Mark Pack

Tim Farron answers 10 questions about his campaign for Party President

By Mark Pack | Tue 2nd November 2010 - 7:26 am

Susan Kramer and Tim Farron were both asked the same ten questions about their bid to be LibDem President and given the option to reply in whatever format and at whatever length they wished. Tim’s answers are below and you can find Susan’s answers here. My own commentary on the answers and race more generally is here.

1. Many parts of the Bones Commission were deferred until after the 2010 general election. Now that it has happened, what would your plans be for implementing, modifying or mothballing those outstanding parts?

The Bones report was insightful and a lot of thought …

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Mark Pack

The Huhne – Oakeshott two-step

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st November 2010 - 10:51 pm

Over the weekend we saw two stories, two prominent Liberal Democrats, two public staking out of positions on issues that are the subject of much debate within the coalition in Whitehall:

David Cameron was warned yesterday by a senior Lib Dem not to delay the introduction of legislation banning non-doms from making donations to political parties in Britain. In a sign of strains within the coalition, Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said there was “absolutely no reason” to delay the legislation. (The Guardian)

and

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, reiterated his party’s strong opposition to retaining a policy that he had previously

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Helen Duffett

Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes ask: Are you registered to vote?

By Helen Duffett | Mon 1st November 2010 - 8:50 pm

In the light of today’s news that 3.5 million voters are missing from the electoral register, and in view of the forthcoming boundary changes based on the number of voters on the electoral roll as it stands next month, a timely email reminder today to Liberal Democrat members from Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes:

I’m sure you will agree that we as Liberal Democrats need to play our part in helping to ensure that everybody who should have the right to vote is in a position to exercise that right come next May.

Tomorrow we will be debating the third reading

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Philip Jones

The Independent View: Liberal Democrats should back Browne

By Philip Jones | Mon 1st November 2010 - 2:27 pm

The Vice Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University writes…

I am opposed to what are commonly called ‘top up’ fees in higher education and would resist any move to impose upfront fees for higher education. But, this is not what the Browne recommendations propose.

The weekend before Browne reported I was in despair and angry. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the Coalition government was going to impose a 75-80% cut on the teaching budget for higher education and expect the shortfall to be recovered through an increase in fees.

I am the Vice-Chancellor of a large metropolitan university, with just under 35,000 students. …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged , , and | 23 Comments
Iain Roberts

The same policy can be good or evil – depends who thought of it

By Iain Roberts | Mon 1st November 2010 - 10:16 am

In May 2010, the Labour Party pledged to cap Housing Benefit. In their manifesto , they argued that the State shouldn’t be subsidising people to live in private rented properties that “ordinary working families” couldn’t afford.

Over 600 Labour parliamentary candidates happily stood on the pledge, not a whisper of opposition to the idea was heard from their ranks.

Fast forward to October 2010, five months later, and the Coalition Government come up with the same plan.

Not only was the Coalition scheme denounced by Labour in the strongest terms, with talk of “social cleansing” echoing the horrific Kosovan experiences, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 70 Comments
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Richard Morris

Opinion: We’ve stopped setting the agenda

By Richard Morris | Mon 1st November 2010 - 9:25 am

In Mark Pack’s generally excellent piece the other day entitled Role reversal for the Liberal Democrats he suggested that, love it or hate it, we have a long term positioning strategy in place at the moment but we’re missing out on tactical battles. On the long term strategy bit, I beg to differ.

I worry we’re being taken to the brand cleaners at the moment.

In the commercial world, brand owners try to turn their ordinary everyday brands into brand icons. They do so for three reasons:

  1. Icon brands tend to have a huge range of appeal stretching far beyond their traditional

…

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Posted in Op-eds | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Farron and Kramer: party should retain long-term aim of abolishing tuition fees

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st November 2010 - 8:55 am

Both of the candidates to be the next Liberal Democrat President have expressed their support for the party retaining a long-term aim of abolishing tuition fees.

Tomorrow Liberal Democrat Voice will publish in full the answers from Susan Kramer and Tim Farron to a set of questions Lib Dem Voice has posed them. Their answers paint two different views on what the role should be of the Party President and how they would approach it. But on several issues they both agree, including on tuition fees:

Do you believe the party should have a long-term commitment to the abolition of tuition fees?

Kramer: …

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Posted in News and Party Presidency | Tagged , , , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get your picture to appear next to your comments on Lib Dem Voice

By Mark Pack | Sun 31st October 2010 - 5:55 pm

It’s been a while since we last reminded readers about this, so now seems a good time to publish the information again.

You may have noticed that next to some people’s comments is a small picture of themselves, such as:

If you want a picture to appear next to your comments you need to do two things.

  1. Visit Gravatar.com, create an account and

…

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Posted in Site news | 9 Comments
Helen Duffett

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #192

By Helen Duffett | Sun 31st October 2010 - 5:22 pm

Welcome to a catchup of the Golden Dozen’s 192nd 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 (17th — 23rd October 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 | Leave a comment
    Adrian Sanders

    Adrian Sanders writes… The cap that doesn’t fit

    By Adrian Sanders | Sun 31st October 2010 - 4:50 pm

    People outside of London who cannot afford to buy a home or meet their rent without help from the benefit system are missing out in the current debate on the capping of Housing Benefit.

    The housing benefit bill doubled under Labour but it wasn’t because of an increase in claimants, it was because Labour failed to ensure enough regulated rent social housing was built for the increasing numbers of people who could not and cannot afford to buy.

    The problem didn’t start under Labour; it began in the early 80’s. The ratio between wages and house prices rose at the same …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 38 Comments
    Dominic Curran

    Opinion: Are there no workhouses? Our skewed housing benefit debate

    By Dominic Curran | Sun 31st October 2010 - 12:53 pm

    This recent debate about housing benefit has been explosive, with anger and froth expelled by both sides of the debate. And with Christmas coming, I can’t help feeling that there are many out there whose approach to housing the poor is somewhat Scrooge-like. ‘Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?’ they are almost asking.

    Housing benefit reform is a tricky beast, no doubt, as the most outrageous (but numerically few) examples of, say, unemployed immigrants getting £1,000 a week to live in Notting Hill have riled many, myself included. But it’s worth asking the question why are so many …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 62 Comments
    Callum Leslie

    Liberal Youth grow moustaches to beat cancer!

    By Callum Leslie | Sun 31st October 2010 - 10:27 am

    Members of the Liberal Youth Executive are taking part in this year’s ‘Movember’ to help raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity.

    The challenge states that participants must be clean shaven on November the 1st, and grow only a moustache for the duration of November.

    Movember is a brilliant cause, with a big message behind it. In 2008 there were 10,168 deaths in the UK from prostate cancer. Prostate cancer accounts for around 12% of male deaths from cancer in the UK and is the second most common cause of cancer death in men, after lung cancer. In 2009’s Movember, one million …

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    Posted in News | 3 Comments
    Paul Walter

    Thanks for reading

    By Paul Walter | Sat 30th October 2010 - 10:15 pm

    Thanks very much to the Liberal Democrat Voice team for giving me the privilege of guest editing the site today. It was a huge pleasure to be able to contact LibDem friends I greatly admire, and then receive back articles which were of high quality and fascinating in equal measure. So many thanks to David B, Duncan, Katy, Mary, Sue, David R, Colin and Gerald for writing such wonderful articles so promptly and to Mark for posting them up and generally advising.

    Posted in Site news | Tagged | 1 Comment
    Iain Roberts

    Labour’s manifesto pledge to cap Housing Benefit

    By Iain Roberts | Sat 30th October 2010 - 9:35 pm

    Those listening to Labour’s outrage about the so-called “social cleansing” they believe would result in capping Housing Benefit to four hundred pounds a week might get he impression that Labour opposes the policy.

    Odd, then, that it appears in the Labour Party manifesto for the 2010 General Election :

    Our goal is to make responsibility the cornerstone of our welfare state. Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford. And we will continue to crack down on those who try

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged and | 74 Comments
    Colin Eldridge

    Opinion: Coalition politics

    By Colin Eldridge | Sat 30th October 2010 - 6:25 pm

    Going into a coalition government with another party was always going to be hard, particularly with the Tories! It feels to me like a trip to the dentist. Something I know is the right thing to do for the long term, but very painful in the short term.

    I supported the coalition. Given that I spent the last eight years as a relatively high profile Liberal Democrat in Liverpool, a city that judges it’s people and particularly it’s politicians by how much you hate the Tories, it was a brave thing to do!

    I supported it for two reasons.

    Firstly, my liberalism is …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 24 Comments
    David Rendel

    Opinion: Not the whole truth

    By David Rendel | Sat 30th October 2010 - 5:25 pm

    On Monday, while in London for a meeting, I picked up a copy of the Evening Standard. (I can never resist a good freebie – I was once an MP after all –  and besides it gave me three extra Sudokus to do on the train home).

    Inside I found four vouchers (one for each of the remaining days of the week) for “i” – Britain’s first new quality newspaper for over two decades. The paper only costs 20p a day. But I am such a sucker for freebies that I just could not resist using the vouchers to try it …

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    Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
    Sue Farrant

    Opinion: A post-CSR view from the South West

    By Sue Farrant | Sat 30th October 2010 - 3:25 pm

    Down here in the South West we are bracing ourselves for the impact of the government’s efforts to reduce the budget deficit.  The public sector is by far the biggest employer here (about 40%) and redundancies seem inevitable, compounded by posts falling empty and not being filled thus reducing the number of real vacancies. Will the private sector be able to grow fast enough to compensate? I live in Sherborne, a pretty little market town which is renowned for its variety of small, independent retailers. They sustain the local way of life, provide some limited employment opportunities and attract visitors …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
    NewsHound

    Nick Clegg talks of dog mess coming through his door and being spat at in the street

    By NewsHound | Sat 30th October 2010 - 2:55 pm

    There’s an interview with Nick Clegg in the November issue of Esquire magazine, out in full on 4th November.

    A preview of the interview is on Mail Online under the title: Clegg: “I’m so hated that people put dog mess through my door”.

    The actual quote from Nick Clegg pertains to the cancellation of the Sheffield Forgemasters Loan, as follows:

    Yes, people are very angry. You don’t have to tell me. I’m getting dog excrement through my letterbox. People are spitting at me. But this loan was one of the biggest commitments, the money has to be borrowed

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged | 13 Comments
    Duncan Hames MP

    Duncan Hames writes… Time to value

    By Duncan Hames MP | Sat 30th October 2010 - 2:25 pm

    Almost every working person knows their salary or their hourly rate. Some can even express it as a fraction of the cost of hiring a plumber. Yet our time outside work lacks similar recognition in the choices we make: we should value our time for more than just the contribution it can make to our household budgets and material needs.

    There is strong quantitative evidence that beyond a level of around £15,000 per year, extra income has little improving effect on a person’s well-being: put bluntly, the extra money doesn’t pay you back for your time. Despite this, British employees are …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 12 Comments
    Mary Reid

    Opinion: Pulling the plug on swimming pools?

    By Mary Reid | Sat 30th October 2010 - 12:55 pm

    Over the last week, we’ve all focussed on welfare issues, tuition fees and housing. The impact of the 7% pa cut in local government funding has yet to register with most of us.

    Each council will make its own decisions on how to deal with a total grant reduction of 28% over four years. Coverage will be local, so the public will inevitably blame councillors rather than ministers when popular services disappear.

    The media have been, inaccurately, talking about a 28% cut in council budgets (rather than in funding) – it’s not quite as bad as that, although it will still be …

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    Posted in Local government and Op-eds | Tagged and | 13 Comments
    Gerald Vernon-Jackson

    Opinion: Reflections on local and national power

    By Gerald Vernon-Jackson | Sat 30th October 2010 - 11:25 am

    Well, Autumn Conference in Liverpool was an interesting experience. Bumping into Ministers and asking them to sort out issues was strange. An odd aircraft carrier here, and regeneration scheme there. Who knows if these discussions had any effect, but at least we could ask the people who might make the decisions. Few of us now remember the last time this happened. The 1929 Liberal Assembly seems a long time ago now.

    Being in coalition has this upside. To be able to influence decisions is what we stand for elections for. We think our ideas are better than those of the other …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 3 Comments
    Katy Riddle

    Opinion: Secret ingredients and the 2010 General Election

    By Katy Riddle | Sat 30th October 2010 - 10:25 am

    Over the past few months, many people within the Liberal Democrats have asked me for my views on the 2010 General Election campaign, and the lessons that we can learn from the experience ready for next time.

    In the South Central region (where I worked as the Campaigns Officer) the results were mixed. We had substantial swings towards us in both Portsmouth South and Eastleigh, but failed to win Oxford East from Labour, and sadly lost our previously held seats of Oxford West and Abingdon, Winchester, and Romsey to the Conservatives.

    Clearly any election result is the unique consequence of a combination …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 17 Comments
    David Boyle

    Opinion: The Tea Party – lessons for the Liberal Democrats

    By David Boyle | Sat 30th October 2010 - 9:25 am

    The Tea Party movement is even now preparing for its first big electoral test.  Banners are being printed, bumper stickers peeled, computerised push-pollers tested.

    They are a frightening prospect for European liberals.  Perhaps any foreign radical movement looks bizarre to outsiders, but the combination of Sarah Palin, red-neck fundamentalists and the shadowy Koch brothers with their billions is a fearsome prospect.

    Yet the Tea Party has lessons for us, even if it doesn’t make its way over here – which in some form or another it seems likely to do.

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    Posted in LDVUSA and Op-eds | Tagged | 10 Comments
    Paul Walter

    Opinion: Did the LibDems pick the wrong weekend to call for curbs on anti-terror measures?

    By Paul Walter | Sat 30th October 2010 - 8:55 am

    James Lyons of the Daily Mirror tweeted last night to say “Oh dear – lib dems picked wrong weekend to call for curbs on anti-terror measures”.

    He referred to a Guardian story about LibDem backbenchers calling for the scrapping of control orders and the limit to detention without charge to be reduced to 14 days.

    Well yes, I suppose if you have a hangover this morning and, therefore, impaired thinking faculties, it is easy to hear the news (of the discovery of the toner cartridge bombs on their way to the US) and think “silly, woolly Liberals” for raising their …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
    Chris Huhne MP

    Chris Huhne writes… Myth-busting: what the Coalition’s plans for nuclear energy really mean

    By Chris Huhne MP | Fri 29th October 2010 - 6:08 pm

    Which of these headlines is right?

    ‘Lib Dem U-turn on nuclear energy sees Huhne announce eight new power stations‘ (Independent)

    ‘Taxpayer to underwrite expansion of nuclear power’ (The Times)

    ‘Subsidy for eight nuclear reactors rejected‘ (Financial Times)

    All appeared in the papers on Tuesday 19 October, the day after I announced the latest steps in the government’s approach to nuclear energy. They’re a good example of how confused journalists can get – only the FT’s got it right. So let me make it plain: there has been no change whatsoever in the coalition’s policy of allowing new nuclear stations to go ahead as long as they can be built without public subsidy.

    What we’ve done is to publish four key sets of documents:

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 25 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    The LDV Friday Five: 29 October 2010

    By Helen Duffett | Fri 29th October 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. New Statesman’s advice to Lib Dem-baiters: “Don’t count those pesky Lib Dems out just yet” (117 comments) by Stephen Tall
    2. Any treasures in Nick Clegg’s Desert Island Discs? (43 comments) by Helen Duffett
    3. Are the unions a bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Ashcroft was? (99 comments) by Stephen Tall
    4. Opinion: cuts in welfare are the hallmark of a selfish society (44 comments) by Tom King
    5. Danny Alexander on the Spending Review: “We have done the right thing” (91 comments) by Helen Duffett

    5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

    Get on your bus
    Things that cheer you up
    Nice Change to the blog
    Smoking ban
    What next after PagePlus 11?

    5 from the LDV archive

    (29th October, 2006-09)
    1. Coming soon … Paddy’s novel (5 comments) by The Voice, from 2009
    2. Filesharing plans ignore legal rights, claims Foster (6 comments) by Iain Roberts, from 2009
    3. LDV readers give overwhelming yes to televised leaders’ debates (3 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2008
    4. Trident: what the Lib Dem blogosphere’s been saying (21 comments) by Stephen Tall, from 2007
    5. Next time Labour accuses the Lib Dems of… (8 comments) by The Voice, from 2007

    5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

    (excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Friday Five | 1 Comment
    Helen Duffett

    This week’s by-election results: holds all round

    By Helen Duffett | Fri 29th October 2010 - 4:50 pm

    Camden LBC, Kentish Town
    Lab 1411 (53.0; +17.7)
    LD Nick Russell 715 (26.9; -3.6)
    Green 349 (13.1; -4.7)
    Con 186 (7.0; -5.1)

    Majority 696
    Turnout 26.02%
    Lab HOLD
    Percentage change is since May 2010

    South Lanarkshire UA, East Kilbride West
    Lab 847 (41.4; +0.8)
    SNP 571 (27.9; -2.4)
    Con 403 (19.7; +5.7)
    Green 82 (4.0; +0.2)
    East Kilbride Alliance 71 (3.5; -0.7)
    LD Gordon Smith 70 (3.4; -3.7)
    Turnout 17.44%
    Labour HOLD
    Percentage change is since May 2007

    See here for the breakdown of votes for each stage of the count.

    Cheltenham BC, Springbank
    LD Chris Coleman 722 (66.4; -2.9)
    Con 188 (17.3; -13.4)
    Lab 142 (13.1; +13.1)
    Green 35 (3.2; +3.2)
    Majority 534
    Turnout not known
    LD HOLD
    Percentage change is since May 2010

    See the …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged , , , , , and | 13 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Paul Walter to guest edit Liberal Democrat Voice tomorrow

    By Mark Pack | Fri 29th October 2010 - 2:50 pm

    Tomorrow we’ve got our fourth guest editor running the site for a day, Newbury blogger Paul Walter. He follows Caron Lindsay, Mark Valladares and Linda Jack.

    Paul’s got a great set of guest posts lined up already, so do pop back tomorrow to take a read.

    This is the last of our little run of experiments with guest editors so if you’ve got any views on how it has gone and whether we should do something similar in future, please comment below.

    Posted in Site news | Tagged , , , and | Leave a comment
    Mark Pack

    The worst political soundbite of the week

    By Mark Pack | Fri 29th October 2010 - 1:25 pm

    Welcome to the first and quite possibly last in a new and therefore also probably soon to be axed series: the worst political soundbite of the week. (Not to be confused with the worst political phrase ever.)

    Paris is a city generally held in high esteem in Britain: it’s a popular holiday destination, it’s got great food, it’s got the Eiffel Tower, a Doctor Who story was filmed there, it has public transport that seems cheap and spacious compared with our own capital’s underground and so on. All in all, helped of course by the usual grass is greener on …

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    Posted in News | 12 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Just how bizarre will the Brown / Blair revelations get?

    By Mark Pack | Fri 29th October 2010 - 12:55 pm

    The more that comes out about how Tony Blair and Gordon Brown behaved (or perhaps more accurately, how Gordon Brown behaved towards Tony Blair) the more you wonder quite what world they were living in. Here, courtesy of The Guardian’s Nicholas Watt, is one of the latest revelations of the sort of behaviour that would get most people the sack but didn’t stop Gordon Brown getting the Premiership:

    During tense negotiations over Britain’s EU budget rebate in 2005, the former prime minister became so exasperated with the Treasury that he kidnapped its man in Brussels.

    Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , and | Leave a comment
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