Nik Alatortsev

Opinion: Dealing with critics on our own terms – graduate contributions

By Nik Alatortsev | Tue 28th August 2012 - 11:21 am

At an ALDC conference a number of weeks ago now I was encouraged by Nick Clegg’s call to be brave enough to “deal with our critics on our own terms” rather than accepting the (often false) basis for their criticisms and trying to explain away the difficult choices our party has had to make since May 2010.

So it got me thinking: why not develop our own narrative about the issue that has arguably caused us the most grief?

By accepting the premise of calling the charges incurred by students entering university from this year “tuition fees”, we tacitly accept that these are indeed fees which students pay for their tuition. Which gives the impression – thanks to all the uproar at the time the system was reformed, back in late 2010/early 2011, from the Labour Party and the NUS – that these are indeed upfront charges that students have to pay to go to university.

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Andy Yau

A fresh look at the Diaoyu Islands

By Andy Yau | Tue 28th August 2012 - 9:23 am

On 15 August 2012, 14 Chinese from Hong Kong were arrested by Japanese coastguards in Diaoyu Islands by the East China Sea. Seven of the Chinese were returned to Hongkong by air on 17 August and another seven by boat on 22 August.

Diaoyu (meaning “fishing” in Chinese) Islands are group of 5 very tiny islands situated in the East China Sea between Taiwan and Okinawa. Since the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese have used these islands as a military front against Japanese pirates and 17th century sources showed the maritime boundary to be between the Diaoyu (also known as the “Senkaku” islands to the Japanese) and the Ryukus where turbulent waters mark the edge of the continental shelf (see map).

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
David Thorpe

QE “benefits the better off” say Bank of England – so why are we still doing it?

By David Thorpe | Mon 27th August 2012 - 3:15 pm

In the first comprehensive report it has conducted into the impact of its Quantitative Easing (QE) policies on the UK economy, the Bank of England says that QE has “prevented a deeper recession” but that the policy “benefits the top 5% of households”.

It is the contention of this article that the central bank is broadly correct on both of those points-which begs the question, why is the Bank of England intent on pursuing the policy in the future?

I have previously written that QE has had the effect of preventing a deeper recession by effectively ending the credit crunch, but that it is limited in its capacity to deliver growth.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Stephen Tall

Reshuffle round-up: it looks like good news for Swinson & Laws

By Stephen Tall | Mon 27th August 2012 - 12:00 pm

There’s been plenty of reshuffle chit-chat overt the past few weeks, much of it speculative. However, the Sunday papers appears to included some pretty well-sourced information which went beyond the usual space-filling ‘who knows?’, and appears to suggest good news for both Jo Swinson and David Laws — both of whom enjoyed strong support in our recent survey of members’ preferred back-bencher promotions.

First, The Observer reported that David Cameron’s reshuffle will bring whips back to the fore, with an enhanced whips office incorporating both old-handers and young-turks to help the Tory leader re-assert a grip on his increasingly …

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Stephen Tall

How you can take part in LibDemVoice’s exclusive party member surveys

By Stephen Tall | Mon 27th August 2012 - 9:00 am

LibDemVoice’s surveys of party members signed-up to our discussion forum have been running for over three years now. (I posted yesterday the final set of figures from our most recent poll.)

Our surveys are a way of testing members’ views on a variety of hot topics. And as they’ve been running throughout the first two years of the Coalition they’re also an interesting record of changing views on how the Coalition is regarded within the party.

If you would like to take part in the LibDemVoice surveys, there are simply two steps you need to follow:
1) Be a current Lib …

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Tim Leunig

Tim Leunig writes… Housing priority Number 1: reversing the rise in the age of first-time buyers

By Tim Leunig | Sun 26th August 2012 - 2:15 pm

Sir Adrian Montague’s report on housing, published earlier this week, calls for a larger private rented sector. This is a very bad idea because being a private renter is the least popular tenure choice in Britain. Only 2% of people wish to be private renters, compared with 82% who want to own, 14% who want to live in social housing, and 5% in other tenures (see here for details). I bet that Sir Adrian is not a private renter.

The private rented sector has its place, most notably for young people who have yet to settle down. But thanks …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 39 Comments
The Voice

RIP Donald Gorrie

By The Voice | Sun 26th August 2012 - 11:59 am

The BBC reports the sad news of the death of former MP, MSP and stalwart Scottish Liberal Democrat Donald Gorrie:

Former Liberal Democrat MP and MSP Donald Gorrie has died aged 79. Mr Gorrie represented central Scotland in the Scottish parliament from 1999 to 2007, and represented Edinburgh West as an MP before devolution. …

His former parliamentary assistant, Hugh O’Donnell, who succeeded him in parliament said: “Donald Gorrie was my mentor, my friend and my guide. “He will be sadly missed by those who respect a politician and a man of independent character and principle”.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie

…

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Stephen Tall

Measuring what Lib Dem members think the party is achieving in Coalition

By Stephen Tall | Sun 26th August 2012 - 8:54 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’ve been publishing the full results. This is the final part.

Party members give Lib Dems 7 out of 10 for influence within the Coalition

How would you rate the extent of the Liberal Democrat influence within the Coalition Government, where 10 is highly influential, and 1 indicates no influence.

    1: 1%
    2: 6%
    3: 15%
    4: 11%
    5: 10%
    Lacking influence = 43% (+12%)
    6: 19%
    7: 23%
    8: 11%
    9: 3%
    10: 1%
    Achieving influence

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 3 Comments
The Voice

LDV Caption Competition: Jeremy Browne “Wiff Waff’s Coming Home” Edition

By The Voice | Sat 25th August 2012 - 4:45 pm

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…

Here’s Lib Dem foreign minister Jeremy Browne enjoying a good old game of ping-pong (aka wiff waff, if you’re Boris Johnson). What do you think might be being said or thought here?

And the winner of our last caption comp is…

Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Nick Clegg & Tinchy Stryder “Cool Guy” Edition.

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Posted in Caption Comp | Tagged | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

LibLink: Anthony Wells ‘On that poll of Lib Dem members’

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th August 2012 - 2:20 pm

As my LibDemVoice colleague Caron Lindsay noted here, our poll asking when Lib Dem members want Nick Clegg to stand down has attracted a fair bit of coverage this week (including in the Daily Mail: I’ve showered three times since reading it, I still feel unclean).

Over at his essential UK Polling Report blog, the best online guide to British polling, Anthony Wells has taken a closer look at this survey — and at the validity of LibDemVoice surveys in general — and here’s an excerpt of what he says:

Stephen Tall and Mark Pack don’t make huge claims

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll and LibLink | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Three interesting reads for the weekend: on the Lib Dem mission, campaigning and Coalition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th August 2012 - 11:25 am

Here are three articles about the Lib Dems well worth a read this Bank Holiday weekend… Enjoy!

The Lib Dems don’t need a new leader. They need a point (Ian Birrell)

After two torrid years in office, a fundamental question hangs heavy over the Liberal Democrats: what is the point of them these days? The party has long been ill-defined, split between social democrats on the left and market liberals on the right. In many ways, their brilliance as they grew under successive leaders over the past four decades was this blurred brand, ensuring disgruntled voters of any persuasion could see

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

When will the Coalition end? Here’s what Lib Dem members say…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th August 2012 - 8:50 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’ve been publishing the full results. The final parts are being published this weekend.

Three-quarters say Coalition will be bad for Lib Dem prospects in 2015

LDV asked: Do you think the Coalition Government will be good or bad for the Lib Dems’ electoral prospects at the next general election?

    9% – Good
    77% – Bad
    11% – Neither good nor bad
    4% – Don’t know / No

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 3 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 24 August 2012

By The Voice | Fri 24th August 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

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Sara Bedford

The English Baccalaureate is a Mickey Mouse qualification

By Sara Bedford | Fri 24th August 2012 - 1:35 pm

Almost two years ago, a fortnight after my daughter confirmed her GCSE choices; Michael Gove announced his latest bright idea for the nation’s schoolchildren. The English Baccalaureate was originally intended to ‘be the equivalent of the old School Leaving Certificate’, but the EBacc, as it became known, has turned into just another of Gove’s personal follys, greeted with less than lukewarm enthusiasm by pupils, teachers, parents and employers.

I’m all for pupils studying a good range of subjects, at a level that reflects their abilities and supports their future studies and career paths. But the EBacc does nothing for pupils or schools, except provide another stick to beat them with, as Gove always intended. The cat has been let permanently out of the DfE bag with the ‘clarification’ that the EBacc is intended as ‘a performance measure’ and ‘not a qualification in its own right’.

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The Voice

From today’s Lib Dem News

By The Voice | Fri 24th August 2012 - 1:00 pm

By Howard of Lib Dem News

Posted in Humour | Tagged | 4 Comments
Sean Davey

Opinion: Moderates vs Radicals: the battle for the Liberal Democrat soul

By Sean Davey | Fri 24th August 2012 - 10:26 am

Why did you join the third party? The party with no hope of winning the election? The party who now linger at 10% in the polls, under constant attack on all sides?

Many commentators openly wonder why there is a Liberal Democrat party at all. In an unforgiving two-party system these doubts are not so easily dismissed: how is it that as a small, stubborn party polling just a core vote barely in double digits we are able to sustain our existence, and why do we?

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 57 Comments
Daniel Furr

Opinion: Britain has become a corporate state, not a free society

By Daniel Furr | Fri 24th August 2012 - 8:52 am

In the months after the financial crisis in 2008, I recall a conversation with an American friend of mine; we discussed the fallout and numerous rescue packages by countries. Financial media outlets, such as Bloomberg and CNBC, described the capital injections into financial institutions as a sign we are “all socialists now” – according to my American companion, this was far from the truth. In reality, Western economies have turned the page to fascism, not socialism.

When he mentioned this to me, I confess, it was rather amusing to listen to; very sceptical of such claims, until the request to research the facts myself led me to a worrying conclusion. The truth of matter is that we are not far off from what British fascists in the 1930s thought the financial sector should administrate to the rest of society.

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Caron Lindsay

Inspiration Day for Scottish Liberal Democrat women

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 6:55 pm

Credit Katy Gordon

I have attended hundreds of extremely useful Liberal Democrat training sessions over the years. Virtually all of them have been very good, but the ones which have been most helpful have been those run by Women Liberal Democrats. I’ve been to several “inspiration days” now and always learn something new or meet fabulous new people who become great colleagues.

My most recent session took place in Glasgow last Saturday. The idea of these sessions is to give women members an idea of the wide range of options …

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Caron Lindsay

That poll on Nick’s leadership – what the papers say

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 4:25 pm

Strangely, that Liberal Democrat Voice poll which showed that members were split 47%-46% on whether Nick Clegg should still be Liberal Democrat leader at the next election has attracted a bit of coverage in the press.

The Guardian suggests that:

Clegg is vulnerable because he is seen as one of the few people at the top of the party who is ideologically sympathetic to the Conservatives.

Well, that’s maybe because Polly Toynbee and the Guardian are always trying to paint him that way. David Cameron, on the other hand, who is probably in a better position to judge, is

…

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Robin McGhee

Opinion: It’s not such a bad thing if we’re a nation of idlers

By Robin McGhee | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 2:25 pm

An extract from a forthcoming book appeared in the Evening Standard last week. The book the Standard quotes from is Britannia Unchained, a collection of essays by senior backbench Tories. Dominic Raab, Priti Patel and Chris Skidmore might not be household names yet, but they are young, right-wing and tremendously ambitious for themselves and the Conservative Party.

According to the Standard article, the authors believe Britons today need more “graft, risk and effort” in order to make Britain part of the “superleague” of nations. “Once they enter the workplace”, the young Tories argue, “the British are among the worst …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 17 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Paddy Ashdown talks about his new book “A brilliant little operation”

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 12:57 pm

I had to stifle a giggle as Paddy Ashdown strode on to the stage at the Edinburgh Book Festival and said:

What are you lot doing here at ten in the morning?

There was a certain irony at this coming from the man who notoriously held meetings at the crack of dawn when he was party leader.

The morning after his “why the world will never be the same again” talk, he was back to tell us about his new book, “A brilliant little operation”, about the founding raid of the Special Boat Service, the special forces unit where he would later serve. …

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes… Britain deserves an affordable railway

By Julian Huppert | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 11:20 am

Our rail fares are among the most expensive in Europe, and they keep going up. Between 1997 and 2010 rail fares went up by an astonishing 66% – well above inflation.

If next year’s planned rail fare rises go ahead, some passengers will hand over up to 15% of their wages for the pleasure of travelling to work.

Since the Labour party introduced above inflation fare rises in 2003, these increases have become a yearly occurrence. Indeed, Labour Party policy is still to have above-inflation rail fare increases every year.

We say that rail fares are already too high. We would cap rail …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Christine Jardine – Balance of Scottish power

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 9:25 am

Until the Summer, Christine Jardine was deep at the heart of Government as a special adviser on Scottish media based in Downing Street. She’s now returned to Scotland and full time Liberal Democrat politics.

This week, in the Scotsman, she argued that over reliance on land based wind farms can hurt the communities where they are based and predominantly benefits the landowners who pocket the subsidy and don’t pass it on to local people. She argued that more attention should be given to offshore and tidal projects, like the one Scottish Secretary Mike Moore was so enthusiastic about a few …

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Stephen Tall

Jo Swinson, Julian Huppert & David Laws top Lib Dem members’ reshuffle promotion wish-list

By Stephen Tall | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 7:55 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

LDV asked: Which backbench Lib Dem MPs who are not current ministers would you like to see promoted? (Please write-in.) (NB: I’ve set the cut-off for inclusion in this list at 5 individual mentions.)

    Jo Swinson 77
    Julian Huppert 73
    David Laws 66
    Tim Farron 25
    Duncan Hames 21
    Simon Hughes 19
    Andrew George 16
    Tessa Munt 16
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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged , , , , , , and | 7 Comments
Lynne Featherstone

Lynne Featherstone MP writes… George Galloway’s comments on rape are totally unacceptable, and they have an effect

By Lynne Featherstone | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 3:23 pm

In recent days, on both sides of the Atlantic, there have been not one, but two expressions of the kind of attitudes on rape you had hoped died with the Dark Ages.

First, a US Republican Senate Candidate, Todd Akin, suggested that most women do not become pregnant after being raped as their body can, and I quote, ‘shut that whole thing down’.

Then Britain’s own George Galloway, while offering his opinions on the Julian Assange case, took it upon himself to assert that certain acts of sexual violence are nothing more than ‘bad manners’, and that having …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 49 Comments
Matt Hemsley

Opinion: Why schools should be allowed to sell their playing fields

By Matt Hemsley | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 2:25 pm

As the Olympic Games concluded, the debate on school sports has risen to the fore. The Prime Minister, it seems, is a big fan of competitive sport being played in primary schools. This, he says, will lead to a real Olympic legacy.

Since the Prime Minister started outlining his plans, the government has come under pressure to defend the sales of school playing fields – a robust defence of the 21 sell-offs was put forward by the Department for Education. Then it became 30. The media – and the Daily Telegraph in particular – has launched campaigns to save school …

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Caron Lindsay

Paddy Ashdown: Why the World will never be the same again

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 1:01 pm

Last week, Paddy Ashdown came to the Edinburgh Book Festival. He filled the main theatre twice over with two very different talks.

The first, Why the world will never be the same again, was chaired by the Today Programme’s James Naughtie.

“I wouldn’t trust the UN to run a Liberal Democrat jumble sale”

Speaking without notes and with compelling candour, Paddy told us that we were condemned to living in one of those turbulent times when the balance of power in the world shifts. He saw two such major shifts. The first was a vertical one. Individual nation states could not alone regulate …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , , , , , and | 12 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: Time for Liberal Democrats to stop saying “No”.

By Chris Richards | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 10:55 am

If you Google “Lib Dems say no”, this is the result you get. Beyond the recent headlines on new runways you will see that this phrase is widely used in our campaigns. In the same search, click on Images to emphasise the point. One would be forgiven for thinking that this phrase is printed on our membership cards. This phrase is deeply  conservative and does nothing to help with our problem of explaining what the Lib Dems stand for, something I recently argued we urgently need to do.

At the next election an opportunity to set that vision our …

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Caron Lindsay

Independent’s spin on Nick Clegg and The Thick of It

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 9:25 am

LDV readers will no doubt be delighted that The Thick of It will be back on our screens this Autumn. The political satire has been greatly missed over the past two years and it will be interesting to see how they interpret the dynamics of Coalition Government.

If today’s Independent is to be believed, the script writers had a bit of help. The headline suggests a co-ordinated strategy – “How Nick Clegg’s aides tried to put him in the thick of it”. Sadly, the actual story doesn’t really stack up. “Nick Clegg may wish to interrogate his private office,” says …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members split 47%-46% on whether Nick Clegg should fight 2015 election as party leader

By Stephen Tall | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 7:15 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

47% say Nick should stay to fight 2015 election; 46% say he shouldn’t

LDV asked: Thinking about Nick Clegg’s position as Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lib Dems, which of these scenarios do you want to see happen?

  • 47% – I want Nick Clegg to continue both as Deputy

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged , and | 62 Comments
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