David Howarth

David Howarth writes… The Public Bodies Bill is sloppy, lazily drafted and must be radically amended

By David Howarth | Sat 20th November 2010 - 4:02 pm

On Friday, Mark Pack wrote on Lib Dem Voice about Public Bodies Bill – Abolition of Parliament: it was wrong then and it’s wrong now – highlighting how some parts of the Public Bodies Bill echo the proposals previously made by Labour and against which David Howarth led the opposition. Now David Howarth gives his take on the Bill:

The Public Bodies Bill gives ministers powers to abolish, merge, reform or change the functions or financial arrangements of public bodies (i.e. quangos). Ministers will be able to use these powers by issuing unamendable statutory instruments that require a single vote …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 19 Comments
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Mark Pack

So, how did Michael Crick do?

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th November 2010 - 1:26 pm

Exhibit A:

“I hear from a well-placed source that the list of peers, with about 55 names from across the party spectrum, will be published on Wednesday 1 December.”

The list was published on Friday 19 November with 54 names from across the party spectrum, so not bad at all.

Exhibit B:

“A normally astute and well-informed Lib Dem observer reckons the following people are in line to be among the expected 15 new Liberal Democrat peers:

* Brian Paddick (2008 London Mayoral candidate and former senior Metropolitan Police officer)
* Sal Brinton (Parliamentary candidate in Watford in 2005 and 2010)
* Dee Doocey (member …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Shas Sheehan

Opinion: Let’s hear from Labour their tuition fees policy

By Shas Sheehan | Sat 20th November 2010 - 10:27 am

What a mess we seem to have got ourselves into over tuition fees. How on earth did we get here?

I can only speak for myself. I joined the party because of its policies on green issues, clarity of thought on civil liberties, regard for international law, opposition to nuclear energy and renewal of Trident, and tuition fees.

This latter policy was very important to me.

I don’t come from a privileged background. At school I was one of the kids on free school meals and to go to university I had a full grant.

I hated free school meals because everyone knew who …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 59 Comments
Mark Pack

Why Ralph is voting Yes to fairer votes

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th November 2010 - 8:54 am

From the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign:

Over the coming months, the nation will be asking: how will you vote on 5 May?

Ralph Hill, 86, knows how he’ll be voting – Yes.

Ralph fought for democracy in World War II – and he wants to make ours better this May.

Watch him explain why:

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 21 Comments
Helen Duffett

LDVideo: Andrew Stunell’s latest visit to Oldham East and Saddleworth

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th November 2010 - 6:37 pm

Government minister and Hazel Grove MP Andrew Stunell has already been to Oldham East and Saddleworth three weeks in a row to support Elwyn Watkins’ campaign and on his latest visit has recorded this message:

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Posted in Lib Dem TV and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
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Helen Duffett

The LDV Friday Five: 19 November 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th 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. Opinion: Clegg has not betrayed us! (146 comments) by Mat Smith
2. We all know the Lib Dems U-turned on tuition fees, so why’s The Guardian indulging in half-truths? (127 comments) by Stephen Tall
3. What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition, the Lib Dems’ direction, and Nick Clegg’s leadership (123 comments) by Stephen Tall
4. Opinion: The Four Boxes – why the student occupation should be denounced (118 comments) by Zoe O’Connell
5. False claims of betrayal do the NUS no credit (92 comments) by Iain Roberts

This week’s 5 most active Liberal Democrat online campaigns

  1. Lib Dems Against Tuition Fees
  2. Don’t Choke Chelmsford
  3. Save Stapleford Walk-in Centre
  4. Save Bradford on Avon Swimming Pool
  5. Stop the drop-off charge

5 from the LDV archive

(19th November, 2006-09)
1. What should Gordon do – go now, or hold on? (12 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2008
2. Government department in ‘no lost memory sticks’ shocker (3 comments) by Helen Duffett, from 2008
3. The morning after the lunch-time before (35 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2007
4. Opinion: Let’s stop talking about policy! (29 comments) by Martin Land, from 2007 (Discussion of whether the Liberal Democrat leader should be elected on the basis of policy – very interesting in hindsight this week)
5. Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #39 (7 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2007 (do click through and enjoy Anders Hanson’s spoof: “Those blog comments we all love to read”)

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Helen Duffett

Tim Farron asks Labour where they stand on Phil Woolas

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th November 2010 - 4:42 pm

From a party news release:

Liberal Democrat Party President-Elect Tim Farron has written to the General Secretary of the Labour Party, Ray Collins, asking him to clarify the Labour Party’s position on Phil Woolas following criticism of Harriet Harman’s decision to suspend him by a number of backbench MPs.

The full text of the letter is below:

Dear General Secretary,

Firstly may I offer you my heartfelt congratulations on the news of your elevation to the House of Lords.

However, I am writing to you to raise the matter of the judgement of the Election Court in Oldham East and Saddleworth on November 5th and

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
Helen Duffett

Six Rochdale Lib Dem councillors resign over leadership

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th November 2010 - 3:05 pm

From BBC News Manchester:

Six Liberal Democrat councillors in Rochdale have resigned from the party in protest over its leadership nationally and locally.

Pat and Ted Flynn, Peter Davison, Doreen Brophy Lee, Barbara Todd and Naim Mahmood will sit as independents.

Councillor Pat Flynn said the party was “doing too many U-turns”.

Councillor Dale Mulgrew, deputy leader of Rochdale Lib Dems, said the resignations were part of a dispute over the party’s selection process.

Two of the councillors had been deselected by the party ahead of next year’s local elections.

Rochdale Council is led by a coalition of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.

Read the full story …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 34 Comments
Helen Duffett

Fifteen new Liberal Democrat Peers appointed

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th November 2010 - 11:33 am

Fifteen new Liberal Democrat working peers have just been announced…

  • Dr Sarah (Sal) Brinton – Executive Director of the Association of Universities in the East of England

  • Dee Doocey OBE – Chair of the London Assembly

  • Qurban Hussain – Deputy Group Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Luton Borough Council

  • Judith Jolly – Chair of Executive Committee of Liberal Democrats in Devon and Cornwall

  • Susan Kramer – former Liberal Democrat MP

  • Raj Loomba – businessman and campaigner for widows’ rights

  • Jonathan Marks – commercial and family law QC with specialist interest in human rights and constitutional reform

  • Monroe Palmer OBE – Liberal

    • …

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    Posted in Parliament | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 77 Comments
    Jeremy Browne MP

    Jeremy Browne writes… Human rights, six months in

    By Jeremy Browne MP | Fri 19th November 2010 - 10:53 am

    Last week at the UN, 107 countries voted for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. The UK led the international lobbying effort and provided strong encouragement to countries such as Mongolia, who voted for the moratorium for the first time.

    This was a very encouraging result and part of a wider international movement towards global abolition. It is clear in my mind that the death penalty is no deterrent to criminals, it can never be reversed and it is a denial of the liberal sanctity of the individual. It is the UK’s unwavering aim to try and …

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    Posted in Op-eds | 19 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Abolition of Parliament: it was wrong then and it’s wrong now

    By Mark Pack | Fri 19th November 2010 - 8:56 am

    Back when Tony Blair was Prime Minister Labour tried to get through Parliament sweeping powers to change the law without requiring full Parliamentary scrutiny. Then Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth was one of those who led the charge against this, writing in The Times:

    The Government proposed an extraordinary Bill that will drastically reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws, a Bill some constitutional experts are already calling “the Abolition of Parliament Bill”.

    A couple of journalists noticed, including Daniel Finkelstein of The Times, and a couple more pricked up their ears last week when I highlighted some biting academic criticism of the

    …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 7 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Mundell: no further action over expense allegations

    By Mark Pack | Fri 19th November 2010 - 8:52 am

    Andrew Reeves is reporting that the police have decided not to take any further action after investigating Conservative MP David Mundell’s election expenses. As we reported previously:

    His expense return showed him within the limit but wrongly classified one bill. A correct return would have shown him over the limit.

    Although the police have decided that this mistake is not worthy of further action, the publicity, embarrassment and investigation are a strong reminder of the importance of candidates and agents properly checking legal paperwork before submitting it.

    Posted in Election law | Tagged and | Leave a comment
    Mark Pack

    Federal Policy Committee elects its three Vice-Chairs

    By Mark Pack | Thu 18th November 2010 - 8:44 pm

    Last night Cambridge MP Julian Huppert, former Oxford West and Abingdon MP Evan Harris and Jeremy Hargreaves were elected to be the Federal Policy Committee’s three Vice-Chairs. Evan and Jeremy have long been high-profile figures in the party’s policy-making process and Julian has rapidly joined their ranks as his profile in the party has risen over the last couple of years.

    So what is notable about the trio is not any of their presence in it, but that Danny Alexander, former FPC Vice-Chair and in charge of the 2010 manifesto team but now a Cabinet Minister, is no-longer one of the …

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    Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
    Chris Rennard

    Chris Rennard writes… The battle for electoral reform in the Lords

    By Chris Rennard | Thu 18th November 2010 - 7:05 pm

    Battle has been joined in the House of Lords over the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (generally referred to as the PVSC Bill). Having passed all stages in the Commons, it came to the Lords this week. It needs to get to Royal Assent by the end of January for the referendum on using the Alternative Vote for future Westminster elections to be held on May 5th next year.

    Two controversial measures have been put together in one Bill as part of the coalition agreement.  The Government won every vote in the Commons on this Bill with comfortable majorities. But Labour’s …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 12 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Charles Kennedy MP responds to tuition fees open letter

    By Helen Duffett | Thu 18th November 2010 - 1:05 pm

    Chris Mills has blogged Charles Kennedy’s reply to the open letter organised by Sophie Bertrand asking all MPs to honour their pledge on tuition fees.

    Former Liberal Youth Executive member Sophie Bertrand wrote last month on Lib Dem Voice:

    We all know that the review is merely a suggestion for how the government should approach this situation. Yet the fact that Nick and Vince seem to be jumping on the Browne bandwagon leads me to expect the worst. It would seem that they need reminding of the slogan we fought with during this year’s General Election

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , and | 57 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Nick Clegg wins Spectator’s Politician of the Year

    By Helen Duffett | Thu 18th November 2010 - 12:09 pm

    The Spectator’s annual Parliamentarian of the Year Awards ceremony took place last night.

    Nick Clegg was named as the magazine’s Politician of the Year, while Danny Alexander and George Osborne were awarded Best Double Act.

    The Mail has the photos, and Standard diarist Olivia Cole reports David Cameron’s topical joke:

    Best was his line on the “spectacular” coupling. “I can’t believe,” he said, “that someone middle class, from the Home Counties, could get together with someone so wealthy whose family own a string of mansions.”

    Not Kate … he was talking about his beautiful relationship with Nick Clegg. Touché.

    You can read …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , and | 15 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Does the alphabet matter when it comes to Liberal Democrat internal elections?

    By Mark Pack | Thu 18th November 2010 - 8:54 am

    There is consistent evidence that in public elections people with names higher up the alphabet, and hence higher up the ballot paper, do slightly better than people lower down. It is not a major effect, though in a marginal seat a small difference can mean you win rather than lose, and seems to be strongest where ballot papers are more complicated, e.g. if all three seats in a council ward are up for election.

    So it is no great surprise that after the Liberal Democrat federal committee and interim peers panel election results were declared on Saturday, several people made comment about how the results looked to benefit people higher up the ballot paper. The large number of candidates means these were just the sort of contest where you might expect an effect to come into play, and with the final few places on committees or panels often decided by small margins, there might be an important prompt here for reform.

    But what does the evidence say?

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    Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 16 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #195

    By Helen Duffett | Wed 17th November 2010 - 8:00 pm

    Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 195th 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 (7th-14th 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:

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    Posted in Best of the blogs | 4 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    LDVideo: “Come to Oldham” edition

    By Helen Duffett | Wed 17th November 2010 - 5:35 pm

    A twin travelogue treat to tempt Lib Dems to go and help in the Oldham East and Saddleworth election rerun:

    If you choose your delivery round carefully, you can see some pretty scenery in the constituency – Chris Davies MEP gives us a glimpse of the countryside while urging us to turn up soon:

    Video also available on Youtube here.

    Next, Lib Dem President-elect Tim Farron takes us behind the scenes at Campaign HQ – those leaflets won’t deliver themselves…

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    Posted in Lib Dem TV and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 9 Comments
    Paul Walter

    PMQS: Cameron promised faster wheels amidst squeaky bums

    By Paul Walter | Wed 17th November 2010 - 4:52 pm

    What a relief! For a change, Prime Minister’s Questions gave more cause for Tories to be uneasy than it did for LibDems. Don’t get me wrong, LibDems care passionately about frontline policing. Of course they do. But the Tories tend to see it as more of a cojones (or should I invent the adjective “cojonal” here?) measurement issue – it’s closer to the nerve with them. So I think there must have been a lot of uncomfortable shifting around on the benches behind David Cameron today. “Squeaky bum time”, as Sir Alex might put it.

    For once there was a good …

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    Posted in PMQs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 18 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Data-matching plans to improve electoral registration press ahead

    By Mark Pack | Wed 17th November 2010 - 12:25 pm

    It is nothing new for a government to be talking about improving electoral registration by matching data between different sources. What is different about Nick Clegg’s latest comments on the subject, in a speech to the Hansard Society, is that the talk is now becoming much more specific, with pilot projects starting next year.

    Local councils, for example, hold name and address information about people in several different databases. If they are able to make use of the data from other sources to highlight either gaps in the register, or suspicious entries that may be the result of fraud, this …

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    Posted in Election law and News | Tagged and | 18 Comments
    Shas Sheehan

    Opinion: Microfinance epitomises Liberal Democracy

    By Shas Sheehan | Wed 17th November 2010 - 10:24 am

    Microfinance epitomises Liberal Democracy and we must push the Department For International Development (DFID) to reverse the declining support the Labour years has visited on this decentralised, non-statist and very effective means of lending a hand up to the poorest people on the planet.

    In the picture is the cooking stove I bought in Malawi from a gentleman called George (not his real name). George was loaned the money by a microfinance charity so that he could buy sheet metal rather than scavenge for the materials he needed.

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    Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Not all your letters have to be the same: a European lesson

    By Mark Pack | Wed 17th November 2010 - 8:55 am

    The following piece by Dinti Batstone and myself appeared in the November edition of ALDC‘s Campaigner. It follows up on two common themes of ours – Dinti’s on targeting European voters and mine about direct mail:

    It’s been a case of two steps forward, one step back in many local parties when it comes to getting more out of direct mail over the last few years. As covered previously in of Campaigner, the emphasis on doing direct mail more often and to more people has sometimes come at a cost in variation. Rather than, say, one batch of direct …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 1 Comment
    Mark Pack

    Nick Clegg’s civil service team gets a boost as staff redeployed

    By Mark Pack | Wed 17th November 2010 - 8:42 am

    An intended side-effect of the government’s decision to close the Strategy Unit is that some civil servants are being redeployed to beef up Nick Clegg’s team. As the Financial Times reports,

    The addition of some more policy specialists will be welcome relief for his hard-pressed team. The sheer range of issues he has to handle has left them struggling to cope at times. Clegg’s office was in danger or being branded a Whitehall black hole, from which policy submissions never re-emerge.

    That is good news as far as it goes, though as I wrote before,

    Whilst it’s sensible to address this

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged | 1 Comment
    Mark Pack

    Control orders: ineffective but a blow to freedom

    By Mark Pack | Tue 16th November 2010 - 10:11 pm

    “Ineffective in the fight on terror – but a devastating blow to freedom” – that’s the pithy and accurate summary of control orders by Mary Riddell over in the Daily Telegraph. And the newspaper in which the piece appeared is are reminder of how civil liberty issues cut across the political spectrum in not always expected or neat ways.

    Riddell points out,

    Within the next few days, Mr Cameron and his deputy must reach agreement on the future of security in Britain and, in particular, on control orders and how long to hold terror suspects without charge. The “car crash” foreseen

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 21 Comments
    Iain Roberts

    False claims of betrayal do the NUS no credit

    By Iain Roberts | Tue 16th November 2010 - 5:29 pm

    Have the Liberal Democrats betrayed students? The NUS certainly say so, and plenty of people agree.

    They’re wrong.

    The Liberal Democrats have made a u-turn on tuition fees – they haven’t denied it. As I argued a few days ago, the Lib Dems have no claim to be morally superior to any other party. We didn’t want to go back on commitments and promises but, like Labour and the Conservatives, we have done.

    But is that u-turn a betrayal of students?

    Or, to put it another way, is the result of that u-turn that students get a worse deal than they’d …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 93 Comments
    Paul Burstow

    Paul Burstow writes… Our vision for social care

    By Paul Burstow | Tue 16th November 2010 - 4:28 pm

    Earlier today the government announced its social care plans. Paul Burstow explains the thinking behind them and what they will achieve:

    Social care is essential for most people at some time in their life. It embraces the most intimate care for people, often at times of great distress. At its core, social care is about helping people to live their lives. It should enable people, and their carers, to live the independent life most of us take for granted. But this isn’t happening. Instead of a system that protects and enables the most vulnerable, we have an unsustainable and iniquitous …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 8 Comments
    David Hall-Matthews

    Opinion: Interpreting the internal election results

    By David Hall-Matthews | Tue 16th November 2010 - 3:57 pm

    The bare bones of the internal party election results were set out here on Saturday showing who had been elected by conference reps to the various committees.

    The detailed results for the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee, hosted by Colin Rosenstiel, show some revealing trends when compared with previous years’ election results.

    This year, in the Federal Executive elections, Evan Harris came top on first preference by a long stretch with 263 votes. Following him was David Rendel (107) and Ramesh Dewan (77) with others on 55. Evan is clearly identified with the progressive, Social Liberal wing …

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    Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , and | 38 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Wolverhampton election investigation raises more doubts over how election was run

    By Mark Pack | Tue 16th November 2010 - 12:26 pm

    Wolverhampton signFollowing the revelations that the Wolverhampton South West result showed more ballot papers being counted than had been issued and that the official marked register for part of the constituency had gone missing both Wolverhampton Council and the Electoral Commission have been investigating.

    The investigations have not only failed to locate the missing electoral register but also found that part of the marked register also went missing in a second Parliamentary constituency, Wolverhampton North East.

    Meanwhile, the investigation into the ballot paper number discrepancy …

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    Posted in Election law | Tagged and | 4 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Lib Dem leader of Sheffield Council wins top European honour

    By Helen Duffett | Tue 16th November 2010 - 11:18 am

    Paul Scriven, the Leader of Sheffield City Council, has won a Europe-wide award for the work he and his Liberal Democrat colleagues have done to put power into the hands of Sheffield people.

    The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe held their Leader Awards last night, “recognising the work of outstanding local and regional liberal and democrat politicians.”

    Cllr Scriven received the Achievement in Local Government Award. Others up for award included local politicians from France, Croatia and Holland.

    Since Paul became the Liberal Democrat Leader of the Council in 2008 Sheffield has seen a raft of new ideas to devolve …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 3 Comments
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