Nicola Prigg

Opinion: A New Approach to our Union

By Nicola Prigg | Tue 15th November 2011 - 11:45 am

The current approach to the United Kingdom doesn’t work.

The current approach treats each home nation as an individual, yet this approach leads to everyone pulling the centre in every direction. It leads to infighting, or to one country taking control and dictating to the others how they should be run. Neither result leads to a strong union.

We currently have the Scotland Bill going through Parliament devolving more powers to the Scottish Parliament; Wales passed a referendum giving its citizens the ability to pass primary legislation; and Nick Clegg has set up a commission to address the …

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Glyn Ley

Opinion: Forcing payment for internships could actually reduce opportunities

By Glyn Ley | Tue 15th November 2011 - 9:25 am

There has been plenty of talk recently about the unfairness of Westminster internships and calls for all internships in Parliament and in political parties to be paid. I understand the good intentions behind this argument but am concerned about the effects this could actually have on opportunities.

There are two issues being discussed around internships and it’s important not to get them confused. The first is the issue of informal internships – Daddy getting you an exclusive internship because he plays golf with somebody influential.

This is what Nick Clegg is talking about when he says that “it should be what …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 13 Comments
Stephen Tall

How best to boost growth? Coalition debate sees Tories argue for supply-side reforms, Lib Dems pushing for new ‘pension infrastructure fund’

By Stephen Tall | Tue 15th November 2011 - 7:35 am

As the OECD forecasts a sharp slowdown in global growth, the Coalition is re-examining old and new ideas to boost the economy here in the UK. And, judging by this report in The Guardian, the likely approach illustrates the impact of Lib Dem thinking within government…

The Coalition choice: Tory supply-side reforms OR…

One area that has been looked at to boost growth is supply-side reforms to free up the labour market, such as those championed by Conservative adviser Adrian Beecroft. The ‘Beecroft Report’ has urged radical reform, most controversially advocating the government to stimulate private industry to hire workers …

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Mark Pack

Campaign Corner: How do I make my ward emails more effective?

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th November 2011 - 4:50 pm

The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.

Today’s Campaign Corner question: I have built up quite a large number of emails for residents in my ward and I’m expecting a close fight in May. How can I get the most out of emails to them?

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Posted in Campaign Corner and Online politics | Tagged | 5 Comments
Sam Barnett

Opinion: Lib Dems should embrace the ‘Occupy’ spirit

By Sam Barnett | Mon 14th November 2011 - 12:20 pm

A small group of idealists, pitched up at a famous London landmark, arguing for radical change. Surrounded by hostile press trying to catch them out and making outlandish (or just plain false) accusations, they stay, grimly determined to make their voices heard by the public, the press and the powerful.

Yes, it’s Occupy London, but I could also be talking about the Parliamentary Liberal Democrats.

Maybe I’m naïve, but I see that we have more in common with Occupy than meets the eye. Let’s look at how our actions and beliefs match up with Occupy’s initial statement:

1. The current system is …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 39 Comments
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The Voice

Lynne Featherstone to propose stalking – in person or online – to be made an offence

By The Voice | Mon 14th November 2011 - 10:45 am

Lib Dem equalities minister Lynne Featherstone is in the news for examining proposals to make the specific offence of stalking a criminal offence. The Independent reports:

Stalkers are to face jail under government plans to create a new criminal offence after prosecutors admitted it was hard to bring cases to court.

Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat Home Office minister, on a visit to Manchester, unveil proposals to introduce a specific offence of stalking, potentially also covering cyber-stalking. A three-month consultation will also look at the use of restraining orders and police attitudes to stalking cases, following concern that the treatment

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
George Kendall

Opinion: A deficit is a deficit is a deficit… Or is it?

By George Kendall | Mon 14th November 2011 - 8:45 am

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is an independent body, created to help us hold the government to account. It’s their job to check the government clears the structural deficit within this parliament. So it’s pretty important that we understand what is meant by “structural deficit”.

But what exactly is the structural deficit?

The word “deficit” is bad enough. A lot of people confuse it with “debt”, and that’s not just in inadvertent typos. However, if you stop and think, it’s not so bad. ‘Debt’ is what we owe, and ‘deficit’ is how fast our debt is increasing.

The structural deficit isn’t so …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 19 Comments
The Voice

Rennie challenges SNP to set fair access test for Scottish universities

By The Voice | Mon 14th November 2011 - 8:12 am

The Press Association reports:

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie called on the Scottish Government to put a fair access policy in place, or extend the remit of the the Office of Fair Access north of the border. He said this would not only address the fair access gap for poorer students from England and Wales, but also improve the chances of Scottish students deciding to go to university.

Mr Rennie said: “With Scottish universities now able to set fees of up to £9,000 a year, and Edinburgh and St Andrews universities now the most expensive place to study in the

…

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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #247

By The Voice | Sun 13th November 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 247th 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 (6-12 November, 2011), 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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Helen Duffett

LibLink | Starved by the Japanese: the Clegg family’s war

By Helen Duffett | Sun 13th November 2011 - 4:21 pm

Today’s Sunday Times has an interview with Nick Clegg in which he talks for the first time about his mother’s time in an internment camp during World War II.

As a child, when Nick Clegg heard his mother talk quietly about her time in “the camp”, it conjured up happy images in his mind of a Butlins-style summer vacation. The truth was very different, as he would later find out — a discovery that brought home to him the grim reality of war, he reveals in his first interview about his mother’s wartime experiences.

“My mother Hermance, her two sisters

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Peter Lesniak

Opinion: The United Kingdom of Benefits and Welfare Dependence

By Peter Lesniak | Sun 13th November 2011 - 2:45 pm

In the absence of law and order, human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” according to Thomas Hobbes. We would then live in the ‘state of nature’ with unlimited freedoms and unlimited chaos. To avoid this, civil society has subjected some of its rights to a sovereign, through what Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau call a ‘social contract’. The idea of subjecting part of our freedoms in return for security and welfare has been developed in late 17th and early 18th century and has served as a basis for creation of current political ideology.

Centuries passed and political systems …

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Posted in Op-eds | 67 Comments
Greg Mulholland MP

Greg Mulholland writes… Here is Lib Dem ministers’ chance to save the pub

By Greg Mulholland MP | Sun 13th November 2011 - 11:05 am

There has been much talk about the demise of the great British pub. People up and down the country are now sadly used to seeing boarded up pubs, many with rather optimistic to let boards outside.

There are many reasons given for the closure of pubs, but a closer look at the names on the To Let boards, often written in small writing, reveals the most fundamental. The names Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns, the two largest pub-owning companies in the land, with around 12,000 pubs between them, are finding it harder and harder to find people to take their …

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Kiron Reid

Opinion: Why do Liberals (and Greens, and Conservatives) fund the Labour Party?

By Kiron Reid | Sun 13th November 2011 - 8:45 am

Why are Liberals, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Socialists, Plaid Cymru, and non-party supporters funding the Labour Party?

“In 2008, an overall financial contribution of £646,000 (2007: £646,103) was made to The Co operative Party”. The Co-operative Group website.

Every non-Labour supporter should read this.

My friend Keith Turner told me a couple of years ago that he didn’t bank with the Co-operative Bank because they funded the Co-operative Party. I had seen nothing about this and thought it unlikely given that our party have had an affinity deal with the Co-operative Bank for years.

I was upping my holdings in the Bank …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 32 Comments
The Liberator Collective

New edition of Liberator out now

By The Liberator Collective | Sat 12th November 2011 - 8:45 pm

Liberator subscribers have just received the latest edition of Liberator magazine (issue no.349 – November 2011). For those of you who are not yet subscribers, here’s a summary of the contents:

• The editorial column Commentary explains why Liberator is re-publishing Really Facing the Future (the alternative to the party’s ‘Facing the Future’ policy paper). It also argues that the party should contest the forthcoming police commissioner elections.
• The insider gossip column Radical Bulletin begins with a report on the party’s search for a new chief executive to replace Chris Fox.
• ‘Money mad’ – Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat MP …

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The Voice

Clegg and Teather announce free childcare places set to rise

By The Voice | Sat 12th November 2011 - 7:55 pm

Here’s a party press release worth sharing…

140,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds to benefit from free early education

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Liberal Democrat children’s minister Sarah Teather have published proposals to give 140,000 disadvantaged toddlers 15 hours of free early years education.

This is a key Liberal Democrat policy delivered by the Coalition Government. It builds upon our achievement of extending free childcare to 15 hours a week for all three and four-year-olds.

Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said:

“Giving children a fair start in life is at the heart of what I and the Liberal Democrats are about. It

…

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Stephen Tall

And in other news…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 12th November 2011 - 7:10 pm

A quick round-up of four Lib Dem stories not otherwise covered here on Lib Dem Voice this week…

  • Lorely Burt MP has welcomed the announcement by Jaguar Land Rover that it will create 1,000 new jobs in her Solihull constituency: “This is exactly the sort of private sector growth that the Coalition are looking for and have been supporting through schemes such as the Regional Growth Fund.” Full story here.
  • The party has seen three separate defections this week…
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    Carl Quilliam

    The weekend debate: Are Lib Dems too pro-European?

    By Carl Quilliam | Sat 12th November 2011 - 8:45 am

    Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

    With the looming debt crisis in the Eurozone and Eurosceptics from across the political divide baying for blood, the LDV weekend debate couldn’t resist the pressure any longer.

    So, with people openly talking about the possibility of the end of the Euro as we know it, and Europe seemingly in crisis, are Lib Dem Ministers taking the right decisions for the party and the country as a whole?

    The party has long been …

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    Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 59 Comments
    The Voice

    Calling all Lib Dem bloggers… Orwell Prize 2012 open to entries

    By The Voice | Fri 11th November 2011 - 3:53 pm

    A short public service announcement for the benefit of all Lib Dem bloggers follows:

    Entries for the Orwell Prize 2012 are now open, for political writing first published in 2011. Entries will remain open until Wednesday 18 January 2012. Full details of the launch, including this year’s judges, are available on our website, www.theorwellprize.co.uk.

    Online forms for the Journalism Prize, Blog Prize and Book Prize are now available (along with PDF versions of the Journalism and Book Prize forms), along with the rules and values of the Prize, at http://theorwellprize.co.uk/the-orwell-prize/how-to-enter/. Entry for all three Prizes is completely FREE.

    As

    …

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    Posted in Online politics | Tagged | Leave a comment
    Nick Pickles

    The Independent View: The Coalition needs to get serious about protecting citizens’ privacy

    By Nick Pickles | Fri 11th November 2011 - 11:02 am

    Slowly, we are waking up to the enormous risk to personal privacy posed by the misuse of personal information.

    Big Brother Watch’s report into the data protection breaches in the NHS highlighted a number of harrowing individual cases. However, the wider cultural question is the one which should be of greatest concern.

    In an age when ever more personal information is collected as a matter of routine by both the public and private sector, how that information is held and protected is of critical importance. When that information is of the kind of sensitive details found in medical records, …

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    Posted in The Independent View | 1 Comment

    Opinion: Saving School Transport

    By Sarah Osborne & Antony Hook | Fri 11th November 2011 - 8:55 am

    County councils all over England are making deep cuts to school transport that Liberal Democrats are right to fight against. School transport cuts are bad for child safety, bad for working parents and bad for congestion on local roads.

    The cuts, which mostly have come into effect this term or will over the next 12 months are, in most cases, to reduce school transport to the very least permitted by statute. That means it is being axed for everyone who is not on free school meals or who lives more than 3 miles (2 for primary children) from their nearest …

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    Paul Walter

    Private company seals deal on NHS Hospital

    By Paul Walter | Thu 10th November 2011 - 3:56 pm

    The BBC reports:

    A groundbreaking £1bn, 10-year deal for a private firm to run a struggling NHS hospital has been confirmed.

    Circle is to take over Cambridgeshire’s Hinchingbrooke Hospital in February – although it will stay in the NHS.

    The deal will see Circle assume the financial risks of making the hospital more efficient and paying off its £40m of debts.

    But fears have been raised it could pave the way for “wholesale transfers” of hospitals to the private sector.

    There are a group of about 20 hospitals which have run into financial difficulties and Labour accused the government of wanting to see

    …

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    Posted in News | 46 Comments
    David Boyle

    David Boyle writes… The missing explanation of public service failure

    By David Boyle | Thu 10th November 2011 - 10:15 am

    The doyen of Liberator magazine, Simon Titley, just sent me through a cutting from the Leicester Mercury which gives us just a glimpse at the reasons why public services became so expensive under New Labour.

    The report tells us of the unused regional fire control centre for the East Midlands, standing empty in Castle Donington, but still costing £5,000 a day to run, with burgeoning interest accruing in the PFI contract. It wasn’t just the dream of regional government, or the manifest problems of PFI, that caused the problem here. It was another example of a huge …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 12 Comments
    Paul Walter

    Liberal Democrat setting for Prime Ministerial grilling

    By Paul Walter | Thu 10th November 2011 - 9:53 am

    Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQs) is often criticised as a bad advert for Parliament. It is confrontational and glib. – That particularly applies to the portion which is shown mostly on news programmes.

    Anyone who is concerned about this should watch, or read the record of, the House of Commons Liaison Committee. Each quarter, it questions the Prime Minister for an hour and a half. The sessions are thoughtful, thorough and comprehensive. It is all very polite and earnest.

    One could criticise the sessions for going to the other extreme of the style of PMQs. A good replacement for Horlicks, in other …

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    Posted in Parliament | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
    Paul Walter

    PMQs: Miliband misses a golden opportunity

    By Paul Walter | Wed 9th November 2011 - 1:06 pm

    LibDem Julian Huppert started Prime Minister’s Questions with a zinger today. He said that jobs and growth depend on consumer confidence, and asked if, therefore, the PM thinks that telling 25 million people that they have no job security and could be fired tomorrow will help consumer confidence (this refers to the proposal from Tory businessman Adrian Beecroft). David Cameron had no answer but instead, as always, threw his briefing notes at the questioner (metaphorically speaking).

    I should also mention, en passant, that Julian asked for suggestions for his first question via Twitter. Good man.

    After the MiliCam exchange, I was …

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    Posted in News and PMQs | Tagged , , , , and | 7 Comments
    The Voice

    That’s the way to do it! How Liberal Democrats made the running on the Localism Bill

    By The Voice | Wed 9th November 2011 - 10:15 am

    Annette Brooke MP and Lord (Graham) Tope are the Lib Dem Co-Chairs of the Parliamentary Policy Committee on Communities and Local Government, and led the Lib Dem response to the Localism Bill. Here they outline what they, working with colleagues in the party and many beyond, helped achieve.

    Last night the Localism Bill completed its final stage in Parliament and is set to become law when it achieves Royal Assent next week.

    As Co-Chairs of the Parliamentary Policy Committee on Communities and Local Government, it has been our job over the last ten months to lead on the Bill for the party. We’ve helped shepherd it through both Houses of Parliament, and have led a Lib Dem team that in many ways has made the running on the Bill.

    We’ve had strong engagement with Coalition ministers, who engaged with us constructively, particularly Greg Clark, Baroness Hanham and our very own Andrew Stunell, who was very helpful and willing to work together with us to improve the Bill considerably.

    Colleagues in local government were also a constant source of help and good ideas, which never ceased to better inform our Bill team as the process went on.

    Where we started from: “a good bill in theory, with several flaws in practice”

    When it was first introduced, I think many Liberal Democrats would agree that it was a good bill in theory, with several flaws in practice.

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    Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 13 Comments
    Emily Davey

    Opinion: Four ways we can tackle the housing crisis

    By Emily Davey | Wed 9th November 2011 - 8:45 am

    Housing is moving up the agenda -– and looks like being a key issue in next year’s London elections. The Greater London Authority now has more powers over housing and given London is still dogged by a lack of affordable homes to rent, lease or buy, despite the recession, it’s reasonable for Londoners to expect the next Mayor and Assembly to take action.

    Building more homes in a time of public sector cuts will be a challenge, and even using what we’ve got more efficiently will take a lot of cash. So we will need a range of ideas if we’re …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 24 Comments
    Mark Pack

    David Steel, bombing Greenland and regulating cats

    By Mark Pack | Tue 8th November 2011 - 3:15 pm

    It being over four years since I last read David Steel’s speech to the Liberal Party Assembly of 1976, I thought it was time I did so again. As you do.

    And yes, once again, it is the bombing of Greenland and the cats which caught my attention:

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    Posted in News | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Southwark Lib Dems face questions over Ministry of Sound donations: 3 important points to consider

    By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th November 2011 - 1:30 pm

    Southwark Lib Dem councillors and local MP Simon Hughes have been in the spotlight the past 24 hours following their decisio to oppose a planning application objected to by the Ministry of Sound, a prominent donor to the party. BBC News reports:

    Political donations to the Liberal Democrats from a nightclub chain totalling almost £80,000 went undeclared as its councillors discussed a tower block development opposed by the firm, BBC London has learned.

    The Ministry of Sound, in Elephant and Castle, south London, was fighting to prevent developer Oakmayne building a residential tower block nearby. The club feared noise complaints from

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
    Ed Maxfield

    Opinion: Will Hutton and his killer fact – the questions that need an answer

    By Ed Maxfield | Tue 8th November 2011 - 10:20 am

    We are all experts when we blog. So, let me break with convention and start by admitting I am no economist. What’s more, I really hope I am wrong.

    If you read the discussion in the Observer on the future of the economy you might have been struck, like me, by what seemed to be a killer point from Will Hutton. Challenging the notion that government borrowing is unsustainable he pointed out that when he was a child in the 1950s the level of borrowing was even higher as a proportion of national income than it is now. Doesn’t that …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 30 Comments
    The Voice

    Pugh: we must we must be able to guarantee safety before we start fracking

    By The Voice | Tue 8th November 2011 - 8:43 am

    The Press Association reports:

    If Britain is to benefit from a controversial drilling technique to extract gas from the ground “we must be able to guarantee safety at every stage”, a Liberal Democrat MP has said. Dr John Pugh (Southport) said without appropriate and effective monitoring of the process, public support would not be achieved.

    Fracking, which involves hydraulic fracturing of shale rock using high pressure liquid, led to the tremors which hit Lancashire earlier this year. Environmental campaigners and local residents have called for an immediate halt to the exploration work, which could lead to vast untapped gas reserves. Energy firm

    …

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    Posted in Parliament | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
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