1st October 2012 - 11:54 am

There is a vast opportunity staring the Liberal Democrats in the face: To be the first British political party to accommodate speeches via Skype at their conference.

There are all sorts of arguments for and against this. Would it stop people bothering to come to conference altogether and just participate from their living room? Would that kill conference?

But there are two massive reasons why it should be done very

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Advert
William Mosseri-Marlio

Opinion: For the Lib Dems to challenge in 2015, the party must be forcefully centrist

By William Mosseri-Marlio | Mon 1st October 2012 - 10:24 am

You’ve got to give him credit. Nick Clegg stands strong as the party leader in the face of some truly dreadful polling. He has shrugged off a leadership challenge, and remains upbeat in spite of relentless media criticism.

This resilience must, in part, come from a belief that taking the Lib Dems to the centre ground was right for the party. Going into coalition with the Tories, the leadership knew votes would be haemorrhaged to Labour. But it was the correct decision, and one that was backed by all quarters.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 66 Comments
Iain Roberts

Opinion: Debate on Page 3 is missing the real issue

By Iain Roberts | Mon 1st October 2012 - 9:24 am

An American wife has claimed a divorce on grounds of cruelty because her husband ate too much garlic.

– So starts the main story on page 3 of the first edition of The Sun back in 1964, with not a nipple in sight.

By 1970, the now-Murdoch-owned paper was featuring racier matter and the topless “page 3 girl” was born. The Sun, which had been ailing, saw its circulation grow. On a typical day, The Sun is now read by over four million men and three million

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments
Mark Pack

It’s not Vince you should be texting Ed

By Mark Pack | Sun 30th September 2012 - 7:25 pm

Ed Miliband’s text messages to Vince Cable may have got him in trouble with his own political party and even resulted in party officials taking away his mobile phone.

They also have been text messages sent to the wrong person if Ed Miliband’s serious about preparing the ground for future Labour-Liberal Democrat cooperation.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 14 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #293

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th September 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 293rd 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 (22-28 September, 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:

Continue reading »
Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment
Helen Duffett

Nick Clegg’s autotuned apology viewed 1.8 million times

By Helen Duffett | Sun 30th September 2012 - 5:53 pm

Not only has the charity single version of Nick Clegg’s tuition fees pledge apology been the surprise hit of the year, entering the Top 40 download chart, but The Poke‘s video has now been viewed more than 1.8 million times on YouTube.

From The Wall blog:

James Herring, of PR firm Taylor Herring which worked with the The Poke on the autotuned story (and has done since The Poke launched two years ago), says that Clegg was such an easy target that the opportunity was simply too good to miss.

“We worked through the night to create the mash up

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Humour | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment
Helen Duffett

Liberal Democrat Party Awards 2012: The winners

By Helen Duffett | Sun 30th September 2012 - 4:20 pm

Each year at Autumn Conference, the Party President presents awards for outstanding service to the Liberal Democrats.

Tim Farron appealed for nominations back in May, and presented the awards on the final afternoon of Conference in Brighton last week.

Tim Farron also took a moment to thank all those who work hard in their local areas and for their local parties, everyone who campaigned in the council elections in May, and those who will play a part in this autumn’s elections for Police Commissioners, the Bristol Mayor and Parliamentary by-elections.

The winners of the 2012 Party Awards are as follows:

Patsy Calton Award

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Caron Lindsay

Conference: the good, the bad and the ugly

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th September 2012 - 2:39 pm

Now that I’ve had some sleep and recovered from the fun of Federal Conference in Brighton, I thought I’d share with you some of the highs and lows of a thoroughly enjoyable five days.

The Good

When Shami beat Paddy:  You don’t often see Paddy Ashdown being completely bested in an argument, but Liberty director Shami Chakrabati managed it with aplomb. Paddy said in his speech to a packed Liberty fringe meeting  that secret courts were fine as long as everything was overseen by a Judge. Shami went for him. She said she knew she was abusing the chair, but it was her meeting and …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 28 Comments
Mark Pack

Are you a Liberal Democrat conference rep who went to Brighton?

By Mark Pack | Sun 30th September 2012 - 12:50 pm

If so, I’ve got a question for you. Below is the text of an email sent out by 38 Degrees following their lobbying campaign around Liberal Democrat conference.

The lobbying itself – over the climate change debate – was pretty well done, in particular firing up supporters to want to lobby the Liberal Democrats – but doing so without throwing the sort of brickbats at the party that would make the lobbying less likely to be effective. (It’s a common problem with lobbying campaigns: you whip up an audience by saying the target is evil, and then found the said recipient …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged and | 23 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Jo Swinson becomes Platform 51’s Woman of the Week

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th September 2012 - 11:15 am

Charity Platform 51, which works towards a world where “women and girls are in control of their lives”, is highlighting an MP from each party during Conference season who has made a stand for equality and inclusion.

For the Liberal Democrats, it’s Jo Swinson who has been given the accolade of women and the week after her keynote speech in Brighton. They also recognise her decade of work on issues relating to equalities.

Platform 51 say:

Jo has also chaired the Liberal Democrats Women’s Policy Working Groupwhich focuses on tackling some of the key areas that Platform 51 works with women and girls.  These include money (pay,

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Bill le Breton

Opinion: An open letter to Ryan Coetzee, Nick Clegg’s new head of strategy

By Bill le Breton | Sun 30th September 2012 - 10:00 am

Dear Ryan,

Congratulations on your new job. Welcome to the ‘family’ of UK Liberal Democrat activists and campaigners. You arrive at a critical moment.

But the Liberal Party and its successors have been here before. In the General Election of 1951 we fielded just 100 candidates and only 6 of these were elected.  In the Euro elections of 1989, the Liberal Democrats polled just 6.2%.

Our revivals in each case – in the Seventies and the Nineties – were built on an emerging development of Liberalism and its expression in a style of campaigning that sought to help people take and use power …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 38 Comments
The Voice

LibLink: Stephen Tall – Lib Dem conference is this week’s liberal hero

By The Voice | Sun 30th September 2012 - 8:45 am

Over at CentreForum’s blog, Stephen Tall has proposed the Lib Dem conference as the think-tank’s latest ‘Liberal Hero of the Week’ for its stance in opposing the Coalition’s plans for secret courts. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s not the fact that David Cameron doesn’t know the translation of ‘Magna Carta’ that worries me. It’s that he doesn’t appear to understand its central tenet:

    No free man shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go or send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of

…

Continue reading »
Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Labour health policy descends into mess on first day of conference

By Mark Pack | Sat 29th September 2012 - 8:48 pm

At a Q&A session, Labour leader Ed Miliband said:

I think what would be not sensible is for us to come along and say, ‘well, Andrew Lansley, now Jeremy Hunt, they’re changing all the arrangements, have these new clinical commissioning groups and so on, and we’re just going to reverse it all back and spend another £3bn on another top-down bureaucratic organisation.

So Labour wouldn’t just reverse all the Health and Social Care Act changes? That would mean quietly forgetting some of the rhetoric about how the passage of the Act would kill the NHS, but it’s easy to see why …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , and | 20 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Clegg: “Communities need to front up to abuse in their midst”

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 29th September 2012 - 6:38 pm

Nick Clegg has told The Times that Police should investigate allegations of sexual abuse “without fear or favour.” His comments come  in the wake of this week’s report showing deficiencies in the way police and social services handled allegations of sexual abuse in Rochdale.

Nick said:

It is completely unacceptable if perceived cultural sensitivities or political correctness ever stops crimes being investigated fully or allows abuse to continue. No one would pretend that sexual exploitation is exclusive to any community or race, but major cases like this raise tough questions about the profile and attitude of the abusers towards their victims.

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members’ support for Coalition still high… but approval of Government hits new low

By Stephen Tall | Sat 29th September 2012 - 3:48 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.

74% of members continue to support Coalition with Conservatives

LDV asked: Do you support or oppose the Lib Dems being in the Coalition Government with the Conservatives? (Comparison with August 2012′s figures)

    74% (-3%) – Support
    21% (+3%) – Oppose
    5% (n/c) – Don’t know / No opinion

Support for the Coalition remains high, at 74%, in spite of, well, everything. The net …

Continue reading »
Posted in LDV Members poll | 9 Comments
Stephen Glenn

Opinion: Concern over Northern Ireland Equal Marriage Petition of Concern

By Stephen Glenn | Sat 29th September 2012 - 2:30 pm

There is a mechanism in the Northern Ireland Assembly that is designed to protect minority interests. It is called a petition of concern. Any 30 MLAs can call for one on any issue up for debate.

What it means that instead of simple majority the motion for debate requires 60% of the chamber and 40% of both the Unionist and Nationalist designations.

You may ask why I have highlighted this at the top of this post. The answer is to do with a debate before the Assembly on Monday 1 October, a debate on Equal Marriage, a motion largely similar to our …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Simon Allen

Opinion: We must make the Care and Support Bill a reality

By Simon Allen | Sat 29th September 2012 - 1:18 pm

Much of the talk at the Autumn Conference in Brighton has rightly centred on the economy and we, in my opinion, are rightly sticking to Plan A and not being deviated towards Plan B or Plan V.

However, we as Liberal Democrats in government and on the ground have another area of policy in which we can make a significant and lasting change in this parliament. Social Care is not a sexy subject, it is not often at the forefront of people’s minds nor does it command a full chamber in parliament but it is vital to a liberal, fair and …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Ditch Townsend

Opinion: What’s wrong with immigration control?

By Ditch Townsend | Sat 29th September 2012 - 11:15 am

Having lived for much of my life outside our over-developed country, and working in contexts of extreme poverty and social exclusion in Africa and Asia, I am disheartened by some significant assumptions in the immigration debate:

Firstly, what gives us the right to preserve a global status quo comprising an economically, politically, and culturally dominant and exclusive club? Many phrases used amongst Liberal Democrats, seem paternalistic, even oppressive, towards people whose plight we perpetuate by our insularity:

“‘Soft’ on immigration“: We’re not ‘soft’ enough, if it means being repentant enough to share the world’s resources and opportunities.

“An ‘earned amnesty’ for …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

A longer watch for the weekend: Martin Lewis on tuition fees

By Mark Pack | Sat 29th September 2012 - 9:25 am

24 minutes and 1 second of the financial advisor and consumer champion Martin Lewis talking about the tuition fees system, how it works and what people get wrong about it:

Continue reading »
Posted in News and YouTube | Tagged , and | 78 Comments
Cllr Richard Wilson

Haringey Council on the brink as auditors refuse to sign off accounts

By Cllr Richard Wilson | Fri 28th September 2012 - 6:48 pm

Labour-run Haringey Council is in danger of breaching the legal deadline for having its accounts signed off by its auditors after a series a multi-million pound errors were found in the accounts. Today is the last working day before the legal deadline for auditor approval of 30th September

The debacle was revealed at last night’s Corporate Committee meeting where the Labour chair of the committee described the situation as “very regrettable”. However Labour’s Cabinet Member for Finance Joe Goldberg failed to turn up – leaving council officers to face the …

Continue reading »
Posted in Local government and News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 28 September 2012

By The Voice | Fri 28th September 2012 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

Continue reading »
Posted in Friday Five | Leave a comment
Geoffrey Payne

Will Israel attack Iran, and will this break the Coalition?

By Geoffrey Payne | Fri 28th September 2012 - 3:52 pm

Although not widely reported in the British media, there is a build up of expectation that Israel will attack Iran. It amazes me that this was barely discussed at our recent Brighton conference. There were two motions on this submitted for conference but both with rejected by Federal Conference Committee and, perhaps as a consequence, there were no foreign policy motions debated at conference.

To raise the question I had to wait until Tuesday when there were two Centre Forum fringe meetings on foreign policy. Neither of the fringe meetings was specifically on Iran, but the question was asked about what …

Continue reading »
Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 29 Comments
Mark Valladares

Another Liberal Democrat PCC candidate is announced

By Mark Valladares | Fri 28th September 2012 - 3:22 pm

Norfolk Liberal Democrats have announced that James Joyce will be their candidate for the election of the Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner on November 15th.

James Joyce is currently a district and county councillor. He represents the Eynesford Ward on Broadland Council and the Reepham Division on Norfolk County Council. Since 2005 he has represented the latter body as a member of the Norfolk Police Authority but he will be stepping down from this position in order to contest the election.

Commenting on his adoption, which follows a ballot of all Liberal Democrat members in Norfolk, Mr Joyce said:

“I am delighted …

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Selection news | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

Jo Shaw’s speech to Lib Dem conference opposing secret courts

By The Voice | Fri 28th September 2012 - 2:20 pm

Stephen Tall writes: The best and most important debate at this week’s Lib Dem conference was on the motion opposing the extension of secret courts proposed in the Coalition’s justice and security bill. Jo Shaw’s opening speech was acclaimed by many as the best of the week and helped ensure the overwhelming rejection of ‘secret courts’. For the benefit of those who weren’t able to hear it, and for those who want to remind themselves of the clarity of Jo’s arguments, we’re delighted to publish the full text below.

***

Full text of Jo Shaw’s speech to Lib Dem conference, 25th September 2012

Conference, this motion is clear in what it calls for as Liberal Democrat party policy – the rejection of secret courts in civil claims. Claims that could arise, for example, from victims of Hillsborough, families of friendly fire victims in Afghanistan, or victims of torture and extraordinary rendition. Victims of negligence just as much as victims of abuse. This is about their ability to expose the truth through a civil case.

The motion asks for two policy outcomes in the unamended lines 41-48:

1) For Part II of the Justice and Security Bill to be rejected, by Liberal Democrats in government and on the back benches
2) For the current system of Public Interest Immunity to be put on to the statute book.

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | 2 Comments
The Voice

From today’s Lib Dem News

By The Voice | Fri 28th September 2012 - 1:00 pm

By Howard of Lib Dem News

Posted in Humour | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s speech: analysis from Matthew Parris, Lance Price and myself

By Mark Pack | Fri 28th September 2012 - 11:50 am

On Wednesday night Radio 4’s The World Tonight lined up the three of us to talk about Nick Clegg’s speech to the Brighton conference. You can listen to our discussion, along with interviews with other conference attendees here:

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Roland
    @Jeff - I didn’t say resources were scarce, just that they are in short supply. So whilst there might be decades of fossil fuels in the ground, you may have n...
  • Paul R
    It might be better to spend the money on increased assistance to help people switch to EVs instead. Otherwise motorists will always be dependent on the next war...
  • Michael BG
    Nigel Jones, “When we debated FPC’s planned program last year, some said we should have included tax issues in that program” Indeed. I didn’t s...
  • Suzanne Fletcher
    Far too late for me to comment, but just skimmed through the replies and I agree with most. Most important is that as Caron says, it was announced where hundre...
  • Robyn Peel
    A key difference between the Liberal Democrats and other parties is that members go in their own right, not as representatives of their local party; we have att...