Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg says no to Tory plans for more welfare cuts

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 31st July 2012 - 10:58 am

Newspapers have been reporting for months that the Liberal Democrats were not prepared to sign up to Tory plans for £10 billion of welfare cuts in a spending review that would draw up plans for spending into the next Parliament. Today’s Independent says that Nick Clegg himself will ensure that this Government only produces spending plans for 2015-16. The electorate will then decide in the 2015 election whether they want to pursue further cuts in welfare or a heavier burden of tax on the wealthy.

 The report says;

The Liberal Democrats’ opposition means the review will have to be watered down. Before the

…

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Simon Titley

Opinion: Britain is more liberal than you think

By Simon Titley | Tue 31st July 2012 - 9:25 am

Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the London Olympics has deservedly won widespread praise. He managed the difficult trick of presenting a vision of a Britain in which the British can feel proud, without resorting to any of the tired old clichés. There was not a bowler hat or a red double-decker bus in sight, and nobody mentioned the war.

One measure of the ceremony’s success is that the only high-profile critics – apart from the Iranian state media – were Peter Hitchens, Toby Young and Tory MP Aidan Burley, who …

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George Potter

Opinion: Disability Living Allowance replacement will cause economic and human cost

By George Potter | Mon 30th July 2012 - 3:53 pm

Under the Welfare Reform Act 2012, passed by the government earlier this year, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for disabled people of working age is due to be replaced by Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) with a net result of a 20% reduction by 2015 in the DLA budget – it is worth pointing out at this point that the fraud rate for DLA is estimated by the Department of Works and Pensions to be less than 0.5%.

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Paul Walter

Opinion: Stop the national carpathon – we should be proud to offer free seats to service personnel, local school children and Games Makers

By Paul Walter | Mon 30th July 2012 - 1:23 pm

“Locog calls in the army (again)” goes the headline of the Guardian report saying that Olympics seats left empty by the “Olympic family” are being offered to the military and, potentially, to local school children.

So yet another cock-up and we fall back on drafting in the army, goes the story.

I take the opposite view.

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Mark Pack

“Tory membership in crisis” – Independent

By Mark Pack | Mon 30th July 2012 - 12:43 pm

Today’s Independent reports:

Conservative Party logoThree-quarters of local Conservative associations are losing activists as the party suffers a recruitment crisis which has seen membership halve since David Cameron became leader.

The latest estimates put Conservative membership at between 130,000 and 170,000, compared with almost 300,000 shortly after Mr Cameron succeeded Michael Howard…

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NewsHound

Romney – a candidate with a serious wimp problem

By NewsHound | Mon 30th July 2012 - 11:53 am

The reaction in the US to Mitt Romney’s gaffes in London has been widespread and damning.

Perhaps, the most emblematic media condemnation of Romney is a Newsweek cover story which asks if Romney is a wimp:

ROMNEY: THE WIMP FACTOR – IS HE JUST TOO INSECURE TO BE PRESIDENT – by Michael Tomasky

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Mark Thompson

Opinion: Lib Dems should park Lords reform. For now.

By Mark Thompson | Mon 30th July 2012 - 10:23 am

I am an enthusiastic supporter of electoral and constitutional reform in this country. I have been arguing for years that the First Past the Post system for the Commons is hopelessly out of date and unfair and that there is no place in our constitution for an unelected second chamber. I was delighted when the coalition agreement included action on the latter and heartened by Nick Clegg’s various comments in the early days of this government that made it clear he was throwing his full weight as Deputy

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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #284

By The Voice | Sun 29th July 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 284th 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 July, 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:

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Mark Pack

Online electoral registration: not quite as novel at it sounds

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th July 2012 - 3:50 pm

Earlier this month Harrow Council caught the headlines for its new electoral registration system:

Harrow Council has become the first local authority in the country to take its electoral registration online.

As authorities across the country contact residents to ensure their details are added to the electoral register, Harrow will be asking people to respond to the annual canvass online.

The council said residents would be able confirm details “at the click of a button”, avoiding “cumbersome paper forms”.

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Mark Pack

High Court orders recount in Denbighshire election mix-up

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th July 2012 - 9:50 am

Previously we reported how a block of votes for Labour candidate Paul Penlington were wrongly counted as being for similarly named Conservative rival Allan Pennington in the Prestatyn North ward count this May.

The High Court has now ordered a recount:

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NewsHound

Nick Clegg meets Ban Ki Moon

By NewsHound | Sat 28th July 2012 - 3:50 pm

Yesterday Nick Clegg had a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. He said:

Secretary General Ban and I discussed the encouraging progress that has been made in talks in New York towards agreeing an Arms Trade Treaty.

The UK has led the way in arguing for a treaty to raise standards across the world and to reduce the impact the illicit arms industry has on countless millions of people. Global rules govern the sale of everything from bananas to endangered species to weapons of mass destruction,

…

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Giles Goodall

Opinion: Brussels vs. the banksters

By Giles Goodall | Sat 28th July 2012 - 1:21 pm

European Parliament building European Parliament building

Almost no-one in the UK would these days dispute the fact that the country’s banking sector needs a serious overhaul to correct the runaway behaviour which helped nudge Britain (and others) into the financial crisis. The Liberal Democrats have rightly been most persistent in demanding reforms, in particular a break-up of retail and casino banking, as recommended by the independent Vickers Inquiry.

The latest scandal about fixing the benchmark Libor interest rate plumbs new depths – even by the standards of Britain’s banks. Here were …

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Mary Reid

“It’s a good thing the British do not vote in our elections” #romneyshambles

By Mary Reid | Sat 28th July 2012 - 11:25 am

Is it really possible to compare a politician unfavourably to Sarah Palin?

It’s not often that I link to the Daily Mail but this headline nailed it:

‘What a car crash… worse than Sarah Palin’: British politicians’ fury at Romney’s blunder-filled visit to London ahead of Olympics

The Democrats have gleefully issued this video. Enjoy.

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Mary Reid

LibLink: Stephen Tall – Vince Cable leading the Lib Dems? Is it time for Plan V?

By Mary Reid | Sat 28th July 2012 - 9:35 am

Stephen Tall, co-editor of Lib Dem Voice, has been blogging away at Huffington Post.

Lots of politicians have 20:20 hindsight. Foresight, however, is generally in shorter supply, which explains why Vince Cable is being acclaimed once again, tipped at the age of 69 both as a potential successor to either the 40-something George Osborne as Chancellor and/or the 40-something Nick Clegg as Lib Dem leader. The ‘Septuagenarian Sage of Twickenham’ is enjoying a Second Coming-of-age. Age does not weary him, nor the years condemn. What’s his secret?

Principally, it’s Vince’s tendency

…

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Mary Reid

James Bond escorts The Queen to the London 2012 Olympic Games – BBC

By Mary Reid | Sat 28th July 2012 - 8:34 am

Nothing political – just a lot of fun.

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The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 27 July 2012

By The Voice | Fri 27th July 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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NewsHound

Jeremy Hunt rings in a gaffe-free Olympics

By NewsHound | Fri 27th July 2012 - 3:55 pm

Have you recently suffered an accident which wasn’t your fault?

Were you nonchalantly strolling past the Culture Secretary on HMS Belfast one sunny morning when you were abruptly hit on the head by a heavy brass bell?

If so, please contact “Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne” as a matter of urgency….

Jeremy Hunt is 97.

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Mary Reid

LibLink: Matthew Oakeshott – The Treasury needs a new team to stop this slide back into recession

By Mary Reid | Fri 27th July 2012 - 2:55 pm

In The Guardian Matthew Oakeshott writes:

Britain’s economy after this week’s grim GDP figures looks like an old steam train struggling up Shap Fell. George Osborne, the driver, is doing his best but there’s just not enough coal in the firebox, the train’s lost momentum, and it’s slipping back down the hill. We need two massive growth locomotives, called housing and banking, with a new team on the footplate to stop the slide.

That’s why I’ve been saying we need a bold plan A+, making banks lend, especially RBS,

…

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The Voice

From today’s Lib Dem News

By The Voice | Fri 27th July 2012 - 1:24 pm

By Howard of Lib Dem News

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Mental health, no excuses

By Paul Burstow | Fri 27th July 2012 - 11:50 am

Over the past few days Channel Four has been highlighting mental health with its #4goesmad series of programmes. With the aim of debunking the myths and stigma surrounding mental health, they are well worth a watch.

I watched both Ruby Wax and Jon Richardson programmes.  Both told powerful and compelling stories  of people coming to terms with their mental health and talking openly about it often for the first time. One such moment was when a successful chef told his restaurant staff that he had, quite recently, contemplated suicide. Getting this confession out into the open was a symbol of that …

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Mark Pack

101 Ways To Win An Election: now available for Kindle

By Mark Pack | Fri 27th July 2012 - 10:25 am

You may have noticed my excitement as the book I wrote with Ed Maxfield finally appeared, started being shipped to buyers and even made it to bookshop shelves.

Quite a few people have asked whether it would be available as an e-book, which was the plan but has taken a little while to sort.

The good news is that first of the e-book versions is now out – for the Kindle. As with the paperback, it’s packed full of tips on how to win an election …

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Craig Bennett

The Independent View: Will Osborne gas the Lib Dems’ green credentials?

By Craig Bennett | Fri 27th July 2012 - 9:05 am

Ed Davey’s announced this week that he’d secured an important concession from the Chancellor over wind farm subsidies – but at what cost?

Although there was understandable relief over the certainty this move gave to investors in clean British energy it seems the victory may have come with a hefty price tag: an agreement to burden our electricity system with dirty and increasingly expensive gas for decades to come – despite the enormous damage this could cause to both the economy and planet.

Ed Davey’s success in securing a 10 per cent cut in wind farm subsidies – to reflect the …

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Caron Lindsay

Vince in Edinburgh – what the members said.

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 26th July 2012 - 2:33 pm

Edinburgh was spoiled last weekend. Not only was there a Madonna concert and a performance of the Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy radio show (which I went to), but Business Secretary Vince Cable answered questions from Liberal Democrat members on Sunday evening.

Readers will be glad to see former Edinburgh West MP John Barrett, sufficiently recovered from illness and on his usual sparkling form, chairing the session.

Vince answered questions for well over an hour on subjects ranging from renewable energy to high executive pay to winning back …

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg and Paul Burstow’s 3 steps for employers on mental health

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 26th July 2012 - 12:56 pm

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s long running work on mental health issues took another step forward this week with the publication of a mental health implementation framework aimed at helping people suffering from mental health problems in the workplace. Employers will be asked to take 3 steps to identify and support those 1 in 6 workers affected. These are:

1)    Make this year the Time to Change: Sign your company up to the Time to Change campaign to end mental health discrimination. By signing up, you make a public commitment from the top of the organisation to the bottom, …

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Stephen Tall

“We’re not in recession”. And no, that’s not the claim of anyone in the Coalition.

By Stephen Tall | Thu 26th July 2012 - 12:45 pm

Hamish McRae, an economist and associate editor of The Independent, has been claiming for some while now that the official figures aren’t reflecting the reality of the economy. A week ago, he made the bold statement that the UK is not in recession:

The British economy is becoming more and more interesting. This week we have had two positive surprises … the fall in inflation to 2.4 per cent, a much sharper decline than expected, with the prospect that it may be below 2 per cent by the autumn … a further fall in unemployment on the

…

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Caron Lindsay

Who are your favourite commentators? Nominate them for Comment awards by 31 July

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 26th July 2012 - 11:28 am

The Comment Awards, run by Editorial Intelligence take place in October and aim to celebrate the “achievement of the UK’s finest print and online commentors”.

A wide ranging panel of judges, including our very own Jo Swinson MP, will judge 16 categories from Independent Blogger to commentators of the year on politics, business, foreign affairs, sport, media and culture. There are also Twitter categories, for politician and public figure.

Nominations are welcome from any individual or organisation, which obviously includes all of you. They close next Tuesday, 31st July. If you look at the list of winners from last year, …

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Mark Pack

Local liberal heroes: Flick Rea

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th July 2012 - 10:25 am

A while back, I penned a series of posts profiling forgotten liberal heroes (to which a couple of other people also kindly contributed), looking at some of those who achieved great things for liberalism in their time but have been unjustly forgotten – such as Margaret Wintringham, the very first female Liberal MP.

There is also another group of people who I think are often unjustly obscure – those local campaigners who are often at the heart of their local community and local party, delivering liberalism and helping others, but as their stage is a local one they are often unacknowledged in the wider party.

Today it is the turn of Camden councillor Flick Rea.

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Mark Pack

Vince Cable on the economy, George Osborne and his own ambitions

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th July 2012 - 9:14 am

From last night’s Newsnight:

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Michael Moore

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Thu 26th July 2012 - 8:55 am

Every week Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here is the latest edition.

Advice surgeries

Last week I began my annual summer advice surgeries during which I will visit around 40 towns and villages across the Borders. These surgeries are a fantastic opportunity for me to hear the concerns of my constituents and discuss how I can support them in my role as MP. I have already held nearly 30 of these surgeries and discussed issues as wide-ranging as wind farms, housing, local roads and jobs.

Residents’ survey

As part of my work as …

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The Voice

Simon Hughes: Keeping the green agenda on track

By The Voice | Thu 26th July 2012 - 8:15 am

An email from Simon Hughes to party members and supporters yesterday read…

As the Guardian reports today, the Liberal Democrats have stopped George Osborne giving in to his backbenchers and kept the Coalition’s green agenda on track.

Liberal Democrats are determined to make the Coalition Government the greenest ever and prove that going green can be good for business and jobs.

Today’s announcement of subsidy levels for renewable energies gives investors the long term stability they need and should see £20-25bn invested by 2017.

It will help create new green jobs and keep us on track to meet our ambitious climate change targets.

Liberal Democrats …

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