Liberal Democrat Voice

Clegg on AV referendum bill: “We must make the system fair. We must put people back in charge.”

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th September 2010 - 9:28 am

Plans to change the way MPs are elected have cleared the first Commons hurdle. A bill introducing a referendum on changing the voting system, changes to constituency boundaries and fewer MPs, was backed by 328 votes to 269.

Labour says the changes would affect Labour-supporting areas and said the bill was “political skulduggery”. Tory opponents of the referendum said it could cost £100m but deputy PM Nick Clegg said it would restore “people’s faith in the way they elect their MPs”.

Despite criticism, the bill passed with a majority of 59 and a Labour bid to kill it off

…

Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged alternative vote, electoral reform, house of commons and nick clegg | 21 Comments

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Tessa Munt cleared of council tax fraud allegations

By Mark Pack | Mon 6th September 2010 - 10:58 pm

In July the Mail on Sunday reported allegations that Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt had falsely claimed a council tax discount. As the BBC now reports:

Wells MP Tessa Munt has been cleared of allegations of falsely claiming a single occupier council tax discount.

The Lib Dem has always denied any wrongdoing over newspaper allegations she had friends living with her.

Hat-tip: Jonathan Calder

Posted in News | Tagged jonathan calder and tessa munt | 5 Comments

What Lib Dems are saying (or not) about Andy Coulson

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th September 2010 - 7:00 pm

The official Lib Dem line on Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s director of communications, could not have been clearer prior to the election: this Voice headline from July 2009 gives the flavour – Huhne on Coulson: “either complicit or incompetent”.

Yet the party leadership has been noticeably more reticent to comment on the most recent allegations, triggered by the New York Times’s typically thorough investigation.

(What does it say, by the way, about the quality of the British news media today that — with the honourable exception of The Guardian — it was left to a US newspaper to …

Posted in News | Tagged adrian sanders, andy coulson, Caroline Pidgeon, chris huhne, jonny oates, lembit opik, media and phone tapping | 33 Comments

Total Politics Top 75 Lib Dem blogs list published

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th September 2010 - 6:32 pm

It’s two months since Total Politics asked blog-readers to vote for their Top 10 favourite blogs in their annual survey promoted here on LDV, as well as at LabourList and Iain Dale’s Diary. More than 2,200 people voted, and here is the full list of the Top 75 Lib Dem blogs according to the voters of Total Politics:

Stephen’s Liberal Journal

Jennie Rigg

Always Win When

…

Posted in Best of the blogs and Online politics | Tagged blogging, iain dale and total politics | 4 Comments

Five jailed over postal vote fraud

By The Voice | Mon 6th September 2010 - 4:24 pm

The BBC is reporting the jailing of five people, including two former councillors, for postal vote fraud in Bradford.

…the men plotted to get Conservative candidate Haroon Rashid elected in the Bradford West seat using fraudulent postal vote applications.

One man admitted conspiring to defraud the city’s electoral registration officer and was jailed for 11 months.

The four other men had denied the charge but were found guilty and jailed for 21 months at Leeds Crown Court.

Posted in Election law | Tagged bradford | Leave a comment

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How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Mon 6th September 2010 - 2:26 pm

The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are three simple ways:

1. Let us have your tips for stories. Perhaps there’s something outrageous going on in your local council? Or you’re an expert in a particular area and have spotted a story other people have missed? Or you’ve seen …

Posted in Site news | 1 Comment

Knowsley Council refuses to answer questions over its £250,000+ payments for Labour Conference

By Mark Pack | Mon 6th September 2010 - 12:24 pm

Knowsley Council has stonewalled questions as to why it is paying for an exhibition stall at this autumn’s Labour Party conference despite not appearing at any other party conferences. Knowsley Council leader Ron Round has even hinted that it may continue to pay for stalls at future Labour Party conferences.

This year’s autumn Labour conference will be the thirteenth at which Knowsley Council has paid to appear, taking the total amount it has paid to Labour for these appearances to over £250,000. The thirteenth is also the most controversial because the payments are taking place despite Labour no longer being …

Posted in Local government and News | Tagged dave smithson, knowsley council and ron round | 9 Comments

Who will be the Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor?

By Mark Pack | Mon 6th September 2010 - 10:26 am

Yesterday London Region chair Jonathan Fryer outlined the timetable for selecting the party’s London Assembly and Mayor candidates. But who will be in the running to be the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London?

As previously covered, Lembit Opik has publicly declared his intention to go for the selection. Regular readers of this site will have seen how controversial that is amongst many Liberal Democrat members (along with other commenters on this site). He has some keen fans along with many ardent critics. The number of fans of his Mayor selection bid page on Facebook has moved up only …

Posted in London and Selection news | Tagged brian paddick, floella benjamin, lembit opik and susan kramer | 38 Comments

BBC: Met may reopen phone hacking case

By Mark Pack | Sun 5th September 2010 - 10:58 pm

The BBC reports:

The Metropolitan Police has said it may reopen the investigation into claims of phone hacking by the News of the World if it uncovers new evidence.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates said officers would consider any new information – and examine if further action should be taken.

A former reporter on the paper has claimed the paper’s former editor, Andy Coulson asked him to hack into phones.

Mr Coulson has denied using or condoning the practice while editor…

One reporter – Sean Hoare – said he had been personally told by Mr Coulson to intercept phone messages. In a statement, Mr Yates said

…

Posted in News | Tagged andy coulson, john yates, journalism, news of the world and sean hoare | 15 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #185

By Stephen Tall | Sun 5th September 2010 - 7:28 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 185th 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 (29th August – 4th September, 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 | Leave a comment

Team London: selections open

By Jonathan Fryer | Sun 5th September 2010 - 5:27 pm

Applications are now invited from potential LibDem Mayoral and Assembly (GLA) list candidates for London, which will hold its next round of city-wide elections in 2012. Interested individuals can request an application pack from the Returning Office, Patrick Mitchell, at [email protected] or 6 Palfrey Place, London SW8 1PA. Completed applications must be received by 24 September.

London has benefited from a big influx of new members over recent months – by far the biggest growth of any UK region. Moreover, London Liberal Democrats have moved campaigning and capacity up several notches with the launch of Team London, a new approach to …

Posted in London and Selection news | 15 Comments

Book review: Campaign 2010 by Nicholas Jones

By Stephen Tall | Sun 5th September 2010 - 3:45 pm

Anyone who has read Nicholas Jones’s previous books – especially Soundbites and Spin Doctors (1995) and Sultans of Spin (1999) – will look forward to a new tome from the BBC’s former political correspondent, who has proved himself to be an acute observer of the Westminster scene, and a fearless revealer of politicians’ trade secrets.

Campaign 2010, Mr Jones’s new work, is billed by publisher Biteback as “political theatre brought to a fresh level”. Can it live up to such hype? Sadly – and it genuinely pains me to say it, as I have high regard for …

Posted in Books | Tagged andy coulson, david cameron, featured, miriam gonzalez durantez and nicholas jones | 1 Comment

LibLink: Nick Clegg & David Cameron – We will not budge on voting reforms

By NewsHound | Sun 5th September 2010 - 1:14 pm

Over at the Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have jointly penned an article marking the start of the new political year by re-asserting the Coalition’s determination to reform British politics. Here’s an excerpt:

We came together to change our country for the better in every way. And as we go about fixing our economy, society and political system, our government’s purpose will be to make two major shifts in our national life.

First, our decisions will be taken with eyes fixed firmly on the long-term. This is a horizon shift for government, moving away from short-term obsessions towards investment in

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged david cameron and nick clegg | 10 Comments

A letter to the Daily Mirror regarding MPs whose former partners now work as prostitutes

By Iain Roberts | Sun 5th September 2010 - 9:40 am

Dear Will Payne at the Daily Mirror,

If you’re going to run a big exposé about how an MP’s wife is working as a prostitute, do you think it might be worth mentioning before the very last line of the article that the couple separated in February (before the MP in question had even entered Parliament)?

I realise that, had you made it clearer, it would have been obvious that you only ran the story in a cheap and rather sad attack on the Tories, and to have the excuse to print pictures of the woman in question in her underwear.

I …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged daily mirror | 38 Comments

Computer hacking in the news

By Mark Pack | Sun 5th September 2010 - 8:54 am

The welcome:

The Home Office is to announce a review of extradition arrangements, including those with the US and EU countries following high-profile rows over the way they are operating.

The main impetus has been the row with Washington over the Gary McKinnon affair, in which the 43-year-old has been accused of hacking into US computer systems.

But the review will also look at the operation of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW).

And the downright bizarre:

Geographically mixed-up Algerian hackers made themselves look rather silly by defacing the website of an English stately home instead of Belvoir Fortress in Israel, their intended target.

Cyber-jihadis from

…

Posted in News | Tagged extradition laws and gary mckinnon | 5 Comments

LibLink: John Hemming – How the IFS got it wrong in calling the budget regressive

By NewsHound | Sat 4th September 2010 - 4:25 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley John Hemming argues that the Institute for Fiscal Studies made a number of mistakes in its analysis of the Coalition’s budget plans. Here’s an excerpt:

Labour politicians seized on an Institute for Fiscal Studies report last month which described the emergency budget as “clearly regressive”. Unfortunately, some of the IFS’s conclusions and the reporting of them were misleading and inaccurate. … the IFS has made a number of important errors in its report, which tends to exaggerate the effect of the cuts on the poorest households.

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged john hemming | 33 Comments

LDV Saturday caption competition: “Andy Coulson’s a bit busy right now” edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 4th September 2010 - 2:05 pm

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader …

(Credit: The Independent.)

Here’s Tory spin chief, and David Cameron’s Director of Communications, Andy Coulson doing what he does best: getting up close and personal with a mobile phone – what do you think he might be saying, hearing, or thinking?

The winner of our most recent caption competition, the “It’s Sarah Teather by a head” edition – according to The Voice’s judging panel of one – was this one by …

Posted in Caption Comp | Tagged andy coulson | 11 Comments

Tributes pour in for Sir Cyril Smith

By Stephen Tall | Sat 4th September 2010 - 12:13 pm

Lib Dem Voice reported yesterday the sad passing of Sir Cyril Smith, one of the party’s best-known figures, who served as Rochdale’s MP for two decades.

Tributes have been pouring in as a mark of appreciation for Cyril’s life. Nick Clegg issued the following statement:

“Cyril Smith was a larger-than-life character and one of the most recognisable and likeable politicians of his day. I am deeply saddened to hear the news of his death today, and offer my sincere condolences to his family and friends.

“Everybody in Rochdale knew him not only as their MP but also as a friend. He

…

Posted in Obituaries | Tagged chris rennard, cyril smith, nick clegg and tim farron | 3 Comments

I is an Irishman who climbs up the walls

By Iain Roberts | Sat 4th September 2010 - 10:15 am

You know those children’s alphabet posters: a for apple, b for banana, that sort of thing? I recently came across an old Victorian example which, amongst some entries that would seem a little odd today (“V is for vulcan”) had the charming

I is an Irishman who climbs up the walls

Have we really moved on from the days when young children could be taught that an entire nation could be judged by a particular stereotypical activity, and not in an especially nasty way, but just as a …

Posted in Op-eds | 10 Comments

Northern Ireland’s Liberal Democrats start up a new blog

By Mark Pack | Sat 4th September 2010 - 9:27 am

Excellent to see this new initiative, which is over at http://libdemsni.wordpress.com. Reading through the posts there so far I’m struck by how streaks of similarity poke through the many differences in Northern Irish politics compared to those of England, Scotland or Wales.

The blog got off to a good start with its star signing; let’s hope it prospers in the coming months.

Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging and northern ireland | 5 Comments

And so the media conference meme – Lib Dem leadership faces revolt – begins…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 4th September 2010 - 7:45 am

The Independent this morning reports:

Nick Clegg is facing a growing grassroots revolt as Liberal Democrat councillors quit the party in protest at the decision to form the Coalition with the Conservatives.

This follows the news that three Lib Dem councillors in Cheshire have resigned, apparently in protest at the cuts being introduced by the Coalition Government.

This brings to a grand total of eight (8) councillors who have defected from the Lib Dems since the special conference in Birmingham, where activists voted by an overwhelming margin to approve the Coalition deal. Or to put it another way, 99.8% of …

Posted in Conference and News | Tagged will howells | 22 Comments

Has Phil Woolas declared himself unfit to be an MP?

By Iain Roberts | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 6:19 pm

These photographs have clearly been altered. This is wrong. This man is clearly unfit to be a member of parliament. When you send out an election address it has to be right – his is not.

So said Phil Woolas in 2005 when he accused the Lib Dem Tony Dawson of doctoring an election photo, an accusation Dawson strongly denied.

Odd, then, that Mr Woolas should have put out a newspaper in the 2010 general election campaign which appears to use a clearly photoshopped picture to imply that his Lib Dem opponent Elwyn Watkins was having his collar …

Posted in News | Tagged elwyn watkins and phil woolas | 11 Comments

Nick Clegg won’t keep profits from second home sale

By Helen Duffett | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 4:08 pm

Nick Clegg has confirmed that he is selling his constituency home, and will return any profit to the taxpayer – as promised earlier this year.

From the Press Association:

The Lib Dem leader, who has been the MP for the constituency since 2005, has referred to the house in Sheffield as “modest” and revealed he had bought it in a “complete state of disrepair”.

Defending his expenses claims in respect of the house, he told the BBC’s Andrew Neil in April: “I think, unlike almost everybody else, I have said very clearly and very openly that my approach to this is

…

Posted in News | Tagged mps expenses and nick clegg | 8 Comments

LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (August ’10)

By Stephen Tall | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 3:45 pm

… We’d say a big thank you to the 47,689 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in August.

Though that’s a touch down on our July figure of c.50,000, it’s up some 143% on the equivalent figure for August ’09 of c.20,000.

This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 Sept 2009 – 31 August 2010) to 636,846, some 89% higher than the equivalent figure for 2008-09 of 336,902.

The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

Knowsley Council pays Labour over £250,000 for conference appearances (11) by Mark Pack
Coalition puts

…

Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

Opinion: Can pregnant women stand for Parliament?

By Tam Langley | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 2:23 pm

Standing in the crypt of St Mary’s Church Lewisham asking local Lib Dem members to select me as their parliamentary candidate last summer I did wonder if my very pregnant stomach would put them off. During the selection campaign only one had asked me how I was going to do it with a new baby. “With the help of my partner, several doting grandparents and how about you too?”, was my reply.

Having fought an election campaign while pregnant, then through the first eight months of my baby daughter’s life, I want to let other women thinking of doing the same know that it is possible. It even has some advantages provided you get the help you need to do it.

Why should other Lib Dem Voice readers care? Because as Dinti Batstone highlighted in her research for the party into the under-representation of women among our MPs, ‘too many experienced female candidates self-select out just as their male contemporaries are fighting winnable seats’. And the main reason for that is the perceived incompatibility of the task with family life.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged female candidates and lewisham deptford | 12 Comments

Nigel Farage to stand for UKIP leadership (again)

By Iain Roberts | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 1:49 pm

According to the BBC, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is to throw his hat into the ring and attempt to get his old job back.

The position became vacant last month when Lord Pearson stood down, admitting with surprising honesty that he wasn’t up to the job. Farage’s decision may have been prompted by suspicions that none of the other likely candidates are up to the job either.

Farage, an MEP, failed in his attempt to unseat the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, at the General Election, finishing a disappointing third. An election day aircrash had left him injured and …

Posted in News | Tagged nigel farage and ukip | 10 Comments

RIP Cyril Smith

By The Voice | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 1:22 pm

News has just reached the Voice that Sir Cyril Smith, for 20 years Liberal (then Liberal Democrat) MP for Rochdale, has just passed away.

Just over two years agho, Lib Dem Voice published an appreciation of Cyril’s life to mark his 80th birthday:

You’ve got to come to Rochdale to understand properly Sir Cyril’s popularity. He doesn’t get out much these days, but when he does… Rochdale comes to a standstill. Many people remember the Cyril from the 1970s and early ’80s. The Cyril who was Chief Whip during the Jeremy Thorpe scandal; the Cyril who appeared on national TV alongside

…

Posted in Obituaries | Tagged cyril smith | 11 Comments

Councillor faces standards censure for posting council meeting footage on YouTube

By Mark Pack | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 12:56 pm

Brighton & Hove City Council webcasts many of its meetings and makes the footage available for people to watch again afterwards. Cllr Jason Kitcat (Green) extracted from the footage examples of himself asking questions, put the footage on YouTube and blogged about the questions on his own site.

He only used footage the council has already made available, he didn’t alter the footage and he had a good reason for using his own copy rather than the council’s original (because at the time the council’s way of presenting the footage made it hard for people to go direct to a specific …

Posted in Local government, News and Online politics | Tagged brighton and hove city council, jason kitcat, standards board and ted kemble | 6 Comments

Opinion: so you want to be Chancellor?

By George Kendall | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 11:57 am

This thread is for you to say what you think should be done about the deficit.

How much do we need to cut the deficit by?
When should we start cutting?
Over how many years should we cut it?

Let’s leave the detail of what taxes to raise, what services to cut, and what the ratio should be between tax rises and spending cuts. There are other threads to discuss those issues.

Let’s also leave the partisan politics to one side. These are difficult questions, no one really knows the right answer. And the answers aren’t necessarily leftwing or rightwing. So …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged economy | 17 Comments

Worth a second outing: Blogging – what’s in it for political parties?

By Mark Pack | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 10:27 am

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message. Today’s is a piece I wrote in 2007 for Iain Dale’s annual blogging guide. Three years and one general election on, my views on the matter are much the same – and in particular the …

Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging | Leave a comment

Op-eds

123 days in power: putting our new strategy for urban Britain into practice (Victor Chamberlain)
Andy Burnham’s speech was good: Here’s how Lib Dems can make the implementation better (Caron Lindsay)
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)

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Lib Dems must do better on Burnham

Britain should be proud, but never afraid of the stranger

Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference

Christine Jardine to stand down as MP at next election

Clegg on AV referendum bill: “We must make the system fair. We must put people back in charge.”

Tessa Munt cleared of council tax fraud allegations

What Lib Dems are saying (or not) about Andy Coulson

Total Politics Top 75 Lib Dem blogs list published

Five jailed over postal vote fraud

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

Knowsley Council refuses to answer questions over its £250,000+ payments for Labour Conference

Who will be the Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor?

BBC: Met may reopen phone hacking case

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #185

Team London: selections open

Book review: Campaign 2010 by Nicholas Jones

LibLink: Nick Clegg & David Cameron – We will not budge on voting reforms

A letter to the Daily Mirror regarding MPs whose former partners now work as prostitutes

Computer hacking in the news

LibLink: John Hemming – How the IFS got it wrong in calling the budget regressive

LDV Saturday caption competition: “Andy Coulson’s a bit busy right now” edition

Tributes pour in for Sir Cyril Smith

I is an Irishman who climbs up the walls

Northern Ireland’s Liberal Democrats start up a new blog

And so the media conference meme – Lib Dem leadership faces revolt – begins…

Has Phil Woolas declared himself unfit to be an MP?

Nick Clegg won’t keep profits from second home sale

LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (August ’10)

Opinion: Can pregnant women stand for Parliament?

Nigel Farage to stand for UKIP leadership (again)

RIP Cyril Smith

Councillor faces standards censure for posting council meeting footage on YouTube

Opinion: so you want to be Chancellor?

Worth a second outing: Blogging – what’s in it for political parties?

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