By Peter Jones
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 1:50 pm
I’m sorry I couldn’t join you at Liverpool, but my absence hopefully left more of the wine lake provided by our generous sponsors for the rest of you. As ‘cuts’ were in the air and in your conversations. I’d like to suggest an easy one.
HS2. Or High Speed (Rail) 2 to give its full title. The proposed new high speed rail link from London past Birmingham to the great cities of the North, such as Leeds. I’m told it may go near somewhere called Manchester as well on its way to Scotland.
By Helen Duffett
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 12:13 pm
Jo Swinson MP has been announced as the new Deputy Leader of the Scottish Lib Dems. Michael Moore MP, now Secretary of State for Scotland, is stepping down after seven years as Deputy Leader.
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 10:40 am
‘Like a yeti in a barber shop?’ This was the playful headline with which the big ‘n’ bearded Lib Dem MP David Heath chose to announce his arrival in the party’s blogosphere, capturing something of the tongue-in-cheek essence of Lib Dem blogging. David’s blog – http://davidwsjheath.wordpress.com – has, rather sadly, fallen silent since the general election, and his appointment to the government as Deputy Leader of the House. But don’t expect for a moment the coalition agreement to have a similarly quelling effect on the rest of the party’s blogging community.
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 7:45 am
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the early race for the party presidency, the London mayoral selection, Trident, and the Labour leadership. Over 400 party members have responded, and we’ve been publishing the full results.
This Saturday we find out who will be the next Labour leader. The assumption is it will be neck-and-neck between the Brothers Miliband, David and Ed. David has been the favourite throughout the summer-long contest, but in the last few weeks theres been a sense that the race has tightened with many folk now tipping …
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 7:30 pm
The thousands of Lib Dem members who made it to Liverpool this week for the party conference will be arriving home now, probably tired, in need of a healthy square meal, and perhaps a tad hungover. Here’s your opportunity to tell Voice readers what you made of it all: the highlights (and any lowpoints), the surprises (and disappointments)… in fact, anything you like.
The Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow, who’s been live-blogging the conference all week, has set out his ’10 things I’ve learned from the Lib Dem conference’ here (you’ll need to scroll a bit down the page). They’re well worth …
Nick Clegg was not around for the whole of the Lib Dem conference this year. After giving his keynote address he got on a plane and flew to New York, as the UK’s most senior representative to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Review Summit.
The MDGs were agreed in 2000, and signed by world leaders from 189 nations, pledging to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
However, a decade later the MDGs are badly off-track. The MDGs Review Summit is a chance to accelerate progress and keep the promise to the world’s poor.
Nick Clegg made his first UK public speech on international development on 15th September, explaining how the UK Government will meet its commitments to the Millennium Development Goals. He was presented with a giant suitcase, representing the hopes of the 1.3 million people across the UK who have taken part in campaigns for the MDGs over the last year.
The weekend before the MDGs Review Summit began, 1,324 campaign actions took place in 74 countries, calling for a breakthrough plan to meet the MDGs. In the UK, campaigners from the Bond network of NGOs gathered with drums, bells, whistles, pots and pans outside the House of Commons. The message, clearly expressed on banners and in chants was clear: Keep your promises: Deliver the MDGs.
The Millennium Development Goals are clear, measurable, and achievable. They are the best articulation of what progress on tackling global poverty might look like. Delivering them will involve supporting civil society in poor countries, maintaining aid levels, stopping climate change and reforming the international financial institutions that too often harm poor countries instead of helping them.
Nick Clegg has reaffirmed his commitment to the MDGs to NGOs, to party activists, and to countries of the world at the UN.
As the below video shows – people in the UK have consistently shown their support for government action on development. With five years to go until the 2015 deadline, the Liberal Democrats are well placed to make sure the UK’s part of the deal is kept.
By Alex Foster
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 5:14 pm
Our final podcast from the conference floor was the penultimate session, a Q&A with cabinet ministers Danny Alexander, Chris Huhne, Michael Moore and Vince Cable.
The last session at Lib Dem conference is usually reserved for the Leader’s Speech – but that was not possible this time as Nick Clegg had to fly out to the UN.
It’s quite a shock for Liberal Democrats to get to quizz cabinet ministers, but it’s something they took in their stride with relative ease. This was taped from the reserved press section – and it’s interesting that over a dozen journalists had stayed till this …
Recent years have seen a consistent stream of conference reports on ‘splits’ within the party. With Coalition, and more interest in the party than ever before, has the media finally learned how to read our public disagreements? Do the media now ‘get’ conference?
Whilst Labour and Tory conferences are stage-managed affairs, with policy arguments taking place behind closed doors, the liberal approach is to discuss and debate in the open. The way Liberal Democrats make policy – and the power we members have to shape our movement – is reflective our commitment both to transparency and to democracy.
News of two motions passed by Lib Dem conference today…
Diversity: Hughes to propose “radical changes” to promote candidate diversity
Simon Hughes, the party’s deputy leader, commented:
“I am glad that Conference agreed today that there will be a full set of proposals for candidate diversity and that we will have the chance to take decisions to change the face and mix of the Liberal Democrats.
“I will be presenting a paper to the Party’s Federal Executive next month which will propose radical changes in the way we select our candidates.
“This proposal will include the aim that half our candidates will be women …
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 2:30 pm
It was the speech which revived the Lib Dem conference, oddly listless after Nick Clegg’s speech on Monday: Vince Cable’s rallying final day speech gave members and activists a real lift, and provided plenty of red meat for the media to chew on. Here’s my first impression…
Perhaps what was most impressive about Vince’s conference speech was how unchanged it was from his usual fare: uncompromising, wise-cracking, punchy, intelligent.
The right-wing media has focused on Vince’s attacks on capitalism, with the Daily Mail in typically shrill mood, and ConservativeHome giving it the silly billing of ‘Red Vince Day’.
That’s the thing about some right-wingers: too often they are unable to see past their own dogma which assumes Big Business must always be right. It’s the same blind spot left-wingers have about the unions.
Liberals — and I’m not using that as a party label because it also encompasses Adam Smith — understand that unfettered capitalism is not the same thing as the free market, and capitalism does not automatically promote market competition. That is why liberals, and Liberal Democrats, believe in a regulated free market, to curb the excesses of capitalism and to promote the interests of healthy market competition from which individuals and society can benefit.
Speaking at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference today, Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, Vince Cable said:
I have come to account to you, Conference, for the work I have been carrying out in the Coalition Government.
I have managed to infuriate the bank bosses; acquire a fatwa from the revolutionary guards of the trades union movement; frighten the Daily Telegraph with a progressive graduate payment; and upset very rich people who are trying to dodge British taxes. I must be doing something right.
But I am told that I look miserable. I’m sorry, conference, this is my happy face. ‘Aren’t you having fun?’ …
I look around and I see the faces of so many friends, colleagues, Cabinet Members. Yes – I did just say that – Liberal Democrat members of the Cabinet.
Now conference, I was pretty clear at the time as to just what I thought of having an all male all pale team sent to negotiate on our behalves in May. Often for some of us women we get frustrated when we see mediocrity promoted above us.
But in this case, they weren’t mediocre – our negotiating team did one hell of a job and I thank them all …
By Alex Foster
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 10:24 am
After a brief hiatus during which our podcast host migrated us to an account we hadn’t asked for during our busiest week, we can now bring you, in full, the debate on LGBT marriage from Tuesday’s conference floor.
This debate may not necessarily be of interest to the wider public, but certainly anyone who loves Lib Dem conference will recognise many of the aspects of the debate.
Highlights for me include Dr Evan Harris’s explanation, in the opening minutes of the debate of his stint as the only openly gay Lib Dem MP despite not actually being gay; the Voice’s own Sara …
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 9:45 am
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the early race for the party presidency, the London mayoral selection, Trident, and the Labour leadership. Over 400 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.
LDV asked: The following names have been suggested as possible contenders to take on Boris Johnson for the elected position of Mayor of London. Who would you like to see stand as the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor of London?
As Stephen mentioned earlier in conference, we’ve done a little experiment with the latest Lib Dem Voice survey of party members by asking exactly the same questions as were very recently asked of party members in a YouGov survey. It turns out that the answers from our two different approaches are very similar:
As you may know, there is currently debate about whether or not the UK should replace its Trident nuclear weapons system. Current policy is to replace the Trident submarines with a new fleet of boats, and to replace the ballistic nuclear missiles they carry at a later …
By Alex Foster
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 8:19 am
LibDemVoice are hosting four events at conference – fuller details are available here.
Our final event falls this lunchtime as Mark Pack takes the chair to explore the party’s general election campaign. With Hilary Stephenson, Duncan Hames MP and Paul Holmes.
… is to be found over on Left Foot Forward: Party democracy alive and kicking at Lib Dem conference. I don’t agree with all of it – such as the use of “indefensible” 🙂 – but it’s a good post that shows an understanding of how parties work and makes good use of details of what has happened at conference.
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 8:25 pm
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the early race for the party presidency, the London mayoral selection, Trident, and the Labour leadership. Over 400 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Lib Dem conference will be debating an emergency motion on Trident, which states that: “The exclusion of Trident from the Strategic Defence and Security Review is now untenable; it should be included and receive the scrutiny which strategic, political and financial circumstances demand.”
Our members’ survey asked identical questions to those …
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 7:35 pm
That’s the Channel 4 News headline tonight, and it seems a fair reflection of Nick Clegg’s interview with Jon Snow this evening:
As I tried to explain in my speech yesterday, some of the misgivings expressed in the conference hall I genuinely think slightly misunderstand what the government policy is going to do. I think there is a misunderstanding bluntly between what the free schools proposal is alleged to be trying to do and what it will actually do. It won’t be taking resources and people and attention away from other schools… and crucially, as I stressed in my speech yesterday, it won’t do what would be genuinely divisive. It won’t be introducing selection through the back door, which I’m staunchly opposed to.”
Over at The Independent, Lib Dem MP for Newquay & St Austell Stephen Gilbert explains his support for equal LGBT rights, which took another step forward today with the Lib Dem conference support for equal marriage. Here’s an excerpt:
… despite the repeal of Section 28, the equalisation of the age of consent, same-sex adoption and civil partnerships; homophobia still rears its ugly head in playgrounds, workplaces and even in the home. It’s unacceptable. It’s an individual’s right to live their lives as they see fit, without discrimination, with personal privacy, with equal rights in front of the law. That’s
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 5:25 pm
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the early race for the party presidency, the London mayoral selection, Trident, and the Labour leadership. Over 400 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.
With the election for party president in the offing, Lib Dem Voice asked our sample of party members: What do you think the main role of the President should be?
Here’s what you told us:
16% – To become a known face in the media representing the Lib Dem position on the TV and
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 4:58 pm
Yesterday we reported the Telegraph’s list of numbers 26 to 50 in their annual list of ‘influential Lib Dems’, as devised by Iain Dale, Brian Brivati “with the help of a panel of senior Lib Dems”. Today we find out who they placed top of the pile…
The least surprising news is that Nick Clegg reclaims his place as the Number 1 most influential Lib Dem. Indeed it shows the limit of such lists that last year he was mischievously relegated to the runners-up spot, behind Vince Cable — of course no one could have predicted ‘Cleggmania’ at that stage, …
An excellent speech today from (Lord) Tom McNally:
What was so sad about the last Labour Government was that it slipped far too easily in to authoritarian behaviour and authoritarian measures.
Labour created thousands of new offences and used a steady stream of criminal justice and anti-terrorism laws to ratchet up the powers of the state and to diminish the rights of the citizen.
This coalition comes into office to reverse that tidal flow of laws and restrictions on individual liberty. Which is why my department, the Ministry of Justice, will now check each new criminal offence. And if we don’t need
By Alex Foster
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 3:03 pm
Just a quick reminder that LDV welcomes contributions from all, and none more so than during conference.
Our team is trying to provide a variety of different perspectives of how the conference works, but it is an enormous endeavour, and we welcome pieces from our readers with your experiences of conferences.
Have you been to an interesting fringe you’d like to review? Do you have a different view of what happened in the main hall from how we recorded it here?
You need no experience to submit a piece to the Voice, and neither do you need to have your own blog. …
By Alex Foster
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 2:25 pm
This morning the Lib Dems voted to extend civil partnerships to heterosexual couples and open the institution of marriage to gay couples.
Conference was addressed by a broad spectrum of those directly affected by the issue and many supporters from the sideline.
Amongst the speakers was former mayoral candidate Brian Paddick who spoke of his own experience of marriage. He was married in the UK to a woman in the early 1980s before his growing realisation of his own sexuality. Since falling in love with a Norwegian man in the 2000s he took advantage of the change of law in …
So defeated Oxford West & Abingdon MP and left-liberal firebrand Evan Harris doesn’t like the coalition and worries about the message it sends to his preferred allies on the old left of Labour. Or so says in his article for The Guardian.
What’s new? Evan has shown disquiet about non-lefto-neo-revisionist-libero-economism by the party leadership for much of his career. He is about as likely to embrace a broad centre-ground positioning for the Liberal Democrats as Bob Crowe welcoming a restructuring plan on the London Underground.
He isn’t, though, a thoughtless polemicist, and much of what he says is …
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 12:00 pm
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the early race for the party presidency, the London mayoral selection, Trident, and the Labour leadership. Over 400 party members have responded, and we’ll be publishing the full results of our survey in the next couple of days.
A fortnight ago, in a surprise announcement, Baroness (Ros) Scott said she would not seek a second term as Lib Dem party president, the only party post other than the Leader directly elected by Lib Dem members. Ever since there has been much speculation about …
By Iain Roberts
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 10:53 am
Politicos Top Trumps Specials – conference 2010 – are here. The chance to do top-trumpy battle with MPs well known and not so well known from across the political spectrum.
And alongside the fairly cut-and-dried majority and years in parliament categories, there are three that may cause a little more disagreement amongst the onlookers, not to mention the all-important write-ups of each member.
“Millionaire environmentalist” Zac Goldsmith may have the top fanciability – a storming 100 – but may be a little disappointed to be given a potential of just 3/10.
Slipped in near the end of Nick Clegg’s keynote speech to Liberal Democrat conference was the news that the first democratic elections to the House of Lords are pencilled in for 2015.
Party sources have confirmed that the reference to Liberal Democrat candidates at the next general election fighting alongside candidates for a reformed Upper House means the draft Lords reform legislation due to be published early in 2011 is being planned on the basis of elections in 2015.
Chloe Nick; I think Jana is saying what many believe is that those in a tented city in Calais are economic migrants. A hotel room with three meals a day with all your...
expats Chris Bowers...Where is that ‘Yesss’ moment going to come from?
It looks like 'from Andy Burnham'.....
Peter Davies Housing is unlikely to be an election winner. Parties for decades have put forward targets for masses of new houses and schemes for bringing existing houses int...
Nick Baird @Jana - so your argument is that the UK shouldn't take *any* refugees, and the burden should fall entirely on countries that happen to neighbour those suffering...
Peter Wrigley Surely our defining issue must be the the preservation, improvement and extension of Liberal Democracy in this country and beyond. By all means support it with...
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