Defence Minister: Clegg axed me because I won’t support attack on Iran – was the headline of a Mail story yesterday, which began:
A Liberal Democrat Defence Minister has claimed he was sacked to avoid a damaging Coalition split over a pre-emptive strike on Iran.
Former Armed Forces Minister Sir Nick Harvey told friends that he was fired in the reshuffle to allow Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to sign Britain up to
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 291st 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 (9-15 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:
Even when it happens at a rally to honour our Olympic athletes.
So said Glasgow SNP Councillor Mhairi Hunter to me in a tweet on Saturday.
I was a bit fearful as I clicked on the link, worried that it was going to be a sorry tale of some anti independence idiots beating up a nationalist. No, it was to this Facebook page from the No to Scottish Independence and Protect the Union where they said they handed out 1000 union jacks …
I’m frankly disgusted that The Sun has decreed that I have a right to see Prince Harry’s penis, but not Kate Middleton’s nipples. I fail to understand how my being unable to see Prince Harry naked is somehow a disgusting breach of the freedom of speech of the UK press but my being unable to see Kate Middleton naked is completely correct because this is a hideous invasion of her privacy.
Let us briefly review. Prince Harry was happily naked in a hotel room where he had a reasonable expectation of privacy, someone took photos of him from a short distance …
As the Evening Standard reports there’s good news for one of the issues London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon has been campaigning for with others:
Traffic lights for cyclists are to be brought in under plans to improve safety on the capital’s streets.
Transport for London has pledged to test the Dutch-style lights, which will be at eye-level and could be staggered to give bikes a head start…
TfL chiefs are holding talks with the Department for Transport about installing the equipment as it would require a law change. But managing director for surface transport Leon Daniels suggested that TfL would press ahead with a trial regardless.
I’d commented before on the oddity that was the Conservative Party’s insistence it would select candidates for the 2015 general election on the basis of the now still-born new constituencies, thereby gifting a significant campaigning advantage to other parties.
No more. The Conservatives have seen sense and, despite David Cameron’s talk of pressing ahead and hoping to win a vote to get the new boundaries in place, the party organisation has instead accepted reality and is selecting candidates on the existing boundaries.
Bloomberg flickered on the screen as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, set out his policy before the world’s press:
To support a stronger economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at the rate most consistent with its dual mandate the Committee agreed today to increase policy accommodation by purchasing additional agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month.
That’s open-ended Quantitative Easing (QE) to you and me; monetary stimulus a l’outrance designed to expand the money base until unemployment drops below 7% or PCE (personal consumption expenditure) core inflation increases above 3%.
In …
MPs who suffer mental health problems will benefit from the government’s decision to back a Bill going through Parliament:
The Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Government is backing the Mental Health (Discrimination) Bill brought forward by Gavin Barwell MP, which receives Second Reading in the House of Commons today.
The Bill repeals section 141 of the Mental Health Act, which sets out that an MP automatically loses their seat if detained under the Act for more than six months. It also amends similar discriminatory provisions in legislation concerning
…
This is a rather nifty new publication from the party, with some great content and presentation that is well ahead of the traditional party fare for these sorts of documents.
It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:
Last week Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert did one of those webinars for party members. Like Danny Alexander’s on the Budget and Nick Clegg’s on the Queen’s Speech before, it was very informative as he took questions for an hour on the Draft Data Communications Bill and a range of other civil liberties issues.
Julian sits on the Committee that is scrutinising the Draft Data Communications Bill. The story so far is that the Conservatives wanted this measure to go through this year as part of the Justice and Security Bill but Nick Clegg wasn’t having any of that. The Bill …
Welcome to the second of a series of pieces designed to inform members as to what happens to those people elected to various Party committees. This one won’t be like the others…
Whilst the other internal Party elections that take place in the Autumn are for places on committees that meet more, or less, frequently, this particular election is for the right to attend four two hour meetings, spaced over two years. Virtually all of the delegation’s activities are likely to go completely unnoticed by the average member and, if …
Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – the impact of the Ashcroft-funded Conservative key seats campaign in the run-up to the 2010 election.
The latest edition of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (Volume 22, No.3) includes, “Laying the Foundations for Electoral Success: Conservative Pre-Campaign Canvassing before the 2010 UK General Election” by David Cutts, Ron Johnston, Charles Pattie and Justin Fisher:
Last week I was honoured to be re-appointed as Scottish Secretary by the Prime Minister as he conducted his first re-shuffle of the UK Government cabinet since the 2010 election. Combining this with my responsibilities as Borders MP has been a great privilege over the last two years and I am looking forward to continuing to serve Borderers and Scots in these two roles.
There is no doubt that Scotland currently faces many challenges in terms of the economy, growth and jobs and I am committed to getting the best deal for Borderers and all other Scots, as MP and …
Of course, it’s not just the Commons that is back this week, as the European Parliament has returned from its summer break. And, thanks to the ever helpful Angelika Schneider in the ALDE office, Liberal Democrat Voice is able to keep up to date with the efforts of Liberal Democrat MEPs.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament adopted the first European-wide law on the protection of crime victims, to improve support for them. The new EU law sets minimum standards for all 27 countries, such as free access to medical and specialist …
Economic commentators and politicians searching for that most elusive of phenomena – economic growth appear to be operating a back to basics approach. The Bank of England takes the traditional neo-classical approach to its role as arbiter of monetary policy – Quantitative Easing and liquidity schemes to expand the money supply and make borrowing cheaper to incentivise businesses to expand. The government are taking a much more Keynesian route to growth, announcing house building schemes and other infrastructure initiatives in order that the state injects the demand into the economy …
It’s almost two weeks since Helen Duffett invited us to submit our nominations for the prestigious Liberal Democrat Voice Blog of the Year. Nominations close at 5pm tomorrow so if you haven’t done yours yet, you had better get your finger out. You are allowed to nominate your own blog – and nobody will ever know that you did. All the relevant details and the categories are reproduced below. If you are at Conference, the winners will be unveiled at an every expense spared ceremony at Conference. Better get that tux dry cleaned….
Make your choices and get them in …
Tens of thousands of live animals – mainly cows and sheep – are exported, alive, from the UK every year. Sometimes the animals have relatively short journeys – veal calves off to live in intolerable conditions in France or Italy, for example – and sometimes they are exported much further – to Russia, or beyond. Most of the animals are ready for slaughter, and will be killed as soon as they arrive in their destination countries.
This often involves unimaginably long journeys for hundreds of animals at a time, crammed into lorries. Animal welfare campaigners have long condemned the practice as …
Nick Clegg went to Cambridge today. He met Liberal Democrat members ahead of a packed public Question and Answer session where
Credit: Helen Duffett
he was quizzed on a huge range of subjects. Local MP Julian Huppert, LDV’s own Helen Duffett and Liberal Youth’s Harry Matthews were among those present and tweeting.Nick talked about the distinctiveness of the three traditions, Conservative, Labour and Liberal in British politics and how they couldn’t be folded into each other. He explained how the liberal tradition valued the sanctity of the individual.
The vexed question …
Romney’s bought the latest gadget, but he’s forgotten to read the manual.When Obama stormed to the Presidency he did so in glorious Technicolor while his opponent was still campaigning in black and white (or at least fifty shades of grey). In contrast, Obama campaigned with panache and proved what can be achieved by harnessing the power of social media.
His victory, for me, was a Kennedy/Nixon moment – one campaign looked modern and dynamic, the other looked tired, sweaty and frankly a bit outdated. The result was rather predictable in the end. Obama triumph. Slam dunk.
But if Obama’s victory four years …
In his annual State of the Union address on Wednesday, European Commission President Barroso issued a clarion call for a ‘federation of nation states’ to take on the challenges facing Europe. The only way forward is more unity and more European integration, said Barroso. But this must be accompanied by more democracy – placing the European Parliament in a central role – and subsidiarity – concentrating EU action on the real issues that need to be dealt with at European level.
There is much for Liberal Democrats to welcome in the speech. The emphasis on the European Parliament, national …
Speaking at a plenary session of the European Parliament yesterday, Chris Davies, European Parliament member for the North West, urged his fellow MEPs to look beyond the short term to vote to restore fish stocks:
At our Autumn Conference, members will be offered a chance to influence the party’s policy on regional and local pay. The Pay Review Body has been asked by George Osborne to look into the possibility of paying public sector workers differing amounts based on where they live. As Liberal Democrats, we must ensure that this policy does not go any further. This is why the Welsh Liberal Democrats, in partnership with the South East Cornwall Liberal Democrats, have tabled a motion designed to send the strongest possible signal that the party does not support any extension of regional or local …
As a Vice President of the European Budget Committee I am busy debating how the EU budget, or what those who stalk the corridors of Brussels call the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), will be distributed in coming years.
As an MEP for Scotland, I am also focussed on getting the best possible deal for my constituents.
With all the constraints that the current economic climate have placed on the budgets of Member States that task is hard enough.
But Scots must also consider that the next MFF, that runs from 2014-2020, will be decided in the shadow of the independence referendum. The consequences …
Nick Clegg said in his keynote speech to Autumn Conference last year that his objective is:
A fair start for every child… we allow prejudice, tradition and class to crush a million hopes and dreams….that’s why I have been leading the charge for social mobility – for fairer chances, for real freedom.
Liberal Democrats want to see opportunity unconstrained by discrimination, and with equal life chances with respect to ethnicity.
The world has become a smaller place. Improving transport links and technological breakthroughs are drawing the people of the world closer together. In socially and racially diverse 21st Century Britain we need to …
On average, someone commits suicide in England every two hours. That’s over 4,200 suicides a year. That figure may shock you. But what is just as shocking is that a lesbian, gay or bisexual person is twice as likely as a heterosexual person to self harm
I was drawing this awful statistic to people’s attention because Monday was World Suicide Prevention Day. It was also the occasion for me to the launch the Government’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy – the first for ten years. It is based on evidence of what works. Credit is due to Paul Burstow who …
Boris Johnson has twice won a contest for a directly-elected Mayor. George Galloway has recently won a Parliamentary by-election.
That is why, for all the many reasons Liberal Democrats have for criticising both, smart Liberal Democrats also know that there are lessons to be learnt from their electoral successes.
Nick Clegg spoke to Pink News last night shortly before the equalities reception which has caused so much controversy. Never has so much newsprint been used up over something that a politician never said or intended to say. Asked about the “bigot” affair, Nick said that it was not the kind of word he would use.
He also spoke about the new ministerial team handling Equalities. Last night, as Nick Thornsby reported, Jo Swinson was appointed as an Equalities Minister a full week after the completion of the rest of the reshuffle. There is clearly a story as to why …
As someone with a long-standing interest in manufacturing, based on having over 50 years’ experience as an engineer and employer in industry, I am very excited to be a member of the newly formed Liberal Democrat Campaign for Manufacturing Group.
This much-needed group aims to promote and develop manufacturing in the UK in both existing and new areas. Whilst we have a manufacturing sector to be proud of, it does require investment. Energising this sector is key to getting the economy back on track in the current difficult economic climate.
The Liberal Democrats have already delivered a number of key policies to support …
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