One of the themes in the loosely constructed narrative the Liberal Democrats have deployed in recent months has been industrial democracy – in catchphrase terms the promotion of the John Lewis economy.
This presents a radical, if embryonic, approach to the private sphere and a unique contribution to the debate on how to rescue capitalism. Looking at how to adopt the themes of this approach to the public sector should be the next logical step. First, though, we have to resolve the …
London faces a severe housing crisis. This problem will only get worse as our population continues to grow. One million more people are expected to be living in London by 2030.
Everywhere I go, people tell me they are concerned about housing – whether it is the long housing waiting lists, unaffordably high private rents or rogue landlords who rip you off. We have young people unable to make their first steps on the property ladder; or under threat from unscrupulous landlords and too many families living in overcrowded housing. For the average Londoner it will take 13 years …
I remember Peter Cruddas, co-treasurer of the No2AV campaign and the No campaign’s single biggest donor. Without him they never could have afforded those sick baby billboards.
Shortly afterwards in June 2011 he was rewarded with a prestigious position as co-treasurer of the Conservative party. Now he lies at the centre of yet another donor scandal, this one leading right to the Prime Minister’s door and is potentially as serious as the cash for peerages scandal under Tony Blair.
The …
We’ve been here before: many times, under many different governments. The latest addition to the lexicon of big money politics scandals is Peter Cruddas’s crude cash-for-access fundraising, with influence on government policy touted for £250,000 a pop. Under Labour, we witnessed the Bernie Ecclestone affair, as well as the cash-for-honours scandal.
To date this shared complicity — the “all parties are as bad as each other” mentality — has served only the interests of senior politicians in justifying the continuing scandal of how big money talks …
When Chris Huhne resigned as energy and climate change secretary last month, he didn’t just create a vacancy in the cabinet — his departure also triggered some musical chairs elsewhere.
The same day Ed Davey was appointed Chris Huhne’s sucessor, Duncan Brack and Joel Kenrick departed as Chris’s special advisors. You can read Duncan’s take on his time in the job here, Liblink: Duncan Brack on how to get green policies implemented in Government.
These two vacancies have now been filled by Katie …
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 266th 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 (18-24 March, 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:
For once, there IS a prize at stake. Better than that, there are TWO prizes. The best two entries of this week’s caption competition will each win a copy of former Labour MP Chris Mullin’s diaries, A View from the Foothills. The hit book has now been adapted for the theatre as A Walk On Part: The Fall of New Labour. So make some extra witty noise for this week’s competition…
Here’s David Cameron and Ed Miliband sharing a special moment together earlier this week. What do you think might be being said or thought by or about them?
And don’t worry, unlike the Tories or Labour we don’t require any fee for you to take part.
Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, The Obama & Cameron ‘Special Relationship’ Edition.
Commenting on the newly published review into allegations of electoral malpractice in the 2011 elections, the Electoral Commission had this to say:
To read part 1 of Chris’s note to his (as yet unknown) successor as chief executive of Centre Forum click here. Here’s the second, concluding part.
Yesterday I set out three areas of policy where there is a need for liberal thinking to be developed as a note to my successor as Chief Executive of CentreForum, the liberal think tank. Today I set out three further areas and a challenge.
CentreForum has always placed a high priority on “early years policy” as an engine of social mobility. All the evidence points to the critical importance of years 0-5 …
During the financial crisis and subsequent recession it was rare to go a weekend without Vince Cable making an appearance on our television screens to share his thoughts on the latest piece of economic news. Since entering government as the coalition’s business secretary, though, he has kept his wider economic analysis more-or-less to himself, concentrating instead on the important task of running his department.
However, yesterday Vince took part in a talk at the Guardian Open Weekend, in conversation with Observer columnist Will Hutton, where he shared his thoughts on the economic recovery, the future of the banking system and – perhaps most interestingly – on changing the focus of the Bank of England. Here are the highlights, courtesy of the Guardian:
George Osborne has received support from an unexpected source: the Labour leaning think tank, the IPPR.
In an article entitled “Why Osborne’s ‘granny tax’ makes sense“, Senior Research Fellow at the IPPR, Kayte Lawton says:
It is right for older people to contribute to deficit reduction…
Older people have been relatively protected from the spending cuts imposed by the coalition. The young have taken the brunt of the pain… Asking older people to contribute to tackling the deficit and shoring up the country’s tax base in the long-term is not unreasonable…
Osborne’s pleas of simplification have not played well, but he is right that age-related allowances add
…
Let’s remember the words of David Cameron two years ago:
… there is another big issue that we can no longer ignore. It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long, an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money. I’m talking about lobbying – and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism. So we must be the party that sorts all this out.
Now let’s fast-forward to the words of the Tories’ leading fundraiser (until last night):
Writing for Public Service, Lord (Chris) Rennard has focused on just how unusual the House of Lords is:
In one of the many debates in the House of Lords about its future, I recently explained how, “like many noble lords, I take great pleasure in occasionally being able to show visitors around this place. Sometimes they are parliamentarians from other countries. Often they ask ‘How do you become a Lord?’ When you begin by explaining that perhaps your ancestors fought with the King in battle hundreds of years ago, or perhaps that they were what have been called ‘special friends’ of
…
Liam Byrne famously left a handover note to his successor as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, saying “There’s no money left – good luck!” I was reminded of this as, after a very enjoyable 21 months as Chief Executive of CentreForum, I start on Monday as one of Ed Davey’s Special Advisers at DECC. I suppose the think tank equivalent would be “There are no ideas left – good luck!”
In fact that is far from being the case. One of the joys of running a think tank is that there is never a shortage of ideas to be …
Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
The details of the budget have been trailed extensively in the media and the blogosphere. We’ve had the increase in the personal income tax allowance, we’ve had the ‘granny tax’ and we’ve had a new stamp duty level of 7% for homes worth more than £2m. There were always going to be winners and losers in this fiscally neutral budget. But arguably the one measure that affects every self-respecting Briton is …
The Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers (IGEM) exhibited at the Liberal Democrats Spring 2012 Conference, which took place at The Sage centre in Gateshead from 9th – 11th March 2012.
It is the first time IGEM has exhibited at a political party’s conference and it gave the organisation a chance to raise its profile with senior Liberal Democrats holding key posts in the Coalition Government. IGEM met Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg, Vince Cable (Business Secretary), Danny Alexander (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Ed Davey (Energy Secretary).
During visits to IGEM’s area, the ministers …
Andrew Duff, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East of England has written for EU Observer about his attempts to change the electoral system for MEPs. He wants to see 25 MEPs elected on a pan European basis, a proposal he believes will improve the legitimacy of the Parliament:
Now the Union is moving to greater fiscal discipline and the probable installation of a more federal type of economic government which will have to be made directly accountable to Parliament. But do we sincerely believe that the European Parliament has attracted the desirable levels of loyalty and identification of the EU citizens
…
Last weekend wasn’t a good one for the environmental agenda.
First came a DECC press release containing proposals that will give rise to a new ‘dash for gas’ in the UK. The announcement means that new gas power stations will not need to be more efficient or less polluting. It is part of the Treasury’s anti-green agenda which holds the misguided view that green policies are anti-growth and increase costs for businesses and households. This is despite the fact that recent hikes in power bills have been largely due to large increases in wholesale gas prices.
(Incidentally, the release was embargoed until …
Yesterday, I outlined some of the issues that impact on how we make policy as Liberal Democrats, and some very interesting comments came from that, for which I am grateful. Today, here are some thoughts of my own, which build on those comments and on my own thinking…
Whilst Federal Policy Committee has been attempting to reconcile the variety of tasks to be addressed, the Party has seen the emergence of a number of ginger groups. Added to the long-established, but increasingly dormant, Liberal Vision, which appears not to have developed much beyond being a small group of libertarians with …
It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:
Chris Nicholson, Director of CentreForum, has posted his take on the Budget on Total Politics. He concludes:
It is often said that the best Budgets are usually those that get the immediate negative headlines. While the press has focused on the alleged “unfairness” of the Budget, history is likely to be rather kinder in suggesting that the budget has been much fairer than it at first sight appeared.
You can read the reasons for his optimism here.
Writing in the Financial Times (registration needed), Tim Leunig argues that pensioners have had an easy recession, with good pension increases and extras such as bus passes, free TV licences and winter fuel allowances.
The freezing of the tax allowance cuts a trivial 0.25% off pensioner incomes, Tim says, but, even then, the Institute of Fiscal Studies says that pensioners are better off, while working age people have suffered the worst of the government’s …
Imagine you have something you want to keep secret. You’re going to do something, and you don’t want anyone to know.
Chances are, you’ll take a look around and make sure there aren’t any TV cameras pointed at you and rolling away live coverage to several channels. Perhaps the memory of politicians running into problems with comments caught on microphones come to mind, and you’ll take a good look around to ensure there aren’t any in the same room as you that might be used by a national radio station or two.
Then you’ll remember to check you’re alone. Don’t want to …
Speaking on Radio Four’s PM programme yesterday, Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies said:
The Treasury estimates that it will lose £100million from cutting the top rate of income tax from 50 to 45 pence. That is not an unreasonable central estimate but there is a huge uncertainty around that. It also thinks it will raise about £500 million or so from the increases in stamp duty. Again, not an unreasonable estimate but it still has a
…
Michael Gove’s and Sir Michael Wilshaw’s plans to use Ofsted to drive up standards in schools have been much vaunted in the press recently.
Hit squads of inspectors started arriving in schools in January to force the ‘satisfactory’ schools into special measures and to force schools to rapidly rid themselves of their ‘satisfactory’ teachers. The fact that ‘satisfactory’ is a categorisation used for all qualities of service about which there is no cause for concern and which often includes highly regarded practices which don’t tick the boxes Ofsted has defined for higher classifications (especially in teaching) does not concern them.
But it is …
David Laws penned his thoughts about the Budget in the Telegraph yesterday, under the headline “Budget 2012: Not so much a gamble, more a grand strategy”
He writes:
Despite its scratchy origins, this was a strong Conservative-Lib Dem Budget, reminiscent of the earliest days of the Coalition at its best. It was radical and combined both enterprise and fairness. It did not duck difficult decisions or end up with lowest common denominator compromises. At times, the run-up may have looked like Coalition politics at their worst. I would argue that what resulted was Coalition policy-making at its best.
The Liberal Democrats challenged the
…
Speaking on Radio Four’s PM programme yesterday, Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies said:
If you look just at yesterday’s announcements, it is clear that pensioners as a group will lose from yesterday’s announcements while other groups will win from what the Chancellor announced…But if you step back and say well actually let’s look at the overall plan to get the deficit down…overall pensioners as a group are suffering less on average than other groups. They’ve been sheltered from the
…
There’s no need to adjust your screens, it is true; we’re on the way to introducing a flat rate pension for all of £140 a week. You might be thinking you’ve heard this before; well you’re not wrong, except in opposition we used to call it the ‘Citizens Pension’.
We are on the verge of delivering on another key manifesto promise after the Chancellor announced in yesterday’s budget the coalition’s intention to give pensioners £140 a week. While this morning’s headlines are heavily slanted to the reduction of the 50% tax rate, and the ‘granny tax’, nestled away inside …
The Liberal Democrat blogosphere is continuing to talk about the Budget, so here are some of the latest offerings.
Sandy Walkington thinks that the Budget is a dish best observed cold.
I tend to aim off from all instant, hyperbolic reactions to the Budget. When I worked as a press officer in the oil industry, Budget Day was a time for synthetic outrage at the latest iniquity heaped on the long suffering motorist or on the plucky explorers of the North Sea. And then the sun continued to rise and set.
In the current global economic circumstances which only compound the reckless public
…
David Cameron’s announcement that he was planning on getting private enterprise to fund roads in the UK has to be a contender for the worst idea since the Potassium Teapot.
While, in principle, the idea of private enterprise building new roads isn’t necessarily a terrible idea, any private involvement in refurbishing existing roads, widening motorways or improving junctions would be a financial mess.
In this case, private enterprise would borrow some money (probably from a pension fund), widen the motorway or make the junction better, then get some sort of pay off from the Government based on road/junction usage.
Unfortunately, private businesses …
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Conference from the other side of the barrier (Barry Rhodes)
Proper Grimond liberalism (Jack Meredith)
Is Conference still supreme? (John Kelly)
Ed Davey’s Conference speech (Hugh Andrew)
Conference or What? (Roderick Lynch)
New crematorium evacuated just weeks after opening as firefighters rush to scene
Lib Dems just miss out on another council by-election gain.
Surgery tomorrow
Let me eat cake
Buried alive: A 1954 rescue of a teenager from a Surrey chalk cave
Lord Bonkers' foreword to the new Liberator Songbook
The continuing cost of Brexit
Alan Garner: The Edge of The Ceiling
My days in the Lib Dem News broom cupboard with Jock Gallagher
Chris Caswill 
sean worrell 
Peter Davies 
David Warren 
Nick Baird 
