Nick T

LibLink: Mike Tuffrey – GLA Budget 2011: Failing to plan for the future

By Nick T | Tue 15th February 2011 - 12:55 pm

Over on the MayorWatch website, Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member, Mike Tuffrey, gives his take on Boris Johnson’s first budget under the coalition government. Mike believes that the Mayor’s budget “fails to grasp the opportunities offered by the coalition’s localism agenda and continues to rely on financial reserves to defer difficult, but necessary, decisions”.

Here’s an excerpt:

Three years into his mayoralty, this is Boris Johnson’s first budget since the change of government. Regrettably it fails to rise to the challenge of the new national reality.

In so doing, it exposes the direction that Boris Johnson intends to travel up to election day:

…

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Antony Hook

Opinion: An historical comparison – the Big Society vs the Great Society

By Antony Hook | Tue 15th February 2011 - 11:34 am

In the late 90s, Tony Blair’s New Deal deliberately adopted the name of US President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1930s programme to increase public spending, create jobs, and escape the Great Depression.

Thirteen years later, one assumes that David Cameron’s Big Society (that Jeremy Browne praised yesterday) at least partially invokes another significant American liberal reform era: the Great Society of President Johnson in the 60s.

I fear that substituting “big” for “great” represents a lesser moral ambition. The Kennedy-Johnson years in America were self consciously “a call to greatness”. Politicians talked of “new frontiers”, putting an end to war, conquering …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Predicting the future: we didn’t turn Japanese

By Mark Pack | Tue 15th February 2011 - 10:25 am

Shortly after the Conservative Party won its fourth general election in a row in 1992, a symposium met to consider the question of whether Britain – formerly a country with regularly rotating government between the two main parties – was turning into a political version of Japan, where the same party had been in power for nearly forty years.

Even between the event occurring and the publication of a book based on it, Turning Japanese? Britain with a Permanent Party of Government (eds. Helen Margretts and Gareth Smyth), political events in both countries had taken a dramatic turn. In Japan the LDP lost power, starting a period of much greater political fluidity with even subsequent LDP Prime Ministers struggling to restore their party’s previous dominance. Meanwhile in Britain the collapse of the Conservative Party’s economic policies following Britain’s enforced exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) quickly made the government appear very vulnerable, even if debates in Labour continued on whether, as John Smith preferred, one more heave was all that was needed or whether, as Tony Blair insisted on after John Smith’s death, a more radical reshaping of the party was required to win the next election.

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Posted in Books and Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour’s filibustering and the consequences for political reform

By Mark Pack | Tue 15th February 2011 - 8:55 am

A slightly shorter version of this piece appeared on OurKingdom last week:

The unprecedented filibustering by Labour peers (or rather more accurately, given the splits between hardliners and moderates about Labour’s ranks in the Lords, some Labour peers) of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is having two unintended side-effects which will be important for the future of political reform.

The most obvious is the way in which Labour’s chosen style of opposition has driven Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers closer together. A more subtle form of opposition might have looked to divide the coalition partners, but repeated late nights …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 29 Comments
Nick T

Henry Porter: Why we should believe Nick Clegg when he promises to restore liberties stolen by Labour

By Nick T | Mon 14th February 2011 - 6:53 pm

In yesterday’s Observer, Henry Porter, who has written widely on civil liberties ‘stolen’ by the previous government, talked to Nick Clegg about the government’s recently-announced Protection of Freedoms Bill. As you probably gleaned from the headline, Porter is generally extremely enthusiastic about the Bill, though he takes the deputy prime minister’s advice to “hold the government’s feet to the fire” by listing some additional illiberal measures which he would like to see removed.

Here’s a short excerpt from the piece:

Negotiation over the bill has been long and intense, especially with the Home Office and police over the deletion of innocent people’s

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 19 Comments
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Jeremy Browne MP

Jeremy Browne writes: Why liberals should support the Big Society

By Jeremy Browne MP | Mon 14th February 2011 - 5:23 pm

I am instinctively very supportive of the Big Society. But it is not a new concept and I have another name for it. I call it liberalism.

My liberalism is a belief that power should start at the bottom and feed upwards. It is about personal empowerment, choice and, sometimes, quirky individualism. It is about self-pride, community and, often, a suspicion of authority. It is human in scale and organic in its development.

I have a nervous attentiveness to the need to protect this precious but delicate grassroots liberalism from the steam-roller of the overbearing state. What my liberalism is emphatically not is authoritarian or bleakly conformist. It does not idealise the placing of power at the top in the hands of the mighty and then working downwards. It is instinctively unsettled by orthodoxy and drab uniformity.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 42 Comments
Donald Reid

Opinion: Climate change – what can you and I do and the Government won’t?

By Donald Reid | Mon 14th February 2011 - 4:10 pm

Now that the UK’s 1400 top scientists have spoken (“Climate Change, A summary of the science” from the Royal Society), there’s no longer any doubt that human activity is a significant cause of the steady warming of the planet over the last hundred years. So, unless we change our habits, we face an increasingly unstable climate, with rising sea levels and worsening floods and droughts leading to major disruption to food production. With the predicted rise in world population from six to ten billion by 2050, it is clear that humanity is in serious trouble.

So …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
Paul Scriven

Paul Scriven writes: we cannot let Labour off the hook on Council cuts

By Paul Scriven | Mon 14th February 2011 - 2:11 pm

Just like all local authorities up and down the land, Sheffield is facing the biggest reduction in our budget for many years as a direct result of the reckless spending carried out by the previous Labour Government. Not quite the ‘post Soviet meltdown’ predicted by Sheffield’s Labour MPs, but a reduction none the less.

Setting the budget has not been an easy process. Colleagues and I have been agonising over what to de-prioritise and what to protect, listening to what local people tell us they value the most whilst ensuring that the vulnerable in our community are protected.

I know that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 52 Comments
Helen Duffett

Long-serving West Berkshire Councillor Keith Lock passes away

By Helen Duffett | Mon 14th February 2011 - 1:08 pm

Liberal Democrat Councillor Keith Lock, who represented Mortimer Ward in West Berkshire, died on Saturday night in hospital in Reading, having broken his hip a few weeks ago.

Keith had been a Councillor for West Berkshire and the predecessor Newbury District Council for 38 years. During that time he had twice held the positions of Leader and Chairman of Council.

The Reading Chronicle reports:

The Lib Dem councillor, who was born in Welling, Kent, moved to Mortimer in 1969 and sat on West Berkshire Council from its formation in 1998, having also served on its predecessor, Newbury District Council, since it was

…

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Posted in Obituaries | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mark Cole

The Welsh Referendum (Part 1) – What’s it all about?

By Mark Cole | Mon 14th February 2011 - 12:43 pm

There’s much talk about the House of Lords on-going ‘go-slow’ with the legislation for the AV referendum. The latest obstacle thrown up being the 40% voting turnout threshold. Meanwhile, the ‘Yes 2 AV’ campaign continues with its ground campaign in readiness for the expected d-day of May 5th.

But here in Wales of course, we have another referendum on our mind – the referendum on further powers to the Welsh Assemby in Cardiff Bay.

Referendum Day – March 3rd!

The referendum was promised by the ‘One Wales’ Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition government within the 4 year life-scale of the current government. With only two …

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Posted in Wales | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Dominic Carman

Dominic Carman writes: Barnsley Central – a call to action

By Dominic Carman | Mon 14th February 2011 - 11:27 am

Six weeks ago, my son Charlie and I travelled up from London with Simon Hughes – to leaflet on behalf of Elwyn Watkins in the Oldham by-election. The campaign was fantastic: dozens of Lib Dems in a well-equipped campaign office and many more leafleting and campaigning on the streets. It produced an excellent result in difficult circumstances: Elwyn even increased his share of the vote to 31.9%.

On Saturday, I was selected as the PPC for the forthcoming Barnsley Central by-election, to be held on March 3rd. At the 2010 general election, the Lib Dems came second to Labour in …

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Meet the Lib Dem bloggers: Olly Grender

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th February 2011 - 10:25 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 Olly Grender, who blogs at http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/olly-grender.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
A toss up between my Mum voting in favour of joining Europe in the referendum and my Dad feeling agitated about and improving workers rights in industry.

2. When did you start blogging?
In January, so please be gentle with me! (though all constructive feedback from fellow LibDems welcome).

3. Why did you start blogging?
Have been thinking of doing it for some time, as occasionally you need a few more words than Twitter or broadcasting allows – plus the New Statesman asked me!

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Politics, liberalism, media, coalition, punditry.

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Liberal – that is all.

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
As a total novice there is little to choose from. However I enjoyed having a pop at the Daily Telegraph in this one about Nick Clegg’s Red Box.

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I thought this was the most astounding blog of 2010. It’s by Peter Watt, former General Secretary to the Labour Party, and it summed up in so many ways why working with Labour right now would be such a challenge because, as Peter describes, they currently have an inability to listen and struggle to believe that others in politics wish to do good.

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
God would love to do something political but I LOVE this Virgin Atlantic ad soooooooooo beautifully done I could watch it over and over. Enjoy!

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The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #208

By The Voice | Sun 13th February 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 208th 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 (6th-12th February, 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 | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Clegg: in 2015 the public sector will still employ 200,000 more than in 1997

By Mark Pack | Sun 13th February 2011 - 4:55 pm

In a speech given during the week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg strongly defended introducing a diversity of suppliers to public services, saying that,

The questions that confronted me, when I came into government, were these:

How can we reinvent and strengthen our public services at a time of anxiety and stretched resources?

And how can we preserve the public sector ethos as we move to a more plural, diverse and personalised way of running our public services?…

We have to modernise our public services. And we can make them better if we do.

Clegg went on to emphasise that increasing public expenditure is not …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 36 Comments
Mark Pack

Violent attack on teenager makes him stand for local council

By Mark Pack | Sun 13th February 2011 - 2:55 pm

This is Gloucestershire reports:

WHEN teenager Joe Harris was viciously mugged by a hooded gang he elected to take on the establishment.

The 17-year-old was battered to the ground and threatened with death in a Cirencester alley.

So he personally challenged Cotswold District Council to accept there was a problem with “random violent attacks” in the town.

As a follow up he’s decide to run for both the district council and the local town council, saying:

I was able to pose a question to the full council but I felt they didn’t really answer it.

It was almost as if they slapped me away with the

…

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Tom Brake

Tom Brake writes: The Freedom Bill is a staging post towards an even freer society

By Tom Brake | Sun 13th February 2011 - 11:17 am

The Freedom Bill is clear evidence of the Liberal Democrats setting the political agenda and making a positive difference to how we live in Britain.

It’s our robust answer to unwelcome and unwarranted intrusions into our everyday lives. It starts the dismantling of an overbearing surveillance state and restores British civil liberties that we used to be able to take for granted.

At the heart of the Bill is a commitment to safeguarding and protecting individuals and national security. What has felt to many like an obsession of the state to monitor our every waking moment is broken down by the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

This is not a negative advert

By Mark Pack | Sun 13th February 2011 - 9:55 am

The political advertising put out by people who disdain negative ads is often too self-consciously worthy to be effective. John Hickenlooper’s advert as part of his successful run for Governor of Colorado however was rather different – and was rated as being very effective by those watching the race:

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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Sun 13th February 2011 - 8:55 am

Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

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Posted in Site news | 1 Comment
Charlotte Henry

Opinion: Young Liberal Democrats – Life After the ‘F’ Word

By Charlotte Henry | Sat 12th February 2011 - 7:24 pm

The last year has obviously been a rather interesting one in which to be a Liberal Democrat, particularly a young one. Sadly, as a result of some coalition decisions, notably the increase in tuition fees, some young people have chosen to leave the party. More worrying are the people that may now never join. I have always believed that the Liberal Democrats are the party that best advocates policy for young people. However, the question remains, how do we engage more young people in our party after fees?

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 29 Comments
Helen Duffett

Dominic Carman selected as Liberal Democrat candidate for Barnsley Central by-election

By Helen Duffett | Sat 12th February 2011 - 4:37 pm

Barnsley Liberal Democrats today selected Dominic Carman as their candidate for the March 3 Barnsley Central Parliamentary by-election, at a hustings in the constituency.

Carman, son of the late George Carman QC, and biographer of BNP leader Nick Griffin, previously stood for the Lib Dems in Barking, East London at the 2010 General Election.

The by-election was caused by the resignation of the constituency’s MP, Eric Illsley, who has now been jailed for 12 months for fraudulently claiming more than £14,000 in Parliamentary expenses.

Commenting, Dominic …

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Posted in News, Parliamentary by-elections and Selection news | Tagged , , and | 22 Comments
Tim Neale

Opinion: Tories are funding Labour’s squeeze

By Tim Neale | Sat 12th February 2011 - 2:56 pm

There was an interesting article in the Guardian on Saturday.
It describes the upcoming anti-AV campaign. The Labour dominated anti-reform organisation has no intention in discussing the issues. Instead they will target Nick Clegg.

The dinosaurs have abandoned reasoned argument. A mock up of the proposed anti-reform website has the statement, “Under AV the only vote that will count is Nick Clegg’s.” Typical of the hyperbole that characterises British politics at present, and sadly not a surprising.

Since losing the general election, Labour have gone negative on the Liberal Democrats in general and Nick Clegg in particular. They calculate any voters abandoning …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 40 Comments
Stuart Bonar

Opinion: Slaying Big Brother and Big Government in one go

By Stuart Bonar | Sat 12th February 2011 - 1:02 pm

We know the facts by now. We are borrowing north of £100 billion every year, with our national debt having now topped £1 trillion. To finance all that we are paying £120 million every day just to pay the interest on that debt – enough to build a new school every day or a new hospital every week. Only the most shameless of deficit deniers would argue that we do not need to find cuts.

So, let me offer up one idea for a cut that has lots of potential across the country: council-run CCTV camera cars. These mobile CCTV …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 24 Comments
Mark Pack

Eight former Liberal Democrat candidates take part in Labour’s policy-making process

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th February 2011 - 11:25 am

On Friday former Liberal Democrat policy director and Parliamentary candidate Richard Grayson announced more details of his response to Ed Miliband’s invitation to encourage Lib Dems to take part in Labour’s policy review. The details came in the form of an article due to be published in Liberator:

I saw that invitation as part of an effort to move Labour away from the tribalism which has been such a feature of its past. I have long been committed to pluralism and have a history of working with people from other parties. I have done that for some time through Compass, and

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 47 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Nick Clegg – Sweeping away the illiberal measures of the past

By Nick T | Sat 12th February 2011 - 10:25 am

Over on Sean Dilley’s blog, there’s a transcript of an interview he conducted on talkSPORT with deputy prime minister Nick Clegg discussing yesterday’s announcement of the government’s long-awaited Freedom Bill. Here’s an excerpt of what Nick said:

I first proposed the idea of a Freedom Bill some years ago, because I think under Labour, too many of our Freedoms were taken away. Our Privacy was invaded. Too many innocent people were treated with suspicion. Look, under Labour, your children could have their finger prints taken at school without your permission. You could be spied on by your local Council, your bins

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

The weekend debate: How do we make government think long term?

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th February 2011 - 8:55 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

“We must think long term” is a common cry in politics and government. Far easier said than done, but whether it is investing in early years education, making decisions over building new physical infrastructure such as railways, setting rules for pensions or a myriad of other decisions, government repeatedly makes decisions which only work well if they are stuck to for a long period of time and whose positive impact may not be directly felt for many years. For example, the failure …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Freedoms Bill published: now you can marry at 6:01pm

By Mark Pack | Fri 11th February 2011 - 10:25 pm

Earlier today, the Protection of Freedoms Bill was published which, in the words of Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, “brings to fruition proposals which were first drawn up by Nick Clegg four years ago, and demonstrates our commitment to rolling back unnecessary and intrusive laws introduced by Labour”.

Key provisions of the Bill include the enactment of some previously announced decisions alongside some new, additional proposals:

  • an end to the routine monitoring of 9.3 million people under the radically reformed vetting and barring scheme
  • millions of householders protected from town hall snoopers checking their bins or school catchment area
  • the scrapping of Section 44

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 38 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Jeremy Browne – Lib Dems can’t just be a home for protest votes

By Nick T | Fri 11th February 2011 - 5:45 pm

Over on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site, Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton and Foreign Office Minister, Jeremy Browne, makes a valuable contribution to what will be an increasingly important conversation for Liberal Democrats to engage in in the coming years: how we can make our participation in government an electoral asset, and make it more likely that 2010-2015 will not go down in history as simply a one-off period of Liberal Democrats exercising national power.

Jeremy’s main thesis is that, to ensure future success, the Liberal Democrats need to replace those voters who supported the party as a protest, whose …

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged | 69 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 11 February 2011

By The Voice | Fri 11th February 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. Lord Oakeshott departs as a Lib Dem Treasury spokesman (44 comments) by Mark Pack
  2. What Labour’s manifesto actually said about electoral reform (64 comments) by Mark Pack
  3. Lib Dem council leaders attack Pickles over speed and scale of cuts (31 comments) by Sara Bedford
  4. Opinion: there are better adjectives for the Labour Party than ‘progressive’ (55 comments) by Richard Morris
  5. What the think tanks are saying: The IPPR on “How much is Labour to blame?” (25 comments) by George Kendall

5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

  1. How do we get the achievements in coalition message across?
  2. Votes for Prisoners
  3. Egypt
  4. Tax evasion/avoidance
  5. PPCs for the next General Election

5 from the LDV archive

(11th February, 2007-10)

  1. LDV party members’ survey: Nick Clegg approval rating at +66% (0 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2010
  2. How can we sell the Single Transferable Vote to the public? (40 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2010
  3. Evan sticks up for drug adviser in ecstasy row (5 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2009
  4. DLT: Community Politics (5 comments) by Sictionary of Liberal Thought, from 2008
  5. Lib Dem MPs flock to Facebook (3 comments) by Mark Pack, from 2007

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Dinti Batstone

Dinti Batstone writes: Cheap shots at multiculturalism generate more heat than light

By Dinti Batstone | Fri 11th February 2011 - 3:53 pm

Last Thursday, generations of Chinese in Soho welcomed the Year of the Rabbit in time-honoured traditional ways. Yet we didn’t hear David Cameron demonise Chinatown as a ‘segregated community’ living ‘apart from the mainstream’. On the contrary, the annual lion dance spectacle has become an essential fixture in London’s calendar, enjoyed by people from many different cultures.

The Oxford dictionary defines multicultural(ism) as “of or relating to or constituting several cultural or ethnic groups within a society”. Note the word “within”. Yet there’s a growing tendency to rubbish multiculturalism, treating it as synonymous with the failed Labour policies referred …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Richard Morris

Opinion: Coalition needs a new approach to collective responsibility

By Richard Morris | Fri 11th February 2011 - 3:12 pm

In my recent piece on LDV, a fairly gentle poke at the rebranding of the opposition, two themes emerged from those with opposing views. They can be summed up as ‘Why don’t you lot ever disagree with the Tories’ and ‘get your own house in order first’.

Well you know, I think they have a point.

Even as a strong supporter of the coalition, I’d long disagreed with the ‘not a cigarette paper between us‘ approach to government. We get tarred with policy we don’t agree with, get no credit for Lib Dem inspired legislation, and fail to build up …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 13 Comments
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