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Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Tim Leunig – David Cameron should know better than this Housing Benefit gimmick

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 27th June 2012 - 9:27 am

I wrote the other day that I wanted to see our party in general and Nick Clegg in particular come out and roundly condemn David Cameron’s ridiculous plan to stop under 25s from claiming Housing Benefit. Centre Forum director Tim Leunig did just that in an article for the Guardian on Monday.

His calm and forensic evisceration of Cameron’s argument put me in mind of the way Nick Clegg took apart the Tory Marriage Tax Break plan ahead of the 2010 election. This, of course, has been kicked into the long grass because of the Liberal Democrats. I’m also reminded of …

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments
Ewan Hoyle

Opinion: Changing demand without changing supply puts prostitutes at risk

By Ewan Hoyle | Published Wed 20th June 2012 - 11:57 am

It is with some concern that I read of proposals to criminalise paying for sex in Scotland.

Prostitution is a catch-all term that describes arrangements that should make the state very concerned indeed – trafficking of children for brutal sexual exploitation for example. There are also arrangements that the state has no business interfering in – the work of a self-employed, financially comfortable escort making very good money to supplement another income in an environment over which he or she has control.

Changing demand by criminalising the purchase of sex will have a number of unintended and undesirable consequences.

Firstly, we should consider …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments
Nick Clegg MP

Nick Clegg MP writes… Rio+20 should set the green agenda for the next 20 years

By Nick Clegg MP | Published Fri 15th June 2012 - 12:05 pm

Next week, representatives from 190 countries will meet to discuss how we build a green economy that reduces poverty without destroying the environment. These issues have been close to my heart since I wrote a postgraduate thesis on the “Deep Green” movement and humans’ effect on the environment over twenty years ago. But their importance for future generations has been brought home tenfold to me since becoming a father, and I am proud that I will be leading the UK delegation at the Rio Summit.

At the original Earth Summit in 1992, against the backdrop of Brazil’s disappearing Amazon …

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Posted in News | Tagged , | 4 Comments
Sara Bedford

Does mislaying your child really make you a bad parent?

By Sara Bedford | Published Tue 12th June 2012 - 11:55 am

As soon as Eric Pickles announced his ‘Back to Basics’ crackdown on ‘troubled’ families, it was odds on that a Conservative minister would oblige by executing his own family faux pas. How many would have placed their bets in the culprit being the Prime Minister himself, who with model mum Samantha appears to have chillaxed a little too much after Sunday lunch at the pub, leaving their daughter Nancy in the Ladies.

The uncomfortable end to Nancy’s comfort break apparently happened ‘a couple of months ago’, according to a Downing Street spokesman, but conveniently surfaced in the press as soon as …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 26 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 7th June 2012 - 10:25 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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Stephen Tall

Our political writers can pretend they know what makes us tick: a response to Matthew d’Ancona

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 6th June 2012 - 8:25 pm

Here’s how Matthew d’Ancona could’ve started his article for today’s London Evening Standard, ‘Our political class can now work out what makes us tick’. But he didn’t.

So what was all that about? As the waves of media fervour subside to reveal the bleak promontories of Austerity Commentariat, let us pause and ask what this extraordinary four-day Jubilee told us about journalists, and their obsession with extrapolating about our national life and character.

There then follows some delicious cognitive dissonance. First, an acknowledgement of what is to follow:

The lazy reflex for political observers is to extract the lessons that suit them.

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib-Lab cooperation: there’s one easy way to find out if Labour are serious

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 6th June 2012 - 5:55 pm

Today’s Guardian big-ups a call by Labour’s chief whip in the Lords, Lord Bassam, to his Lib Dem opposite number Lord Newby as a sign that ‘elements of the party are preparing the ground for a possible Lib-Lab coalition after the next election.’

I have to say on first reading the tenor of Lord Bassam’s note strikes me more as told-you-so than conciliatory, but maybe I’m being over-sensitive — judge for yourselves from this excerpt:

“The last couple of years have been a bit bruising for your colleagues in this house, and no doubt they will be looking forward to

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , | 28 Comments
Caron Lindsay

The day the Nationalists stole me

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 30th May 2012 - 6:28 pm

Last Friday saw the launch of Yes Scotland, the campaign for Scottish independence. I wrote at the time that it really amounted to some white blokes talking in a cinema.

It’s not been a good week for them because yesterday they were forced to change their website after I found out my photo was on it, among others, under the headline “Powered by people o’ independent mind”.  The clear implication was that I support their cause when I absolutely do not.

I also found out I had a profile on their site, and had been awarded 50 “political capital” points for …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments
Kavya Kaushik

The importance of community politics in a homogenous political scene

By Kavya Kaushik | Published Tue 29th May 2012 - 2:47 pm

When I first became aware of politics the world was looking towards Obama as a beacon of hope and change. As an 18 year old it was inspiring enough to want to change the world and campaign against inequality. However since I have gained further exposure, it has become apparent that politics attracts a disproportionate amount of young, careerist men. I refer to the likes of David Miliband, brought up in Hampstead yet representing the safe Labour seat of South Shields (which has a child poverty rate of 28%). When people say they don’t see a difference between the …

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Posted in News, Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #275

By The Voice | Published Sun 27th May 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 275th 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 (20-26 May, 2012), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 25 May 2012

By The Voice | Published Fri 25th May 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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Caron Lindsay

Five years in five posts – 2007-2011

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 16th May 2012 - 11:28 am

I was wondering how I could amuse readers on my own blog yesterday and I came up with this amazing idea of going back and finding out what I was writing about around this time in previous years. It was only later that I realised that Helen Duffett does this for Liberal Democrat Voice every Friday in the Friday Five . I hope she doesn’t mind me borrowing her idea and  adding in a little extra spot.

What was good about my post yesterday is that a few other Liberal Democrat bloggers got in on the act and I spent …

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NewsHound

‘Nick Clegg sets out plans to break private schools’ grip on establishment’

By NewsHound | Published Sat 12th May 2012 - 5:33 pm

Nick Clegg has long championed the pupil premium, new money allocated to schools to help boost the educational chances of children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Today’s Guardian reports how he plans in a major speech on Monday to emphasise its importance in improving social mobility in the UK:

Nick Clegg will next week set out long-term plans to break the grip of private schools on the British establishment when he publishes proposals for a surge in social mobility based on the “pupil premium”. … Clegg, launching a two-week drive on social mobility, which he sees as one of the

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , | 42 Comments
Andy Atkins

The Independent View: Energy Bill – time for Lib Dems to show their true colours

By Andy Atkins | Published Fri 11th May 2012 - 3:32 pm

Our electricity system is broken – soaring fuel bills, an over-reliance on overseas fossil fuels and an urgent need to tackle climate change highlight the severe energy crisis the nation faces.

So the inclusion of an Energy Bill in this week’s Queen’s speech to overhaul the UK’s failing electricity market was long overdue.

The Bill is a once in a generation opportunity to secure our long-term opportunity to make our power system cleaner, more affordable and less reliant on increasingly imported fossil fuels.

Such a move would be popular, too. A recent YouGov poll Friends of the Earth published to mark the …

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Posted in News, The Independent View | Tagged , , | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

A five point plan to reform the media post-Leveson

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 10th May 2012 - 12:55 pm

As investigative theatre goes, the Leveson Inquiry has been top-notch. As a route to embarrassing individuals for their past performance, it has excelled. As a way of unearthing previously secret information, it has been gripping.

But as a route for reforming the media? That’s a rather different story.

Some things have already been achieved. The Press Complaints Commission has already been sent to the retirement home for failed regulators and politicians have already been shamed into distancing themselves from newspaper moguls. It will be a long time before Ed Miliband repeats this sort of photo op, for example.

There is, however, an awful lot left to do, especially as Lord Leveson has not been looking at the underlying causes. As I wrote much earlier in the proceedings:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments
Daisy Benson

NOW PLAYING: A post-election playlist

By Daisy Benson | Published Mon 7th May 2012 - 5:15 pm

Like a lot of Lib Dems this Bank Holiday weekend I’ve been recovering from months of hard slog otherwise known as election campaigning.

A diet of canvassing, leafleting, takeaways and late night phone calls isn’t healthy for an extended period of time, so if you’re feeling knackered – worry not – I have just the thing!

In between resting aching legs/reminding friends and family what I look like/feeding the cats/watching the mayoral election/watching the French Presidential elections/sleeping I have put together a post-election playlist.

I was partly inspired by the Obama 2012 …

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Posted in Humour | Tagged | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 7th May 2012 - 4:25 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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Caron Lindsay

UKIP burn picture of Brian Paddick in Soho

By Caron Lindsay | Published Wed 2nd May 2012 - 7:48 pm

Pink News reports that UKIP supporters burnt a picture of Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Brian Paddick in Soho this afternoon.

How did they find out? Because UKIP press officer Gawain Towler tweeted the picture.

If you look at his Twitter feed, Towler’s attitude undergoes a significant shift.

From justifiying the photo at 3:46 pm

to saying it was all a big mistake and he hadn’t seen the lighter just 43 minutes later.

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments
Mary Reid

LibLink: Stephen Gilbert – This half-baked pasty tax is offensive

By Mary Reid | Published Fri 27th April 2012 - 3:31 pm

You really must follow the link to the Guardian to see what  Stephen Gilbert, MP for St Austell & Newquay, is eating.

The pasty industry is rising up and marching, it seems.

He writes:

It’s just over a month since George Osborne presented his budget to the House of Commons but the uproar over the proposed “pasty tax” hasn’t subsided. The VAT extension on hot food, which would include the Cornish pasty, is not only politically unpopular, it’s also unworkable, unfair and based on a flawed logic.

…

Today, I’m joining hundreds of people from the pasty industry to demonstrate

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , | 25 Comments
Stephen Tall

In other news… Michael Brown extradited, unpaid party internships, Jo Swinson for cabinet? & other stories

By Stephen Tall | Published Tue 24th April 2012 - 5:37 pm

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

Lib Dem donor Michael Brown to be extradited to UK (BBC News)

Convicted fraudster and former Lib Dem donor Michael Brown is facing a hearing in Spain for extradition to the UK. He was flown to Madrid on Saturday to be handed to UK officials after being arrested in the Dominican Republic. In 2008 Brown, who had gone on the run to the Dominican Republic from the UK, was jailed in his absence for seven years for stealing £36m from clients after posing

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Conference Accreditation Consultation – what Liberal Democrat bloggers are saying

By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 19th April 2012 - 5:53 pm

Last Saturday, Federal Conference Committee chair Andrew Wiseman invited responses  in an article on Liberal Democrat Voice from members on the controversial issue of an accreditation system for Conference. Sussex Police had requested that party members would have to submit their identity details and past addresses so that they could be checked out by the Police to keep out people who might cause security issues.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrat blogosphere has been vocal in response. If there has been a post out there in favour of such a system, then I’ve not been able to find it.

At Liberal England, …

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Posted in Conference, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments
Fiona Hall MEP

Fiona Hall MEP writes: Subsidies for nuclear energy go against Coalition agreement AND economic common sense

By Fiona Hall MEP | Published Wed 18th April 2012 - 4:51 pm

With the Government due to announce new measures to encourage investment in low carbon power generation as part of its Electricity Market Reform (EMR), it is time for Liberal Democrats to speak out against public subsidies for nuclear energy. Why? Because among the Government’s proposals is the so-called Feed-in Tariff with Contract for Difference (FiT CfD) which will offer a price guarantee and revenue certainty for investors in low-carbon electricity generation  – including nuclear.  Such a public subsidy to help build new nuclear power stations in the UK would go completely against the Coalition Government Agreement and prolong “the most expensive failure of post-war British policy-making” as

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 17 Comments
Paul Walter

Opinion: If rich philanthropists don’t like the idea of a tax exemption limit, they know what they can do

By Paul Walter | Published Mon 16th April 2012 - 1:54 pm

It is as if George Osborne has got a political death wish. First, there was the botched pensioners’ tax announcement. Then, there was the hilarious pasty tax. Now, the charitable donations tax ememption limit idea is attracting great opprobrium.

But hang on a minute.

There is something in that tax exemption threshold idea.

It is quite wrong that tax exemption is given for donations to “charities” beyond the remit of the Charities Commission. There is rather vague talk of unspecified East European “charities” being used. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments
Andrew Wiseman

Andrew Wiseman writes: Seeking your views on Conference accreditation

By Andrew Wiseman | Published Sat 14th April 2012 - 12:25 pm

Federal Conference this autumn takes place in Brighton, and as you would expect FCC and conference office staff are in discussion with Sussex police about security arrangements for conference.

1. Security at conference

Most security arrangements will be those we always have at conference and are not controversial among conference-goers (as shown by reps’ feedback). The Brighton venue is of course very used to these levels of security, both for our conferences and those of other parties.

The police and security services have however also requested that we use ‘accreditation’ for conference reps. There are widely different views within the party on …

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Posted in Conference | 75 Comments
Stephen Tall

In other news… Kemp4Liverpool, Duwayne4London, Tod4Winchester, Salmond4Inquiry, and more…

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 9th April 2012 - 6:10 pm

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

Liverpool elected mayor candidates announced (BBC News)

Twelve candidates have been nominated to stand as Liverpool’s first directly elected mayor. Nominations closed at midday and voters will go to the polls on 3 May. Among the 12 are four members of Liverpool City Council, including Labour leader Joe Anderson and Liberal Democrat Richard Kemp.

Duwayne Brooks announced as Lib Dem deputy mayor (BBC News)

A friend of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has been named as a deputy to Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick if

…

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Natasha Adams

The Independent View: Should G8 leaders be making a new commitment to reduce hunger?

By Natasha Adams | Published Fri 6th April 2012 - 3:30 pm

There are close to a billion people going hungry every day. I find the scale of this hard to imagine, but if I’m honest even the personal experience of going hungry for a day is something I can’t easily relate to. I’m lucky enough to have never really experienced hunger, living as I do in a relatively wealthy country, where even if I were unwell or unemployed the state would support me with basic social protection.

The worst thing about global hunger is that it is an unnecessary injustice. We actually produce enough globally to feed everyone, but people don’t have …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Fri 6th April 2012 - 12:45 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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Ed Wilson

Opinion: Government’s fuel top-up advice has been a serious miscalculation

By Ed Wilson | Published Mon 2nd April 2012 - 4:54 pm

My heart sank when I heard Ed Davey telling the nation to fill its petrol tanks. It seemed very likely, tipping over into obvious, that Ed Davey’s statements would feed into the kind of behaviour that we have seen in recent days, and it’s disturbingly clear that the coalition government had taken a position to promote the topping-up of tanks. That was a serious miscalculation of the likely results.

What proportion of motorists fill up less often than once a week? I suspect that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 23 Comments
Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes… Safeguards to control state surveillance

By Julian Huppert | Published Mon 2nd April 2012 - 4:19 pm

Stories came out yesterday, leaked as ever from some unknown source, which have led to justifiable outrage about proposals to capture all our online communications. We all know that one shouldn’t entirely trust what is in newspapers, especially when the security services are involved and there is a palpable lack of detailed announcements, but liberals everywhere are rightly anxious.

I’m extremely concerned about the extension of state surveillance, and have fought hard to stop it. Since I first got wind of the proposals in 2010, I’ve had a series of meetings with industry experts and others about it. I asked the Prime Minister about it in October 2010 and, while the details remain cloaked, I have some idea of what might be proposed.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #267

By The Voice | Published Sun 1st April 2012 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 267th 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 (25-31 March, 2012), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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