Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Can we tell what will happen in four years?

By Chris Rennard | Sun 21st August 2011 - 2:55 pm

Four years ago, David Cameron was on the run.

The Conservatives had ‘thrown the kitchen sink’ into winning the Ealing Southall by-election in the summer of 2007 and they had raised expectations of a Tory victory based on the appointment of a well known local Asian businessman as ‘David Cameron’s Conservative candidate’ in a seat with a lot of Conservative Councillors.

But on polling day, the Conservatives not only failed to win the by-election (or even overtake the Lib Dems), but they fell from second place to third in the parliamentary by-election in Sedgfield following Tony …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 22 Comments
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Prateek Buch

Opinion: Privacy and investigative journalism – a balancing act

By Prateek Buch | Sun 21st August 2011 - 11:57 am

The recent phone hacking scandal has thrown into sharp relief a corrupt nexus: between media organisations (I use the plural advisedly) that consider themselves above the law; a craven police culture that makes it effectively so; and a body politic so in thrall to that same media power it’s unable to distance itself from those responsible for illegal activity, much less hold the press to account. As enquiry after enquiry ensues, we seek the reform of the press, of the police and of politics, the need for which has rarely been clearer; we must also seek to strike a balance …

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Stephen Tall

At his best and his worst: 5 thoughts on Tony Blair’s analysis of the UK riots

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st August 2011 - 10:23 am

It’s only been four years since Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister (somehow it seems longer) — and he’s back today with an opinion piece for The Observer on the underlying causes of the riots, ‘Blaming a moral decline for the riots makes good headlines but bad policy’. Here are 5 thoughts on his article:

1) Mr Blair remains the ultimate triangularist

Witness the oxymoronic opening line: ‘Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband made excellent speeches last week and there was much to agree with in what they said.’ First, no they didn’t; neither speech rose to the occasion. Nick Clegg’s under-reported speech was a much weightier contribution than either the Tory or Labour leaders mustered. Secondly, to agree simultaneously with directly opposing arguments suggest that Mr Blair retains his crown as the past-master of intellectual flexibility.

2) Mr Blair remains at heart an authoritarian

As evidenced by his line, ‘my experience with the police is they need 100% backing’. Like all other professionals the police deserve respect and understanding for the immensely difficult job that they do.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 15 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo | Election archive special… the 1960-70s

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th August 2011 - 6:15 pm

It’s Saturday night, but forget the X-Factor… Enjoy instead some classic election clips from the archives…

Jo Grimond campaigns in the 1966 general election

(Available on YouTube here.)

Election Campaign, Feb. 1974 (including a rare clip of Jeremy Thorpe at 2:20).

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

5 posts to read before casting your Electoral Reform Society council vote

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th August 2011 - 3:55 pm

If like me you’re a member of the Electoral Reform Society, you’ll have recently received a thick wad of paperwork through your letterbox. The reason? It’s time for the election to the Council of the ERS. The deadline for voting is this Friday, 26th August, so time’s not on your side to wade through the 53 manifestos of those standing for election.

Simon McGrath wrote about the elections here on Lib Dem Voice this week, sparking an interesting discussion thread. But here’s a further five posts (in no particular order) I’d personally recommend reading before deciding how to …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 10 Comments
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Alex Foster

Read Lib Dem Voice on your Amazon Kindle

By Alex Foster | Sat 20th August 2011 - 3:04 pm

Did you know you can subscribe to Lib Dem Voice using Amazon’s Kindle service? You can do so either on their Kindle device or using their apps for iPhone, Android, Mac or PC.

The link to Lib Dem Voice on Amazon is here. It will set you back a modest £1.99 a month.

Of course, if you think the content we produce here is worth £2 a month, and you don’t have a Kindle, you are more than welcome to cut out the middle-person and donate it to us directly by standing order.

You can also donate money to us indirectly by using any …

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Posted in Site news | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg: The Biography published today – is it worth reading?

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th August 2011 - 11:47 am

The pre-publication newspaper serialisation of Chris Bower’s biography of Nick Clegg used extracts which covered the Deputy Prime Minister’s early life. When you read the full book the reason for this is amply clear. It has much interesting to say about Nick Clegg’s multi-national family and their close brushes with the tragedies of the early twentieth century. As it gets on to Clegg’s political career, however, it increasingly has little to say that will not already be familiar to close followers of political news from other accounts.

In a few cases it even has less to say than has already …

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Posted in Books | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Mike Hancock welcomes Ugandan gay deportation case deferral

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th August 2011 - 11:00 am

Richard Flowers reported here on Lib Dem Voice last week Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock’s grave concerns for a Portsmouth constituent facing deportation back to Uganda — Robert Segwanyi is gay, and argues he was imprisoned and tortured in his home country, where homosexuality is illegal. (Michael Andrewes, Mr Hancock’s constituency researcher offered further background in the Voice’s comments thread here.)

For those who supported Mr Hancock’s campaign on behalf of Mr Segwanyi there is some welcome news courtesy of the BBC website:

‘Gay’ Ugandan asylum seeker’s deportation deferred

A Ugandan man living in Portsmouth who says he will be

…

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The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 19 August 2011

By The Voice | Fri 19th August 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

  1. Opinion: UK riots – the mystery of the David Willetts’ rule of post-war baby boom peaks (25 comments) by Stuart Bonar
  2. Opinion: Our flawed drug laws are at heart of riots (41 comments) by Ewan Hoyle
  3. Searching for the cause of the riots is asking the wrong question (61 comments) by Iain Roberts
  4. Tim Leunig writes: Riots, Justice and Reconciliation (67 comments) by Tim Leunig
  5. Opinion: the battle for the Electoral Reform Society (25 comments) by Simon McGrath

5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

  1. 2015 : 124 seats
  2. The Keynes vs Hayek debate on radio 4 recently
  3. If there were only Republicans, which would you vote for?
  4. Imprints
  5. Uk IT/Engineering graduate unemployment c.f. Germany

5 from the LDV archive

(19th August, 2007-10)

  1. Opinion: Community politics has had its day – time to move on (27 comments) by Ed Maxfield, from 2010
  2. Opinion: it’s about more than A-levels (18 comments) by Alan Belmore, from 2010
  3. Ming in the Psychiatrist’s Chair (0 comments) by Helen Duffett, from 2009
  4. Not quite “making it happen” (63 comments) by David Allen, from 2009
  5. Everybody say “Aww…” (5 comments) by Richard Huzzey, from 2007

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Helen Duffett

Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards 2011 – nominations now open

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th August 2011 - 1:26 pm

BOTY 2
The Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, run by Lib Dem Voice, are back for their sixth year. As usual, they’ll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony at the party’s autumn conference in Birmingham.

Click on the following links to see last year’s Shortlist and the Winners.

This year’s awards are as follows:

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George Kendall

Come help Simon Wright in Norwich South on Sept 3rd

By George Kendall | Fri 19th August 2011 - 11:04 am

Remember Norwich South on the 6th May 2010, when Simon Wright made that astonishing breakthrough to take the seat from a former Labour Cabinet minister?

We all know that success like this is only sustained if we keep working outside election times.
So Eastern Region are holding an Action Day on Saturday, September 3rd.

There will be surveying and recruitment, and a chance to talk over lunch with other campaigners, including Simon Wright.

So do join us.

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Posted in Events | Tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Alex Foster

Cross-party smackdown for Home Secretary

By Alex Foster | Thu 18th August 2011 - 5:32 pm

A tweet crosses my desk from Cllr Kemp, itself a retweet from LGCPlus journalist Ruth Keeling. It contains a link to the Association of Police Authorities – not a body I am overly familiar with, but it has a fairly self-explanatory title.

The link is directly to a fairly draw-dropping cross-party letter from chairs of Police Authorities around the country who have a fairly serious beef with the Home Secretary’s accuracy in a recent speech.

Theresa May appears to have tried to shore up support for the Conservative policy of elected police commissioners by insinuating that in London, taxpayers got a better service from the elected police chief (and Mayor) Boris Johnson, than in other parts of the country where there are indirectly elected Chairs of Police Authorities instead.

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Nick T

A different species of politician? Nick Clegg’s biography serialised in the Mail

By Nick T | Thu 18th August 2011 - 2:57 pm

The forthcoming biography of Nick Clegg by Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Bowers was serialised in last weekend’s Mail on Sunday.

Here’s just a brief extract :

For a few terrible weeks, Nick Clegg came face to face with his ultimate nightmare. One after the other, his wife and his little boy had fallen gravely ill — and doctors warned that they might not pull through.

It began when his son, Antonio, then aged two, became feverish and listless. When he was admitted to hospital, Clegg insisted on spending every night at his side.

According to the doctors, Antonio was suffering from pneumonia. But,

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 13 Comments
Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes: What we need to do in the wake of the riots

By Brian Paddick | Thu 18th August 2011 - 12:53 pm

There are serious social issues that need to be addressed in the wake of the riots. The problem for politicians faced with situations like those we have seen over the past 10 days is the need to be seen to be doing something positive about it. Talk about long-term problems requiring long terms solutions just doesn’t cut it with the voters, even if that is the answer. Yet it is the responsibility of the Mayor to show political leadership, to inform, persuade and facilitate these long terms solutions, even if he has not direct power to do so.

Young people are …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Peter Lesniak

Opinion: Filling the political vacuum

By Peter Lesniak | Thu 18th August 2011 - 11:54 am

Young people’s attitude towards political and public affairs has recently been less than promising, to say the least. The majority of six-form students do not know how the political system in this country works, and seem to have no willingness to engage and vote for their future. Luckily, not all hope has been lost. A new initiative has been launched which aims to narrow the gap between young people and their involvement in politics.

Bite the Ballot is a grassroots campaign created by and for young people with the aim to inspire and encourage others to engage and be part …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 3 Comments
The Voice

Voting closes on Friday….

By The Voice | Thu 18th August 2011 - 9:25 am

A quick plug for ourselves: voting closes on Friday in the Total Politics Blog Awards 2011. You can cast your votes here and if you would be so kind as to remember both The Voice and the blogs run by the various contributors to this site, that would be most spiffing. Thank you!

Posted in Online politics | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Sam Phripp

Opinion: Riots, prisons and us

By Sam Phripp | Wed 17th August 2011 - 2:32 pm

The speeches this week by David Cameron and Ed Milliband made for a very interesting bit of bed-time reading. For me, both the Prime Minister and the Labour leader were pretty wide of the mark. Ed, as he often does came across as being reactionary. Too scared to be seen to defend looters and join the dots toward massive social injustice but too hidebound by his party to talk about throwing away the key, he was left very much floundering somewhere in the ether; neither talking about the roots of the problem (possibly because they lie a little close to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 40 Comments
Simon McGrath

Opinion: the battle for the Electoral Reform Society

By Simon McGrath | Wed 17th August 2011 - 10:05 am

One of the consequences of the failure of the AV campaign may be radical change at the venerable Electoral Reform Society. The ERS is conducting the biennial election for its Council at the moment with no less than 53 candidates standing for election to fill 15 places. There is also a range of motions at the AGM on 3 September, some of which would make fundamental changes to the ERS.

The main prize for anyone who controls the ERS is financial – they have by pressure group standards a huge income through their ownership of Electoral …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , , , , and | 41 Comments
Nick T

Brian Paddick interviewed in the Guardian

By Nick T | Wed 17th August 2011 - 9:08 am

The Guardian’s ‘Saturday Interview’ last week featured as its subject Liberal Democrat mayoral contender and former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick.

Unsurprisingly, much of the interview concerns the recent riots and the police reaction to them, but Brian’s political ambitions are also covered.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

Four years retired, Paddick remains remarkably relevant to the Met’s current predicament. The grandson of a policeman, he climbed the ranks to become commander of Lambeth, south London, where he famously initiated a pilot in which officers cautioned, rather than arrested, those in possession of cannabis. Despite falling victim to untrue tabloid

…

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Nick T

LibLink: Simon Hughes – Profits must no longer go to the few at the top

By Nick T | Tue 16th August 2011 - 6:27 pm

Over the weekend, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Simon Hughes, penned a piece for the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site arguing that Britain needs to become a more equal place both in terms of the distribution of wealth and of opportunity.

Here’s a sample:

We must now focus on the redistribution of wealth. But this will not succeed by means of greater hand-outs. Financial benefits must seek to engage people positively. The redistribution of hope and opportunity means the redistribution as well as the creation of work. Co-operative and mutual businesses and social enterprise should be prioritised. The private sector, like the public

…

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Stuart Bonar

Opinion: UK riots – the mystery of the David Willetts’ rule of post-war baby boom peaks

By Stuart Bonar | Tue 16th August 2011 - 11:55 am

We’ve seen and heard from dozens of pundits wheeled out over the last week to explain the riots we saw on the streets of some of England’s cities last week. But here’s an unasked question: did a Coalition minister unwittingly predict these riots with amazing precision, and in doing so offer up an explanation that has not as yet been suggested by any of the experts on our TV screens?

I am currently reading The Pinch, a book by universities minister and Conservative MP for Havant, David Willetts. It was published in hardback last year, and in paperback this …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 25 Comments

Opinion: the big society broken record

By Mike Dean | Tue 16th August 2011 - 10:07 am

Our society really is big. And it suffers from no lack of definition. It’s a big society. It’s a broken society. It’s a big and broken society. The big society needs to save our broken society. There is such a thing as society, but it’s not the same as the state. And once, there was no such thing as society at all. There’s as good a choice of societies as you’d find at a student freshers’ fair.

Cameron’s election campaign was fought on his two favourite societies – the big one and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Censoring social media during riots: good news, mostly

By Mark Pack | Tue 16th August 2011 - 7:26 am

Talking to Liberal Democrats in Whitehall about Cameron’s misguided talk of social media bans during riots, the reactions range from the bluntly oppositional to the intriguing repeated suggestion that Cameron himself misspoke and didn’t really mean to suggest anything more than looking at how the police can best use existing laws.

So far, so good.

The one caveat to watch out for is that in other areas Conservative ministers such as Ed Vaizey have shown a strong liking for self-regulation by industry. Applied to social media and riots, this could see attempts to encourage the industry to agree sweeping procedures with …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Meral Ece

Meral Hussein Ece writes: my contribution in the Lords to the riots debate

By Meral Ece | Mon 15th August 2011 - 5:08 pm

This is the speech Meral made last Thursday as part of the Lords debate on the public disorder.

Baroness Hussein-Ece: My Lords, I, too, would like to associate myself and these Benches with the sentiments that have been expressed and to extend our condolences to those people who have lost so much in the terrible events from Saturday onwards. I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for repeating the Prime Minster’s Statement today.

There is absolutely no excuse for the terrible scenes that we have witnessed on the streets of London and beyond in our cities over the …

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Posted in Parliament | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Iain Roberts

Searching for the cause of the riots is asking the wrong question

By Iain Roberts | Mon 15th August 2011 - 3:08 pm

When events like last week’s riots and looting occur, we assume that something that was previously working must now be badly broken. What has changed in the last few years that has brought the rioters and looters onto the streets?

Government cuts? MPs expenses? Greedy bankers? Broken society?

Maybe.

Or perhaps there’s less need to panic and more need to take a measured view.

Might it be that this sort of trouble – relatively common in societies – is similar to earthquakes? Tiny earthquakes and tremors occur across the world most of the time and we barely notice. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 65 Comments
Helen Duffett

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Helen Duffett | Mon 15th August 2011 - 12:54 pm

Why not get our latest headlines by email? Hundreds of Lib Dem Voice readers already do.

Some people like regularly visiting Lib Dem Voice to see the latest stories. Others like to look out for us on Twitter or subscribe to our RSS feed and check that way. And some even read us on their Amazon Kindle.

But if you prefer email, you can sign up for our daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice. It has convenient links to click through to the full article, and a note of how many comments each post has got.

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Ewan Hoyle

Opinion: Our flawed drug laws are at heart of riots

By Ewan Hoyle | Mon 15th August 2011 - 10:07 am

David Davis MP, in his appearance on the Question Time “riots special” said: “There are estates in Alan Simpson’s constituency where there are youngsters the age of 12 or 13 who got £30 a day paid for delivering drugs on whose estate the man to look up to was the drug dealers”

Brian Paddick: “Exactly”

Davis “because he had a big car and he lived well. And if we create circumstances like that it’ll be no surprise we get the problems we’ve had in London and the Midlands and the North in the last week.”

This is a fairly astute recognition of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 43 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #234

By The Voice | Sun 14th August 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 234th 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 (7-13 August, 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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Tim Leunig

Tim Leunig writes: Riots, Justice and Reconciliation

By Tim Leunig | Sun 14th August 2011 - 2:25 pm

Natasha Reid, a 24 year old graduate, was in McDonalds in Enfield on Sunday night. She noticed that Comet was being looted, and went in and helped herself to a £270 television. There is no suggestion that she caused any damage, or was violent in any way. She realised that what she had done was wrong, and handed herself in to the police.

She has been found guilty, and will be sentenced on 1 September. District judge Elizabeth Roscoe told her that her remorse would ‘very much go in your favour’ but warned that she could still face prison because of the ‘serious nature’ of the case.

That would not be appropriate. What Natasha Reid did was wrong, but, bluntly, since she got home with the television, and does not appear to have been caught on camera, she could probably have got away with it. She chose to confess, a remarkably brave thing to do given that sentencing was likely to be harsh.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 67 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Mark Pack – What to watch out for at Liberal Democrat conference

By Nick T | Sun 14th August 2011 - 12:54 pm

Mark Pack has been going through his conference documents and over on the MHP blog he has highlighted the bits that are likely to be most controversial and/or interesting.

Here’s just a sample of what Mark has picked out:

An early chance to catch the mood of the party will be the session on Saturday morning looking back on May’s elections and AV referendum. Unhappiness is to be expected. What to watch out for is who speaks out and where their comments are directed.

A common theme is likely to be the need for the party to present itself as distinct from the

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 8 Comments
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