The Voice

A Radical Activist Grandma writes… Lib Dems must make their voice heard on mental health and disability issues

By The Voice | Thu 29th September 2011 - 12:15 pm

Suzanne Fletcher had an experience many Lib Dems have experienced at the party’s conference: she’d prepared a speech but there was not time to call her during the debate. However, Lib Dem Voice is delighted, with Suzanne’s permission, to share her thoughts with our readers…

The speech I didn’t make at Lib Dem conference on the Employment & Support Allowance (ESA) and Work Capability Assessments
First of all congratulations to the Disability Consortium for their well-run campaign to get people to come and vote in this debate, although I was certainly going to be here anyway, along with my colleagues from Stockton, …

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Mark Pack

Interviewing Mark Sullivan, the founder of the party’s new electoral database supplier

By Mark Pack | Thu 29th September 2011 - 10:25 am

During the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham, I had the chance to quiz Mark Sullivan (the founder of VAN, which is becoming the party’s new electoral database software under the name CONNECT).

I’m (like others) excited about the possibilities CONNECT will bring, partly because I’ve worked with EARS for just about two decades now. It has helped produce some stupendous election results and people involved with it have worked tremendously hard. But it also has some major limitations, particularly the number of bugs (including more than once data being lost on polling day), the haphazard record of delivering new …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Sarah Ludford opposed plans to refurbish MEP offices

By Mark Pack | Thu 29th September 2011 - 8:45 am

Good to see a Liberal Democrat MEP taking up this cause in a press release:

Liberal Democrat London MEP Sarah Ludford has called for the blocking of plans by European Parliament bosses known as the ‘bureau’ to spend £26 million (€30 million) on improving MEP offices in the Parliament’s Strasbourg building.

The Parliament is currently obliged under the EU treaties – fixed by the 27 national governments – to sit in both Brussels and Strasbourg in a ‘travelling circus’. But in June a majority of MEPs voted in favour of maintaining a single seat in Brussels, which would save 19,000 tonnes of CO2 …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Why Ivan Lewis isn’t completely wrong about journalists

By Mark Pack | Wed 28th September 2011 - 7:48 pm

The fiasco over Shadow Culture Secretary Ivan Lewis’s call for journalists to be registered has rather obscured what should be a good point of debate: the degree to which journalists or editors should be held personally responsible for what they do.

As I wrote earlier in the year about media regulation:

There needs to be a much greater sense of individual, personal responsibility by journalists and editors for how they behave. This is best illustrated by the classic doorstepping exercise trawling for a story that many newspapers carry out. That sort of exercise can be justified – it is, after all,

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Alex Paul Shantz

Opinion: Lib Dems need to wake up to drastic implications of legal aid cuts

By Alex Paul Shantz | Wed 28th September 2011 - 2:55 pm

Lib Dem Voice last week featured a brief post on the Coalition’s plans for legal aid reform. But this is an important change that’s been passed with barely a murmur from any Lib Dem MPs, when in fact it strikes at a principle at the heart of the party – civil liberties.

The bill in which this change is contained, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, is currently making its way through the House of Commons. For something that will have fairly drastic effects on many people’s access to justice there has been relatively little talk …

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Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes… Policing the riots

By Brian Paddick | Wed 28th September 2011 - 11:50 am

I am on the horns of a dilemma. I served Londoners in the Metropolitan Police for more than 30 years and loyalty to my former colleagues runs deep. As a sergeant, I faced bricks and petrol bombs on the streets of Brixton in 1981. So I know what officers went through during the recent riots. I later became one of a small cadre of advanced trained public order senior officers who took charge of policing protests and big events in London. So I know the strategies and tactics for dealing with riots. Yet I, like most Londoners, was disappointed by …

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Posted in London and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Ed Long

Demonstrating how the Lib Dem policy of raising income tax thresholds IS an irrefutably progressive step

By Ed Long | Wed 28th September 2011 - 10:20 am

Another week, another attack on Lib Dem tax plans. This one comes from Kayte Lawton, Senior Research Fellow at the IPPR, whose publication on Coalition Tax Policy concludes that raising income tax thresholds is regressive in its impact.

What do terms like ‘regressive’ or ‘progressive’ mean? Quantitatively, it’s a little difficult to define: we’re not talking about a single number, but about a distribution – the shape of a graph. If we consider net gains to an individual and order our data by income percentile, then a progressive distribution of gains would slope down from left to right; if we’re …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

Good news on candidate selection rules

By Mark Pack | Tue 27th September 2011 - 11:06 pm

A welcome update to my post from earlier this week: the decision banning candidates from calling on members during the Merton & Wandsworth GLA selection has been reversed. Candidates may now call on members.

In the thread on the earlier post Matthew Green, one of the selection committee members, explained his reasoning:

Well, I was part of the selection committee that made the rule. There was a wide range of views expressed at the committee, from more liberal to more restrictive. We were mainly guided by precedent – the RO’s previous seat (Greenwich & Lewisham, I think) having very similar restrictions.

There

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

I want to hear a speech from Tim Farron that I disagree with

By Mark Pack | Tue 27th September 2011 - 5:55 pm

Over on his blog Jonathan Calder makes a good point about the speech-making abilities of Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron:

My impression of Tim is that he is very good at saying things people agree with. So in Cumbria he is against second homes and in favour of farming subsidies and Kendal mint cake…

Now that Tim Farron is being spoken of as a possible party leader, he needs to risk the odd unpopular speech. Someone in that class cannot always be telling people what they want to hear.

Tim </a srcset=…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 19 Comments
George Potter

Opinion: What Nick should say about tuition fees at the 2015 general election

By George Potter | Tue 27th September 2011 - 4:25 pm

More than any other issue, tuition fees have damaged the view of our party in the country as a whole. For what it’s worth, here’s what I think our leader should say about fees when going into the next general election:

I would just like to say a few brief words about tuition fees.

As a party, we entered the last election with a promise to oppose any increase in tuition fees. As a party, we then broke that pledge. That was wrong.

Nothing can justify breaking a promise like that. Nothing. We made a mistake and we have been punished

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 49 Comments
David Boyle

Opinion: Only two cheers for community politics

By David Boyle | Tue 27th September 2011 - 2:35 pm

I wasn’t there to hear the Birmingham conference back the community politics motion on Tuesday. I had meant to be but had to go back to London early.

It was one of those pieces of sacred Liberalism that you daren’t speak against, but I would have done. I’m not sorry it was passed but the party must also understand that there is another side to it.

Community politics may be a revolutionary doctrine, but BAD community politics – and we have practised some of that occasionally, let’s face it – damages the party and damages the political process.

I know I’m …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 12 Comments
Ed Randall

Opinion: Is the Chancellor ready to listen to the best economic brains in the Cabinet?

By Ed Randall | Tue 27th September 2011 - 12:28 pm

Having just left one party conference, where I was able to deliver my message on the shortcomings of the Coalition Government’s strategy to revive the UK economy and to promote my alternative take on the official Lib Dem approach to party policy development, in advance of the next General Election, (see Facing the Future ), I am now waiting to hear what George Osborne has to say at the Tory party conference in Manchester, in just a few days’ time.

Labour really is – as Alistair Campbell has recently put it – the third most interesting party in the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 9 Comments
William Hobhouse

Opinion: Putting Liberal thinking into practice on taxation

By William Hobhouse | Tue 27th September 2011 - 10:50 am

Liberal thinking on tax is based on the principle both that the state has a duty to protect the poor and vulnerable, and that the state can help bring the best out of each individual.

The practical aim of Liberal Democrat tax policy therefore is to help to lift the less well off towards the average. This is not achieved only by handouts – which would be Labour’s priority – but by having a tax system that encourages work and aspiration for the lower paid.

Liberal Democrats are implementing our manifesto commitment of a £10,000 income tax threshold. This is …

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Posted in Op-eds | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Labour’s odd messaging: how the party was for reversing Coalition cuts before it was against them

By Stephen Tall | Tue 27th September 2011 - 9:15 am

Mark Pack has already highlighted the pitfalls of political opponents commentating on other parties’ conferences. And he’s right of course. But it didn’t stop him, so I won’t let it stop me…

I am genuinely puzzled by Labour’s key messages based on the first two days of their conference. Day 1 kicked off with the Big Announcment by Ed Miliband that Labour is now committed to doubling tuition fees (dressed up as only The Observer could as Labour committing to ‘slashing’ fees).

Regardless of what you think about the policy, and I think I’ve made my views clear …

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Tim Leunig

Tim Leunig writes: The problem with Labour’s proposed tuition fees cap

By Tim Leunig | Tue 27th September 2011 - 7:40 am

Ed Miliband has seized the initiative at the start of his conference, announcing that Labour would cap student fees at £6,000 per year. This policy is superficially attractive, and is clearly designed to win over LibDem supporters who remain angry at the rise in tuition fees.

Today I have published an analysis of Labour’s proposal. It uses the Business Innovation and Skills graduate income “ready reckoner”, which is based on data from the ONS Labour Force Survey. The underlying data are as good as they can be, although of course predicting graduate incomes in 30 years time is a dangerous …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Ed Balls has a new take on having your cake and eating it

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th September 2011 - 9:19 pm

There are two problems with a Liberal Democrat like myself blogging about Labour Party conference. First, as I’ve so often seen from the other side of the fence, an outside blogging about another party’s conference frequently misreads what is really happening. And second, no blogger can compete with Hopi Sen and his cat.

So caveats deployed and on to the confusion that Ed Balls’s speech today left me in. For he had two messages: first, that Labour can’t promise to undo the government’s cuts and, second, that many of the cuts are wrong. Either on its own would be a …

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David Parkes

Opinion: Ed Miliband’s tuition fees announcement – more a headline than a policy

By David Parkes | Mon 26th September 2011 - 5:35 pm

On the eve of the Labour Party conference, Ed Milliband announced in an interview with The Observer, that he plans ‘to slash university tuition fees by a third’, by reducing the cap on tuition fees to £6,000. It’s a headline that appears to have been mistaken for a policy.

These past 15 months Labour has being decidedly light on policy. This surprised no-one. It was said of the previous Brown Government that Labour had run out of ideas; no-one seriously expected the ‘backroom boys’ who picked up Gordon Brown’s mantel to come up with new thoughts any time soon.

However, what …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members back Coalition on economy – but real worries about impact on public services

By Stephen Tall | Mon 26th September 2011 - 4:05 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

Large majority of Lib Dems back the Coalition’s economic policies…

LDV asked: On balance, do you agree or disagree with this statement: “In the long term, this government’s policies will improve the state of Britain’s economy”?

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 2 Comments
Chris Nicholson

Opinion: If the cap doesn’t fit, don’t wear it

By Chris Nicholson | Mon 26th September 2011 - 2:25 pm

The NHS Emergency Motion which was not debated at Conference in Birmingham had a clause that stated the cap on Private Patient Income (PPI) by NHS Foundation trusts should be retained. Shirley Williams has since stated that this is one of four main aspects of the bill which she will be trying to change in the House of Lords.

But Lib Dem peers would be wrong to press for retention of the cap. Even for those who want to preserve a strongly public sector provided NHS the retention of the Private Patient Income (PPI) cap makes no sense.

The cap limits the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

The strangest political interview you’ve never heard: Cllr Peter Martin

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th September 2011 - 12:25 pm

“Want to hear the most ridiculous beginning to a political interview that you’ve possibly ever heard?” So starts a clip from BBC Surrey’s breakfast show featuring an interview with Conservative Cllr Peter Martin, the person in charge of education at Surrey County Council.

You can listen to the clip here.

(Remember to listen all the way through to hear how Peter Martin takes a leaf out of Ed Miliband’s interview book.)

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion: Ed Miliband starts off his conference week with a damp squib

By Paul Walter | Mon 26th September 2011 - 10:15 am

Many years ago I knew Tom Baldwin when he was a cub reporter on my local newspaper. He is now Ed Miliband’s chief communications guru. He’s a smart cookie, so I am surprised that Baldwin and Ed Miliband have decided to use the traditional opportunity for a trumpet fanfare for their conference week (i.e the front page of The Observer) to announce a distinctly underwhelming policy.

“It’s the economy, stupid” – no more so than at a time like this. So why waste your golden chance for a big media blast by returning, dog-like, to the site of your own …

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Mark Pack

Only 3% swing to Tories in key Con/Lib Dem marginals

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th September 2011 - 8:55 am

The detailed polling by Lord Ashcroft published today on ConservativeHome brings some encouraging news for the Liberal Democrats. In a set of key marginals held by the Conservatives and where the Liberal Democrats were second in 2010, there has only been a modest swing to the Conservatives since May 2010.

In the eight seats polled, the Conservative Party has a lead of 8% compared to an actual lead in May 2010 of 2%. This swing of 3% is much smaller than national opinion polls show. The vote share figures are:

Conservative 39% (-2% on May 2010)
Liberal Democrat 31% (-8%)
Labour 19% (+6%)

Con lead …

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Posted in News and Polls | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo | Nick Clegg speaking Dutch, Spanish and German

By Stephen Tall | Mon 26th September 2011 - 7:25 am

Today, 26th September, is the European Day of Languages. But you knew that, of course.

At the initiative of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, the European Day of Languages has been celebrated every year since 2001 on 26 September. Throughout Europe, 800 million Europeans represented in the Council of Europe’s 47 member states are encouraged to learn more languages, at any age, in and out of school. Being convinced that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent, the Council of Europe promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe.

Nick Clegg is rare in being a British polyglot politician, an internationalist of Russian and Dutch descent who is fluent in six languages. And here’s the video proof…

Nick speaking fluent Dutch (from 1:43):


(Also available on YouTube here.)

Nick speaking fluent Spanish:

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged | 9 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #240

By The Voice | Sun 25th September 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 240th 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 September, 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 | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV Caption Competition | Julian Huppert “it’s all a bit of a blur” Edition

By Stephen Tall | Sun 25th September 2011 - 4:55 pm

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

Here’s rising star Dr Julian Huppert, Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, flanked by Reading councillor Daisy Benson and LibDemVoice’s own Mark Pack at a conference fringe event. 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, Hugh Grant and Nick Clegg “one for the family album” Edition.

The winner, according to The Voice’s judging …

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Posted in Caption Comp | Tagged , , , and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Candidates banned from calling on party members in selection contest

By Mark Pack | Sun 25th September 2011 - 3:10 pm

Very odd news from the Merton and Wandsworth London Assembly constituency, where members will shortly be voting to select the Liberal Democrat candidate for next May’s elections.

The candidates have been told that they are banned from calling on party members at home during the selection contest. They have also been given extremely tight restrictions on what else they can do – just one leaflet, one email and one phone conversation.

As regular readers will know, I’m a strong advocate for more campaigning to be allowed in internal party contests – and the party has made some significant progress on that in …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 16 Comments
Karen Wilkinson

Opinion: Legal Aid – the new NHS?

By Karen Wilkinson | Sun 25th September 2011 - 2:45 pm

The aspect of Conference I most value is the opportunity to hear first hand from Ministers, MPs and Lords the thought processes and details of what we are doing in Government and to see them listen to the feedback from those who are delivering the relevant services on the ground.

A fringe debate on the NHS I attended this week was a great example of that – an open, constructive, intelligent exchange of differing views which left a clear sense that our party in government is listening and acting and has a plan.

Contrast that with the fringe meeting convened by

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

£6k versus £9k tuition fees: the real impact in pictures

By Stephen Tall | Sun 25th September 2011 - 12:35 pm

Today’s announcement by Ed Miliband that Labour would double, not treble, tuition fees from the current £3k pa has prompted much vigorous discussion already. But what would be the actual impact for different income groups of the change in policy?

To find out, I fed different figures into Martin Lewis’s Student Finance Calculator. I made one assumption: that all students would need to take out the maximum maintenance loan to live on while studying. Here’s what the figures show…

Who pays nothing?

With fees at £6k…

… anyone whose salary doesn’t exceed £15,600 in today’s money.

With fees at £9k…

… anyone whose salary doesn’t exceed £15,600 in today’s money.

What if you earn the national average wage?

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 26 Comments
Stephen Tall

Ed Miliband on tuition fees: £6k not £9k. The reaction so far…

By Stephen Tall | Sun 25th September 2011 - 11:10 am

Rejoice! Rejoice! Labour has a policy.

Party leader Ed Miliband has vowed that, if Labour were in government now, they would double tuition fees to £6k from the current £3k level set by the last Labour government with immediate effect. In other words, they would undercut the Coalition’s £9k fees by £3k.

Here are some early thoughts:

1) The principle of cutting fees from £9k to £6k

The reality is the cut from £9k to £6k makes no difference to the monthly repayments that poorer students will repay once they’ve graduated and earning more than £21k.

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 34 Comments
Paul Childs

Opinion: Catching the Liberal Democrat conference bug

By Paul Childs | Sun 25th September 2011 - 9:40 am

When I first decided to go to Liberal Democrat Conference last autumn, I have to admit I was a little swayed by it being in my home town, but being a Federal Conference First Timer I did have concerns about not knowing anyone. Luckily, a friend who is also a conference veteran (at both LibDem and Labour I must add) took me under his wing and even humored me when going to training sessions.

I also met up with some people in both Liverpool and Glasgow and managed to bend their ears about issues, as well as adding new and interesting …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
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