Maureen Rigg

Opinion: campaigning for a better rail service

By Maureen Rigg | Wed 13th April 2011 - 3:30 pm

Here at Eaglescliffe we have a great airport on our doorsteps – still known as Teesside Airport to most of us despite the best efforts of the owners to change it to Durham Tees Valley. From my house I can take a 10 minute walk in the other direction to a railway station with a reasonably frequent service going past the airport on its way to Darlington.

The airport has a railway station too – ideal you might think. Think again. Trains stop there once in each direction on Saturdays and now on Sundays too. …

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Mark Pack

Ivory Coast: three reasons for optimism

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th April 2011 - 2:25 pm

In both Rwanda and then, initially, in the former Yugoslavia, international peacekeeping troops were dispatched and then largely stood by as widespread, murderous violence took place around them. A mixture of weak mandates, limited military deployments and prioritising the safety of peacekeepers over those they were meant to be protecting meant little was achieved until – in the case of Yugoslavia – greater military force was deployed by the international community.

That lesson has strongly influenced many international interventions since – don’t intervene unless you are willing to do so with significant military firepower. The desire to minimise loss of lives …

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Mark Pack

Meet the Lib Dem bloggers: Jonathan Fryer

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th April 2011 - 11:55 am

Welcome to the latest in our series giving the human face behind some of the blogs you can find on the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator.

Today it is Jonathan Fryer, who blogs at www.jonathanfryer.wordpress.com.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
Jo Grimond came to my school during the 1964 general election, kept 400 normally fidgety boys rapt, and I thought, ‘Yes, I believe that!’

2. When did you start blogging?
March 2007.

3. Why did you start blogging?
Blogging replaced many years of keeping a diary. Why only write for myself and whoever clears my house when I snuff it?

Jonathan Fryer screenshot4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Local and global in content.

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Mark Pack

Using community politics to build a liberal society

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th April 2011 - 10:25 am

This is the chapter I contributed to Reinventing the State, edited by Duncan Brack, Richard Grayson and David Howarth whose themes are still very relevant:

I have a secret to admit. I quite like big organisations.

Of course – as you would expect of a liberal – I think power should be kept at as local a level as possible, that organisations should be responsive to individuals, and so that smaller is frequently better – and that individuals’ freedom and rights get trampled on when Big Brother gets free rein.

But faced with the reality of actually trying to change the world, …

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Mark Pack

The return of Gillian Duffy, condensed

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th April 2011 - 8:53 am

Labour MP persuades Labour supporter to be given a lift by a Labour member to ask a non-Labour MP why they don’t like Labour and afterwards said Labour supporter says they are disappointed that non-Labour MP doesn’t like Labour more. Apparently this counts as news.

Ain’t modern politics grand?

(For longer version, see here.)

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Mark Pack

Government loses final appeal over votes for prisoners

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 10:54 pm

The Press Association reports:

The Government has lost its final appeal against a human rights ruling requiring Britain to give prisoners the vote.

Prime Minister David Cameron – who said the thought of granting the vote to criminals made him physically ill – now has six months to produce “legislative proposals” ending the current blanket ban on inmates voting in national and European elections.

Posted in Election law | Tagged | 11 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Chris Davies – Be angry, be proud – and campaign hard

By Nick T | Tue 12th April 2011 - 7:25 pm

Over on his blog, North West Lib Dem MEP, Chris Davies, expresses his astonishment at the reluctance of some Liberal Democrats to shout our government successes from the rooftops (or, alternatively, on a FOCUS leaflet). His blog is particularly timely given the frankly extraordinary email sent to Liberal Democrat MPs by the former Leader of Liverpool City Council, Warren Bradley, calling on the Liberal Democrats to pull out of the coalition.

It’s an excellent piece, and the whole thing’s worth a read, but here’s an extract:

“We should never have gone into a Coalition with the Tories,” say some, but do

…

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Mark Pack

More news from Derby – this time it’s a drugs jail sentence

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 6:54 pm

Normanton ward in Derby is turning into a livelier political contest than most. Not only is it home to the political genius that is Ashley Waterhouse, but now Labour candidate Balbir Sandhu is in the news.

Following a local newspaper campaign to force candidates to publish details of their past lives, “Anything to Declare?”, he has admitted to serving a two year jail sentence for possessing drugs 27 years ago:

Mr Sandhu said he supported the campaign and wanted the public to make their decision on who they voted for on May 5 with all the facts.

“People should know if

…

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Stephen Tall

LibLink: David Allen Green – Why I have joined the Liberal Democrats

By Stephen Tall | Tue 12th April 2011 - 4:10 pm

Over at his New Statesman blog, David Allen Green — the magazine’s legal correspondent and author of the Jack of Kent blog — has explained his decision last week to become a fully paid-up member of the Liberal Democrats.

To be more accurate, he first lists all the reasons why he will be a dissenting member of the Lib Dems … before then highlighting how he was finally persuaded to join by ConservativeHome’s founding editor Tim Montgomerie analyses that ‘the current government is significantly more liberal than an entirely Conservative administration would otherwise be’.

David concludes:

Politics is about power. The

…

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Helen Duffett

Yes2AV Referendum Broadcast

By Helen Duffett | Tue 12th April 2011 - 1:17 pm

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Rob Blackie

Opinion: How are councils making savings?

By Rob Blackie | Tue 12th April 2011 - 11:57 am

Getting a picture on what’s happening across the country on council spending is difficult. We all hear stories, whether it’s the a plan to close a library or a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a friend who works in Brighton, who told me that the council had avoided almost all frontline cuts to services through efficiency savings.

Last week some surprising figures have appeared in an overlooked survey by the Financial Times. They show that at least half of the spending cuts that councils are making will have no impact at all on frontline services.

The Financial …

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Posted in Local government | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Pratap Chitnis

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 10:25 am

Listen to Liberal Democrats make speeches and there are frequent references to historical figures, but drawn from a small cast. Just the quartet of John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, David Penhaligon corner almost all of the market, especially since Bob Maclennan stopped making speeches to party conference. Some of the forgotten figures deserve their obscurity but others do not. Charles James Fox’s defence of civil liberties against a dominating government during wartime or Earl Grey’s leading of the party back into power and major constitutional reform are good examples of mostly forgotten figures who could …

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Mark Pack

What a more virtuous and positive politics? Stick polling stations on the first floor

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 8:54 am

Scientific American reports on a recent Journal of Experimental Social Psychology article by Larry Sanna and his associates at the University of North Carolina:

Building on research showing the power of metaphors to shape our thinking, Sanna and his colleagues noted that height is often used as a metaphor for virtue: moral high ground, God on high, looking up to good people, etc. If people were primed to think about height, they wondered, might people be more virtuous?

In a series of four different studies, the authors found consistent support for their predictions. In the first study they found that twice

…

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Mark Pack

A curio from the world of government information leaflets

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 8:08 am

Take a read through Parent Motivators: A Parent’s Guide To Helping Graudates Find Work, as published by BIS under Peter Mandelson’s reign, and you find this advice on page 3 for parents wanting to help their children:

Identify who you know that might be able to help. If they want to work in architecture, travel, etc. is there a friend of a friend who may be able to help set up some work experience or job shadowing?

Ah yes, getting an internship through parental contacts. I’m sure I heard somewhere a Labour politician praising Nick Clegg’s parents for doing just what …

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The Voice

The Independent Banking Commission publishes its interim report

By The Voice | Mon 11th April 2011 - 6:23 pm

Via the BBC:

UK banks’ retail operations should be “ring-fenced” from their investment banking arms, the Independent Commission on Banking has recommended.

However, in its interim report the commission stopped short of recommending the two should operate as separate entities.

It said more competition was needed in retail banking, including the sell-off of more Lloyds branches.

The commission’s final recommendations will be published in September.

Robert Peston adds,

The big banks will claim that putting their retail banks into subsidiaries would impose significant extra costs on them – because it would force them to raise and retain more capital (which is expensive), and it

…

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Alex Foster

Opinion: Gay blood donation ban to be lifted – well, barely

By Alex Foster | Mon 11th April 2011 - 2:51 pm

The news broke over the weekend that an announcement is imminent on the policy surrounding the lifetime ban on donating blood for any man who has ever had sex with another man.

The writing on the wall appears to be that gay men who have not had sex for a decade might in future be allowed to give blood.

This decision was the likely outcome of the scientific review into blood donation, when I researched the issue for an op-ed slot on Pod Delusion live. It was one of the things I mocked in front of a live pub audience. …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Norman Baker MP

Norman Baker writes… Towards a smarter public transport system

By Norman Baker MP | Mon 11th April 2011 - 1:23 pm

As readers of Lib Dem Voice will know, it has long been our party’s aim to create a transport system in this country that moves people towards low carbon options, including modal shift to public transport. This is not only crucial to achieve our environmental goals, but is also important to move away from our reliance on oil from, in particular, politically unstable countries.

So how do we do this at a time of austerity, when the Department for Transport has had to reduce its budget by £638million? We need to be smarter. We need to look at …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 19 Comments
Helen Duffett

LibLink: Tim Farron’s viewpoint on the AV referendum

By Helen Duffett | Mon 11th April 2011 - 12:54 pm

The BBC is asking a variety of people to give their view on the 5 May referendum on reforming the voting system.

Today it’s Liberal Democrat party president Tim Farron’s turn:

Did you know that most of us have an MP that we voted against?

That our elections are decided by a small number of voters in marginal seats? That the worst expenses scandals occurred in safe seats, many of which hadn’t changed party since the Second World War?

Our current voting system, first-past-the- post, isn’t fit for purpose anymore and is failing us.

It means that most people’s votes don’t count; it’s created

…

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NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack on seven reasons the Coalition will last

By NewsHound | Mon 11th April 2011 - 11:57 am

Over on his work’s blog, The Voice’s co-editor Mark Pack has been giving seven reasons why he expects the Coalition Government will last the distance. His list includes,

5. The Labour Party is not acting like a party that is seriously trying to get back into power before the next general election. Ed Miliband’s call for a widespread policy review is a sensible move for a party voted out after such a long period in power, but it also is based on an assumption that Labour does not need to have a program for government for a good few years yet.

…

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Mark Pack

Lessons from Barack Obama, round two

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th April 2011 - 10:25 am

Here we go again. As Barack Obama hits the online campaign trail for his 2012 re-election campaign, expect a trickle, then a steady flow and finally a flood of posts about how Obama’s online campaigning should be copied by everyone from your pet cat to your grandparents.

On past form, many will gloss over the big differences between US and UK politics and the differences between a campaign headed up by the first non-white President and one aiming to make people buy your brand of shirts.

But as the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones, one of the more perceptive commentators on Obama online first …

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Stephen Tall

Have you ‘Liked’ the Unofficial YES to AV campaign Facebook page yet?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 11th April 2011 - 8:55 am

Remember this — the unofficial Facebook Lib Dem fan group, We got Rage Against the Machine to #1, we can get the Lib Dems into office!, the internet election sensation? (Still going strong with over 146,000 members, by the way.)

Well, the same guys are also behind an unofficial Yes campaign Facebook page also: YES to Alternative Vote on 5th May, with over 3,000 fans to date. The page is replete with links, photos and videos — serious, and erm not so serious — which you can share with your friends’ network on Facebook.

The group has managed …

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Mark Pack

Reuters: banks moving overseas would not cost the government much tax

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th April 2011 - 7:54 am

A special report from Reuters, not normally exactly a hotbed of anti-capitalism propoganda, brings some provocative research findings about Britain’s financial sector:

Research by Reuters shows … the impact of any big bank departures on the economy, government finances and the City of London’s pre-eminence as a financial centre would be extremely limited…

In terms of taxes alone, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury and former banker James Sassoon told members of the House of Lords in February that large banking groups were expected to contribute around 20 billion pounds ($30 billion) in tax for the 2010-11 tax year.

Crucially, though, that figure includes

…

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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #216

By The Voice | Sun 10th April 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 216th 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 (3-9 April, 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

Coalition: view from the Conservatives

By Mark Pack | Sun 10th April 2011 - 4:54 pm

During the week Paul Goodman wrote over on ConHome about how the coalition looks from the Conservative perspective. In particular, he wrote:

Downing Street mustn’t present the Liberal Democrats as the caring face of the Coalition…

As it happens, Conservative backbenchers aren’t sold on Lansley’s plan.  But although voters aren’t likely to remember the precise details when the slowdown’s formally announced, a vague impression will lodge – that the Liberal Democrats got the changes they wanted, even though only one of their party’s backbenchers opposed the bill at second reading.

The Party “can’t afford to sub-contract compassion to the Liberal Democrats”.  Simon Hughes

…

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The Voice

PODCAST: AV referendum debate at Gladstone Club

By The Voice | Sun 10th April 2011 - 3:27 pm

On Monday 4th April, in the run-up to the AV referendum, the Gladstone Club hosted a debate in the National Liberal Club on electoral reform which featured Lib Dem Voice’s co-editor Mark Pack and the Chairman of the Edmund Burke society, Ian Alston. Both took a look at the lessons which can be learnt from history by those deciding how to vote in the referendum.

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Andrew Stunell MP

Andrew Stunell writes… We will have a greener, freer and fairer country than when we started

By Andrew Stunell MP | Sun 10th April 2011 - 2:27 pm

It’s less than a month to go until Election Day in England, and for the Parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales. Many of you have been out on the doorstep, talking to people and showing them what we are achieving both nationally and locally.

You should already have your big messages in place, and number one has got to be your local record of service – all year round, not just at election time.

But what about the coalition? I’ve been making visits to Lib Dem council groups up and down the country (Stoke, Warrington, Newcastle and Redcar in just the last …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments
Mark Pack

“AV is a very British reform” – watch Nick Clegg’s speech

By Mark Pack | Sun 10th April 2011 - 1:30 pm

Yesterday Nick Clegg gave an excellent speech at the London Region Liberal Democrats conference, putting the case for a Yes vote in May’s AV referendum. I tried out filming it on my iPad, an experience that mostly worked pretty smoothly*, and you can watch the resulting footage here:

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Mark Pack

LibLink: Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith on social mobility

By Mark Pack | Sun 10th April 2011 - 12:27 pm

As part of the government’s launch of its social mobility strategy this week, Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith co-authored a piece for the Daily Telegraph:

Labour couldn’t make up its mind on what goal it was chasing. Social exclusion? Income poverty? Inequality? Social mobility? Lacking a clear agenda, it fixated on just one measure of fairness – the poverty line, defined as 60 per cent of median income. This is a necessary part of the equation, but it is very far from sufficient.

Billions of pounds were spent by Labour moving people just above that line, without significantly changing their

…

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Mark Pack

David Schneider supports the Alternative Vote

By Mark Pack | Sun 10th April 2011 - 10:57 am

Two minutes, twenty-one seconds of humorous campaigning for electoral reform courtesy of David Schneider. Enjoy:

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Stephen Tall

Let Clegg be Clegg (just not toooo much)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th April 2011 - 9:27 am

If, like me, you’re an admirer of Nick Clegg — his grit, honesty and openness — there will have been plenty to admire this week. If, like me, you occasionally despair of Nick Clegg — the frankness can turn into a gaffe — there will have been plenty to make you despair this week.

First of all, the Best of Clegg…

As Nicholas Watt notes in the Guardian, Nick has been ‘finding his feet’, and ‘starting to show in public what he has always claimed in private – that he stands up to Cameron’. This has been clear from the …

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