Caron Lindsay

Only a week to respond to Lynne Featherstone’s consultation on equal civil marriage

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th June 2012 - 1:25 pm

Time is running out to respond to the Government’s consultation on equal civil marriage which has been implemented by our own Lynne Featherstone.

It’s really important that everyone who believes in equal marriage should make sure that their voice is heard.

The consultation closes a week tomorrow, 14th June. Don’t leave it till the last minute – make sure you do it today.

If you’re unsure about the issues, those nice people at LGBT+ Lib Dems have prepared a helpful pack which outlines all the issues and arguments.

I also thought you might like to see the video Cambridge Liberal Democrat Councillor Sarah Brown did for the Out 4 Marriage campaign, which was reported in Pink News recently.  She talks very movingly about how she and her wife had to dissolve their marriage in 2009 and opt for a civil partnership. She describes how painful it was to have their years of  marriage “confiscated by the state”.

 

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Mark Pack

Unlock Democracy: the elections are worse than I feared

By Mark Pack | Wed 6th June 2012 - 11:50 am

Back in March I wrote about my concerns over the elections rules for Unlock Democracy’s internal elections:

Good news – supporters are being asked to submit nominations for its governing council. Bad news – the highly restrictive campaigning rules that make even the old Liberal Democrat internal election rules seem rather generous:

“Candidates may not produce any further promotional materials … No candidate may pro-actively campaign for election online, or allow anyone else to campaign on their behalf … The Returning Officer may disqualify any candidate who they deem to have made a public statement to promote their candidacy.”

As for

…

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Michael Moore

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 6th June 2012 - 10:28 am

Every week, Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here is the most recent edition.

Scottish independence

The SNP’s independence campaign was launched last week, beginning the debate which will see Scotland facing its most important choice in over three hundred years. Before the people of Scotland are asked to make this decision, there are however vitally important questions that need to be answered on what it would mean for people in Scotland if we separated from the rest of the UK. When it comes to weathering the economic storm in Europe, fixing …

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The Voice

Nick Clegg’s praises Queen’s dignity, calm and wisdom

By The Voice | Wed 6th June 2012 - 8:55 am

It’s now time to pack away the bunting and force ourselves back to the daily grind after the double bank holiday.

The Voice thought you might be interested to see Nick Clegg’s official message on the Diamond Jubilee, though, which is available on his You Tube channel here.

He says she is a Queen famous for her quiet steeliness but he’s always been struck by her great warmth and her rare ability to put everyone she meets at ease.

He praises her wisdom, calm and dignity in a rapidly changing world – and wishes us all a good time celebrating.

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Stephen Tall

LDV poll: 34% of Lib Dem members say Nick Clegg should stand down before 2015

By Stephen Tall | Wed 6th June 2012 - 8:00 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 560 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

LDV asked: Following this year’s poor local election results for the Lib Dems, it was suggested by Lembit Opik that Nick Clegg should set a timetable for his departure as party leader by the end of this year while continuing to serve as Deputy Prime Minister until 2015. Would you like to see Nick Clegg remain as Liberal Democrat leader to fight the …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 76 Comments
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Mark Pack

Chief Executive pay: is it tied to performance?

By Mark Pack | Tue 5th June 2012 - 3:50 pm

The LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance has been looking at the evidence on Chief Executive pay in the UK. Their conclusion? It is tied to performance – and is more tied to performance than it used to be. But it is a lopsided link with smaller cuts when things go badly than the increases when things go well. What’s more, when things go well Chief Executive pay rises much more than pay for others.

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The Voice

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Tue 5th June 2012 - 10:55 am

The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are four simple ways:

1. Let us have your tips for stories. Perhaps there’s something outrageous going on in your local council? Or you’re an expert in a particular area and have spotted a story other people have missed? Or you’ve seen …

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Mark Pack

Tony Greaves: From angry young man to simmering old guru

By Mark Pack | Mon 4th June 2012 - 4:50 pm

For many years Adrian Slade has interviewed prominent Liberal Democrats. To mark his recent decision to make his archive of the interview recordings available to researchers and other interested parties, Lib Dem Voice is running a selection of his write-ups of interviews from over the years. The latest is with Tony Greaves, dating from 2004.

There is something a little incongruous about the notion of the Liberal Democrats’ oldest angry young man donning the ermine of a peer of the realm.

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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #276

By The Voice | Sun 3rd June 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 276th 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 (27 May – 2 June, 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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The Voice

How to get the most out of your Lib Dem Voice comments

By The Voice | Sun 3rd June 2012 - 5:50 pm

How to get a photo to appear next to your comments

You may have noticed that next to some people’s comments is a small picture of themselves, such as:


If you want a picture to appear next to your comments you need to do two things.

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Posted in Site news | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

In other news… Huhne in court, Clegg dines Tories, Ming protests immigration rules & other stories

By Stephen Tall | Sun 3rd June 2012 - 4:05 pm

Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past few days…

Chris Huhne’s ex-wife Vicky Pryce pleads not guilty (BBC News)

Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of Chris Huhne, has pleaded not guilty to taking the former energy secretary’s penalty points for a 2003 speeding offence. The Eastleigh Lib Dem MP did not enter a plea because he will try to dismiss the charge against him at a future hearing, Southwark Crown Court heard. The pair, who were married for 26 years, face charges of perverting the course of justice. A date for the trial,

…

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Andy Strange

Changes to your local party boundaries are coming

By Andy Strange | Sun 3rd June 2012 - 11:25 am

Next year all Liberal Democrats in England are going to have to get used to new local parties. The coalition government’s plans to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies across the UK, assuming they get passed into law, will have implications for how we organise ourselves at a local level.

Traditionally Liberal Democrat local parties have been organised on a constituency basis. The local party would cover one or more parliamentary constituency. More recently a change was made to allow local parties in London to be based on borough boundaries, but for the rest of England local parties remained tied …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV Poll Result: Majority of Lib Dem members reject conference accreditation

By Stephen Tall | Sun 3rd June 2012 - 8:55 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 560 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Members oppose accreditation 52%-36%

The decision by the party to approve a system of police accreditation for Lib Dem members attending this year’s Autumn Conference triggered one of LibDemVoice’s most vigorous recent comments threads. We asked our sample of members their view:

LDV asked: The party has announced there will be a system of police accreditation for members attending this year’s Autumn Conference citing …

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Posted in Conference and LDV Members poll | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Talking to Labour: the only news is that Labour still aren’t serious

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 10:45 pm

Talks of all sorts happen between different parties all the time, varying from the personal – such as a few quiet words over handling the consequences of a death in an MP’s family – to the national interest – especially on security matters – and including, of course, the political manoeuvering.

One rule however applies consistently across them all: if you’re serious about discreet talks, you keep them discreet. Talking at length to the media, whether on or off the record, about talks is only what you do if the talks are out in the public (such as the Cook-Maclennan talks in …

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Posted in News | 29 Comments
Stephen Tall

Hunt out to dry? Clegg refuses to back Tory culture secretary as Lib Dem MPs push inquiry

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 9:05 pm

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is piling the pressure on Jeremy Hunt, whose closeness to the Murdoch empire has been embarrassingly laid bare by the Leveson Inquiry in the past few weeks, by refusing to endorse David Cameron’s decision not to refer his culture secretary to the official adviser on the ministerial code, Sir Alex Allan. Here’s how The Observer is reporting it:

Nick Clegg refuses to back Jeremy Hunt as Lib Dems demand investigation

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has refused to give unequivocal backing to Jeremy Hunt over his handling of the BSkyB takeover controversy as senior Liberal

…

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Stephen Tall

LDV Caption Competition: Nick.i.am “Hands on with Clinton” Edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 7:15 pm

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


(Photo by CarlPendle.com)

Here’s Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, President Bill Clinton and musician and The Voice UK coach, will.i.am. What do you think might be being said or thought by or about them?

And the winner of our last caption comp is…

Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Vince & Dave “Watch your step” Edition.

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Posted in Caption Comp | Tagged , and | 17 Comments
The Voice

LDVideo: Oakeshott on Osborne, Oaten on BSkyB, George on fishermen

By The Voice | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 2:52 pm

You can catch up with many of the recent appearances of Lib Dems in the media on LibDemVoice’s ‘Video’ page.

Lord Oakeshott: Osborne ‘should focus on the day job’

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour MP attacks rural broadband as “faster internet shopping for millionaires”

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 11:25 am

Labour MP Graham Jones has kicked up a fuss over his attack on the government’s plans to extend high speed broadband in rural areas, saying it will just mean “faster internet shopping for millionaires”. The MP for Hyndburn went on to say that the rural broadband investment “is just about faster internet shopping for wealthy people”.

Liberal Democrat MP David Heath begged to differ, telling the House of Commons that: “The honourable gentleman is deeply mistaken on this subject … If we do not invest properly to allow every member of every community in the country to have access to …

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Mark Wright

Opinion: Transport infrastructure – our way to avoid depression

By Mark Wright | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 10:25 am

The best post-crash indicator of the coming decade is Japan in the 90s: “The lost decade” as they call it.

Understanding that the current malaise will continue for 5 to 10 years means we need to be thinking now about how we will be boosting the economy in 5-10 years and preparing it for growth in the decades after that.

The answer has to be infrastructure. Not only is the construction industry among the hardest hit right now, but infrastructure activity has amongst the most stimulating effect on the economy, and also it creates “facts on the ground” – useful assets that don’t …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 26 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 1 June 2012

By The Voice | Fri 1st June 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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Mary Reid

From today’s Lib Dem News

By Mary Reid | Fri 1st June 2012 - 12:55 pm

Posted in Humour | Tagged | 14 Comments
Mary Reid

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – Syria shows the lessons of Libya still unlearnt

By Mary Reid | Fri 1st June 2012 - 11:23 am

Paddy Ashdown writes in the Times today about Syria. He was, of course, the international community’s High Representative in Bosnia, so is ideally placed to comment on western diplomacy in the face of tyranny.

Megaphone diplomacy has failed. The West must let Turkey lead a relief operation.

The slaughter of the innocents in Syria is, of course, horrific, barbaric, shocking, terrifying medieval, bestial — choose your own adjective; they’ve all been used — some many times over. In our attempts to camouflage impotence we are now devaluing hyperbole.

But it is not sufficient. With the West’s moral force in tatters after the blunders

…

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William Summers

Opinion: Liberal Democrats should make the case for an elected head of state

By William Summers | Fri 1st June 2012 - 9:05 am

I’m proud to be in a party that values freedom and democracy above all else. We passionately campaign for equality of opportunity, and a world in which success is based on a person’s own merits rather than privilege and nepotism. We want to reform the outdated electoral system, and object to an unelected House of Lords, described by Nick Clegg as “an affront to the principles of openness which underpin a modern democracy”.

That is why I, like many other Liberal Democrats, cannot support a system of monarchy whereby power is inherited and all but one family is excluded from …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 94 Comments
Caron Lindsay

In conversation with Michael Moore MP – on community action, jobs, referendum and F1

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 31st May 2012 - 6:55 pm

It’s Parliamentary recess so you might think that MPs and Government ministers (at least those not appearing at Leveson) would be chillaxing with their iPads in the sun. Not so for Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore, who is in the middle of a tour which is taking him all over Scotland. He phoned me as he was driving (or, more accurately, being driven) along the M8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow. He was practically passing my house – if we’d planned it better he could have come in for a cup of tea. As it happened, we did get …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Toby Fenwick

Opinion: A response to the Minister on Joint Strike Fighters

By Toby Fenwick | Thu 31st May 2012 - 5:24 pm

We can all welcome Nick Harvey’s work with Phillip Hammond in producing what appears to be the first balanced MoD budget since at least the 1997 Defence Review: time will tell if their projections hold water. However, Mr. Harvey’s article is redolent of MoD Press Office spin, and has several important elements that need debating. Moving back to the vertical take off and landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) – known as the F-35B – is hardly the panacea the Minister pretends: there were several reasons that the military warmly welcomed the switch to a conventional cats ‘n’ traps …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 20 Comments

Opinion: Youth Careerism – A Problem or an Opportunity?

By Callum Morton and James Potter | Thu 31st May 2012 - 3:56 pm

I’m currently sat at the pub with fellow young Liberals, young Labourites and young Conservatives. Now, we all face the same problem: how do we engage with voters? The young Labourites and the young Conservatives are bankrolled to success, they have media and policy training and, more importantly, they are made to be the future leaders of their party. But what do young Liberals get?

For a long time the Liberal Democrats has been a party that has seemed to make its young members campaign fodder, instead of supporting their personal development. Lib Dem members are fantastic in supporting young people, …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged | 36 Comments
Rys Farthing

The Independent View: Why the CSJ are wrong on child poverty

By Rys Farthing | Thu 31st May 2012 - 1:24 pm

While it is true that poverty is often associated with a range of other Bad Things, from stressed out families to poor grades at school and that causation can work both ways, this does not mean that they are the exact same problems.

But when the CSJ proposed new measures of child poverty, they induced exactly this sort of confusion. Below are just two examples:

1. Unstable family structure.

The CSJ suggests that one of the new measures of child poverty should be the percentage of children growing up in married households. However, many rich families get divorced, as do many poor families. Whether …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Councillor Simon Green

Opinion: Brent Labour’s shocking tactics over library closures

By Councillor Simon Green | Thu 31st May 2012 - 11:57 am

Running a Council is tough.  Times are hard, budgets feel like they are shrinking.  It was said before the 2010 General Election that the measures needed to put the economy right would be so harsh that whoever won would be out of power for a generation subsequently.  All the more reason for Councils and Government to ensure that there is sensitive handling and community working on a very local level.

So as a councillor in Queen’s Park, Brent, I have been shocked, appalled and ashamed at the handling of the proposed closure of libraries in my area by the Labour Council.

Kensal …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 12 Comments
Margaret Joachim and Jonathan Davies

Do you want to be a candidate in the UK’s next national elections?

By Margaret Joachim and Jonathan Davies | Thu 31st May 2012 - 10:23 am

The selection process for our candidates for the 2014 European Parliamentary elections is now starting. The formal advert will be published next month, and the closing date for applications is likely to be 20 July.

All applicants must be approved European candidates by the date of the close of applications.

Anyone interested in being a candidate should apply for approval as soon as possible – you can get the necessary application pack from the Candidates’ Office at Party HQ: email [email protected]. Candidates who have been approved for Westminster elections but not for European elections need to undertake a brief Euro assessment/conversion …

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Posted in Europe / International and Selection news | Tagged | 2 Comments
The Voice

Leveson: Cable talks of ‘veiled threats’ against Lib Dems

By The Voice | Thu 31st May 2012 - 7:25 am

From the BBC:

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said “veiled threats” were made against the Liberal Democrats when he was assessing News Corporation’s 2010 bid for BSkyB.

He told the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics his party was warned it would be “done over” in the firm’s newspapers if he ruled against its takeover attempt.

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Posted in News and YouTube | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
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