Jonathan Hunt

Opinion: Call-me-Dave is right – let the real owners decide company policies

By Jonathan Hunt | Fri 13th January 2012 - 11:30 am

Jonathan Hunt argues that the time has come for Democratic Capitalism

When David Cameron calls for shareholders to make decisions about pay and other issues in the companies they are listed as ‘owning’ he was not, of course, talking about the real owners.

Since World War Two, the 80:20 rule has been more than reversed. In the 1940s, getting on for 80 per cent of shares were owned by individuals. Today, that proportion is a less than 20 per cent. The shares are held in the names of pension funds, fund managers, insurance companies and other parasitical institutions.

The people who run them …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 11 Comments
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Charlotte Henry

Opinion: Liberal Democrats should welcome Michael Gove’s proposals for the ICT curriculum

By Charlotte Henry | Fri 13th January 2012 - 11:15 am

Earlier this week, Michael Gove announced that the ICT curriculum in schools will undergo a revolution, with a new emphasis on programming. Some announcements from the Education Secretary have prompted anguished discussion within out party (what other kind do we have?!) but this is a move by him that we should welcome warmly.

For one of the most exciting, creative, and essential parts of our curriculum, the way we deal with IT in schools is outrageously tedious and uninspiring. Gove hit the nail on the head when he spoke of pupils “bored out of their minds being taught …

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Prateek Buch

Will Lansley’s NHS reforms make episodes like the PIP implant scandal more common?

By Prateek Buch | Fri 13th January 2012 - 10:00 am

Such is the argument deployed by the editor of the UK’s leading medical journal, Richard Horton, in analysing the implications of both the recent breast implant scare and the Health and Social Care Bill for the NHS.

Horton acknowledges that the specific case of PIP, and the industrial-grade silicone they appear to have used in breast implants, represents clear regulatory failures at the hands of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).  The Health and Social Care Bill has very little to say about how the way in which medical devices are regulated and any changes to the …

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Callum Morton

The path to 2015 should be one guided by our principles, not by doubt

By Callum Morton | Fri 13th January 2012 - 8:52 am

Before the Christmas break, I produced an article on Lib Dem Voice about how the EU veto could and should be the first step of many where our party expresses its individuality in coalition loud and clear. After this blog I saw many opinion articles about where we stood on various issues. The conclusion? Varied.

Let’s just take one example – tuition fees. Some of us think we will be congratulated at the next General Election for making the loans system fairer. Wrong. While ensuring that up-front fees are in the past and protecting graduates by asking no one to

…

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Mark Valladares

LibLink: Lord Trevor Smith – looking to the future of the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Valladares | Thu 12th January 2012 - 4:57 pm

Over on the Social Liberal Forum’s website, Lord Smith of Clifton has given a backbench peer’s perspective on political events and where the Party should be going, opening with a warning;

The Lib Dems are in a very serious state, possibly facing meltdown of the kind experienced by the Canadian Conservatives some time ago (though they managed a spectacular comeback), or the Canadian Liberals in last year’s elections. The burning question is how, at the very minimum, to limit the electoral damage and hopefully to revive the party’s fortunes.

For more of his thoughts, the full article can be found here.

Posted in LibLink and Parliament | Tagged | 17 Comments
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Harriet Ainscough

Opinion: Postcards to Political Prisoners and the disturbing case of Mikael Nabil

By Harriet Ainscough | Thu 12th January 2012 - 2:28 pm

On 14th December, the decision of Egyptian student and pro-democracy activist Mikael Nabil’s retrial was announced; his sentence was reduced from three years to two. The result of this retrial, leaving little room for further appeal, shows a serious miscarriage of justice, particularly when considering that despite being a civilian, Mikael was sentenced by military tribunal.

Even before the Arab Spring began, Mikael was taking an active role in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was part of the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) delegation to the 2009 Liberal International congress in Cairo. Since 2006, Mikael has used his blog to …

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Mark Pack

This 2008 political advert is still hard to beat

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th January 2012 - 11:25 am

Enjoy (but please, don’t copy):

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 5 Comments
Lord William Wallace

Peace, Reform and Liberation: how does the new party history measure up?

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 12th January 2012 - 10:25 am

Late last year a new history of the Liberal Democrats and its predecessor parties was published. In this post William Wallace reviews it, whilst you can watch Paddy Ashdown, Julian Glover and Shirley Williams talk at the book launch here.

I had not expected to enjoy this book as much as I did, or to learn as much from it. It covers the political history of 332 years in 372 pages, unavoidably gliding past major episodes with passing glances. Eleven chapters by different authors suggested a degree of incoherence. Yet there are some clear underlying themes, and a number of aspects …

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Posted in Books | Tagged | 1 Comment
Paul Walter

PMQs: Opposition leader asks: “Can I agree with the Prime Minister”?

By Paul Walter | Thu 12th January 2012 - 9:25 am

2012’s first Prime Minister’s Questions started with a bit of a score draw about rail fares. It got rather heated as Ed Miliband said the government had allowed fares to go up by 11%. He said:

The last Labour government saw that the train companies were taking advantage of consumers…we took away that power from them

David Cameron retorted that:

The power (to increase fares well above inflation) was given to them to do that by the last Labour government.

Channel 4 News FactCheck, as usual,has an excellent analysis of this spat, concluding that they couldn’t give either men a “Fact” or “Fiction” …

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Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s social mobility drive wins backing from banks and law firms

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th January 2012 - 8:25 am

The Evening Standard reports:

Banks and law firms in London today backed Nick Clegg’s campaign to open up recruitment to all social backgrounds.

The Deputy Prime Minister announced that Barclays, HSBC, Credit Suisse, RBS and a string of other City institutions have signed up to his “business compact” on internships, work experience and recruitment…

“This is an important step towards a society where it’s what you know, not who you know, that counts,” Mr Clegg said.

“Working with the

…

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Peers rebel as Government defeated on Welfare Reform

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th January 2012 - 8:09 pm

The Government has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords tonight on various aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill.

The House of Lords was discussing amendments relating to the Employment and Support Allowance.

The Guardian reports that 3 Liberal Democrats, Jenny Tonge, Matthew Taylor and Roger Roberts voted for an amendment which protected young people’s right to claim Employment and Support Allowance.

The Government was also defeated on their one year time limit for claiming Contributory ESA. This was increased to two years by the amendment. The Liberal Democrat rebels were Dee Doocey and Jenny Tonge.

The third defeat was …

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Nick Perry

Opinion: What price authenticity in our policy making?

By Nick Perry | Wed 11th January 2012 - 6:55 pm

As a mental health social worker, I have been trying to keep up with the debate, both within and without the party,  on the progress of the Welfare Reform Bill.

There are many commentators far more expert than I able to say how many different aspects of the legislation accord with party policy, or wider liberal views about the freedom and agency of the individual, or how far it falls short in respect of protecting the most vulnerable members of our communities.

This post is not about the detail of that.

I want to pose a question to LDV-reading colleagues as to how …

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Mark Pack

You know what we’re doing wrong? We’ve not introduced tax breaks for wooden arrows

By Mark Pack | Wed 11th January 2012 - 4:55 pm

What do we want? Section 503.
When do we want it? Now.

Oh, you want to know what Section 503 is? Read here.

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Caron Lindsay

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism special: Dramatic independence referendum duel in London and Edinburgh

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th January 2012 - 3:58 pm

It’s been a torrid few days in Scottish politics.

Since the SNP won an overall majority in the Holyrood elections last year, there has been much talk of the independence referendum they pledged to have in the second half of their term. They have been tight-lipped on their plans.

There has been uncertainty on the legality of such a referendum. Even respected legal blogger Lallands Peat Worrier, himself an SNP supporter, has expressed that the terms of the Scotland Act may not allow it. And amid all the bluster of this blog post from senior SNP strategist Stephen Noon is …

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Stephen Gilbert MP

Stephen Gilbert MP writes… Park home residents must be looked after properly

By Stephen Gilbert MP | Wed 11th January 2012 - 3:17 pm

For us all, the home we live in is one of the most important factors in how we live our lives. Whether it be a house, a flat, shared accommodation, or – as it is for almost a quarter of a million people in the UK – a ‘Park Home’.

Park Homes are modern, bungalow-style residential properties usually sited on private estates. The park home industry is a billion pound business. There are over two thousand park home sites within the UK, primarily but not exclusively centred in rural areas like my constituency in Cornwall.

For the vast majority of the quarter …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Nick T

David Laws: Free schools should focus on education, not profit

By Nick T | Wed 11th January 2012 - 2:28 pm

David Laws is interviewed in the current issue of Attain, a magazine focussed on the independent schools’ sector, where he has the following to say on the issue of whether free schools should be permitted to make profits:

I think it is important that the people who come in and deliver the education should be seen to be doing so for reasons relating to education and delivering an improved quality of education. And I think that the public would be far more suspicious of the free school development if they felt it was about people coming in to make profit out

…

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Paul Reynolds

Opinion: War with Iran? Where’s the scrutiny

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 11th January 2012 - 1:58 pm

One of the great benefits of democracy over totalitarianism is its ability to criticize openly and scrutinize the major decisions of government. If weight of public and political opinion is against a particular decision, there are inevitably dissenters within the machinery of government. Whilst this doesn’t prevent damaging and foolhardy decisions from being made, it does strengthen the hand of these dissenters within the government hierarchy. This usually has the effect of limiting the damage, and speeding up both the reversal of the decision as well as the learning of lessons.

This was apparent in the case of the Iraq war. …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged | 9 Comments
Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes… Time to Care: patients not paperwork

By Paul Burstow | Wed 11th January 2012 - 12:53 pm

Being a nurse is a tough job, and we all admire those who have a calling to care for others. But when a loved one is sick in hospital we quite understandably worry and want the best for them.

One of the most important tasks of government is to ensure that good standards of hospital care are maintained wherever people live and whatever their needs. To make progress on this key issue we must free-up nurses from red tape and allow them to carry out the work they’re trained to do.

As a Liberal Democrat health minister I have seen and heard …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

How the left/right balance of Liberal Democrat voters has changed

By Mark Pack | Wed 11th January 2012 - 10:25 am

It is common to use two political spectrums to sort out where people or parties sit ideologically: the left-right spectrum and the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum. The latter is important in explaining the politics of the coalition’s formation, as it was a defence of civil liberties against New Labour’s post-9/11 authoritarian streak that both saw senior figures in the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives often co-operating in Parliament and also carved out a large area of policy agreement between them.

Since the coalition’s formation, its importance has rapidly dropped. Some of the reasons are straightforwardly good ones – such as delivering on several of …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 30 Comments
Matthew Green

Opinion: We need better housing for a better Britain

By Matthew Green | Wed 11th January 2012 - 8:55 am

Want to make a real difference to the country’s problems? Commit serious resources to social housing.

Being in government doesn’t half expose the difficulties of politics. The easiest things for politicians to change are laws, taxes and benefit entitlements. But these seem so ineffective against the major problems that our society faces.

Reforming taxes does little to rebalance inequality – an inadequate treatment of the symptoms that does nothing to change the causes. Raising benefits does little to help the wellbeing of those trapped in poverty. Cutting them does not so much restore incentives as kick people while they are down. Talking about it just makes …

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Posted in News | 25 Comments
Baroness Ros Scott

A postcard from… Mumbai

By Baroness Ros Scott | Tue 10th January 2012 - 4:47 pm

Baroness Ros Scott has been away visiting family for the past fortnight, and has let us have some thoughts on what she has found there…

As a politician, starting the day with newspapers and coffee is a habit that is hard to break. Indian newspapers are a joy, with their old fashioned use of English – “the altercation ended in fisticuffs”, “the ruffians were apprehended” and a diet of celebrity gossip and above all, politics. All Indian media give detailed blow-by-blow accounts of the machinations of politicians in the national and state governments and, although there’s a lot going on, …

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Valladares

Introducing ‘A postcard from…’

By Mark Valladares | Tue 10th January 2012 - 4:22 pm

Think of this as an experiment.

I’ve always been intrigued by questions such as, “What does the rest of the world think about what we’re up to?”. In a surprisingly parochial political culture, where the debate, if there is any, is about what the big countries are up to, what is the view from other places? And, as those nice young people at Liberal Democrat Voice have left me partly in charge on a day release basis, I thought that I should at least make an effort to find out…

So, …

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 1 Comment
Roisin Miller

Opinion: a need for equality? Yes, but short lists aren’t the way to achieve this

By Roisin Miller | Tue 10th January 2012 - 2:53 pm

As much debate about party funding and selection rumbles on, the issue of increasing diversity amongst MPs continues to hover in the background.

I would never deny that the under-representation of women or people from BME backgrounds needs to be addressed, however there is a much more pressing diversity issue, that of diversity of social class and occupational background.

Parliament is currently overrepresented by those who have been researchers, Special Advisors and lobbyists. To give some context to this statement: the House of Commons research library reported in 2010 that 14% of the current intake of MPs have worked previously in political …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Simon Shaw

Opinion: is the infant class size limit of thirty too inflexible?

By Simon Shaw | Tue 10th January 2012 - 1:20 pm

The Chief Executive of the Lib Dem-controlled London Borough of Sutton, Mr Niall Bolger, has been in the news recently, flying a kite on the possible relaxation in the current statutory limit of 30 on class size for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, i.e. Key Stage 1 within primary schools.

Mr Bolger has subsequently clarified the situation by saying: “Increasing class sizes is not a Sutton Council policy or something that has been discussed at a political level.”. However, this recent report has reinforced my own personal doubts about the unintended consequences of the limit of thirty in infant …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 31 Comments
NewsHound

The Beveridge Group announces its relaunch

By NewsHound | Tue 10th January 2012 - 12:18 pm

The Liberal Democrat Voice team have received a press release from John Pugh MP, which may be of interest to those in the Party keen to engage in debate on policy and philosophy.

With an eye to the new parliamentary year and forthcoming legislation, the Beveridge Group has reformed and a new updated website is already up and running. The initiative follows widespread concern inside and outside parliament as to where Coalition policy on public services may be going.

We want to prompt a proper debate as to where the …

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Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 15 Comments
David Boyle

Opinion: Why competition is the key issue

By David Boyle | Tue 10th January 2012 - 11:22 am

One of the many frustrations with our dysfunctional banking system is that we have nowhere else to go unless we want to keep our money under our mattresses.

Yes, there are the ethical alternatives, like Co-op or Triodos. Yes, there are a handful of surviving building societies. But we don’t have what other countries have: an effective banking and lending infrastructure at local level.

So when World Development Movement nominates Barclays for the Public Eye awards for the worst corporation for speculating in basic food commodities – artificially pushing the price beyond what the world’s poor can afford – what …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | 20 Comments
Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes… Liberal Democrats have convinced other parties about High Speed Rail

By Julian Huppert | Tue 10th January 2012 - 10:23 am

Today’s announcement that the Government will go ahead with HS2 is a huge win for the Liberal Democrats, the first UK party to commit itself to a national high speed railway.

Back in 2004 we announced ambitious plans for the UK’s first high speed network. We argued that faster train lines would reduce carbon emissions in the long-term and ensure a reliable train service available to all.

In contrast it took Labour 13 years of Government to announce their commitment to a high speed network, conveniently not in time to actually start doing anything about it. And while the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 28 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Using betting markets to predict election outcomes

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th January 2012 - 9:55 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today it is a study into how good, or not, the betting markets are at predicting the results of elections.

A few years ago, when spread betting on election results first became popular, there was a brief period when the state of betting markets was touted as a good guide to election results. The theory was that when people decide whether or not to stake their money on a bet they are revealing what they really think, in the way that public comments often do not. Moreover, …

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Valladares

Joint Statement: European Liberal Democrat Leaders Meeting

By Mark Valladares | Tue 10th January 2012 - 8:23 am

Leading Government Ministers, Party Leaders and European Commissioners from Liberal Democratic parties across Europe, meeting in London at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, and under the aegis of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party (ELDR), yesterday made the following declaration.

Jobs, Growth & Reform

Europe is at a dangerous crossroads. Without decisive and concrete action, we risk recession, rising unemployment and falling living standards. There is a real risk of Europe turning inwards, with a return to the protectionist policies of the past. Our ability to prevent this now depends on our …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Jeremy Browne MP

Jeremy Browne MP writes… The Olympic Games are just 200 days away.

By Jeremy Browne MP | Mon 9th January 2012 - 6:50 pm

In London and across the country, preparations are reaching fever pitch. As Minister for the Olympics in the Foreign Office, I have been involved in the planning and preparation since May 2010. While many people are excited about the torch relay across the country and the huge variety of sporting events, the Olympics also offer a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our country.

It has been 64 years since the Games was last held in the UK. In 1948, fifty-nine nations attended. This year, over two hundred teams will be representing their countries. This is an opportunity for Britain to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 12 Comments
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