Mark Valladares

Lib Dem MEPs honoured in 2012 Parliament Magazine Awards

By Mark Valladares | Fri 28th September 2012 - 10:22 am

Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire & The Humber, Edward McMillan-Scott MEP and a Vice-President of the European Parliament, was last week presented with the “Outstanding Achievement” award in the MEP 2012 awards by the Parliament magazine, primarily in recognition of in recognition of his achievements in highlighting the costs and difficulties of the European Parliament’s treaty obligation to travel from Brussels to Strasbourg for plenary sessions. He said:
 
“This is a great boost to the Single Seat campaign which has really taken off with a two-to-one majority of MEPs now voting that way. They are concerned about the extra costs of our monthly treks to Strasbourg, at least €180 …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Advert
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg: re-elect Tim Farron as Party President

By Mark Pack | Fri 28th September 2012 - 8:50 am

Neither is quite so gauche as to say it explicitly, but you hardly have to peer between the lines to work out what message is meant to be imparted by a piece from Nick Clegg praising Tim Farron’s record as President, especially when it’s contained in a leaflet handed out at conference by Tim’s re-election team and with a form asking people to sign Tim’s nomination papers tucked inside.

It is looking like it will be an uncontested re-election so far, but credit to Tim for still taking it seriously. …

Continue reading »
Posted in News, Party policy and internal matters and Party Presidency | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Miliband: Labour took my mobile phone away

By Mark Pack | Fri 28th September 2012 - 12:01 am

Ed MilibandWhat a bad year it is to be a political satirist. First there was the problem of the minister who met the Prime Minster, intending to resign – yet somehow the conversation ended without the PM noticing that a resignation was on offer. Hard for a satirist to top that.

And now we have the bizarre case of the Labour Party confiscating its own party leader’s mobile phone, as reported by Sky:

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes… Paddy Ashdown new Liberal Democrat 2015 General Election campaign Chair

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 27th September 2012 - 3:23 pm

One of the main messages to come out of what has been an absolutely fantastic conference in Brighton, is that it is time to look forward, time to make the second half of this Parliament count, time to prepare for the 2015 election campaign.

Yesterday, Nick made an announcement that has shown the world just how serious we are about the fight to 2015 – he has appointed Paddy Ashdown to lead the General Election campaign team.

Now anyone who knows Paddy knows about his campaigning prowess. There is no one quite like him when it comes to an election. He is …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | 5 Comments
Nick T

The Justice and Security Bill: an important point that’s been missed

By Nick T | Thu 27th September 2012 - 1:06 pm

The debate at this year’s Liberal Democrat conference on the Justice and Security Bill was one of the highest quality of the whole conference, particularly on the part of those supporting the motion (and opposing the party leadership’s amendment). It was no wonder after hearing those fantastic speeches that the motion was passed so overwhelmingly.

It is true that significant amendments have been made to the Bill by Liberal Democrats since it first arrived in Parliament. It has undoubtedly been improved. One of the main improvements was to remove inquests from the scope of the closed material procedures that are at …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 7 Comments
Advert
Nick T

David Heath: I’m doing all I can on live exports

By Nick T | Thu 27th September 2012 - 11:15 am

A couple of weeks ago on these pages I called on the new Lib Dem minister for farming, David Heath, to ban the live exports of farm animals following a terrible event at the last port to allow the practice, Ramsgate.

Since I wrote that post, another port – Ipswich – has begun live exports.

One of the fantastic things about Liberal Democrat conference, particularly now we’re a party of government, is the ability to question our MPs about the issues important to us. And that’s exactly what I did when I spotted David Heath.

He made it clear he is no fan …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged | 4 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Alistair Carmichael becomes Deputy Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 27th September 2012 - 10:25 am

To Liberal Democrat activists across the UK, chief whip Alistair Carmichael is one of the most popular parliamentarians. His sociable nature, wise head and sense of humour make him ideally suited for the challenges of being chief whip, but it means that one of our best media performers has been largely confined to the shadows of Westminster for the past two and a half years.

Now the MP for Orkney and Shetland has partially emerged from those shadows to take over as Deputy Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, succeeding Jo Swinson who stepped down after her promotion in the reshuffle.

Alistair’s …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Nick T

David Laws and Vicky Pryce on the crisis in Europe

By Nick T | Thu 27th September 2012 - 9:28 am

Monday evening at conference saw a discussion between David Laws, economist Vicky Pryce and Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform entitled “Europe: from crisis to growth”.

This wasn’t an event that one went to if one needed cheering up: the overall message coming from all the speakers was a downbeat one, even if they all picked out some small shards of positivity.

Simon Tilford began by giving some reasons why on the face of it the past month has been a rather good one in the ongoing saga of the Eurozone crisis: we had the announcement from Mario Draghi, head …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , and | 19 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem conference closes: What the papers say…

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th September 2012 - 8:25 am

Plenty of comment in today’s papers about this week’s Lib Dem conference and Nick Clegg’s speech. Here’s a selection of views…

Benedict Brogan (Daily Telegraph)

I suspect we are going to have to start talking about a Lib Dem recovery at some point. No, really. Nick Clegg’s speech completed a fairly successful week for the Deputy Prime Minister. The polls are still terrible, and his prospects might look bleak, but as Dan Hodges argued earlier, Labour’s support is soft and as we close on the election, the economy picks up and Labour’s deficiencies come under scrutiny, their position can only improve.

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s speech to conference: “A fair, free and open society”

By Mark Pack | Wed 26th September 2012 - 3:24 pm

Much of the pre-speech briefing was about how Nick Clegg’s conference speech would major on how the party is becoming one of government. This is not a message aimed at the party itself really, as the debate in Brighton has been over what to do in government, not whether or not to be in government. Much more, the message was aimed at the media who love to attack the party for pushing policies they disagree with, dressing up disagreement with them as meaning the party can’t be serious about government or taking tough decisions.

Instead, Clegg argued that the party is up …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged and | 76 Comments
Mark Pack

+++ Paddy Ashdown to chair 2015 general election campaign

By Mark Pack | Wed 26th September 2012 - 3:13 pm

Party leader speeches at conferences rarely contain completely untrailed and fresh news. Nick Clegg’s does: that Paddy Ashdown will chair the party’s 2015 general election campaign.

Although his name wasn’t one of those I speculated about previously, it is a logical choice because the party’s plan is to fight a 1997-style general election campaign, with a tough national vote share environment hopefully bucked by very effective Parliamentary by-election style campaigns …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , , and | 14 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion: Why I will withhold my standing ovation from Nick Clegg today

By Paul Walter | Wed 26th September 2012 - 1:24 pm

Today, for the first time at the numerous leader’s speeches I have attended, I intend to remain seated when Nick Clegg gets the standing ovation for his speech.

I won’t do it with any rancour or anger. I am a great fan of Nick Clegg (I just cannot support him as leader of our party anymore, as I have outlined ad nauseam elsewhere). I will be there, seated, smiling and clapping enthusiastically. But I am damned if I am going to stand.

My reasons for doing so are based on …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Another day at conference, another education policy launched

By Mark Pack | Wed 26th September 2012 - 10:34 am

BlackboardTax, tax and a bit more about tax: that’s been the main theme of the Liberal Democrat conference, from the slogan on badges and the banner outside the building through to the content of speeches and the main policy focus of the media coverage.

When it comes to new policy announcements, however, it is education that has had a strong showing.

First there was the news on summer schools:

Lib Dems announce further £100m for summer schools to help children catch-up
Mr Laws said: “All too often pupils who have made big progress

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , , , , and | Leave a comment
Paul Walter

Two priceless conference comedy moments (for about five people on the surface of Planet Earth)

By Paul Walter | Wed 26th September 2012 - 9:24 am

Colin Rosenstiel is a Lib Dem legend, star of constitutional minutiae and progenitor of bicycling anecdotes.

At 9am yesterday, there was a constitutional amendments debate. (Yes – riveting. A few minutes before it was due to start, the audience would have been out-numbered by those six Liberal MPs who could get into a taxi in 1970. The debate started with the words, “Good morning, fellow insomniacs!”)

At the end, Colin stood up and raised a point of order – the Lib Dem equivalent of firing a tactical nuclear weapon. Something about a separate vote. The comedy moment was the withering, over-the-top-of-the-glasses dismissal …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Why I loathe leaders’ speeches. PS: It’s nothing personal, Nick

By Stephen Tall | Wed 26th September 2012 - 8:40 am

Don’t tell anyone, but I’m leaving conference on Wednesday morning before our leader speaks. It’s nothing personal — I think my record’s pretty clear on supporting Nick Clegg’s leadership — but I find leaders’ speeches tiresome.

The bullet points will have been carefully briefed to the press in advance, embargoed copies of the speech will be widely circulating — by the time Nick actually gets to his feet for the traditional 40-minute peroration it’ll already feel like a repeat, even if he does ad lib a couple of scripted (and, sorry, almost certainly lame) jokes.

Add to that the …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 16 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall – The Lib Dem Conference That Didn’t Bark

By NewsHound | Wed 26th September 2012 - 7:55 am

Over at the Huffington Post, LibDemVoice co-editor Stephen Tall assesses the party conference. His verdict? What’s significant is what hasn’t happened. Here’s how his piece starts:

On the face of it this has been a pretty tepid, even dull, Lib Dem conference. No rows, cock-ups or defeats. But it’s probably been the most important party gathering since the special conference in May 2010 when the party dipped its hand in blood to sign the Coalition Agreement.

Why do I say that? Because of what didn’t happen. Political commentators, especially of the left (yes, I’m looking at you, Polly) – the folk whose

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and LibLink | Tagged and | 17 Comments
Mary Reid

Conference calls for our parliamentarians to reject Secret Courts

By Mary Reid | Tue 25th September 2012 - 7:43 pm

At most conferences there is at least one debate which proves how different we are from the other main parties. Different because we entrust Conference to decide party policy, in open debate, even where that may be at odds with the views of our parliamentarians.

Today’s debate on the ‘Secret Courts’ motion was a good example. The full title was F41: No Government Above the Law – The Justice and Security Bill.

This motion, submitted by two local parties, called on the Coalition to withdraw Part II of the Justice and Security Bill, which would empower Ministers to allow civil hearings …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 5 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #292

By The Voice | Tue 25th September 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 292th 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 (16-22 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
Mary Reid

Lib Dem voters’ views on green energy

By Mary Reid | Tue 25th September 2012 - 4:21 pm

A poll commissioned by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth has revealed some useful data about the  attitudes of Liberal Democrat voters to green energy.

It found that more than half of those who voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 said they would be more likely to do so again if the Liberal Democrats took action on carbon-free electricity generation.

It asked:

The Government’s advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, have said that to meet our climate change commitments the UK must switch to almost entirely carbon-free electricity by 2030.

Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for the Liberal …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment
Carl Miller

The Independent View: Grassroots 2.0

By Carl Miller | Tue 25th September 2012 - 2:50 pm

With Conference season upon us once again, Parties reach out to embrace their wider membership of activists, supporters and sympathisers. This brief popping of the Westminster bubble is of course vital: a safeguard stopping Westminster disappearing into its own parochial obsessions.

Party Conference is only one of a number of ways of dipping into the wider public mood, of course. Polls, focus groups, constituency surgeries, party machinery and, indeed fora like Liberal Democrat Voice all allow views and concerns to (sometimes) percolate up to the leadership. And some politicians – such as Tony Blair at his height – seem to have …

Continue reading »
Posted in The Independent View | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Sal Brinton

Baroness Brinton writes… Standing for Federal Conference Committee

By Sal Brinton | Tue 25th September 2012 - 1:53 pm

I believe that the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference Committee performs a unique role amongst the main political parties in the UK. As a Committee elected from amongst its members, it plans and delivers the Liberal Democrat Conference, and selects motions and amendments for debate and decision by members of the party at conference.

It is this dual function (the utterly practical alongside the vital policy debates) that makes our Conference stand out from the other party conferences which are becoming more and more sterile showcases for senior people. There are three main sub-committees: GPSC (covering the practical and financial) CCG (looking …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | Leave a comment
Mary Reid

Work places are communities too

By Mary Reid | Tue 25th September 2012 - 1:34 pm

As Liberal Democrats we are committed to the concept of people participating and exercising democratic rights in their communities. But we usually identify communities geographically, in the villages or the wards where we can deliver our Focuses.  During yesterday’s debate on Mutuals, Employee Ownership and Workplace Democracy (F22 in the Conference Agenda) Alan Sherwood reminded us that the workplace is also a significant community for many people. So workplace democracy is a natural extension of community politics.

In moving the motion, which derived from a policy paper, Martin Horwood went further and claimed that not only should Liberal Democrat …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Tagged , , , , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Danny Alexander: fairer taxes, with everyone playing by the same rules

By Mark Pack | Tue 25th September 2012 - 12:55 pm

Fairer taxes, crack down on tax avoidance, an emphasis on the mansion tax and a low-key, getting on with the work in hand delivery: that’s Danny Alexander’s conference speech in a nutshell.

Although not quite up there with his GMB speech (still well worth a read), it was an effective one as the delivery style matched the message.

Having often heard Danny Alexander talk in the past about action needing to be taken on tax avoidance and tax evasion, I noticed a change in emphasis this time, with more talk about what has been done. That’s a good sign of progress, …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

That leaked campaign document which isn’t really a leaked campaign document

By Mark Pack | Tue 25th September 2012 - 12:31 pm

Over on The Spectator there’s a curious leaked document today, ostensibly a leaked internal party document setting out Liberal Democrat campaign weaknesses.

I say ostensibly because the document is a strange mixture. Some of its content is either wrong or distorted – such as the reference to the party having canvass data for only 2% of voters. That’s wrong, and I’ve seen evidence which shows it is wrong. However, the 2% figure has the phrase “functional political data” attached to it at one point. That sounds like a carefully crafted definition designed to talk down rather than talk up how much data the …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Leave a comment
Paul Walter

Clegg apology – the view from the man on the Brisbane omnibus

By Paul Walter | Tue 25th September 2012 - 12:23 pm

Last night I took an evening off from Liberal Democracy, to enjoy a pie and a pint in one of Hove’s finest hostelries.

At the bar I got chatting to a man who flew, with his family, from Brisbane into the UK last Sunday. I heard his accent and mentioned to him that I had recently been “Down Under”.

He then asked me what I was doing in Brighton and Hove, and I told him.

Continue reading »
Posted in Humour | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

A public service announcement from the Committee for Political Consistency

By Mark Pack | Tue 25th September 2012 - 11:50 am

It is extremely important that documents from the police security team at high-risk terrorist targets are kept fully confidential, unless they are about an MP you do not like, in which case they must be leaked in full to the press, no questions asked.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 1 Comment
David Thorpe

Opinion: Why Nick Clegg was wrong to apologise for tuition fees

By David Thorpe | Tue 25th September 2012 - 11:10 am

When he apologised for the tuition fees debacle this week, Nick Clegg went dramatically down in my estimation.

From the start of his leadership, Clegg has taken the longer term view, and cast his gaze upon the country as a whole, rather than simply focusing, as previous leaders have, on playing to the gallery of the party membership.

His is the Liberalism of the historical sweep, as aware of the intellectual traditions that can be traced back to Edmund Burke as to the ‘pavement politics’ of David Penhaligan, and while seeing a place for both, respecting that embracing the former may leave …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 101 Comments
Stephen Tall

Paddy on the Coalition, joining the party & that Sun headline

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th September 2012 - 9:50 am

There’s a fantastic interview with Paddy Ashdown by The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone published here. As you’d expect it’s crammed full of anecdotes and quotable bon mots. I’ve picked out just three to enjoy…

Paddy on the Coalition

He regards those who feel betrayed by the party as weak or naive – notably Guardian leader writers who backed them in 2010. “The Guardian feels like a jilted lover. It hates the Liberal Democrats. The Guardian feels personally betrayed because for the very first time it gave the Liberal Democrats its support and what did we do? We went off with the Tories.

…

Continue reading »
Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

Media coverage of Nick Clegg Says I’m Sorry (the Autotune Remix)

By Paul Walter | Tue 25th September 2012 - 8:53 am

The guys at The Poke, staggering into the office after celebrating all their Christmasses coming at once, have put together this compilation of the media coverage of Nick Clegg Says I’m Sorry (the Autotune Remix).

Meanwhile, we understand that in the Lib Dem communications office there has been a reenactment of that scene from “When Harry Met Sally”.

Posted in Humour | Tagged | 1 Comment
Jim Wallace

Lord Jim Wallace writes… Secret courts: only where absolutely necessary

By Jim Wallace | Tue 25th September 2012 - 7:29 am

Securocrats arguing for increased judicial scrutiny of their actions? Human rights groups praising the collapse of cases brought alleging torture against the Government?

Like me I suspect, you will suspect this is some elaborate joke, or indeed a typographical error.

But in fact these are indeed the seemingly bizarre positions into which these perennial adversaries have put themselves.

In the last few days we have seen some spectacular attempts to redefine the content of the Government’s Justice & Security Bill, casting all sorts of hyperbole and confusion on what should be a cool-headed debate.

The authors of these counsels of despair could do worse …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 3 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...