In June, Mark Pack addressed the Liberal History Group‘s summer meeting on the topic of Forgotten Heroes for a Governing Party. Further details of the event can be found here.
And who was Dr Pack’s choice? You will have to listen to find out.
PS don’t check the tags
Below you can see a video produced by the national party of Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert, talking to the deputy prime minister about the phone-hacking scandal.
Paddy Ashdown writes today at Comment is Free on the urgent need to help famine-stricken Somalia – a situation which has been overshadowed in the news by more sensational events.
The problem when a child is dying from starvation is that they can’t wait. They can’t put their hunger on pause until the glare of the media decides to turn its spotlight on them and help spread the word that children are dying. Instead, they will slowly starve to death.
This is exactly what is happening to nearly 2 million children in Somalia right now. Nearly half of these children are
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Photo: Mayorwatch. See also @mayorwatch‘s live tweets from last night’s event.
Merton Liberal Democrats held the first hustings of the London Mayoral selection last night with all four candidates addressing an audience from Merton and surrounding constituencies.
I had never met or heard any of them before but the one speech I was expecting to enjoy was Lembit’s. I thought that I would be drawn to him despite myself but the reality was frankly disappointing. He was the …
We all know how the following story works. Governments use stats to demonstrate the problem. And then they give us their answer. The more shocking the figures, so it goes, the greater the need for bold action. But too often we don’t consider the human impact of these figures.
Let me give you an example. This week I learnt that every two hours one person dies as a result of suicide in England. It is truly harrowing to think that each and every day, so many people feel they have nowhere else to turn and end up taking their lives. We …
Authors of the best accounts of the New Labour years delved deeply into the rival Brownite and Blairite versions of events before coming to their own conclusions. Those who did not frequently ended up with embarrassingly lopsided and inaccurate accounts.
Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre, the authors of Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour leader, have avoided making the next generation’s version of the same mistake by talking to both sides of the Miliband family, even returning more than once to the conundrum of when Ed told David he was going to run against him for leader. …
5 Live Drive had a poll yesterday on “Who do you trust?”, particularly with Hackgate in mind.
Emerging, blinking, from two weeks of saturation “Breaking News”, answering that question is a good way to take stock of where we are.
Who do I trust?
Vince Cable is the first person who springs to mind. He (inadvertently publicly) “declared war on Mr Murdoch”. He was then forced to be “hors de combat”. He said “I think we are going to win” and we did. Murdoch is in retreat. Well done, Vince.
Tom Watson is the second person I trust as a result of this …
Last year, Lynne Featherstone MP and I launched the Campaign for Body Confidence. Since then, we have been raising the profile of the urgent need to address increasing body dissatisfaction in the UK. Everyone should be able, whatever their size, shape, age or skin colour, to feel good about their body.
The bombardment of super-skinny flawless models advertising everything from face cream to cars is puts an overwhelming pressure on women, men and children to conform to impossible and unrealistic beauty ‘ideals’. This is damaging our sense of wellbeing and leading to increasing unhappiness, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression and eating …
From a party news release:
The Government spent nearly £38m on advertising in News International titles between 2005 and 2010, a Parliamentary answer to Co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Treasury Committee, Stephen Williams, has revealed.
The figures show:
Commenting, Stephen Williams said:
Despite the dire state of public finances, the Labour Government continued
…
Last week I unveiled the coalition government’s proposals for the most radical reform of the electricity market since privatisation in the 1980s. The plans set out in the White Paper aim to keep the UK’s lights on and consumer bills down and shift the economy away from a high-risk, high-carbon future.
With a quarter of the UK’s generating capacity shutting down over the next ten years, as old coal and nuclear power stations close, it’s clear that we have a Herculean task ahead of us. Over the next ten years, more than £110bn in investment is needed to build the …
A by-election took place today in the House of Lords, to fill the vacancy among the excepted hereditary peers, created by the death of Lord Ampthill on 23 April. The ballot (under AV) was held between 10am and 8pm today in the Queen’s Robing Room, and the count will be conducted tomorrow by Electoral Reform Services.
Lord Ampthill was one of the 15 hereditary peers elected by the whole House, as part of a compromise in the House of Lords Act 1999, which retained 92 hereditaries in the House of Lords. His successor is also elected by “all …
Some initial reflections on the Culture select committee hearing today:
Is this the most humble day of Rupert Murdoch’s life, as he claimed? I very much doubt it. I suspect the most humble day of his life will come when he is finally removed from his News Corp’s Chairman’s office, no doubt kicking and screaming, with his finger nails screeching along the expensive wallpaper.
One of most significant moments, for me, came when Rupert Murdoch was asked if he felt personally responsible for what went on at his company and he answered “No”.
That seemed very strange, for me. The normal answer is …
Over on Huffington Post, Mark Pack has a piece looking at the way US Republican presidential hopefuls are using technology in their campaigns, and at the difficulties of judging online activities from the ‘outside’, given the often hidden nature of much of it.
Here’s an excerpt:
The old days of ‘count the features and say those with the most are the best’ are, thankfully, long gone when it comes to political Internet campaigning. As is common with many technological areas as they mature, after the initial proliferation of features and services, the real success and progress comes with technology that is hidden
…
Yesterday’s announcement of our plan to re-localise business rates is one of the most significant reforms announced by the Coalition so far. Ok, not as newsworthy as the phone hacking scandal, but it’s big news for local democracy nonetheless. It marks another fundamental shift from central control to local responsibility.
Under the current local government funding system, Whitehall dishes out grant allocations to councils each year based on an incomprehensible formula that is far too complex and lacking in transparency. Most of this money is funded by the business rates, collected locally, but funnelled centrally, and then reallocated. Councils are left at the whim of the formula-setter in Whitehall, and there is no incentive to promote business growth either. All you get are the extra HGVs, but none of the rates income! All this is about to change.
So what are the main things that Liberal Democrats need to know?
Last night, despite the rather unpleasant efforts of a handful of Labour backbenchers to throw stones from an already rather damaged greenhouse, the House of Commons overwhelmingly passed a motion proposing six members to form the Joint Committee to scrutinise the draft Financial Services Bill.
Usually, such motions are passed without a murmur, especially as the nominees are proposed by the various political parties. However, on this occasion, the presence of David Laws, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, drew the ire of, amongst others, Thomas Docherty, the Labour MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, and John Mann, …
The evening after the Metropolitan Police shot an innocent Brazilian at Stockwell I went and saw the then Deputy Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson. I asked whether it was true that the Commissioner had barred the Independent Police Complaints Commission from their legal duty to investigate the death. He said it was. I told him I thought it was the most stupid decision I had ever heard of (I knew by then that we had made a terrible mistake). He smiled and said “It’s my job to support the Commissioner.” I was concerned from then on that Stephenson might be giving …
Wikipedia defines civil liberties in the following way:
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the right to life, freedom from torture, freedom from slavery and forced labour, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one’s self, the right to privacy, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, and the right to marry and have a family.
Traditionally when we think about civil liberties we think about how freedom can be taken away from the individual by the state.
So what are we to …
Tom Brake MP is Lib Dem Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities Co-Chair.
A friend texted me over the weekend, after the news of Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation, saying ‘What next?’. I texted back, ‘The Queen abdicates?’.
Revelations about phone-hacking and the Metropolitan police have been coming so thick and fast over the last couple of weeks that nobody would bat an eyelid (all right, I exaggerate slightly) if Her Majesty revealed a previously unknown Met and NOTW connection.
Sir Paul’s departure is just the latest extraordinary development in the phone-hacking saga.
Even though he was widely recognised as an outstanding commissioner who …
Andrew Stunell, the Communities and Local Government Minister, has an article in the Huffington Post today, announcing Government plans to increase social housing after decades of declining numbers and soaring waiting lists:
Liberal Democrats in government are ensuring this trend is reversed. We fought hard to make sure that the Comprehensive Spending Review last October included money for a social housing building programme of 150,000 new social and affordable homes to be built up to 2015. A key part of this was the new Affordable Rent model that we introduced, with an invitation to social housing providers to bid for
…
Lord Monckton, climate change sceptic and UKIP’s head of research, has been told to stop claiming to be a member of the House of Lords, in a letter sent to him personally and also published on the House of Lords website.
In his letter, David Beamish, Clerk of the Parliaments, makes the distinction:
No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House… I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.
On Saturday, I found myself in an all day meeting of the strategic body of a campaigning organisation, and I found myself thinking something that hadn’t previously shown a fin in the ocean that is my political consciousness – is having policy spelled out to the nth degree really a good way to run a society? Indeed, how many people care about the details?
I am a member of a political party, and therefore have more of an interest in ideas of governance than most. But, like most members of political parties, I have an awareness of our policies, rather than …
The resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson as commissioner of The Met is significant in a way beyond the obvious.
As someone tweeted earlier, from their resignation statements, one might surmise that everyone who has resigned so far has done absolutely nothing wrong. However, the difference in the Paul Stephenson case is that everybody seems to be falling over themselves to agree.
In the hour after his resignation I saw or heard statements from Boris Johnson, Kit Malthouse and Jenny Jones all lauding the honourable decision Sir Paul had made and in many ways lamenting his loss.
So, let’s take it on face value that …
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 230th 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 (10-16 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:
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.
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It’s not often I agree with a Conservative MP, it’s even less often that I hear them say something that actually strikes me as truly insightful.
During the parliamentary debate on the BSkyB bid there was one such moment. At 6.25pm Dr Phillip Lee stood up and spoke to a now mostly empty chamber. This was a shame, because what he had to say was, in my view, extremely relevant and highly important. (Hansard)
He spoke on the fact that a lot, if not the vast majority, of the news people are getting today comes from not the mainstream media, the …
Yesterday I had my say about the concerns I have about the whole scale marketization of public services, so you are quite entitled to ask what would my solution be to the undoubted challenge to improve them?
Firstly – electoral reform coupled with a duty for local and public authorities to engage more meaningfully with the communities they represent. Involving service users as of right, in the design and delivery of services. I want to be able to elect both local and national politicians in a way that improves both their accountability to me but also their interest in doing …
In the Telegraph, Tim Montgomerie, editor of ConservativeHome, outlines the results of a recent survey of Tory party members.
1,500 of them were asked to name “what they saw as Cameron’s three biggest errors”. The resulting Top Ten makes an extraordinary epistle from Planet Tory. Several of the points on the list would be regarded by many as Cameron’s greatest non-mistakes:
…
Business Secretary Vince Cable has an interview in the Evening Standard, in which he discusses his declaration of “war” on Rupert Murdoch, his referral of the BSkyB takeover bid to Ofcom and Murdoch’s role in the phone hacking scandal:
…the Business Secretary also reveals for the first time that he considered resigning from Cabinet during the furore when he said he was “at war” with the media tycoon.
“I certainly felt rather low at the time because I was heavily criticised,” he said at the end of a week that has seen the tables comprehensively turned between the two men.
“And I
…
An odd set of messages this week from some of the right-wing press: the Mail, the Express and Telegraph all ran pieces criticising Nick Clegg for taking his children to school, while being essential to the smooth running of the country.
In a classic bit of pandering/flamebait (delete according to taste), they variously criticise Clegg for not working 24 hours a day before concluding that he is “powerful”, “Co-Prime Minister” and “the second most senior politician in the land”.
The Express’s Virginia Blackburn likes to think of Clegg as “a commanding figure, a statesman, a diplomat representing his …
Amongst the frenzy of the phone hacking scandal Philip Virgo has recalled operation Motorman. This investigation by the Information Commissioner and follow-up report What Price Privacy Now studies and provides details of the illegal trade in personal private information. Rather than being limited to the phone hacking scandal, the report suggests this trade was widespread between newspapers, private investigators and corrupt officials.
This report was presented to the previous government that failed to act upon it and halt the illegal trade in personal information. It is with unfortunate irony that members of that previous government including Lord Prescott …
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Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)
Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference (Donna Harris)
Christine Jardine to stand down as MP at next election (The Voice)
Observations of an Expat: When Donald met Xi (Tom Arms)
Conference from the other side of the barrier (Barry Rhodes)
How did people cross the Humber before the bridge?
David Goodhart, arithmetic and our Quotation of the Day
Christine Jardine will not fight Edinburgh West for the Lib Dems at the next election
Olivia Rodrigo: Brutal
How Home Secretaries change immigration rules without telling Parliament
The wrong bridge - lost Reform UK in blunder
Christine Jardine "will not be Lib Dem candidate" at next election
Rick Wakeman performs piano concert to 150 rescued moon bears in Vietnam
Christine Jardine will not be re-standing for Parliament
A Tollesbury relative of mine was charged with piracy in 1894
Jason Connor 
colin murfin 
David Murray 
Galen Milne 
Richard BIRD 
