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Don Foster MP writes… The Integration Strategy: one year on

By Don Foster MP | Published Thu 21st February 2013 - 10:25 am

The Government’s Integration Strategy, Creating the Conditions for Integration was published a year ago on 21 February 2012. Since becoming a minister a few months ago, this is one of the areas about which I’ve had some of the strongest feedback from party members.

The views I’ve heard range from “the strategy is welcome, but not enough” to “it isn’t a serious substitute for a strategy to tackle racism and racial injustice”. Some have said that the document skates over the fact that integration is a two way process of mutual accommodation. Those with this view argue that there’s …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged andrew stunell, fiyaz mughal, Jo Swinson, joseph rowntree foundation, mo farah, multiculturalism, nick clegg, racism, sayeeda warsi | 8 Comments

A hole in his sock

By Mary Reid | Published Tue 19th February 2013 - 4:44 pm

The Telegraph has a lengthy profile of Rachel Smith, Vince Cable’s wife.

If cows can be considered to have a casting vote, then Hopeful and Caramel have done their bit to make sure Rachel Smith sees more of her husband in the future. The wife of the business secretary, Vince Cable, is a farmer with a dwindling beef herd in the middle of the New Forest. For months she has been trying to get these two Dexters in calf. The bull has visited; the artificial insemination man has

…

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Posted in News | Tagged rachel smith, vince cable | 4 Comments

Half a defence of John O’Farrell’s comments on Margaret Thatcher

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 18th February 2013 - 8:50 pm

I wonder if Labour HQ wish they’d read John O’Farrell’s 1998 book, Things Can Only Get Better, a little more carefully before he was selected to fight the Eastleigh by-election?

First there was his call for Labour voters to vote tactically for the Lib Dems to beat the Tories, as uncovered by Mark Pack here: Should Labour supporters vote tactically to beat the Tories? “Go for it” said John O’Farrell. (Incidentally, the Telegraph then ran the story here without any credit.)

And then yesterday, the Mail ran with …

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged eastleigh by-election, featured, john o'farrell, margaret thatcher, norman tebbit | 68 Comments

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of all the weekend’s news

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 11th February 2013 - 9:15 am

A quick round-up of all things Eastleigh — especially for the benefit of those who’ve been in Eastleigh this weekend and as a result have missed out…

Lib Dem candidate selected: congrats Mike Thornton!

First, and most important, the Lib Dems have a candidate: Mike Thornton was selected by the Eastleigh local party on Saturday evening.

I am absolutely delighted to have been chosen as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Eastleigh. I have lived here… fb.me/1vSwHY7ed

— Mike Thornton (@Mike4Eastleigh) February 9, 2013

You can read about him and his policy priorities here.

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged eastleigh by-election, john o'farrell, Maria Hutchings, mike thornton | Leave a comment

Gove forced into GCSE U-turn ‘under Lib Dem pressure’

By The Voice | Published Thu 7th February 2013 - 7:35 am

The morning’s big news is that Conservative education secretary Michael Gove is set to announce a U-turn today on his plans to scrap the current GCSE exams and replace them with a new EBacc qualification in 2015. Here‘s how the Independent reports it:

The Education Secretary bowed to overwhelming pressure for a rethink from Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, the exams regulator Ofqual and MPs from all parties. It is understood that he decided to act after being warned by civil servants that one key plank of his reforms – handing each of the core subjects over to just

…

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Posted in News | Tagged david laws, EBacc, education, gcses, michael gove, schools | 27 Comments

Next week in the Lords: 4-7 February

By Mark Valladares | Published Fri 1st February 2013 - 11:21 am

Strangely enough, in the absence of a Lords Reform Bill to debate (and who’s sorry now?), things are relatively quiet on the red benches. Quiet, but not exactly dead, I’m delighted to say. And now that Paddy Ashdown has hit Twitter, life is going to be a bit more exciting. And talking of Twitter, don’t forget that our Parliamentary Party in the Lords has its own Twitter feed. And yes, those are real Peers tweeting, in live time. So, what might they be covering next week?

On Monday, …

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Posted in News, Parliament | Tagged chris rennard, john sharkey, kishwer falkner, margaret sharp, paddy ashdown | Leave a comment

Baroness Kramer: Focus on small businesses to get the economy moving

By Nick T | Published Thu 31st January 2013 - 9:17 am

I have previously highlighted some of Baroness (Susan) Kramer’s excellent House of Lords speeches on the economy here on Lib Dem Voice. There follows, courtesy of Lords Hansard, an extract from another speech she gave on Tuesday to the House in a debate on economic growth, urging the government to focus on small and medium size businesses, by whom the vast majority of people are employed:

I would like to add something slightly different to this debate, because as a doer and deliverer I am going to ask him if he might

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Posted in News | Tagged susan kramer | Leave a comment

Opinion: Gove’s A Level reforms risk pushing many universities out of reach

By Chris White | Published Wed 30th January 2013 - 12:30 pm

I am not from the educational establishment and, having seen two daughters through state schools, I have plenty of zeal for major reform.

But that reform does not encompass sending a copy of the King James Bible to every school nor yet banishing the Arts from the nation’s principal academic qualification.

In so many ways Michael Gove uses the same techniques as his colleague Eric Pickles: pander to the right wing press, eschew evidence based thinking, make a splash.

The AS level announcement this week is just one more example. I didn’t have the option of AS levels. I sat O-levels in a …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged A levels, education | 32 Comments

Opinion: Cameron is wishing for an EU that already exists

By Giles Goodall | Published Fri 25th January 2013 - 11:21 am

The prime objective of David Cameron’s Europe speech was always to placate anti-European critics on his right flank rather than to set out a bold vision in the national interest. And in that sense, his ‘red meat’ pledge of an in/out referendum after 2015 may succeed in sating his own party’s Eurosceptic appetite, at least in the short term. But there are at least three reasons why his strategy is not only mistaken, but risks deeply damaging the national interest.

First, while the ‘repatriationist’ wing of Cameron’s own party may be satisfied with the promise of a renegotiation of as yet …

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Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds | Tagged european union, single market, sovereignty | 12 Comments

Opinion: Time to get serious about food wastage

By Sam Lawes | Published Thu 24th January 2013 - 11:52 am

It may not seem a naturally risky topic, but the rate at which we are wasting food is nothing less than scandalous. From gross inefficiencies at the heart of modern food production to domestic habits, food waste is the quiet scandal of the decade.

A recent BBC article reported that up to half of the food we produce is simply thrown away. Worldwide. The waste of North Americans and Europeans, says another report, could feed the world’s hungry several times over.

This makes for uncomfortable reading on all sides. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged food waste | 11 Comments

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “Steve Webb’s pension reforms are a great step forward”

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 20th January 2013 - 4:40 pm

Europe might have been the focus for much of the commentariat this week, but there’s no doubt what’s been the most significant domestic news: the Coalition’s reforms of the state pension. And it’s that issue — and Steve Webb’s contribution to it — which is the focus of Nick Clegg’s latest letter: ‘you can tell that Steve Webb has delivered a pension change that makes it worthwhile to save, and simple to prepare for retirement.’

It’s not often (ever?) you’ll find the Lib Dem leader and the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts on the same page: their admiration for the pensions minister is the exception to the rule.

The party has produced three infographics that are easy to share via Facebook. Nick’s letter doesn’t link to them, or thank the hundreds who’ve already shared the news of this Lib Dem success in government with their friends — so here are the links for those who want to tell their friends of Steve Webb’s success:

This week I want to tell you about my good friend and colleague, Professor Steve Webb.

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Posted in News | Tagged letter from the leader, pensions, state pension, steve webb | 3 Comments

Welcome to my day… 18 January

By Mark Valladares | Published Fri 18th January 2013 - 7:52 am

Yes, it’s Friday and we start with the news that, according to Animal Planet, sea otters are the cutest animals in the world (say those last three words as Jeremy Clarkson would, why don’t you?). Hat-tip to Stephen Tall, whose devotion to his Popbitch feed appears to be a thing of beauty (but not as cute as a sea otter, of course).

The overnight by-election news is… unknown as I write this. Hopefully, when daylight comes to Creeting St Peter, I’ll have more news…

So, what do we have today? In …

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Posted in News | 4 Comments

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 10th January 2013 - 3:55 pm

Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?

Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

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Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

Duncan Hames is one to watch – Independent

By Paul Walter | Published Mon 7th January 2013 - 1:23 pm

Duncan Hames - Some rights reserved by Duncan Hames Duncan Hames has been picked out by the Independent as a political star of the future. John Rentoul feeds some “scientific criteria” into his machine to come up with a list of MPs to watch in the future. The criteria include performing well on TV, networking, administrative ability and ideological positioning.

Duncan comes out of the machine as the one Lib Dem pickee:

Duncan Hames, 35, who has been PPS to Nick Clegg

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Posted in News | Tagged duncan hames | 5 Comments

Lynne Featherstone takes on church leaders on equal marriage

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 26th December 2012 - 4:45 pm

Liberal Democrat hero of everything to do with equalities, Lynne Featherstone, has used her blog to take a coach and horses through the arguments that various church leaders have been using this Christmas to attack the Coalition’s plans to introduce equal marriage.

Sometimes MPs’ and Government Ministers’ blogs can become quite bland. This is not the case with Ms Featherstone’s. It’s good that she is quite comfortable with the idea of talking directly. It’s important that someone does. Willie Rennie did exactly the same up here in Scotland …

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Posted in News | Tagged catholic church, equal marriage, lynne featherstone, willie rennie | 25 Comments

A Christmas Carol. Stave Four: The Ghost of Austerity Future

By Andy Boddington | Published Sat 22nd December 2012 - 8:55 am

LibDemVoice is delighted to bring you A Christmas Carol, a contemporary re-imagining of Charles Dickens’ classic tale, told in five staves (as Dickens called them). The fourth stave, The Ghost of Austerity Future, follows. You can catch up with Stave One, Mensch’s Ghost, here; and Stave Two, The Ghost of Avarice Past, here; and Stave Three, The Ghost of Arrogance Present, here.

As sketched by Bodz

Osborne stared at the umbrella and blinked. All around him the Olympic stadium was burning and crashing to the ground …

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Posted in Humour, Op-eds | Tagged featured | 2 Comments

Opinion: The escalator that’s pricing beer into insensibility

By Andy Boddington | Published Wed 12th December 2012 - 10:59 am

Today, upward of a thousand enthusiasts are descending on Westminster to demand protection for one of the nation’s great heritage assets. Beer.

The Labour government of old was unduly fond of price and tax escalators, which generally take the form of retail price index plus a bit more. I have always regarded this as a rather odd fiscal mechanism because it simply creates a circularity that feeds itself. Costs go up, the RPI duly rises, and costs go up again as a result.

It beats me why the coalition has decided to maintain this blunt policy. Fiscal escalators

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged beer. CAMRA, pubs, tax | 10 Comments

Opinion: Radical action need to remedy the economy’s woes

By David Thorpe | Published Tue 11th December 2012 - 9:32 am

While the Chancellor’s direction of travel in relation to tackling Britain’s economic challenges is improving, his current approach will leave Britain feeling like Sisyphus, labouring hard to push a rock up a hill but never quite feeling secure that it won’t come crashing back down, destroying the hard work already undertaken.

But just as Sisyphus continued to focus on the mechanics of getting the rock up the hill, rather than indulge in any broader experiment to escape his predicament, Osborne toils at the seams of Britain’s economic malaise.

The Chancellor happily wallows in the Bank of England’s myth that giant infusions of credit from Quantitative Easing and the ‘Funding for Lending’ schemes, are any sort of remedy to Britain’s economic woes.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged bank of england, banks | 16 Comments

Vince Cable criticises Starbucks over ‘tax dodging’

By NewsHound | Published Tue 4th December 2012 - 12:32 pm

In the Guardian today, Vince Cable says that he understands why people are boycotting Starbucks.

The business secretary, when asked by the Guardian if he would consider boycotting their products, said:

I don’t shop at Starbucks so this doesn’t apply to me, but I can fully understand why people would vote with their feet as a result of their tax dodging.

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Posted in News | Tagged Danny Alexander, starbucks, tax avoidance, vince cable | 13 Comments

Energy – where we are and what we need to do

By Lucy Care | Published Fri 30th November 2012 - 12:51 pm

Our society is energy hungry. Cutting carbon from this diet is vital. And we mustn’t forget gas!

Decarbonising our electricity supply is an on-going hot issue, and challenging too. For example, the technology is not yet all proven – like the uncertainties of carbon capture and storage (CCS) – and for some technologies the reality is harsh – like maintaining wind turbines and tidal barrages in marine environments. There’s also the big challenge of matching a variable supply of power with actual demand.

If we don’t decarbonise our electricity effectively, then transferring from diesel locomotives and petrol cars to electric …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged energy policy | 13 Comments

AD LIB: A new magazine for Liberal Democrats

By Helen Duffett | Published Wed 21st November 2012 - 2:43 pm

Last month I asked for your views on the new members’ magazine to replace Liberal Democrat News.

We got loads of really good feedback and we’ve tried to get as much of it into the magazine as possible.

Of course, no one has ever made 100 per cent of Liberal Democrats happy 100 per cent of the time, but we sincerely hope AD LIB lives up to most (if not all of) your expectations.

We’re not giving away too much about the content yet, but Twitter and Facebook profiles for AD LIB are up and running and for a teaser we’ve released the front cover (above right).

I know, I know, as defenders of transparency in public life how can we justify keeping the contents secret?

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Posted in News | Tagged ad lib magazine, featured | 18 Comments

George Bridges: my part in the Tories’ downfall. As a Lib Dem, I approve this message

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 21st November 2012 - 8:25 am

There’s a fascinating article today in the Telegraph by George Bridges: The Tories have gone astray – and I helped. Who’s George Bridges, you ask? Here’s his summary of his political career to date:

First a researcher for the Conservative Party machine, then a tour of duty in the bunker of No 10 for the last three Major years, followed by a few years advising Michael Howard and David Cameron.

It’s a hefty 1,000-word ‘Consevatism: my part in its downfall’ mea culpa, and it’s fascinating in two ways.

First, for its call to arms for Conservatives to ignore the polling …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged conservative party, george bridges | 8 Comments

Norman Lamb writes: A landmark for the NHS – and a line in the sand for mental health

By Norman Lamb MP | Published Tue 13th November 2012 - 5:55 pm

The first mandate between the Government and the NHS Commissioning Board was published today, setting out the priorities for the health service over the next two years. It reaffirms our commitment to a comprehensive and universal NHS, available to all based on need rather than on your ability to pay. Its overriding aim is to make the NHS work better for patients.

The Mandate was drawn up following widespread consultation over the summer. Key goals contained within it include:

Improving standards of care, especially for the elderly
Better diagnosis,

…

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Posted in News | Tagged ed miliband, mental health, nhs commissioning board | 5 Comments

Opinion: Lord Patten should not go

By Andy Boddington | Published Tue 13th November 2012 - 8:36 am

Vultures are circling above Lord Patten’s head – he must not resign.

George Entwistle may or may not have made a good director general of the BBC. He took over from the maverick Mark Thompson, who had wreaked havoc across the BBC with his Delivering Quality First cuts. Entwistle might just have provided a steady pair of hands to guide the BBC and rebuild its confidence after the Thompson era. But coping with the Savile crisis proved beyond him and his fate became inevitable.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged bbc, chris patten | 2 Comments

Liberal Democrat Voice on the road…

By Mark Valladares | Published Fri 9th November 2012 - 9:15 am

Welcome to Dublin!

Today, for the first time, Liberal Democrat Voice comes to you live(ish) from the Annual Congress of the European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) and, although we haven’t got a full team here to cover the event – the budget doesn’t stretch that far, I fear – I am hoping to provide updates throughout the day.

Highlights will include a speech from Nick Clegg, reports from the ELDR Council, the English Council equivalent of our European umbrella group, and a major policy debate on energy and the European dimension.

So, drop in throughout the day, and feel free to watch the live …

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Posted in News | Leave a comment

Nick Clegg at PMQs: what the papers say

By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 8th November 2012 - 10:31 am

Nick Clegg’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions has been widely commented upon in today’s press. If you want to see a blow by blow account of the event, then I have collected tweets here and the official Hansard report is here. For me, the absolute highlight of an excellent performance from Nick was how he dealt with a question by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who asked a question about giving people who had been in care access to their files. Nick’s reply was sensitive and genuine as he promised help for those who had been abused.

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Posted in News | Tagged nick clegg, PMQs, press coverage | 9 Comments

Opinion: Growth has returned, but what does it reveal?

By David Thorpe | Published Wed 7th November 2012 - 1:59 pm

One of the few tactically savvy moves made by the coalition recently has been its muted response to UK economy’s return to growth. This article examines what the return to growth means for the wider economy.

The first point to make is that, just as the double-dip phase of the recession was caused by international events, the return to growth has similarly been caused by external factors. The coalition deserves neither blame for the double-dip, nor credit for its ending.

Many of those who oppose the coalition’s economic policies on political rather than economic grounds question the validity of the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged economy | 5 Comments

#LDVUSA – Three nifty ways to help make sense of tonight’s election results

By Paul Walter | Published Tue 6th November 2012 - 1:53 pm

It can often be a mathematical nightmare trying to work out who’s winning as US Presidential Election night progresses. Sometimes, some poor souls even end up having to rely on David Dimbleby to explain what’s going on! Poor things!

Here are three nifty tools to help you make sense of what is happening tonight:

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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged barack obama, Mitt Romney, usa presidential election 2012 | 4 Comments

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 5th November 2012 - 2:53 pm

Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?

Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

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Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

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