Tom Brake

Tom Brake MP writes: Child detention – work in progress

By Tom Brake | Tue 18th October 2011 - 12:53 pm

The Liberal Democrats played the central role in delivering the Coalition Government’s commitment to end child detention and we have delivered big time.   In 2009 under Labour, more than a thousand children were held in pre-departure detention. In August 2011, there were just three children detained under immigration powers. 
 
Indeed, the Children’s Society has acknowledged the progress the Government has made on tackling the number of children held in pre-departure detention.  But, the recent figures from the Children’s Society make it crystal clear that we must now focus with the same determination on the detention of children, who have arrived at …

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes: High Speed Rail no longer the transport of the future, but a logistical imperative

By Julian Huppert | Tue 18th October 2011 - 11:53 am

Birmingham in 49 minutes, Leeds in 80, and 45 minutes shaved off the journey to Scotland’s major cities. For some, this is reason enough for the Government’s new High Speed Rail line (HS2) – stretching from London in the South, to Manchester in the North-West and Leeds in the North-East.

Many, including myself, would love to see the line extended all the way up to Scotland, providing a real boost to domestic tourism and sustainable growth.

But in amongst the disputes over cost benefit analyses and NIMBYism, there are some startling figures which remind us why High Speed Rail is vital …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 31 Comments
Mark Pack

Local liberal heroes: Tracy Ismail

By Mark Pack | Tue 18th October 2011 - 10:25 am

Earlier in the year, 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 …

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Peter Facey

The Independent View: Lib Dem peers kill local referendums

By Peter Facey | Tue 18th October 2011 - 9:25 am

On the 10th of October the House of Lords killed off the prospect of voters getting the power to initiate referendums on local issues. Up until then the Localism Bill had contained a modest proposal to give local people in England the power to call non-binding referendums on local issues if 5% of their fellow voters supported them. The proposal was hedged in with safeguards and protections to ensure that it did not contravene national laws or go beyond the powers of the local authority.

But the hopes that this could see revival of local democracy with citizens being given the …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged and | 27 Comments
Chris Huhne MP

Chris Huhne MP writes: Check, switch, insulate to save

By Chris Huhne MP | Mon 17th October 2011 - 6:53 pm

No government can control volatile world energy prices. But we can still help people get their energy bills down. So today I am bringing together industry, consumer groups and the regulator Ofgem for an energy summit that will focus on getting people the help they need to reduce their bills in time for this winter.

As Liberal Democrats we have long argued that in the long run the only way to reduce bills is to improve energy saving in our homes, and to invest in more energy generation at home to end our reliance on imported fossil fuels. But there …

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The Voice

Ed Miliband: against lobbying reform before he was for it

By The Voice | Mon 17th October 2011 - 5:51 pm

Via Paul Wild and Jason Hunter:

It should be noted that 100% of Conservative MPs who took part in the lobbying reform vote also opposed lobbying reform, though that was only one MP.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: We need a proper inquiry into Patrick Finucane’s murder

By David Thorpe | Mon 17th October 2011 - 4:50 pm

In the midst of an economic crisis, a climate crisis and a Secretary of State for Defence who seems determined to turn his life from an uplifting drama into a crisis, it’s easy to forget the sins of governments past.

But some issues shouldn’t be left to lie as footnotes in the pages of history. One of those is the case of the solicitor Patrick Finucane, and Liberal Democrats should return to their campaigning roots, within and outside Parliament, to press for a full inquiry into the case.

Finucane was a Catholic solicitor in Northern Ireland, where among his most famous clients was the …

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Baroness Liz Barker

Baroness Liz Barker writes… The Health and Social Care Bill in the Lords

By Baroness Liz Barker | Mon 17th October 2011 - 2:53 pm

I have spent my entire working life in the field of health and social care. For many years I worked for Age Concern and for all my time in the Lords I have been a member of the Health and Social Care team. I am, and always will be, a passionate supporter of an NHS which is free at the point of need and open to all regardless of their ability to pay.

Although the Health and Social Care Bill only came to the Lords this week I have been working on it for several months along with Liberal Democrat colleagues, including …

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Andy Atkins

The Independent View: Final Demand – it’s time to end the power of the Big Six

By Andy Atkins | Mon 17th October 2011 - 1:50 pm

News last week that the Big Six energy firms are raking in bumper profits while the nation struggles with soaring fuel bills was just the latest electric shock to hit cash-strapped families.

Ofgem’s revelation that energy firm profit margins have risen to £125 per customer per year, from £15 in June, will crank up pressure on the Government to act – and rightly so.

But if Ministers really want to get to grips with soaring fuel bills we must also tackle the root cause – our nation’s reliance on increasingly expensive gas, coal and oil and the failure of the Big Six

…

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Prateek Buch

Opinion: Why is the BBC so bad at putting links in science stories?

By Prateek Buch | Mon 17th October 2011 - 11:25 am

The BBC’s failure to link properly to the original sources of its stories, especially those relating to developments in science and healthcare, may be just be a personal bugbear, and you may well be blissfully unaware of or affected by it, but do indulge me as I think this matters!

For some time now the likes of medic and writer Ben Goldacre have expressed real concern at the underwhelming way the BBC uses hyperlinks on its website. Specifically, when the BBC website carries a story based on papers published in academic journals, clicking their ‘related internet links’ sends the …

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Nick T

Questions left hanging over Boris’s cable car

By Nick T | Mon 17th October 2011 - 9:58 am

Conservative politicians spend much of their time criticising their Labour counterparts for the often-inefficient way in which they spend public money. This is often quite justifiable: the many billions wasted through disastrous PFI schemes, abandoned IT projects and expensive-but-pointless gimmicks under Labour are a shameful legacy.

But the gap between this Tory rhetoric and reality is often rather stark, and nowhere is this more evident than with the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Take, for example, one of Boris’s pet projects of a cable car to transport people between the O2 arena and the Excel exhibition centre (both Olympic venues). Sounds like …

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Mark Pack

Lynne Featherstone vs Steve Hilton on maternity pay

By Mark Pack | Mon 17th October 2011 - 7:25 am

From yesterday’s Observer:

In a wide-ranging interview with the Observer, Featherstone said it was vital the coalition delivered on its family-friendly rhetoric … In a forthright attack on some of the advisers shaping government policy, she criticised the role of Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist tasked with reporting to the prime minister on how to cut regulation on business. Beecroft is understood to have recommended a U-turn on government policies on shared parental leave and flexible working.

The proposals, outlined in a white paper, would allow couples greater freedom to co-ordinate maternity and paternity leave. A separate proposal would make it

…

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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #243

By The Voice | Sun 16th October 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 243rd 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 (9-15 October, 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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Posted in Best of the blogs | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Campaign Corner: What does research tell us?

By Mark Pack | Sun 16th October 2011 - 3:50 pm

Welcome to a new series of posts, each of which will look 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: What can Liberal Democrat campaigners learn from research that academics and others have done into British politics?

There is a huge literature of potentially relevant research, especially if you also cast your net outside Britain or look at research in other fields that is also applicable to politics. But for three good starters I would pick out:

  1. Voters want “local” candidates – quite what “local” means

…

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Carl Miller

The Independent View | ‘Truth, Lies & the Internet’ – how we need to educate our children for the digital age

By Carl Miller | Sun 16th October 2011 - 2:20 pm

The Internet can be a hugely liberating force. Bypassing the traditional gatekeepers — publicists and editors — the ‘public sphere 2.0’ empowers pressure groups, citizen journalists and researchers to hold the powerful and the responsible to account, armed with far more specialist expertise, analysis and facts at our fingertips than ever before.

But the Internet can also trap and snare. Now that the floodgates of self-published and user-generated content have opened, there is also an unprecedented amount of utter nonsense floating around in the digital aether: from genuine mistakes to selective half-truths, hidden bias and outright, naked …

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Posted in The Independent View | 3 Comments
Jamie Hewitt

The Independent View: World Arthritis Day

By Jamie Hewitt | Sun 16th October 2011 - 11:50 am

I suspect few of you know this, but Wednesday was actually World Arthritis Day. For charities in the musculoskeletal sector this can be a pretty big deal, as we jostle to publish new research and try and ensnare policy makers in dialogue.

And so it proved to be when NRAS participated in a live webchat with the Health Minister, Paul Burstow MP, the man with responsibility for long-term conditions, like Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).

Needless to say we were cock-a-hoop that the Minister agreed to participate. He could have quite easily cancelled on us due to all the palaver surrounding the passage of

…

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Personal Demographics Service: Department of Health

By Mark Pack | Sun 16th October 2011 - 9:50 am

I’ve blogged before about some of the security issues around the NHS’s Personal Demographics Service – a mammoth database with 80,000,000 personal records in it, yet with 700,000 people granted access to it – and with such limited auditing systems that experts have concluded it is “incredibly difficult if not impossible” to detect or trace misuse of the data.

So it was good to see Julian Huppert take up with issue with a Parliamentary question, asking the Department of Health what assessments it has made of how adequate the safeguards in the PDS really are at preventing illegal access to …

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Stephen Tall

LDV Caption Competition | Liam Fox “was he pushed?” Edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 15th October 2011 - 6:45 pm

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


(Hat-tip to @RichardOsley.)

Here’s former Defence Secretary Liam Fox and colleague, joined stage left by a mystery hand. What do you think they might be saying or thinking?

And the winner of our last caption comp is…

Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Julian Huppert “it’s all a bit of a blur” Edition.

The winner, according to The Voice’s judging panel of one, was this one by Neil McGovern, with …

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Posted in Caption Comp | Tagged , , and | 19 Comments
The Voice

Midnight Sunday: your last chance to win in our competition

By The Voice | Sat 15th October 2011 - 3:50 pm

A quick reminder about our competition, with prizes from MOO. It closes at midnight on Sunday – so don’t forget to enter before then.

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Stephen Tall

Huhne pledges to do ‘the right thing’ as he commits to nuclear power

By Stephen Tall | Sat 15th October 2011 - 1:30 pm

This week saw Lib Dem energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne make a major speech to the Royal Society on the future of nuclear power, with the Coalition committed to a series of new reactors adjacent to existing sites.

The Coalition’s policy has long been trailed — a year ago, Chris put forward his views here on LibDemVoice.org, ‘Myth-busting: what the Coalition’s plans for nuclear energy really mean’. Here Chris acknowledged his shift from opposition to nuclear power to support conditional on no public subsidy — a shift which has majority support from Lib Dem members, at …

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Sean Davey

Opinion: Why conference season is showing us up

By Sean Davey | Sat 15th October 2011 - 10:45 am

“Tory bashing” has been a key phrase this autumn as the Liberal Democrat rank and file use conference to let off some steam. The Daily Politics’ Andrew Neil notably dropped his warm, fuzzy style when grilling Tim Farron over his premonitions of ‘divorce’ – but we seem to be retreating back to ours. “Cuddly Liberal Democrats,” as the Prime Minister put it to his own party conference.

And David Cameron may be outlining the message of the Conservative party for 2015 – with a theme of “Leadership for a better future,” his party are opening up a dialogue between the …

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Posted in Op-eds | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg backs campaign to ensure PR industry interns are paid

By Mark Pack | Sat 15th October 2011 - 8:53 am

PR Week reports:

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has thrown his weight behind a campaign being launched this week by PRWeek and the PRCA to end the practice of unpaid internships.

To launch the campaign, the PRCA will today take the step of placing a list on its website of all PRCA member agencies who commit to paying at least the National Minimum Wage to interns.

The list, researched in June, includes just 21 out of 264 member agencies – a mere one in 13. Among the handful of big agencies committed to paying up are Cohn & Wolfe and MHP

…

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Mark Pack

What do you think was the second most important reason why people didn’t vote Tory in the Cotswolds?

By Mark Pack | Fri 14th October 2011 - 5:50 pm

Between us, Stephen Tall (he of the Oxford Comma cartoon) and myself (purveyor of news about commas in election law and academic research), appear to be carving out a niche in political punctuation coverage.

I fear it is all going to end in tears when someone puts our own punctuation habits under the microscope, but before it does I have exciting, related news to report.

I have blogged before about the fall-out amongst Cotswold Conservatives following their big losses to the Liberal Democrats in May’s local elections, including their fear that they are seen as “toffs legislating for …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 14 October 2011

By The Voice | Fri 14th October 2011 - 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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Opinion: Why the Lib Dems need all-women shortlists

By Nat Jester | Fri 14th October 2011 - 2:48 pm

In his Lib Dem Voice piece “Too male and too pale” – Why shortlists and the Leadership Programme are not the answer, Paul Head states that he is totally opposed to all-women shortlists (AWS) because they ‘ignore the real problem’ that this reflects in the party as a whole; and that we need to engage more with women and BAME people on a grassroots level and change from below.

This is a sensible argument, and is something that we should strive for. However, I believe that there is a place for AWS in the Liberal Democrats, despite the fact that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 48 Comments
Elizabeth Parr

Opinion: Youth unemployment – something must be done

By Elizabeth Parr | Fri 14th October 2011 - 12:15 pm

When I began university in September 2007 I was, like everybody else, full of aspirations. I believed I would do well in my degree, have a wonderful time, graduate and find a job. Unfortunately things didn’t go to plan, and when my boyfriend graduated a year ahead of me, and spent a year unemployed, I knew I was in for a bumpy ride.

When we graduated we were each in £18,000 worth of debt (excluding interest) from student loans, and had no job prospects on the horizon. We sat down and worked out that my boyfriend had applied for over 400 …

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Posted in Op-eds | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Boundary Commission for Scotland publishes its initial proposals

By Mark Pack | Fri 14th October 2011 - 11:50 am

As ever remember that (a) these proposals are draft and (b) many a person has made a fool of themselves with crude projected vote figure calculations.

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The Independent View: Evidence that candidates make a difference

By Jo Silvester | Fri 14th October 2011 - 10:23 am

The Liberal Democrats in England took an important step in 2007 when they decided to review the approval process for parliamentary candidates. The aim was to develop a modern system capable of identifying, supporting and developing the best possible political talent in order to ensure the Party could field candidates with the qualities, skills and values needed to build public support and win seats.

Although change can take a long time in politics, four years on it is hard not to be impressed at what the Party has achieved.

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters and The Independent View | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Commons votes to allow Twitter but MP demands minister communicates via letter

By Mark Pack | Fri 14th October 2011 - 8:50 am

Yesterday Parliament voted by 206-63 to allow MPs to (continue to) tweet from the Chamber, by rejecting an amendment that would have gutted this proposal, subsequently passed:

That this House notes the Third Report from the Procedure Committee on Use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and committees, HC 889; and resolves that hand-held devices (not laptops) may be used in the Chamber, provided that they are silent, and used in a way that does not impair decorum, that Members making speeches in the Chamber or in committee may refer to electronic devices in place of paper speaking notes and

…

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Posted in News and Online politics | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Sadiq Khan, master of political caricature, I salute you

By Mark Pack | Fri 14th October 2011 - 7:59 am

Listening to Deputy Prime Minister’s Question Time and also the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s hearing this week, I was tempted to blog about how in a throwback to the worst of New Labour, many Labour MPs seemed to be confusing something being a “civic duty” with it being a legal requirement. After all, it doesn’t say much for your idea of “civic duty” if you think it is synonymous with “legal requirement”.

I didn’t have time to blog about this… but then today Sadiq Khan writes for The Guardian:

The compulsory nature of our interaction with registration officers may seem

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 28 Comments
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