Lord Tom McNally

Tom McNally writes: Why I support reform of the European Court of Human Rights

By Lord Tom McNally | Fri 20th April 2012 - 9:55 am

Liberal Democrats know more than anyone else how hard it is to get breathing space to be heard in the increasingly hostile debate about human rights.

As long-time defenders of the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, we are constantly frustrated by misleading coverage that paints human rights law as on the wrong side of the public – as well as the populist politicians who seize upon it.

The previous Labour government have a lot to answer for. Despite passing the Human Rights Act themselves, they spent much of their time in government trashing it, and pandering to …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged | 11 Comments
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Stephen Tall

Dear Conservative MPs, Re House of Lords reform here’s what your manifesto & the Coalition Agreement say

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th April 2012 - 9:35 am

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Conservative MPs — it appears some of them have only just read their own party’s manifesto and the Coalition Agreement they signed up to. That can be the only explanation for the sudden fit of vapours which have apparently afflicted three of their number over the issue of House of Lords reform.

So as a reminder to them, and as a service to their Tory colleagues, here’s a reminder of the Conservative Party’s promise to the people back in 2010 in its manifesto:

We will work to build a consensus for a

…

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Ed Davey

Ed Davey MP writes … There will be no public subsidy for nuclear

By Ed Davey | Fri 20th April 2012 - 8:47 am

Liberal Democrats were at pains in the negotiations for the coalition to insist that if nuclear power stations were to be built in the UK that there should be no public subsidy. This position was reiterated by Chris Huhne in a statement to the House of Commons on October 18th 2010 as reported in his article on Lib Dem Voice. So I would  like to allay Fiona Hall concerns expressed on Lib Dem Voice yesterday by clarifying that there has been absolutely no change in this position.

As Chris Huhne outlined in October 2010 this means that “there will …

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Nick T

LDVideo: Boris Johnson – Night Mayor

By Nick T | Thu 19th April 2012 - 7:26 pm

Here’s a really rather good (but unofficial) video promoting Lib Dem London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick:

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Labour peer Alan Sugar: don’t vote for Ken Livingstone

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th April 2012 - 6:06 pm

From the BBC:

Labour peer Lord Sugar has urged people not to vote for his party’s candidate Ken Livingstone.

The peer defied Labour leader Ed Miliband by telling his 1.8 million followers on Twitter not to back the former mayor’s bid for re-election.

“I seriously suggest NO ONE votes for Livingstone in the Mayoral elections,” he wrote.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 13 Comments
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Caron Lindsay

Conference Accreditation Consultation – what Liberal Democrat bloggers are saying

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 19th April 2012 - 5:53 pm

Last Saturday, Federal Conference Committee chair Andrew Wiseman invited responses  in an article on Liberal Democrat Voice from members on the controversial issue of an accreditation system for Conference. Sussex Police had requested that party members would have to submit their identity details and past addresses so that they could be checked out by the Police to keep out people who might cause security issues.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrat blogosphere has been vocal in response. If there has been a post out there in favour of such a system, then I’ve not been able to find it.

At Liberal England, …

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Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , and | 5 Comments
Nick T

Lib Dems fight to halt extradition of Richard O’Dwyer

By Nick T | Thu 19th April 2012 - 3:57 pm

The Guardian reports:

The government is coming under cross-party pressure from within the coalition to stay the extradition of a Sheffield student who founded a website sharing links to TV shows, and to review the US extradition treaty in the wake of the case.

The home secretary Theresa May signed an extradition order last month for Richard O’Dwyer, 23, to be sent to the US, where he faces 10 years in high-security prison.

O’Dwyer founded a website, tvshack.net, in 2007, which acted as a search engine for people to find out where they could watch and in some cases download popular TV shows, typically programmes

…

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Nick T

“We’re doing good things which I believe will last” – Nick Clegg on Today

By Nick T | Thu 19th April 2012 - 1:54 pm

Nick Clegg joined James Naughtie yesterday in the Today studio, for the programme’s first of a series of interviews with the party leaders before the elections on 3 May.

Clegg talked about the budget, the compromises of coalition and Lib Dem electoral prospects, among other things.

You can listen to the interview in full over on the Today website here, or read a transcript of the interview below.

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Mark Pack

Local liberal heroes: Duwayne Brooks

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th April 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 …

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Nick T

Richard Reeves to step down as Clegg’s director of strategy

By Nick T | Thu 19th April 2012 - 8:23 am

Nick Clegg’s director of strategy, Richard Reeves, has announced that he is to step down from his position after deciding to move to the United States. Reeves was instrumental in establishing the 5-year Lib Dem coalition strategy, which he famously represented on a graph plotting “Lib Dem identity” and “Government unity and strength” over the five year parliament. Reeves was previously the head of Demos, and biographer of John Stuart Mill.

The Guardian has more on Reeves’ resignation:

and his American-born wife, Erica, are to depart for the US in the summer to give a chance for

…

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Mark Pack

Labour candidate suspended over ‘kill Justin Bieber’ jibe

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th April 2012 - 10:44 pm

Via @suttonnick:

Western Mail front page -

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Stephen Tall

The Tories’ and Labour’s collective tax omnishambles

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th April 2012 - 8:55 pm

Labour is against reducing the 50p top-rate tax to 45p for those earning more than £150,000. What could be clearer? As it happens, quite a lot could be clearer.

First, the omnishambles…

Given how widely predicted George Osborne’s decision to reduce the top-rate was you would have thought Labour would have anticipated it and worked out their line. They failed to — as Mark Pack noted here, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna contradicted himself within 24 hours, while Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls declined to declare his hand.

When Labour did …

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Caron Lindsay

Labour put down tax amendment that would have given Tories tax cut they want – which Lib Dems stopped

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 18th April 2012 - 7:59 pm

I realise that Parliamentary shenanigans and point scoring isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s worth pointing out that Labour today squandered a relatively good position going into the first PMQs of the new Parliamentary term. Ed Miliband had an open goal ahead of him given controversy over the pensioners’ tax allowance,  “pasty tax” and charity tax relief yet he and his strategists still managed to misunderstand parliamentary procedure to a ludicrous extent. He’s just lucky that more excitable members of the Tory benches didn’t take their chance to have some fun.

Miliband looked not to Labour big hitters of the …

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Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
Fiona Hall MEP

Fiona Hall MEP writes: Subsidies for nuclear energy go against Coalition agreement AND economic common sense

By Fiona Hall MEP | Wed 18th April 2012 - 4:51 pm

With the Government due to announce new measures to encourage investment in low carbon power generation as part of its Electricity Market Reform (EMR), it is time for Liberal Democrats to speak out against public subsidies for nuclear energy. Why? Because among the Government’s proposals is the so-called Feed-in Tariff with Contract for Difference (FiT CfD) which will offer a price guarantee and revenue certainty for investors in low-carbon electricity generation  – including nuclear.  Such a public subsidy to help build new nuclear power stations in the UK would go completely against the Coalition Government Agreement and prolong “the most expensive failure of post-war British policy-making” as

…

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Issan Ghazni

Opinion: we can not allow ourselves to be used as scapegoats by the Tories

By Issan Ghazni | Wed 18th April 2012 - 3:25 pm

It was an amazing coincidence that Lady Warsi’s interview on BBC2’s Newsnight spoke so lamentably about the state of the coalition the evening before YouGov put the Tories 11 points behind Labour. The Conservative Party chairman without hesitation accused us of being immature and failing to accept collective responsibility within the coalition.

Patrick Wintour’s article in yesterday’s Guardian  highlights the despicable manner in which Lady Warsi, as a cabinet member showed no loyalty to her coalition partners by putting the boot in as soon as the going got tough and the Tories started struggling in the opinion polls.

The whole episode …

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Dee Doocey

Dee Doocey writes: Vigilance over Olympic tickets

By Dee Doocey | Wed 18th April 2012 - 12:55 pm

With just 100 days to go to the London Olympics, you might be interested to read this quote about the interaction of sport and commercial interests:

“Of course sponsors have to receive value for money, but sport has to remain sport, a concept rooted on the track and not in the balance sheet. It must not become another consumer-entertainment package. In all sports we have to protect the fundamentals of sportsmanship, self-determination of the individual and the pursuit of excellence free of commercial expediency, and as Voltaire said ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance’.”

You might be surprised to discover that …

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie launches Scottish Liberal Democrats’ local election campaign

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 18th April 2012 - 11:56 am
Willie Rennie being interviewed by the press at campaign launch in Inverness. Credit: Karen Fraser

Every Council seat in Scotland is up for grabs on May 3rd and Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie was in Inverness on Monday to launch the party’s Local Elections campaign. He outlined four main priorities that the party’s councillors would be fighting on over the next five years. These are:

  • Creating jobs and boosting the economy
  • Early

…

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Joe Bourke

Opinion: A Mansion Tax to replace higher rate tax?

By Joe Bourke | Wed 18th April 2012 - 10:55 am

Mansion tax is not Land Value Tax, but it is a place to start down the road to shifting a significant part of the tax base from income to wealth.

There seems little argument that mansion tax would be a more effective method of taxing non-resident Non-Doms who acquired over 60% of the properties valued at over £2m in recent times.

The inequalities in wealth in the UK far outstrip inequalities in income. The top 10% of households own more wealth than the rest put together: 0.3 per cent of Britain’s population owns 69 per cent of its land.

The HMRC report …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference accreditation: my submission

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th April 2012 - 9:25 am

Here is what I am emailing to [email protected] in response to the consultation about party conference (deadline Saturday 21st April):

Dear Andrew,

In itself, the idea that background checks might sometimes be a necessary part of extra security for events seems to me very plausible. So too does the possibility that the large number of journalists and TV cameras in attendance at the autumn round of party conferences make them a more attractive target for disruptive or violent action than other events at other times, even ones with similar prominent people from the party and government attending.

On the other hand, I know …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Individual electoral registration: this is how government is meant to work

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th April 2012 - 8:50 am

Electoral register formVia a slightly odd story in the Daily Telegraph comes the news that Nick Clegg is pushing for the current legal penalties for not returning electoral registration forms to be continued when individual electoral registration is introduced.

I say slightly odd, because Tim Ross’s report misses out nearly all of the context, simply talking about:

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, is backing proposals to ensure that every individual is responsible for registering themselves on the electoral roll.

However, ministers fear that thousands of young people, particularly students moving

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Valladares

Tim Farron calls on supporters of equal marriage to make their voice heard

By Mark Valladares | Tue 17th April 2012 - 5:10 pm

With public consultation on proposals to introduce an equal right to marriage for all, Tim Farron has, this evening, urged Party members to take part.

“We have always stood for individual liberty and the right to choose how we lead our lives. This is why I am member of our party and why I am so proud to be your President. It’s why we came into being in the 19th century to protect the rights of religious minorities. It’s why we led the support for equality for women and why we decided before any other major party that civil marriage should be …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 19 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Metro finally gets the point of Liberal Democrat tax policy

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 17th April 2012 - 3:53 pm

The front page of yesterday’s Metro made me laugh.

“The richest pay how much tax?” screamed their headline. “Multi millionaires hand over less than cleaners.”

Their outrage at the relatively low rates of tax paid by the super rich continued for three columns on the front page and a continuation on page 5.

I guess it’s good that they’re finally getting the message. But, might we have heard their millionaire and cleaner example somewhere before?

Let’s go back to January 2010 when I reported Nick Clegg’s appearance on the Andrew Marr show.

Also on tax, he talked about taking 4 million people out

…

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NewsHound

Kirsty Williams launches the 2012 Welsh Liberal Democrat campaign

By NewsHound | Tue 17th April 2012 - 2:52 pm

Under the slogan ‘Wales CAN do better’, Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, launched the campaign for the 2012 local government elections in Cardiff yesterday.

I am extremely proud of our record in local councils all across Wales. When you vote for a Welsh Liberal Democrat councillor on May 3rd, you will be voting for a councillor who will work hard for you and your community and a councillor that will go that extra mile.

When people in a local authority put their trust in Welsh Liberal Democrat councillors,

…

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Posted in Local government, News and Wales | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
David Boyle

Opinion: time to shift the public services debate?

By David Boyle | Tue 17th April 2012 - 1:21 pm

Every nation dates the beginning of its welfare system from a different date. In Britain, we usually date it to 1909 and also 1942 – because that was the date that Sir William Beveridge published his famous report.

It’s the only government report in history to have reached bestseller status. British soldiers went into action against the Nazis with it in their pocket.

It provided hope, but it also set out the blueprint for the future, caring world. But there was a problem there, in retrospect, that goes to the heart of why public services remain such …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Mark Valladares

Coming up in Brussels: 17-20 April

By Mark Valladares | Tue 17th April 2012 - 11:21 am

Welcome to another experiment. Due to a late substitution amongst the LDV Editorial team, combined with a lack of material (you’re all out campaigning, as you should be, I presume), welcome to our first attempt to preview forthcoming events in the European Parliament. Let us know what you think or, if you fancy doing it yourself, get in touch.

Well, I say Brussels, but this week sees the European Parliamentary roadshow hit Strasbourg to waste a chunk of money to placate the French for April’s plenary session. So, …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Tom Smith

Opinion: Keep Free Schools, but make them better

By Tom Smith | Tue 17th April 2012 - 9:54 am

Mark Pack’s question on the future of Lib Dem education policy in light of Free Schools is very timely.

We should rightly be proud of the implementation of the pupil premium; a distinctively liberal policy that will go some way to correcting the inequities of the education system. Our education manifesto for 2015 can’t rely just on advocating a bigger and better pupil premium.

In the medium term it seems likely …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 31 Comments
Mark Valladares

Can we stop apologising for being in government yet?

By Mark Valladares | Tue 17th April 2012 - 8:22 am

One of the things that has puzzled me most about two years of the Coalition is the very differing approaches to being in power between the two partners, both in the way they look at the world, and in the way that the world looks back.

In many ways, the Conservatives have it far easier. The vast leviathan which is the deficit provides ample justification for doing what Conservatives are expected to do – cut government spending – although it has made cutting taxes for their client base rather more difficult. And, for that proportion of the population who vote Conservative …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 71 Comments
Tom Brake

Tom Brake MP writes…Complex benefit cases must be brought back within the scope of legal aid

By Tom Brake | Mon 16th April 2012 - 4:54 pm

There is a political consensus around the need to reform Legal Aid. Indeed Labour oversaw thirty reviews and consultations on the subject whilst in power.

The UK’s legal aid spend is one of the highest in the world, with many cases coming before the courts which do not necessarily require legal expertise to resolve.

The coalition government’s aim to deliver savings of £350 million from the annual Legal Aid budget by 2015 amounts to a relatively modest saving of 17% against the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments
The Liberator Collective

New edition of Liberator

By The Liberator Collective | Mon 16th April 2012 - 3:24 pm

The latest issue of Liberator magazine (issue no.352 – April 2012) has just been mailed to subscribers. In the unlikely event that you are not yet a subscriber, here’s a summary of the contents:

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Posted in News | Tagged | 7 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion: If rich philanthropists don’t like the idea of a tax exemption limit, they know what they can do

By Paul Walter | Mon 16th April 2012 - 1:54 pm

It is as if George Osborne has got a political death wish. First, there was the botched pensioners’ tax announcement. Then, there was the hilarious pasty tax. Now, the charitable donations tax ememption limit idea is attracting great opprobrium.

But hang on a minute.

There is something in that tax exemption threshold idea.

It is quite wrong that tax exemption is given for donations to “charities” beyond the remit of the Charities Commission. There is rather vague talk of unspecified East European “charities” being used. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments
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Recent Comments

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    To expand a comment I made in another thread, the policy would make sense if we also rolled back Rishi Sunak's election giveaway (a four pence cut in NI). Ideal...
  • Peter Davies
    "A policy which gives the poorest paid in our society a real increment" It doesn't. Those with income less than 12,570 would get nothing....
  • paul barker
    Is this a(nother) sign of a Leadership retreating to a bunker ? On the question of what Conference should be talking about - is there any chance of The Part...
  • Tim Rogers
    Very well written Hugh, it fills pretty much what I have been thinking. By paying less in tax the individual should be given the means to see themselves through...
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    Tristan Ward 25th Sep '26 - 11:49am.. I don't doubt that we can all name someone who reads the DE and is not it's typical 'reader'.. For instance, I know a ...