Mark Pack

Where’s the list of the ten worst benefit administration blunders?

By Mark Pack | Mon 30th May 2011 - 9:27 am

We’ve had in the media the list of the ten worst excuses given by benefit fraudsters. To be fair, the ladder one is particularly fine … yet when you total up the sums, the amount lost in benefit fraud is about the same or less than the amount lost due to administrative mistakes*.

I’m sure the list of the ten worst administrative blunders by civil servants is in the media grid coming up shortly, aren’t you?

* Calculations on this vary depending on precise definitions and data used, but see The FactCheck Blog for an example.

Posted in News | Tagged | 10 Comments
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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #223

By The Voice | Sun 29th May 2011 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 223rd 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 (22nd-28th May, 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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Mark Pack

Lord McNally fully backs reforming the Lords

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th May 2011 - 5:06 pm

There’s been quite a lot of muttering from politicians about now Lords reform, although featuring in the manifestos of all three main parties at the general election, might not quite be needed or quite yet. That’s even included, regrettably, Liberal Democrat ranks in the Lords.

But Tom McNally, Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords, gave those who think 100 years hasn’t been long enough to think about change or that democracy isn’t what Parliament requires, short shrift in the latest Liberal Democrat News:

One hundred years ago the Liberal government committed itself to a second chamber “constituted on a popular basis instead

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Ed Maxfield

Opinion: Constitutional reform? Time to look at it another way

By Ed Maxfield | Sun 29th May 2011 - 3:17 pm

I have read a great deal of liberal-left angst about the AV referendum in the last few days.

Everyone concludes that the Yes campaign was poorly led. Beyond that you pays your money and you takes your pick as to what the key factor was in the massive defeat. You might share the view that insider networks undermined the campaign (although to me this mainly seems to be about saying the wrong sort of insider networks were in control, an argument that factions on the left have relied upon since Trotsky). You might even indulge the conspiracy fantasists and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 41 Comments
Mark Valladares

You! Yes, you! Ever thought about being a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate?

By Mark Valladares | Sun 29th May 2011 - 1:57 pm

At March’s Federal Conference, a motion was passed setting up the new Candidate Leadership Programme, designed specifically to identify and develop candidates from currently under-represented groups (i.e. everyone other than white men).

Candidates will be given structured support, development and training all the way through to the General Election, and it is particularly aimed at those wanting to take part in competitive seat selections. Further information and application packs will be available from late June.

So, what’s the hurry, I hear you ask? The catch is, you’ve got to be an approved candidate to get a place, and if you aren’t …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters and Selection news | Tagged and | 26 Comments
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Nick T

Chris Rennard: Fill in the blanks of the Big Society

By Nick T | Sun 29th May 2011 - 12:25 pm

Acevo’s Big Society Commission, chaired by Liberal Democrat peer Lord (Chris) Rennard, has now produced its final report into the subject, entitled ‘Powerful people, responsible society’. The report calls on the prime minister to “take the reins” of the policy to articulate a much clearer vision of what the concept means.

Interestingly, the Commission came up with the following vision of what the big society means to them:

Our own vision is a society in which power and responsibility have shifted: one in which, at every level in our national life, individuals and communities have more aspiration, power and capacity to take decisions

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Timetable for selecting London Mayor candidate published

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th May 2011 - 9:54 am

Readers of the week’s Liberal Democrat News will have seen the advert kicking off the party’s candidate selection for the Mayor of London. The planned timetable is:

June 17 Close of applications
July 3 Interviews and shortlisting
July 11 Deadline for appeals
July 11 Deadline for candidates to submit manifestos
July 12 Publication of shortlist
July 18 Postal ballot mailed out to members in London
July 25-29 Hustings meeting
August 10 Deadline for returning ballot papers
August 12 Count and declaration of result
Posted in London and Selection news | 3 Comments
Helen Duffett

Lib Dems appoint three senior Campaigns heads

By Helen Duffett | Sat 28th May 2011 - 5:51 pm

The party’s reorganisation of its Federal campaign team continues, with the appointment of three senior campaigns posts.

Jake Holland, Shaun Roberts and Victoria Marsom are to head the three new central teams, reporting to Hilary Stephenson as Director of Elections and Skills.

From a Cowley Street memo:

Head of Campaign Development – Jake Holland
Key Objectives: to research, test and deliver cutting edge campaign techniques and to maximise uptake through a well planned and coordinated training and support system.

Head of Ground Communications – Shaun Roberts
Key Objectives: to develop effective messages, visualisation and artwork for ground communications, to fully participate in the party’s

…

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

Praise for Green Investment Bank plans

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th May 2011 - 4:58 pm

Sage Construction reports:

The Green Investment Bank is set to be a “transformational institution”, Transform UK has claimed.

Following deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s recent speech on the establishment, programme director for Transform UK Ed Matthew welcomed the news that investment opportunities will be open from April 2012.

However, he noted that there are a number of points that need to be addressed.

“The key thing is to have a process where they confirm that the bank will have the power to borrow from the capital markets and not just the treasury,” Mr Matthew commented.

You can read the full story here.

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Mark Pack

Tidy up the loose ends about *that* cycle route meeting

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th May 2011 - 4:43 pm

(Warning: this post contains facts and documentation. If you are of a nervous disposition and are easily confused by evidence you may wish to skip the post before posting the obligatory comment saying ‘It’s all spin!’)

There are a couple of loose ends to tidy-up from the non-emergency, non-Liberal Democrat meeting featuring a cycle lane that Harry Cole and Guido Fawkes got so wrong during the week.

Getting a story wrong is, in itself, something many bloggers (including myself) have experienced. But even after having the errors in the story pointed out to him, Harry Cole has continued to try to …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Andy Thompson

Opinion: Taking a battering in the polls was the best thing that could happen to us

By Andy Thompson | Sat 28th May 2011 - 3:55 pm

You may think that this is a rather perverse and even nonsensical statement for any Lib Dem member to make but stick with me if you will and I will explain why.

For as long as I can remember, the Liberal Democrats have been the party of protest in two ways. Firstly as the safe option for a protest vote because secondly, we were seen as a party of perpetual opposition. We were the cross on the ballot paper that puts two fingers up to the government of the day without really changing the political landscape. We were the party of …

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Posted in Op-eds | 42 Comments
Kate Hudson

The Independent View: Alternatives to Trident replacement must include the possibility of no nuclear weapons

By Kate Hudson | Sat 28th May 2011 - 12:23 pm

Since Liam Fox made his announcement last week that while Trident replacement design is going ahead, the Lib Dems will also be looking at alternatives, there has been a flurry of derision about the latter initiative. Most obviously this comes from Liam Fox and the hard–line pro-nuclear lobby who just want to rubbish it. But criticism of Lib Dem efforts also comes from some anti-nuclear quarters and I am not convinced that this is totally reasonable.

From my point of view, it would be very easy to have a pop at the Lib Dem leadership for not backing CND’s maximum programme …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , , and | 13 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Mark Pack – Lib Dems Must Not Ditch Commitment To Political Reform

By Nick T | Sat 28th May 2011 - 10:25 am

Over at The Holmes Report website, Lib Dem Voice’s Mark Pack has a piece setting out how the Liberal Democrats should approach the issue of political reform in the wake of the substantial defeat for reformers in the AV referendum. Here’s an extract from Mark’s piece:

It would be a mistake for Liberal Democrats (or indeed reformers in the Conservative Party’s ranks) to conclude from the referendum result that all political reform should now be side-lined. The referendum No vote was not a vote of confidence in our political system. Politicians continue to be one of the least respected professions in

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Electoral Commission rejects expenses complaint against Chris Huhne

By Mark Pack | Fri 27th May 2011 - 10:39 pm

The Electoral Commission earlier today rejected one of the complaints made over Chris Huhne’s election expenses. It was the complaint made by two former Liberal Democrat councillors who claimed the party had spent more than the legal limit.

However, as I pointed out at the time:

For somewhere such as Eastleigh with local elections on the same day as the general election last year, campaign activities could have had to count against the constituency expense limit (Chris Huhne’s), the council ward expense limits, the general election national expense limit and even – in a few cases – the law says that

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Nick T

LibLink: Julian Astle – The report every school reformer should read

By Nick T | Fri 27th May 2011 - 6:35 pm

Over on his blog at The Telegraph, former director of the Centre Forum think tank, Julian Astle, highlights a report by researchers at the London School of Economics looking into the effect of academies. The findings are good news for supporters of greater autonomy for schools, and one of the (perhaps surprising) conclusions of the analysis is that academies don’t just raise standards for the pupils that attend them, but also for surrounding schools, even as they lose pupils to the new academies.

Here’s what the report has to say on that last point, followed by a brief conclusion from Julian:

“In

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 27 May 2011

By The Voice | Fri 27th May 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: However unfair it is, Chris Huhne should step down (100 comments) by Simon McGrath
  2. Chris Huhne’s election expenses: once again, nothing to see here, move along (54 comments) by Mark Pack
  3. Dealing with the political weather: three lessons to learn (15 comments) by Mark Pack
  4. Revealed: The Liberal Democrats’ new HQ (26 comments) by Helen Duffett
  5. Tim Farron writes: Enough doom and gloom, we have the greatest opportunity in the history of our party (42 comments) by Tim Farron

5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

  1. Terrible squandering of a campaign resource
  2. Lib Dem Regional Seats to be “declared vacant”
  3. Do Liberal Democrats believe in the Schengen Zone?
  4. PR
  5. Alternatives to councillors’ surgeries

5 from the LDV archive

(27th May, 2006-09)

  1. Clegg unveils 100-day plan to abolish Lords and reform voting (20 comments) by The Voice, from 2009
  2. Lib Dems tackle UKIP head on (3 comments) by Alex Foster, from 2009
  3. Why Liberal Democrats should change their tune on elected mayors (25 comments) by Dorothy Thornhill, from 2008
  4. Opinion: Margaret Hodge should go (9 comments) by Steve Cooke, from 2007
  5. Opinion: It’s only a boat (3 comments) by Laurence Boyce, from 2007

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Zadok Day

Opinion: The Lib Dems should pursue more populist policies

By Zadok Day | Fri 27th May 2011 - 3:53 pm

So, an elected House of Lords; a massive victory for our party from a historical viewpoint, and a good reason for longstanding party members to feel warm and fuzzy as our support collapses in the north. Yet is it the badly-needed policy victory that we can take to the electorate as a compelling reason for voting Liberal Democrats? Not by miles.

Call it the dissatisfied carping of a relative newcomer to the party, but I can’t help but notice our distressing tendency to be insular and self-obsessed at times like this, giving critics’ barbs of ‘liberal elitists’ extra sharpness. It’s most certainly not Nick Clegg’s fault; it would be endemic in any political party regaining power after a century without. Yet he is as guilty as any grassroots member of putting party before country at the moment, blindly driving us into a rut that seems set to continue as the wins of our participation in the Coalition are ever more drowned out by failures of communication.

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Posted in Op-eds | 39 Comments
Mark Valladares

Mark Valladares writes: ELDR Council, Dresden 2011: it was the best of times, it was the wurst of times…

By Mark Valladares | Fri 27th May 2011 - 2:07 pm

Last week, I described ELDR Council as being rather like our Federal Executive. I was wrong, but I’ll come back to that…

Having dropped Ros off at a VIP lunch, I made my way to a room in a distant and poorly signposted corner of Dresden’s shiny new Congress Centre, cunningly designed to make it virtually impossible to tell which floor you are actually on, for a delegation pre-meeting. It was agreed that there was very little in the way of controversy to be expected.

By mid-afternoon, we were all ready to go, and we took our seats on the centre-left …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Nick T

Better news for Chris Huhne; more bad news for Guido

By Nick T | Fri 27th May 2011 - 11:43 am

Here’s what Guido eagerly reported yesterday:

Hot on the revelation that Vicky Pryce has signed an affidavit confessing to have taken Chris Huhne’s points…

But today comes a complete volte-face:

Guido understands that both the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday have evidence that is not in the form of a “sworn affidavit” as was claimed yesterday by rivals the Telegraph.

I think that’s the closest Guido ever comes to saying, “I was wrong”.

Meanwhile, there appears to be some better news for Chris Huhne in today’s Telegraph, who are reporting that his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, is now refusing to confirm to the police …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 15 Comments
The Voice

LibLink | Vince Cable: “I can see another financial bomb going off”

By The Voice | Fri 27th May 2011 - 10:53 am

The New Statesman published an interview with Business Secretary Vince Cable yesterday, in which he talks about the current economic situation, the banks’ reluctance to lend, his political influences and his working relationship with Tory ministers.

Here’s an excerpt:

“If you’re trying to design a system from scratch,” he says, “what you probably want is a Danish-type model, which relates tax to property values. Council tax doesn’t work anymore . The link is broken. There are all kinds of technical problems about valuations; how you concentrate it at the top end with the bottom end. Those are the things we should

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Glympse: a glimpse of the next wave of political technology innovation

By Mark Pack | Fri 27th May 2011 - 8:45 am

Although many election campaigns and candidates are still rather old-fashioned in their approach to technology, the bundle of services that a cutting-edge campaign uses has rather settled down for the last few years, in particular since Twitter and Facebook have grown to dominate their niche and push their rivals into obscurity. What people do with these tools still sees plenty of innovation, but the range of tools has become rather standard.

However, that may be about to change as geo-location based tools spread. Once you get beyond doing clever things with Google Maps or postcode lookups, you quickly get into the …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield convicted of expenses fraud

By Mark Pack | Fri 27th May 2011 - 6:54 am

The courts have convicted Lord Hanningfield of expenses fraud, following his failed attempt earlier in the year with other accused MPs to claim that Parliamentary Privilege protected them from prosecution.

The Guardian reports:

Lord Hanningfield – tried at Chelmsford crown court under his name, Paul White, on Thursday – had denied six counts of false accounting relating to his parliamentary expenses.

The prosecution said he had claimed for overnight stays in London, between March 2006 and April 2009, when he had actually returned home to Essex.

White told the court he had seen it as a “living out of London allowance” rather

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Even the Daily Mail has nice things to say about Nick Clegg’s NHS speech

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th May 2011 - 8:30 pm

Earlier today Nick Clegg gave a major speech on the NHS, signalling big changes to the NHS Bill, something Paul Burstow had talked of on Friday.

The Daily Mail has a straight, factual report of the speech, which given its normal reporting of Nick Clegg almost counts as praise:

A huge shake-up of the NHS could be delayed by weeks if not months, the Deputy Prime Minister said today.

Nick Clegg said he believed the Health and Social Care Bill would need to go back to a committee of MPs for further scrutiny. This is where proposed legislation is examined

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

What Guido Fawkes didn’t tell you about the Eastleigh meeting last night

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th May 2011 - 6:04 pm

Yesterday Guido Fawkes excitedly blogged that “Eastleigh LibDems Holding Emergency Meeting … Guido has just heard they are holding an unscheduled meeting” and went on to claim in a subsequent post that Chris Huhne’s election expenses were “top of the agenda”.

Alas, Guido’s source is not exactly up to top-notch standards on this one.

Let’s take it one by one.

Was it an emergency meeting? No, it was a previously scheduled one.

Was it a Liberal Democrat meeting? No, it was a meeting of the Eastleigh and the Bishopstoke, Fair Oak and Horton Heath Local Area Committees to which council officers and non-Liberal …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 38 Comments
Chris White

Chris White writes: I have just received an email from Simon Hughes

By Chris White | Thu 26th May 2011 - 4:18 pm

I have just received an email from Simon Hughes. It said:

It’s been a great month for Liberal Democrats who are setting the pace on the green agenda!

It doesn’t quite say it’s been a great month for ‘the’ Liberal Democrats but most people will read it that way and think vaguely of my one and only Kipling joke:

If you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs…then you haven’t understood the true seriousness of the situation.

To be fair on Simon and his team, we do need reminding that there is more to this coalition than AV, Lords reform …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 9 Comments
Shaffaq Mohammed

Shaffaq Mohammed writes: From a boy in Kashmir – to Leader of Sheffield Lib Dems

By Shaffaq Mohammed | Thu 26th May 2011 - 3:20 pm

On election night in Sheffield, we had a painful evening, losing hard-working local councillors and good friends. They were defeated by a protest vote against the tough decisions forced upon the Government by the financial mess they inherited from Labour.

When we entered the general election, we understood the seriousness of the financial crisis the country faced. We knew that whoever entered Government after the election faced a difficult first few years. Yet, as Liberal Democrats we took a brave decision to enter a coalition in the national interest and we must stick to our five year commitment. One thing the people of Sheffield do not want is a return to the 1980s.

I know first hand what it was like to grow up in Sheffield in the 1980s. My father, a steelworker, was made redundant by the actions of the Thatcher Government.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 3 Comments
Helen Duffett

Collette Dunkley appointed as Liberal Democrats’ Marketing Director

By Helen Duffett | Thu 26th May 2011 - 1:49 pm

Collette Dunkley is to join the Liberal Democrats next week as Director of Marketing, reporting to Chief Executive Chris Fox.

Collette, who was born in Liverpool, has led marketing and communications in global organisations including General Motors and Vodafone. She has also lectured on these subjects in various universities, advised many large organisations and is an expert and commentator on increasing engagement with women.

The new Marketing Department at Cowley St will bring together internal and external communications. These will include development of our messages and the ways we deliver them, as well as collecting vital feedback. Collette will undertake an …

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Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Chris Nicholson

Opinion: What is worrying Labour and the Tories? Part 2

By Chris Nicholson | Thu 26th May 2011 - 12:55 pm

Yesterday Chris Nicholson looked at what is worrying Labour. Today he turns to the Conservatives.

What’s worrying the Tories?

The consensus view after the local elections was that the Tories had done amazingly well and so had the least to worry about. But amongst strategists there are some very real concerns. The General Election had shown that Cameron’s attempts to de-toxify the Tory brand was still work in progress. Despite all of David Cameron’s efforts enough people were still unsure about the Tories to deny them a majority. Michael Ashcroft’s recent polling shows that there is still considerable work to do …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Helen Duffett

Nick Clegg’s speech on NHS reform

By Helen Duffett | Thu 26th May 2011 - 11:51 am

Putting Patients at the Heart of the NHS
Photo also available on Flickr

Nick Clegg spoke this morning at University College London Hospital on reform of the National Health Service. The text in full:

We are now in the final stages of the Government’s listening exercise on proposals to reform the NHS.

An unusual thing for government to do: pausing legislation because we didn’t get all of the substance right. Accepting that we now need to make changes – in some cases, significant ones.

…

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Posted in News and Speeches | Tagged and | 21 Comments
Richard Clare

Opinion: Why do we allow new-born babies to be circumcised?

By Richard Clare | Thu 26th May 2011 - 10:45 am

As a Liberal, I believe that religious freedoms are important and need legal protection, but they are no more important than any other kind of personal freedom. People should be able to live according to their religion as long as it exists within accepted law just as people should be able to live according to whatever other ethics or ideas they have as long as doing so exist within the law. We must never fall over ourselves trying to grant special freedoms on a religious basis that we wouldn’t afford to any other citizen, nor must we deny freedoms simply …

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Posted in Op-eds | 43 Comments
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