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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes: Being our party’s President is a wonderful honour for me

By Tim Farron MP | Published Fri 5th October 2012 - 3:53 pm

As I said in my speech to our conference in Brighton, wherever I go I find Liberal Democrats who are infinitely more upbeat, positive and determined than anyone in the media thinks we should be. We have every right to be upbeat.

Never have our Liberal Democrat voices and values been so important. Never have Liberal Democrat victories been so necessary. Britain needs the Liberal Democrats more than ever. I know that together we can do this. We can make Britain fairer, greener and more liberal.

As I watch Labour (or ‘blank page’ as I call them at the moment!) in Manchester, …

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Posted in News | Tagged , | 8 Comments
Geoff Crocker

Opinion: The Conflicts of Economic Policy

By Geoff Crocker | Published Tue 2nd October 2012 - 8:45 am

Nick Clegg’s conference speech committed Lib Dems to manage debt out of the economy and implement a fair tax regime. But the objectives of economic policy often conflict with each other.

Let’s take it that there are three objectives for current economic policy:

  1. to reduce deficit and the debt it accumulates
  2. to inject demand into the economy
  3. to have a fair tax system

In the following table, I’ve had a try at evaluating recent and proposed economic policies against these objectives.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 53 Comments
Rachel Coleman Finch

Opinion: Conference crèche keeps parent activists

By Rachel Coleman Finch | Published Mon 1st October 2012 - 3:54 pm

A baby in a sling makes an amazing Conference icebreaker. Over the five days I lost count of the number of people who stopped to admire my darling and ask questions, to the point where occasionally I gave the answers without being asked (“11 weeks”, “Nicholas”, “no, not after the Leader, after his father’s uncle). During the day, when I wasn’t carrying him, I frequently got stopped and asked “where’s your baby?”

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Posted in Conference, Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Are you a Liberal Democrat conference rep who went to Brighton?

By Mark Pack | Published Sun 30th September 2012 - 12:50 pm

If so, I’ve got a question for you. Below is the text of an email sent out by 38 Degrees following their lobbying campaign around Liberal Democrat conference.

The lobbying itself – over the climate change debate – was pretty well done, in particular firing up supporters to want to lobby the Liberal Democrats – but doing so without throwing the sort of brickbats at the party that would make the lobbying less likely to be effective. (It’s a common problem with lobbying campaigns: you whip up an audience by saying the target is evil, and then found the said recipient …

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Posted in Conference, News | Tagged , | 23 Comments
Mark Pack

Another day at conference, another education policy launched

By Mark Pack | Published Wed 26th September 2012 - 10:34 am

BlackboardTax, tax and a bit more about tax: that’s been the main theme of the Liberal Democrat conference, from the slogan on badges and the banner outside the building through to the content of speeches and the main policy focus of the media coverage.

When it comes to new policy announcements, however, it is education that has had a strong showing.

First there was the news on summer schools:

Lib Dems announce further £100m for summer schools to help children catch-up
Mr Laws said: “All too often pupils who have made big progress

…

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Mark Pack

Cable: no to regional pay; Clegg: yes to taxes on wealth; Alexander: tougher tax rules

By Mark Pack | Published Sun 23rd September 2012 - 12:45 pm

News snippets from today:

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, the Liberal Democrat leader ruled out the possibility of the Government filling the gap in public finances through cuts to the welfare budget – something reportedly being mooted on the Conservative benches.

He said the Government would “start at the top and work down”, and was optimistic about his chances of persuading his Conservative colleagues to agree to a so-called ‘wealth tax’.

 

Cable said that introducing regional pay was “completely unacceptable” and “terrible economics”. He said that although the Lib Dems were prepared to contemplate a measure of public sector pay

…

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

Blog of the Year Awards 2012: The Shortlists

By Helen Duffett | Published Sat 22nd September 2012 - 7:33 pm

Nominations for the Liberal Democrats’ Blog of the Year Awards 2012 closed on 14 September. Since then, the judges, Kirsty Williams (Assembly Member for Brecon and Radnorshire and Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats), Nick Thornsby (Lib Dem Blogger of the Year 2011), Tim Gatt (ITV News Digital Output Editor), Stephen Tall (Co-Editor, Lib Dem Voice), Alan Muhammed (Lib Dem Voice’s social media manager), & Helen Duffett (that’s me – Co-Editor (Associate) Lib Dem Voice) have been poring over the entries for the five categories.

It’s been a big task, and a fun one, to distil so many excellent examples of Lib Dem blogging and e-campaigning into lists of the best.

Congratulations if you’ve been shortlisted, but if you haven’t: remember that the shortlists are based on the judges’ subjective opinions. The awards are intended to be a fun way to celebrate the talent in the Lib Dem blogosphere, whilst introducing you to some blogs you might not have read before.

Next, a plug for the awards ceremony itself. If you’re at party conference in Brighton, do come along to the Pavilion Room, Grand Hotel, Brighton, from 9.45pm tonight, Saturday 22nd September.

Now, without further ado, here are the shortlists: (Drumroll, please)

Blank

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Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments
Tom Fewins

The Independent View: Liberal Democrats – nature needs you!

By Tom Fewins | Published Sat 22nd September 2012 - 10:25 am

A majestic soaring eagle. The lightning flash of a kingfisher. Feeding the ducks.

For most people, wildlife ignites their first sparks of interest in environmental issues, yet it is currently conspicuously absent from the political discourse. We hear a lot about sustainability and climate change, but if this Government is to realise its ambitions to be “the Greenest Government ever” it has to tackle biodiversity conservation as well.

We desperately need action: the UK has missed its commitment to halt biodiversity loss by 2010; 42% of our most important habitats and …

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Posted in Conference, Op-eds, The Independent View | Tagged , , | 1 Comment
Andreas Christodoulou

Opinion: The Sun has clearly boobed on this issue of free speech

By Andreas Christodoulou | Published Sun 16th September 2012 - 1:55 pm

I’m frankly disgusted that The Sun has decreed that I have a right to see Prince Harry’s penis, but not Kate Middleton’s nipples. I fail to understand how my being unable to see Prince Harry naked is somehow a disgusting breach of the freedom of speech of the UK press but my being unable to see Kate Middleton naked is completely correct because this is a hideous invasion of her privacy.

Let us briefly review. Prince Harry was happily naked in a hotel room where he had a reasonable expectation of privacy, someone took photos of him from a short distance …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 25 Comments
The Voice

Cable and Balls cosy sofa body language – while Cable is (reportedly) at loggerheads with his Tory minister

By The Voice | Published Mon 10th September 2012 - 3:04 pm

There is wall-to-wall Cable in the papers today.

Vince Cable will make a statement in the Commons this afternoon about industrial strategy.

The Telegraph says he will “hold the hand” of certain growth industries and encourage them to have a “Team GB” mentality – Learn from Team GB’s success, Cable tells businesses.

The FT says Cable will light a “red tape bonfire“.

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Posted in News | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Tue 4th September 2012 - 3:50 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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Stephen Tall

Reshuffle round-up: it looks like good news for Swinson & Laws

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 27th August 2012 - 12:00 pm

There’s been plenty of reshuffle chit-chat overt the past few weeks, much of it speculative. However, the Sunday papers appears to included some pretty well-sourced information which went beyond the usual space-filling ‘who knows?’, and appears to suggest good news for both Jo Swinson and David Laws — both of whom enjoyed strong support in our recent survey of members’ preferred back-bencher promotions.

First, The Observer reported that David Cameron’s reshuffle will bring whips back to the fore, with an enhanced whips office incorporating both old-handers and young-turks to help the Tory leader re-assert a grip on his increasingly …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , | 61 Comments
Sara Bedford

The English Baccalaureate is a Mickey Mouse qualification

By Sara Bedford | Published Fri 24th August 2012 - 1:35 pm

Almost two years ago, a fortnight after my daughter confirmed her GCSE choices; Michael Gove announced his latest bright idea for the nation’s schoolchildren. The English Baccalaureate was originally intended to ‘be the equivalent of the old School Leaving Certificate’, but the EBacc, as it became known, has turned into just another of Gove’s personal follys, greeted with less than lukewarm enthusiasm by pupils, teachers, parents and employers.

I’m all for pupils studying a good range of subjects, at a level that reflects their abilities and supports their future studies and career paths. But the EBacc does nothing for pupils or schools, except provide another stick to beat them with, as Gove always intended. The cat has been let permanently out of the DfE bag with the ‘clarification’ that the EBacc is intended as ‘a performance measure’ and ‘not a qualification in its own right’.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments
Caron Lindsay

That poll on Nick’s leadership – what the papers say

By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 23rd August 2012 - 4:25 pm

Strangely, that Liberal Democrat Voice poll which showed that members were split 47%-46% on whether Nick Clegg should still be Liberal Democrat leader at the next election has attracted a bit of coverage in the press.

The Guardian suggests that:

Clegg is vulnerable because he is seen as one of the few people at the top of the party who is ideologically sympathetic to the Conservatives.

Well, that’s maybe because Polly Toynbee and the Guardian are always trying to paint him that way. David Cameron, on the other hand, who is probably in a better position to judge, is

…

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Stephen Tall

Review: 101 Ways To Win An Election by Mark Pack & Edward Maxfield

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 19th August 2012 - 1:25 pm

101 Ways To Win An Election is a welcome and pleasant surprise.

Now that might seem a lukewarm introduction to a review of a book co-written by my co-editor Mark Pack, together with fellow Lib Dem Edward Maxfield. But it’s not intended to be either ironic or half-hearted because what makes this book such an excellent guide to political campaigning is that it succeeds in being a whole lot more than that.

In fact, its 308 pacy pages cheerfully zig-zag between marketing manual, self-help book, and campaigning A-Z — with dollops of political history, pop-psychology, and behavioural economics thrown in for good measure.

The authors have clearly put a lot of thought into creating a book which people will actually want to read — and to re-read — on a subject many but the most obsessed political aficionado might initially dismiss as dull and boring.

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Posted in Books | Tagged , | 2 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 17 August 2012

By The Voice | Published Fri 17th August 2012 - 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

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Stephen Tall

69% of Lib Dem members say London right to bid to host the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics

By Stephen Tall | Published Sat 11th August 2012 - 8:55 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

11.5% swing in favour of the Olympics among Lib Dem members!

LDV asked: All things considered and with the benefit of hindsight, do you think London should or should not have bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games? (Compared with June 2012 results in brackets.)

    69% (+12%) – It should
    23% (-11%) – It should not
    8% (-2%) – Don’t

…

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Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Fri 10th August 2012 - 10:45 am

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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NewsHound

LibLink: Chris Rennard – Failure to deliver Lords reform will not threaten the coalition

By NewsHound | Published Sat 4th August 2012 - 9:05 am

Over at the Guardian, former Lib Dem chief executive Lord (Chris) Rennard has argued that the fall of Lords reform would be a blow to Lib Dems, but that it was not the key aspect of the coalition agreement to voters:

Failure to deliver on the most important aspects of constitutional reform would, of course, be a bitter blow to Liberal Democrats. But the party will also recognise that the constitutional package within the coalition agreement was not the most important aspect of it to the voters, nor was it nearly as important as the state of the economy as

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

++ Clegg to announce Lords reform sunk; Tory rebels defeat Cameron; first breach of Coalition Agreement.

By Stephen Tall | Published Fri 3rd August 2012 - 8:44 pm

The Guardian reports tonight:

Nick Clegg is expected to announce next week he has been forced to abandon Lords reform in the face of implacable Conservative backbench opposition that David Cameron has been unable to overcome. … Clegg has to decide whether to respond to the Lords rebuff by insisting legislation designed to cut the number of MPs to 600 should be abandoned. The change is being promoted by Cameron as a way of cutting the cost of politics and equalising the electoral size of constituencies.

Lord Rennard, the Liberal Democrat peer and former party chief executive, denied the reverse on

…

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Caron Lindsay

Vince v Osborne – the battle for RBS’s future

By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 2nd August 2012 - 2:26 pm

The future of the Royal Bank of Scotland is back in the headlines today.

The Financial Times reports that ministers are discussing buying the remaining shares in RBS, bringing it fully under state control. This would allow them to force it to lend more to viable small and medium-sized businesses  without having to worry about other shareholders challenging such a direction in the courts.

The Guardian reports that Liberal Democrat   Vince Cable is the driving force behind this plan. He believes that it’s the only way to get money to businesses.

What we do know, and Vince Cable confirmed when taking …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments
Paul Walter

Menzies Campbell in celebration of Olympians in Parliament

By Paul Walter | Published Thu 2nd August 2012 - 10:54 am

BBC Parliament has shown a documentary, “First past the post”, which celebrates parliamentarians who are Olympians. Needless to say, our own Sir Menzies Campbell, once one of the fastest men on the planet, is featured liberally in the programme.

Menzies reveals the exotic mixture which his mother used to feed him on race days, and shows viewers his old team blazer. He tells us he can still get into it, but the buttons don’t do up.

Until the end of …

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The Voice

Lib Dems push for ‘blind marking’ to level the playing field for ethnic communities

By The Voice | Published Tue 31st July 2012 - 3:10 pm

The Observer this weekend reported on the Lib Dems’ latest attempts to push for more equal treatment of citizens from different ethnic backgrounds:

Ministers are seeking to introduce “blind marking” of pupils’ schoolwork by teachers as part of a push to tackle a history of underachievement among black and ethnic minority groups, while banks will be required to carry out ethnic monitoring of people to whom they lend money. Under the proposals, the identities of pupils would not be a factor when teachers mark work, and banks could be held accountable for the racial profile of their customers. The controversial

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , | 33 Comments
Giles Goodall

Opinion: Brussels vs. the banksters

By Giles Goodall | Published Sat 28th July 2012 - 1:21 pm

European Parliament building European Parliament building

Almost no-one in the UK would these days dispute the fact that the country’s banking sector needs a serious overhaul to correct the runaway behaviour which helped nudge Britain (and others) into the financial crisis. The Liberal Democrats have rightly been most persistent in demanding reforms, in particular a break-up of retail and casino banking, as recommended by the independent Vickers Inquiry.

The latest scandal about fixing the benchmark Libor interest rate plumbs new depths – even by the standards of Britain’s banks. Here were …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 14 Comments
Craig Bennett

The Independent View: Will Osborne gas the Lib Dems’ green credentials?

By Craig Bennett | Published Fri 27th July 2012 - 9:05 am

Ed Davey’s announced this week that he’d secured an important concession from the Chancellor over wind farm subsidies – but at what cost?

Although there was understandable relief over the certainty this move gave to investors in clean British energy it seems the victory may have come with a hefty price tag: an agreement to burden our electricity system with dirty and increasingly expensive gas for decades to come – despite the enormous damage this could cause to both the economy and planet.

Ed Davey’s success in securing a 10 per cent cut in wind farm subsidies – to reflect the …

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Vince in Edinburgh – what the members said.

By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 26th July 2012 - 2:33 pm

Edinburgh was spoiled last weekend. Not only was there a Madonna concert and a performance of the Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy radio show (which I went to), but Business Secretary Vince Cable answered questions from Liberal Democrat members on Sunday evening.

Readers will be glad to see former Edinburgh West MP John Barrett, sufficiently recovered from illness and on his usual sparkling form, chairing the session.

Vince answered questions for well over an hour on subjects ranging from renewable energy to high executive pay to winning back …

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Mark Pack

Local liberal heroes: Flick Rea

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 26th July 2012 - 10:25 am

A while back, I penned a series of posts profiling forgotten liberal heroes (to which a couple of other people also kindly contributed), looking at some of those who achieved great things for liberalism in their time but have been unjustly forgotten – such as Margaret Wintringham, the very first female Liberal MP.

There is also another group of people who I think are often unjustly obscure – those local campaigners who are often at the heart of their local community and local party, delivering liberalism and helping others, but as their stage is a local one they are often unacknowledged in the wider party.

Today it is the turn of Camden councillor Flick Rea.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 4 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion: Vince Cable’s leadership comments are unwelcome

By Paul Walter | Published Mon 23rd July 2012 - 8:54 am

A few months ago we received advice from Tim Montgomerie:

… you need to change party leader. Not now. Not, I suggest, until 2014. But you can’t go into the next election with Nick Clegg at the top of your ticket.

OK, on that occasion, the advice was asked for in the form of an invitation to write for this esteemed website.

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Posted in News | 47 Comments
Stephen Tall

In other news… Trident, MI6, DECC, defections & other stories

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 22nd July 2012 - 5:25 pm

Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past few days…

Coalition set for new split on cut-price Trident plan (Scotsman)

COALITION splits over Britain’s nuclear deterrent are set to be reopened after an internal Ministry of Defence review suggested a slimmed-down version of the £25 billion Trident replacement could be an option. … The report, led by Lib Dem armed forces minister Nick Harvey, looks set to reopen coalition divisions with many Tory back-benchers concerned that Britain’s replacement for Trident could end up being sacrificed for political reasons. However, with final decisions not

…

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Michael Moore

Michael Moore’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Published Wed 18th July 2012 - 9:25 am

Every week Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore writes a column for newspapers in his Borders constituency. Here’s this week’s edition.

Farming

It has been a challenging few months for farmers here in the Borders with the extreme weather putting pressure on feed and bedding supplies and causing untold damage to crops and disruption to livestock. We have also heard the worrying news that processors are aggressively cutting the price they pay to our dairy farmers at the farm gate. These cuts are extremely disappointing because they appear to fly in the face of rising prices in global markets …

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