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Chris Huhne cleared over election expense claims

By The Voice | Thu 28th July 2011 - 8:44 pm

As Mark Pack reported over on his blog, for the second time allegations over Chris Huhne’s election expenses that were strongly backed by Paul Staines and Harry Cole have collapsed after the Electoral Commission investigated them:

The review concluded that one item had been under-reported by £10.15 (sic) but that otherwise the expenditure in the short and long campaign had been properly recorded and declared.

Regularly readers may recall how stridently both of them attacked people who disagreed with their claims over Huhne’s election expenses (such as in this thread, which includes Paul Staines daring anyone to bet that Chris …

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Posted in News | Tagged electoral commission, harry cole, Mark Pack and paul staines | 8 Comments

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LibLink | Stephen Tall: Would you hire someone without interviewing them?

By NewsHound | Thu 28th July 2011 - 2:55 pm

Stephen Tall has an article over at Dale & Co on the Hughes Report on Access to Higher Education, which he previously outlined here on Lib Dem Voice.

Stephen comments:

However, there is one recommendation in ‘The Hughes Report’ with which I take issue:

It is my firm view that interviews which are conducted by an academic who will end up teaching that particular student are too subjective. … interviews should be conducted by trained admissions personnel who will not have face to face teaching responsibilities for the interviewee. (p.33)

It’s an odd comment for two reasons. First, it

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged Dale & Co, higher education, hughes report, simon hughes and stephen tall | 13 Comments

Chris White writes: Police Commissioners – the descent into low farce

By Chris White | Thu 28th July 2011 - 1:23 pm

News today that the Tories may not even field candidates for their cherished police commissioner posts, but instead are ‘considering instead whether to put … support behind other contenders, such as prominent and distinguished local individuals’ shows that this awesomely bad policy is starting to founder.

Meanwhile Labour are having similar doubts and, as discussed elsewhere on Lib Dem Voice, our own Party is hardly racing towards a sensible selection process.

The problem, of course, is not just that the legislation is not finalised but that the elections will be hideously expensive, covering in some cases several county areas: …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged elected police commissioners and policing | 16 Comments

Opinion: Political reasons for people to back the ESA motion‏

By George Potter | Thu 28th July 2011 - 11:57 am

If any of you are wondering how we can improve our situation in the polls then I’ve got a suggestion for you: back the Liberal Youth sponsored ESA Motion.

Now there are all sorts of compassionate, liberal and financial reasons to back this motion. The current system is unfair, inhumane, inaccurate and expensive. But, putting all that to one side for a moment, there are sound political reasons to back it.

At the moment the treatment of people with long term illnesses and disabilities is appalling. The media are starting to wake up to the issue, the government is facing a …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged benefits, chris grayling, employment support allowance and iain duncan smith | 27 Comments

Opinion: What we should do if the USA defaults

By David Boyle | Wed 27th July 2011 - 2:24 pm

You can’t use the phrase ‘perfect storm’ these days. It is a cliché. But how do you express, with sufficient clarity, the phenomenon of a financial tsunami and a financial hurricane happening at the same time?

Because we need to start asking how we might cope if the very worst happens – as well it might – and both the US government and key European nations default on their burgeoning debts at the same time?

The euro has been rescued by the latest bail-out, but an American default would unravel that and cause a second banking crisis, far more …

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Posted in Op-eds | 32 Comments

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Brian Paddick writes: Reaching out to every community in London

By Brian Paddick | Wed 27th July 2011 - 12:53 pm

One thing is for sure, if we are to improve on our position in next year’s elections for the Greater London Authority, we need to appeal to every community in London. If the MPs’ expenses scandal didn’t put people off politics, the perception that no one voted for the Coalition Government we now have, might well do the trick.

Too often, people view politicians as remote and out of touch, unable to understand their needs and act in their interests. That’s why, as well as getting our traditional vote out, we must appeal across the political divide and demonstrate that we …

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Posted in London | Tagged london mayoral selection | 10 Comments

Opinion: Must do better – Why benefit reforms are in need of reform

By Sophie Bridger | Wed 27th July 2011 - 10:18 am

Over the last week, more and more articles have emerged regarding disability benefit (Employment Support Allowance) and Work Capability Assessments. I say articles – they read like horror stories. People with degenerative conditions being told to get themselves to the Jobcentre. People being asked to come to assessments in rooms that aren’t accessible to the disabled. It makes the blood run cold.

We have failed to show the public that this is not a cost-cutting exercise. They feel that this is purely a convenient way to squeeze a little more out of those already worst affected. Claimants are terrified that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged ATOS, benefits and employment support allowance | 73 Comments

Advertising watchdog upholds Jo Swinson MP’s complaints about overly airbrushed ads

By Helen Duffett | Wed 27th July 2011 - 8:53 am

The Guardian reports:

L’Oréal has been forced to pull ad campaigns featuring Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts and supermodel Christy Turlington, after the advertising watchdog upheld complaints by Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson that the images were overly airbrushed.

Swinson, who has waged a long-running campaign against “overly perfected and unrealistic images” of women in adverts, lodged complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority about the magazine campaigns for L’Oréal-owned brands Lancôme and Maybelline. The ASA ruled that both ads breached the advertising standards code for exaggeration and being misleading and banned them from future publication.

L’Oréal’s two-page ad featuring Roberts, who is

…

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Posted in News | Tagged ASA, christy turlington, Jo Swinson, julia roberts and L'Oreal | 9 Comments

The ever-shrinking timetable for by-elections set to be expanded

By Mark Pack | Tue 26th July 2011 - 10:27 am

Good news from the Cabinet Office, with its announcement of pre-legislative scrutiny of plans to increase the timetable for general elections and, more significantly, for Parliamentary by-elections:

the deadline for parties to nominate candidates should continue to be 6 days after the start of the timetable, so parties will have the same time as now to put forward candidates to stand for election. In practice this will now be 19, rather than 11, days before the date of poll, which will allow administrators to begin printing ballot papers further in advance of polling day;

provision should be made for updated versions

…

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Posted in Election law | Tagged parliamentary by-elections | 5 Comments

Opinion: Nick Clegg in the Guardian Media 100

By Richard Flowers | Mon 25th July 2011 - 6:53 pm

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been named number 20 in the Guardian “Media 100” list of the most powerful figures in the media, making him the second highest ranking politician (coming in below only the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who was at 13).

In a list that is clearly overshadowed by the News of the World phone hacking (note Lord Justice Leveson‘s abrupt promotion to the top ten, and Tom Watson‘s appearance on the list at 45, apparently the highest placed Labour politician, for his dogged work pursuing the scandal) this …

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Posted in Op-eds | 8 Comments

New edition of Liberator

By The Liberator Collective | Mon 25th July 2011 - 4:57 pm

Liberator subscribers have just received the latest edition of Liberator magazine (issue no.347 – August 2011). For those of you who are not yet subscribers, here’s a summary of the contents:

The editorial column Commentary looks at the implications of phone-hacking scandal. There is also a call to withdraw the whip from Liberal Democrat peers who oppose reform of the House of Lords.
The insider gossip column Radical Bulletin begins with revelations of what went on at a recent ‘awayday’ for Liberal Democrat MPs.
‘Lansley undone’ – John Pugh (Liberal Democrat MP for Southport) says the party has finally found

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged liberator and liberator magazine | Leave a comment

The Independent View: NHS should routinely offer chicken pox vaccine to children

By David Carter | Mon 25th July 2011 - 2:21 pm

Chicken pox. One of those “mild” childhood illnesses that most of us assume just has to be endured at some point. Sure, it itches like crazy, but what’s the big deal?

That’s how I saw it until two friends of my four-year-old son went down with it in the same month. They described the misery their children went through, the sleepless nights for all the family, the seemingly endless quarantine. And worse: it can put children in hospital, and occasionally even kill them.

As the dreaded varicella zoster virus seemed to creep ever closer to my son’s unprepared immune system, I …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged chicken pox, NHS and vaccination | 11 Comments

Mike Tuffrey writes… The Big Switch: turning London’s buses and taxis electric

By Mike Tuffrey | Mon 25th July 2011 - 12:53 pm

Rudolf Diesel has a lot to answer for. The compression engine he invented has become the great workhorse of heavy duty vehicles like the buses, taxis and vans which fill our streets. But the nasty side effect of diesel fuel is fine particulate exhaust emissions that are creating a major health crisis. Tiny particles get deep into the lungs, causing thousands of premature deaths and a big increase in ill health.

The biggest culprit in central London, where the health problems are most acute? Yes, buses, taxis …

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Posted in London and Op-eds | Tagged Caroline Pidgeon, chris huhne and transport | 12 Comments

Electoral register database scrapped, at last

By Mark Pack | Mon 25th July 2011 - 10:54 am

Back in 2009 I speculated that the plan for a centralised version of the country’s electoral registers (the CORE project) should win a prize for worst government IT project:

Back in early 2001 I sat in a consultation meeting where the project was being planned, with the data available on CD (ah! those were the days) and then securely online in early 2002 …

One of my favourite memories of this whole saga was when both the Electoral Commission and the Government in fairly quick succession carried out a consultation that went over pretty much the same ground. As a result,

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged CORE and electoral registration | 4 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #231

By The Voice | Sun 24th July 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 231st 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 (17-23 July, 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 | Leave a comment

‘The Hughes Report’: Lib Dem MP’s 33 recommendations to improve access to higher education

By Stephen Tall | Sun 24th July 2011 - 3:25 pm

Last week saw the publication by Simon Hughes, the Government’s advocate for higher education access, of his report for the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on how more young people can be encouraged to apply for university. It’s received little attention, perhaps understandably given the current frenetic news cycles — but it’s a shame because the report is a serious piece of work.

Though 45 pages long in total, it presents clearly, readably and concisely 33 recommendations designed to ensure that everyone, from young to old, has the chance to experience higher education. You can read the report in full below, but there are five aspects which struck me as worth highlighting:

Importance of early years: the report recommends that, from primary age onwards, ‘schools can play an important role in motivating children to think about their future career and start working towards achieving their dreams’. These range from work experience opportunities to, in particular, ensuring proper advice is available at age 13-14 ‘when a young person starts to make the choices of courses influenced by the qualifications they hope for and the careers they plan.’

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Posted in News | Tagged featured, higher education, simon hughes and universities | 22 Comments

Huhne ‘orders inquiry into fossil fuel lobby influence over Tory MEPs’

By The Voice | Sun 24th July 2011 - 1:20 pm

From the Guardian this week:

Chris Huhne has ordered a private inquiry into which fossil fuel lobbyists “got to” the Conservative MEPs who defied David Cameron and voted down an ambitious carbon emissions target in the European parliament on 5 July.

“I have asked for a full analysis of what happened,” said the energy and climate change minister, speaking at an event in parliament. “We thought the vote was going to be close, but it was not close. We want to see which lobby groups managed to get to the MEPs.”

New research by the Guardian and Greenpeace into lobby groups and

…

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Posted in News | Tagged carbon emissions, chris davies and chris huhne | 7 Comments

News International tried to bully the Lib Dems, says Observer. It didn’t work.

By Stephen Tall | Sun 24th July 2011 - 11:25 am

News International ‘bullied Liberal Democrats over BSkyB bid’ is the headline in today’s Observer, with the paper reporting:

Rupert Murdoch’s News International launched a campaign of bullying against senior Liberal Democrats in an attempt to force through the company’s bid for BSkyB, high-level sources have told the Observer.

Lib Dem insiders say NI officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case.

According to one account from a senior party figure, a cabinet minister was told that, if the government did not

…

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Posted in News | Tagged david yelland, media, news international, the observer, the sun and vince cable | 12 Comments

LibLink | Vince Cable: My brush with the Murdochs – and the lessons I learned

By Helen Duffett | Sun 24th July 2011 - 10:23 am

Business Secretary Vince Cable writes today at the Mail on Sunday on his own reaction to the “Murdoch mania” press coverage and his experiences of News International during his first year as a Cabinet Minister:

My own direct experience was as the Minister with responsibility for competition and takeovers.
I had to take a decision on whether to approve or refer the bid from News International to acquire the remaining (just over 60 per cent) shares in BSkyB that it did not already own.

My involvement started with a courtesy call from James Murdoch last summer telling me of the bid

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged news international, rupert murdoch, strictly come dancing and vince cable | Leave a comment

Update on the latest twists and turns in the contest to become the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor of London

By Stephen Tall | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 8:15 pm

It’s been a fascinating — and characteristicaly bizarre — last 48 hours in the contest to become the Lib Dems’ London mayoral candidate.

There was the first hustings, reported here on LDV by Simon McGrath, which attracted comments from Brian Paddick, and some robust thoughts from Lembit Opik’s campaign manager Ed Joyce.

Further controversy was sparked by Peter Black’s blog-post yesterday, Lembit Öpik and the rewriting of history, highlighting a paragraph in Lembit’s manifesto which attributes his defeat in Montgomeryshire ‘to the incident in which Mick Bates drunkenly assaulted a paramedic in January 2010, which became …

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Posted in London | Tagged brian haley, brian paddick, ed joyce, lembit opik, london lib dems, london mayoral selection, mick bates, mike tuffrey and peter black | 5 Comments

News International’s William Lewis, BBC’s Robert Peston, and the alleged act of theft which aimed to bring down Vince Cable

By Stephen Tall | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 4:27 pm

Rewind to December 2010, and you will recall the furore which greeted the revelation by the BBC’s Robert Peston that Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable had been secretly taped by undercover Telegraph hacks “declaring war” on Rupert Murdoch and his bid for BSkyB.

Vince was almost forced to resign, responsibility for handling the bid was handed over to a Murdoch-friendly Tory, and the Telegraph was embarrassed by the implication that they had censored the story in order to avoid assisting media rival News International.

A report in today’s New York Times sheds a new and extraordinary light on that sequence of events, and suggests that:

The Telegraph was not sitting on the Cable/BSkyB scoop, but was all set to run it as a follow-up to the paper’s initial story focusing on Vince’s forthright views on the Coalition;

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Posted in News | Tagged daily telegraph, featured, media, news international, robert peston, vince cable and william lewis | 13 Comments

Opinion: Why cutting later would increase the chances of a double-dip recession

By David Thorpe | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 2:52 pm

About the only thing to emerge during Ed Miliband’s time as Labour Leader so far, which could be called a policy, is the belief that the cuts the coalition are implementing are being delivered “too fast and too deep.”

Essentially Labour are saying they would cut by less and later. The purpose of this article is to discuss the “too fast” part of this argument.

The first six months of the coalition’s time in office saw higher than expected growth and higher than expected inflation. Neither of these were really caused by anything the coalition did in those six months, rather …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged cuts, ed miliband and recession | 41 Comments

Opinion: Why David Cameron will not be Prime Minister in a year’s time

By Paul Walter | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 12:33 pm

Bizarrely, I was watching dancing coal miners dressed in tutus when I heard the news of Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation last Sunday evening. A little trigger went off in my mind. Suddenly, the unthinkable had become thinkable. “Cameron will be next” I thought.

OK. We’re now in the “long grass” of the parliamentary recess. Cameron put in a “Tory Trebles all round”, barn-storming performance at the dispatch box on Wednesday. He must have been thankful it was jet-lag proof Johannesburg he had come from (where he met a different type of Tutu) and not New York, with its jet-lag on the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged andy coulson, david cameron, news corporation, news of the world, nick clegg, paddy ashdown, Phone hacking and the guardian | 21 Comments

Brian Haley writes: It’s not about me, it’s about our party

By Brian Haley | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 10:25 am

As a Londoner I have never lost my enthusiasm for the city. I would not have joined the Liberal Democrats if I did not passionately believe in the core values that the Party has to offer. The only way we are going to gain seats in London is by working as a team, having clear objectives and methods of campaigning and fund-raising, and a co-ordinated approach which I believe will see us getting our message across.

I believe I will generate media interest as I have a good story to tell and will improve Liberal Democrat representation across London as Mayoral …

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Posted in London | Tagged london mayoral selection | 6 Comments

80 dead in Norway shootings

By Alex Foster | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 3:33 am

I’ve been keeping late hours baking but as I was getting ready to turn in, the news began breaking about the extent of the awfulness in Norway. As I write, 80 are confirmed dead at a summer camp for youth members of Norway’s ruling Labour party.

It’s terrible, terrible news, all the more vivid for me for the thought that this meeting must have been a similar sort of thing to the dozens run by our own party over the years. None of us would ever have considered Activate, or a Liberal Youth meeting a target for such an atrocity. …

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged Norway, oslo and Utoeya | 1 Comment

Council by-election results: 21 July 2011

By Helen Duffett | Fri 22nd July 2011 - 6:48 pm

Wokingham UA, Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe
Con 850 (65.9; +0.6)
LD Martin Alder 272 (21.1; -7.1)
UKIP 55 (4.3; +4.3)
Lab 94 (7.3; +0.7)
Green 19 (1.5; +1.5)
Majority 578
Turnout 29.38%
Con hold
Percentage change is since May 2010.

Gwynedd UA, Glyder
Plaid Cymru 207 (39.4; -25.1)
LD Doug Madge 194 (36.9; +1.3)
Con 65 (12.4; +12.4)
Lab 60 (11.4; +11.4)
Majority 13
Turnout not known
Plaid Cymru hold
Percentage change is since May 2008.

Truro City Council, Boscawen
Con 469 (40.7)
LD Kate Tregunna 322 (28.0)
Lab 246 (21.4)
Mebyon Kernow 114 (9.9)
Majority 147
Turnout 24.59%
Con gain from LD.

Full by-election info and commentary at the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors.

Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged aldc, doug madge and martin alder | 1 Comment

The LDV Friday Five: 22 July 2011

By The Voice | Fri 22nd July 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

LibLink | Vince Cable: I declared war on Murdoch… now everyone agrees with me (25 comments) by Helen Duffett
Police and Crime Commissioners: Lib Dem candidates start here (17 comments) by Helen Duffett
Opinion: David Laws takes another step on the road to redemption (26 comments) by Mark Valladares
Opinion: Stephenson resignation – the bar just got lowered (22 comments) by Richard Morris
Opinion: Cameron’s ten big mistakes – more please! (21 comments) by Paul Walter

5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

5 from the LDV archive

(22nd July, 2007-10)

An Interview with the Whips Office – comfy chairs will be provided… (0 comments) by Dominic Addington, from 2010
Moving to an elected second chamber – a loss of expertise, or just privilege (9 comments) by Alex Runswick, from 2010
Tall photographer stopped again by police (7 comments) by Helen Duffett, from 2009
CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: MPs’ holiday betrayal (0 comments) by The Voice, from 2009
Join us on Facebook! (1 comment) by Alex Foster, from 2008

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Posted in Friday Five | Leave a comment

Opinion: Academies overspend revealed!

By Peter Downes | Fri 22nd July 2011 - 3:51 pm

Figures in a Government consultation paper on the funding of academies have revealed that Michael Gove’s policy of getting schools to convert to academies is expected to cost nearly £600 million more than planned over the two year period 2011 – 2013.

This confirms what Lib Dem activists have been saying for some time i.e. that the programme for converting schools to academies is costly and unsustainable, as well as being divisive and unfair.

When a school decides to leave its Local Authority (LA) and become ‘independent’ (i.e. dependent on central government!), in addition to its standard funding it gets an …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged academies and michael gove | 18 Comments

Chris White writes: Is it possible to change Coalition policy?

By Chris White | Fri 22nd July 2011 - 2:53 pm

Is it possible to change Coalition policy? Council leaders certainly hope so if the letter to today’s Times is to be believed. Over a hundred have supported – and no doubt many more councillors, deputies, backbenchers and the like might have done so had there been more time to hone the message and gather support.

The issue should be core to the localist agenda – although we need to be rather clearer about what we really want.

Not so long ago the police were governed (at least in non-operational terms) by the police committees of county councils. There was not much …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged coalition, elected police commissioners, english party and policing | 2 Comments