Liberal Democrat Voice

Tim Farron on life in coalition

By Mark Pack | Wed 1st December 2010 - 8:46 am

Newly elected Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron (who takes office on 1 January) was the guest speaker last night at the Islington Liberal Democrats AGM, so I took the chance to film this short piece:

Posted in News | Tagged tim farron | 2 Comments

The fallout from the Wikileaks cables

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th November 2010 - 8:27 pm

Yesterday, I blogged my initial reaction to the Wikileaks publication of the US diplomatic cables:

And the big news from the Wikileaks revelations is…
… that it turns out the world as told through secret US diplomacy is, er…, pretty much the same as the one we always thought.

That’s a view that looks to be holding up even as more details come to light. Many are fascinating, many fill out details of stories, but – so far at least – what they are doing is filling out stories we already knew rather than containing major revelations or over-turning what was previously …

Posted in News | Tagged richard haass and wikileaks | Leave a comment

Paul Burstow writes… Healthy lives, healthy people

By Paul Burstow | Tue 30th November 2010 - 6:14 pm

Britain is now the most obese nation in Europe. We have among the worst rates of sexually transmitted infections on record. Rising levels of harm from alcohol, and over 80,000 lives lost every year because of smoking. These are the public health challenges the Coalition Government faces.

And what of Labour’s public health legacy? Under Labour inequalities in health and life expectancy between rich and poor got worse. As a result people in the poorest areas can expect to live up to 7 years less than people in richer areas.

Under Labour huge amounts of money was spent on public …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged NHS | 12 Comments

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Anti-terrorism legislation: news emerges of likely reforms

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th November 2010 - 12:54 pm

In his Hugo Young lecture last week Nick Clegg clearly signalled the imminent end to control orders. Now over the last couple of days the shape of the likely conclusions from the anti-terrorism review are starting to emerge, with the current 28-day limit on detention without charge coming back down to 14 days. A new set of tighter than usual bail conditions could then be imposed for a further 14 days.

The police’s stop and search powers are also likely to be curtailed, particularly following the news that in the last year over 100,000 stop and searches were conducted under …

Posted in News | Tagged alex carlile, anti-terrorist legislation, control orders, david davis and nick clegg | 2 Comments

Changing the party’s internal election rules

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th November 2010 - 10:26 am

The party’s new President, Tim Farron, is committed to changing the rules for how our elections are conducted, as he revealed in answer to a question I posed during the contest:

Do you believe the party’s rules for elections for federal committees and the Interim Peers have the right level of restrictions on what campaigning can be done by or on behalf of candidates, and if not what would you alter?

Far too restrictive – there should be very tight expenditure limits to make sure that the well off don’t have any kind of advantage but apart from that it seems

…

Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged tim farron | 3 Comments

The politics of windmills

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th November 2010 - 8:56 am

I recently spent a couple of days visiting some of England’s surviving windmills with a couple of friends. Though it was a holiday rather than a deliberate exercise in political education, two political points came out clearly.

One, which I’ve blogged about previously, is how the windmill not only used to be a key part of the English landscape but also, in its horizontal axis / vertical sail form, is an English invention.

So windmills not only are a British (or perhaps more accurately English) tradition, they are also an example of technical inventiveness of which we can be proud. And yet …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged community politics, featured and windmills | 13 Comments

Nick Clegg writes to Aaron Porter on ‘Right to Recall’ and tuition fees

By Helen Duffett | Tue 30th November 2010 - 8:10 am

Nick Clegg, has written to Aaron Porter, President of the National Union of Students, in response to the NUS’ ‘Right to Recall’ campaign.

His letter in full:

Dear Aaron,

Thank you for writing to me about your ‘Right to Recall’ campaign.

The idea of a right to recall was something I proposed when I first became leader of the Liberal Democrats and I am proud that it is now part of the Coalition Agreement. However my proposal was for it to apply to MPs who were found guilty of serious wrongdoing by the parliamentary authorities. My intention has always been that it should be

…

Posted in News | Tagged aaron porter, coalition agreement, derek conway, graduate contribution scheme, graduate tax, higher education, nick clegg, nus, right to recall, tuition fees and universities | 60 Comments

Tuition fees: will Lib Dem MPs split three ways?

By Mark Pack | Mon 29th November 2010 - 10:27 pm

How to avoid a three-way car crash with most ministers voting for the Browne Report, some ministers and many backbench MPs abstaining and yet a further group of Lib Dem MPs voting against is now the main debate within the Parliamentary Party over tuition fees.

Some changes to the original Browne report proposals have already been promised, but the debate has now moved on from the question of whether or not there could or should be more modifications to how people will vote on that modified package, which is unlikely to change any further at this point.

Until fairly recently, the party’s …

Posted in News | Tagged browne report, higher education, nick clegg, simon hughes, tuition fees, universities and vince cable | 88 Comments

And the big news from the Wikileaks revelations is…

By Mark Pack | Mon 29th November 2010 - 9:41 pm

… that it turns out the world as told through secret US diplomacy is, er…, pretty much the same as the one we always thought.

Saudis not keen on Iranians? Chinese frustrated by North Koreans? Member of the Royal Family rude to someone else? Excuse me while I hold the front page for that scoop.

Some of the detail is fascinating but the big picture so far is that the secret world turns out to be pretty much the same as the public one.

Posted in News | Tagged wikileaks | 9 Comments

Opinion: Getting the AV and Lib Dem message right

By Keith Sharp | Mon 29th November 2010 - 1:31 pm

The ‘No to AV’ campaign is beginning to take shape, and alongside the familiar figures of John Prescott to name but one, some arguments of theirs are also emerging and we have to be firm in rebutting them — especially those which take aim at the Lib Dems. So here we go:

AV will lead to more hung parliaments and coalition governments

Not so. Let’s remember that AV is NOT a proportional system and there is therefore nothing intrinsic to it that spells out more likelihood of minority parliaments. Pundits and experts have assessed likely General Election results under AV and there …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged AV, av referendum and myths | 59 Comments

22 Days in May by David Laws – book review

By Mark Pack | Mon 29th November 2010 - 10:27 am

Many insider accounts have already appeared of the events retold in David Laws’s book 22 Days in May: The Birth of the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition. It is therefore one of the book’s strengths that not only is it written in a lively style which gives some freshness to the now familiar sequence of events but it also adds many new insights.

Although only briefly mentioned by Laws himself, perhaps the most important is how much the Liberal Democrats owe to Chris Huhne. In April, just before the second TV debate, I wrote,

It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on

…

Posted in Books | Tagged chris huhne, david laws, featured, gordon brown, nick clegg, paddy ashdown and peter mandelson | 15 Comments

How election leaflets used to look: Skipton 1885

By Mark Pack | Mon 29th November 2010 - 8:56 am

As a follow up to my City of London election leaflet from the 1930s, here is a single-sided Conservative general election leaflet from 1885 for the Skipton Parliamentary constituency:

Skipton 1885 Conservative leaflet

The name handwritten in the bottom left corner is that of the voter to whom the leaflet was delivered, the handwriting not so much an attempt at personalisation as a reflection of the lack of alternative ways of individually addressing leaflets at the time. Indeed, overall the letter is far less personal than an equivalent is (or should …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged history and how leaflets used to look | 13 Comments

Housing benefit reforms set to be delayed

By Mark Pack | Sun 28th November 2010 - 10:11 pm

The BBC reports:

Millions of people who currently claim housing benefit are to be given more time before cuts are introduced.

Ministers had planned to introduce a cap from next April on how much housing benefit could be claimed.

But the BBC understands that existing claimants will now have until January 2012 to adjust their circumstances if needed before the caps are brought in.

The Department for Work and Pensions would not confirm the move, which it said was “speculation”.

Simon Hughes’s response has been:

If the reports about changes to the housing benefit proposals are true, then this will be very welcome. Many of

…

Posted in News | Tagged housing benefit, simon hughes and welfare reform | 14 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #197

By Helen Duffett | Sun 28th November 2010 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 197th 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 (21st -27th November, 2010), 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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment

Elizabeth Evans selected for Ceredigion

By Mark Pack | Sun 28th November 2010 - 4:29 pm

Mark Cole reports:

Ceredigion Liberal Democrats our new candidate for the Welsh Assembly election next May.

I’m absolutely delighted to report that that candidate will be Cllr Elizabeth Evans from Aberaeron, Or as she is more commonly known, Liz.

I’ve known Liz for 7 or so years and have found her to be one of the friendliest, most genuine and hard-working people I know – and she’s a liberal to the core…

She is a popular, well liked and hard-working local campaigner and community activist. She’s a former recipient of the prestigious Welsh European of the year award for her long service

…

Posted in News and Wales | Tagged ceredigion and elizabeth evans | 4 Comments

War crimes trial starts for Jean-Pierre Bemba

By Mark Pack | Sun 28th November 2010 - 1:24 pm

During the week the trial for war crimes of former Democratic Republic of Congo Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba began in The Hague.

Any trial at the International Criminal Court is notable given the severity of the crimes that have to alleged to get before the court, but Bemba’s case has two particular features.

Bemba is the highest profile politician to have been brought before the court (Slobodan Milošević was being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia when he died).

In addition, Jean-Pierre Bemba’s trial is the first before the ICC to centre on rape, with allegations of mass rapes leading …

Posted in News | Tagged democratic republic of congo, international criminal court and jean-pierre bemba | 1 Comment

“Lib Dems plotting council tax hike for second homes”

By Mark Pack | Sun 28th November 2010 - 11:24 am

So reports the Independent on Sunday:

Owners of second homes could be stripped of their council tax discount under Liberal Democrat plans to raise millions of pounds for town halls.

Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is among ministers who back ending rules that force local authorities to cut bills by 10 to 50 per cent for owners of weekend bolt-holes. In a Commons motion, the Lib Dem president, Tim Farron, suggested the cost of providing the discount could be spent on local services or cutting council tax bills for all…

Mr Farron, whose Cumbrian constituency has more than

…

Posted in News | Tagged council tax, Danny Alexander and tim farron | 27 Comments

Tim Berners-Lee on net neutrality: it’s needed for free markets, democracy and science

By Mark Pack | Sun 28th November 2010 - 9:26 am

Only one person can start an article like this,

The world wide web went live, on my physical desktop in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 1990.

That’s Tim Berners-Lee, and after that succinct explanation of why he knows a thing or two about the web he goes on in a piece for Scientific American to to talk about the importance of net neutrality – a topic on which there have been mixed signals coming out of the Conservative Party at times:

Net neutrality maintains that if I have paid for an Internet connection at a certain quality, say, 300 Mbps, and you have paid for

…

Posted in News | Tagged net neutrality and tim berners lee | 5 Comments

Opinion: A suggestion for an amendment to the AV bill

By Daniel Henry | Sat 27th November 2010 - 2:06 pm

This article is easier to follow if you understand how STV and AV works. If you’re not familiar with them, I recommend quickly clicking on the links for explanations.

How STV would clean up politics.
When the electoral reform campaign was for STV, one of the arguments we liked to use was how it would help clean up politics by ending “safe seats”. We call a seat “safe” if it has been held by the same party for a long while and it’s pretty much guaranteed that the candidate who runs for that party will win. This means that some …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged AV | 69 Comments

DWP rebuked over its use of statistics

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th November 2010 - 12:24 pm

The Guardian reports,

The head of the UK Statistics Authority has issued a public rebuke to welfare ministers over their use of official statistics, warning of “serious deficiencies” in the handling of unemployment data.

Sir Michael Scholar, the head of the authority, said that by failing to show the evidence for claims made by ministers, the government risked undermining public trust.

His criticism comes a day after Iain Duncan Smith, the secretary of state for work and pensions, was forced to explain to MPs why the “official” statistics he quoted in parliament had in fact been taken from a property website owned by

…

Posted in News | Tagged iain duncan smith, michael scholar and work | 2 Comments

Opinion: Lords avoid falling into Labour’s “elephant trap” – just

By Jonathan Featonby | Sat 27th November 2010 - 10:17 am

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituency Bill advanced to its second reading in the House of Lords earlier this month after narrowly avoiding a referral motion tabled by Labour peer Lord Falconer.

Lord Falconer had argued that the bill was hybrid as it treated two existing parliamentary seats – Orkney and the Western Isles – as special cases that would have been exempt from the constituency boundary redrawing element of the bill.

The motion was defeated by 224 votes to 210, allowing the second reading of the bill to take place.

But there needs to be a closer look as to …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged AV, lord falconer and lord mcnally | 13 Comments

The Saturday debate: What is fairness?

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th November 2010 - 8:58 am

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

In his recently published book, 22 Days in May, David Laws writes,

The coalition needs to redefine what fairness means. Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line, whatever their personal circumstances. Fairness means giving people the educational and employment opportunities to ensure that they are not dependent on an over-mighty state and trapped in dead-end lives.

Agree? Disagree?

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged david laws, featured and weekend debate | 48 Comments

Dear John Reid…

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th November 2010 - 5:02 pm

Dear John Reid,

Is the electoral system you decry as being “unfair” in today’s Telegraph by any chance the same voting system as the one that Labour uses to election its own party leader?

I only ask because they are both called the Alternative Vote and I haven’t noticed you complaining about Ed Miliband’s election as leader being unfair or therefore calling for your colleagues to oust him.

By the way, a little tip about Fiji, which I notice you and colleagues have become keen on quoting. It’s a military dictatorship and, you know, if you go round citing its dislike of the …

Posted in News | Tagged av referendum, electoral reform and john reid | 75 Comments

The LDV Friday Five: 26 November 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 26th November 2010 - 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. Fifteen new Liberal Democrat Peers appointed (76 comments) by Helen Duffett
2. Six Rochdale Lib Dem councillors resign over leadership (34 comments) by Helen Duffett
3. Nick Clegg: we are the new progressives (50 comments) by Mark Pack
4. Welcome news as party changes tack on coalition (79 comments) by Mark Pack
5. Vince: there has been no betrayal (45 comments) by Newshound

5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

Smoking ban
Starting with Nothing
Becoming a candidate
Net Neutrality
Kickstart 2011 – what’s it all about

Five most active local constituencies with online petitions

1. North East Fife
2. Dundee East
3. Dundee West
4. Angus
5. Islington North

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

Posted in Friday Five | 14 Comments

The Independent View: Why killing badgers might not be the answer

By Richard Meyer | Fri 26th November 2010 - 2:51 pm

Dr. Richard Meyer served on the Government Consultative Panel for three years, wrote The Fate of the Badger (Batsford 1986) and worked for a year with WWF. This post is adapted from his submission to Defra as part of the public consultation process on bovine tuberculosis.

The background is briefly that the majority of farmers have long believed that badgers give TB to cattle. I will try to show in plain English why the planned ex-officio cull of badgers by farmers is misguided, uncivilised and dangerous.

Misguided? The most telling evidence is simply historic. On-farm intradermal tuberculin testing (‘Test & Slaughter’) reduced …

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged badgers and bovine tb | 41 Comments

Featherstone appointed International Violence Against Women Champion

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th November 2010 - 12:18 pm

A party news release brought the news yesterday:

Liberal Democrat Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone, was today appointed International Violence Against Women Champion. This role will see her lead British efforts to tackle violence against women overseas.

Commenting on her appointment, Lynne Featherstone said:

“Today marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and I am delighted to have been asked by the government to fulfil the role of championing this cause around the world.

“Today, women around the world are still subject to rape, domestic violence and abuse, the scale and true nature of which can often remain hidden. Britain …

Posted in News | Tagged lynne featherstone | 5 Comments

Tavish Scott writes… The SNP budget is too severe on services but too soft on waste

By Tavish Scott MSP | Fri 26th November 2010 - 10:54 am

The Scottish Government has published its budget. But it’s for one year not three! No SNP Minister can explain why it was right for nationalists in Wales to produce figures for three years but not for the SNP Government in Scotland.

SNP Ministers say they can’t give a four-year budget because they have just set up a public service reform group. That’s code for “we don’t know what to do but whatever we do will be after next May’s Election. Yet the SNP have known the broad numbers for months.

After all, Alex Salmond wrote to Vince Cable on 12th February to say, …

Posted in Op-eds and Scotland | Tagged alex salmond and jeremy purvis | 2 Comments

Get them more involved!

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th November 2010 - 8:54 am

Since the general election I’ve been to speak at fifteen local party events and two trends have struck me. First, the increase in the party’s headline membership figures comes over on the ground, with new faces turning up at events and new people interested in helping. Second, and less promising, is the heavy reliance on only two questions when someone new pops up: “can you deliver leaflets?” or, if they look really keen, “do you want to be on the local party executive?”

Those are both good questions – and the enthusiasm for getting people directly involved with leafleting is a …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured | 7 Comments

Op-eds

Britain should be proud, but never afraid of the stranger (Anton Georgiou)
Where is that ‘Yesss’ moment going to come from? (Chris Bowers)
Mathew on Monday (Mathew Hulbert)
You can’t elect a Community Champion without a community (Elin Kingston)
Words matter, use them carefully! (Leon Duveen)

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Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference

Christine Jardine to stand down as MP at next election

What does a Lib Dem “trans activist” look like?

Caron’s kitchen table diary

Tim Farron on life in coalition

The fallout from the Wikileaks cables

Paul Burstow writes… Healthy lives, healthy people

Anti-terrorism legislation: news emerges of likely reforms

Changing the party’s internal election rules

The politics of windmills

Nick Clegg writes to Aaron Porter on ‘Right to Recall’ and tuition fees

Tuition fees: will Lib Dem MPs split three ways?

And the big news from the Wikileaks revelations is…

Opinion: Getting the AV and Lib Dem message right

AV will lead to more hung parliaments and coalition governments

22 Days in May by David Laws – book review

How election leaflets used to look: Skipton 1885

Housing benefit reforms set to be delayed

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #197

Elizabeth Evans selected for Ceredigion

War crimes trial starts for Jean-Pierre Bemba

“Lib Dems plotting council tax hike for second homes”

Tim Berners-Lee on net neutrality: it’s needed for free markets, democracy and science

Opinion: A suggestion for an amendment to the AV bill

DWP rebuked over its use of statistics

Opinion: Lords avoid falling into Labour’s “elephant trap” – just

The Saturday debate: What is fairness?

Dear John Reid…