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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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NewsHound

LibLink: The Lib Dems’ policy shortage

By NewsHound | Published Fri 30th March 2012 - 12:06 pm

Lib Dem Voice’s ubiquitous co-editor, Mark Pack, has been writing for Total Politics.

He says:

Performers who make the leap from stage show to the TV very often run into a simple problem: TV eats up material at a fearsome rate. A stage show can be repeated around the country for months with only a few tweaks as events or audience feedback requires it. TV, however, requires completely new material each week.

A similar problem has befallen the Liberal Democrats when it comes to policy. In opposition sticking to saying only a few things repeatedly was an advantage;

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , | 9 Comments
Issan Ghazni

Opinion: the Government’s new integration strategy – when are we going to learn?

By Issan Ghazni | Published Tue 27th March 2012 - 2:52 pm

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) recently published and launched its new integration strategy – “Creating the Conditions for Integration”. Following discussions with many concerned Lib Dem party members and feedback from Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community organisations involved in race equality work, I am now more convinced than ever that this document does little to address the persistent racial inequalities that exist across the nation. The Government for their part are trumpeting this publication as equivalent to a race equality strategy – although one which has diminishing credibility within BAME communities up and down the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

Another big money political scandal: can Lib Dems force Tories & Labour to take it seriously this time?

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 25th March 2012 - 11:53 am

Let’s remember the words of David Cameron two years ago:

… there is another big issue that we can no longer ignore. It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long, an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money. I’m talking about lobbying – and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism. So we must be the party that sorts all this out.

Now let’s fast-forward to the words of the Tories’ leading fundraiser (until last night):

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments
Caron Lindsay

What Liberal Democrat Bloggers are saying about the Budget – Part 2

By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 22nd March 2012 - 7:55 pm

The Liberal Democrat blogosphere is continuing to talk about the Budget, so here are some of the latest offerings.

Sandy Walkington thinks that the Budget is a dish best observed cold.

I tend to aim off from all instant, hyperbolic reactions to the Budget.  When I worked as a press officer in the oil industry, Budget Day was a time for synthetic outrage at the latest iniquity heaped on the long suffering motorist or on the plucky explorers of the North Sea.  And then the sun continued to rise and set.

In the current global economic circumstances which only compound the reckless public

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments
Ben Norman

The Independent View: Budget lifts a million people out of Income Tax

By Ben Norman | Published Wed 21st March 2012 - 7:33 pm

The news that the UK’s February borrowing figures were the worst on record did not exactly provide the Budget mood music the Chancellor was hoping for. Then again, the stark reminder that the UK is living well beyond its means serves to buttress his arguments about the need to control spending. There is no money to spend, and even with the current deficit-cutting fervour from Number 11 the UK remains at the whim of global bond markets.

So how did George do? The stamp-duty increase on homes worth more than £2 million is eminently sensible, but must be accompanied by the …

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Tagged , , | 21 Comments
Joe Bourke

Opinion: Jobs and the economy must feature in Brian Paddick’s mayoral campaign

By Joe Bourke | Published Wed 21st March 2012 - 3:55 pm

Last weekend, in common with many Team London activists, I was out delivering literature for the upcoming mayoral election.

In a recent Ipsos MORI poll, commissioned by BBC London, some 59% of respondents cited jobs; growth and the economy as the most important issues that Londoners say will help them decide who to vote for in the upcoming mayoral election. This chimes with my own experience of feedback on the doorstep.

Tackling crime (49%), improving public transport (38%) and building cheap homes (37%) were the other top issues.

During the 2008 election, our candidate Brian Paddick, polled a little less than 10% of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

Road sell-off plan unveiled

By Paul Walter | Published Mon 19th March 2012 - 7:25 am

From today’s Guardian front page:

David Cameron will clear the way for a multibillion-pound semi-privatisation of trunk roads and motorways as he announces plans to allow sovereign wealth funds from countries such as China to lease roads in England.

Just 48 hours before the budget, the prime minister will give a speech calling for radical action to improve Britain’s infrastructure, which is falling behind those of key competitors in Europe.

In his most eye-catching proposal, Cameron will announce that the Treasury and Department for Transport are to carry out a feasibility study looking at using private-sector funds to improve and maintain trunk

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

‘How can Lib Dems avoid oblivion?’ asks PoliticsHome

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 18th March 2012 - 10:38 am

Over at PoliticsHome, Mark Gettleson puts Lib Dem campaigning under the microscope to ask what the 2015 general election might hold for the party. He makes four points:

1. In 2010, the Lib Dems won the air war and lost the ground war

There had been an uncoordinated increase in votes – around a million – largely in seats they were not going to win. But what was clear was that the party lacked the kind of national organisation into which to feed the volunteers of Cleggmania, the ability to measure success in given seats (few saw the loss of Harrogate

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 38 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LibDemVoice comments policy: why we moderate & how to avoid us moderating you

By Stephen Tall | Published Sat 17th March 2012 - 2:35 pm

There are many aspects of running this site that the LibDemVoice editorial collective actively discuss: which articles to publish and when, which adverts to accept and which to reject — and, most spiritedly, how to define our comments moderation policy.

Until two years ago, we didn’t really have a policy: basically it was a free-for-all until somebody complained, or a lawyer got in touch. Partly in response to the latter — but more especially in response to reader feedback that the comments threads were too often a no-go zone for all but the most thick-skinned — we started to …

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Posted in Site news | 36 Comments
Mary Reid

How many Liberal MPs can you get in a taxi? *

By Mary Reid | Published Fri 16th March 2012 - 10:55 am

I guess I am the only Lib Dem Voice editor who actually remembers the Orpington by-election of 1962.  I was not old enough to vote (in case you were wondering) and I did not actually get involved in campaigning, but the excitement of the event certainly made an impression on me as a young supporter of the Liberals.

Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, gained a huge swing in Orpington, taken mainly from from the Conservatives. That victory was widely perceived as a turning point for the party. For many years before, Liberal support had been declining; the standing joke was …

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Posted in News | Tagged , | 7 Comments
Tess Lanning

The Independent View: Why the women-in-the-boardroom brand of feminism is limited

By Tess Lanning | Published Fri 16th March 2012 - 8:42 am

The government has reaffirmed its commitment to encourage firms to put more women on their boards in the wake of the launch of the first annual progress report on Lord Davies of Abersoch review of Women on Boards. In the run up to International Women’s Day last week various high profile women, from Cherie Blair to Jeanette Winterson, also argued that gender parity on company boards is the defining issue for women’s equality.

Much of the debate has centred on how to get there. The government favours a light touch approach, hoping businesses will see sense in response …

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

What Lib Dem bloggers have been saying about the NHS Bill after Lib Dem conference

By Stephen Tall | Published Tue 13th March 2012 - 8:25 pm

Unsurprisingly, there’s been plenty of post-conference reaction to the weekend’s events.

A quick recap of what happened: on Saturday, Lib Dem conference representatives narrowly voted not to debate a motion that called for the NHS Bill to be dropped. Then on Sunday, Lib Dem conference representatives narrowly voted following a debate not to support part of a motion that called for Lib Dem peers to back the NHS Bill.

Here’s how Lib Dem bloggers have responded to these events:

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Posted in News | Tagged , | 31 Comments
Stephen Tall

In other news… Vince, Telegraph inaccuracy, Lembit, Eastleigh, Boundary Commission, site news

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 11th March 2012 - 5:15 pm

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

Vince Cable on that leaked letter to No. 10 (and other matters (The Guardian)

“We’re no longer arguing about fiscal policy – monetary policy’s now taking on most of the heavy lifting anyway,” he says as he notes that Labour has now accepted the need for fiscal discipline. “So the argument has shifted into a debate around how active government should be in promoting the recovery. Is it getting out of the way or is government being proactive and positive? That was the purpose

…

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Stephen Tall

Round-up of initial reactions to the Lib Dem conference NHS Bill vote

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 11th March 2012 - 2:03 pm

There’s been no shortage of reaction to the vote by the Lib Dem conference this morning to vote by 317-270 to approve an amendment which implicitly calls on the party leadership to drop its support for the NHS Bill.

I say “implicitly” because the motion as passed — pasted at the foot of this post — does not call on Lib Dems to ‘Kill the Bill’. However, conference did vote (albeit narrowly) to remove the call for Lib Dem peers to support the Bill. This follows yesterday’s pre-debate conference vote (again narrowly) to choose not to debate the motion which would …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 51 Comments
Clare Algar

The Independent View: why proposals for secret trials should be opposed

By Clare Algar | Published Fri 9th March 2012 - 8:35 pm

A “chilling threat to liberty and justice” an “excessive and dangerous” move which would “shake our constitution to its common law roots” tilting it “towards the closed courts…so favoured by despots” and miring individuals in “Kafkaesque cases.”

As the Liberal Democrat Spring conference approaches, the disturbing potential of the Government’s plans to extend secret justice across the country’s civil courts has hit the headlines, with the Mail, Times, Guardian, Independent and FT all united in condemnation.

That sense of alarm is also becoming apparent within the party. Tom Brake, chair of the backbench …

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Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 8th March 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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Maria Pretzler

Opinion: Lost a guru? Try democracy instead

By Maria Pretzler | Published Wed 7th March 2012 - 1:57 pm

Reports suggest that Steve Hilton’s departure from Downing Street will leave the Conservatives desperately short of ideas. This seems astonishing: Liberal Democrats surely don’t need to turn to expensive advisers for creative ideas, new initiatives and the odd quirky example of tangerine sky thinking! Party members present and debate ideas at conference, and the party does not usually suffer from a shortage of novel suggestions. But these debates also produce serious policies, something which was perhaps beneath Steve Hilton’s pay grade.

 These differences in how the two coalition parties handle policy making have a direct impact

…

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

Campaign Corner: How can I best use Facebook?

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 5th March 2012 - 3:50 pm

The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.

Today’s Campaign Corner question: How can I get the best out of Facebook for my ward branch?

Around half the UK’s population is on Facebook, so if you’re wondering what to spend time on campaigning online, then Facebook is a very good choice (perhaps these days it is second only to email). Three pieces of advice then, as is traditional:

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Posted in Campaign Corner, Online politics | Tagged , | 4 Comments
Ruth Bright

Care – dilemmas for us all

By Ruth Bright | Published Fri 2nd March 2012 - 3:00 pm

When my grandfather was in his last week of life I was sitting by his bedside in the local community hospital as he dozed peacefully in a morphine assisted haze.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose next door. I stormed into the other room to see a small group of care assistants throwing pillows from one to another and loudly humming the theme tune from Star Trek.

“Do you mind?” I said: “there’s a man dying in there”.  An instant spokeswoman apologised unreservedly but went on to point out gently: “It’s hard for us too and we have to have a bit of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 9 Comments
Simon Beard

Opinion: Opening up the benefits of renewable energy means considering much more than just the size of subsidies

By Simon Beard | Published Fri 2nd March 2012 - 11:25 am

At present for somebody to benefit from the subsidies offered to small scale renewable energy production they must have three things:

1 – Ownership of a property suitable for producing renewable energy

2 – A substantial amount of capital to invest in installing the technology and

3 – The opportunity to invest this capital for 25 years, with no possibility of early pay back unless they sell their house, in which case it is an open question what return they might receive.

Unsurprisingly this leave most people unable to access these benefits, even though many may have something to contribute to renewable energy production, …

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

In other news… London PPBs, Clegg paint attack, Turing pardon latest, Darlington Lib Dem leader barred

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 26th February 2012 - 5:35 pm

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

  • Lib Dems fight reduction of their party political broadcasts in London (Guardian)

    • Provisional plans being drawn up by the BBC suggest giving the Lib Dems two party political broadcasts for the elections – the same as the Green party – rather than the three the Lib Dems enjoyed alongside Labour and the Conservatives in 2008. … A party source said the Lib Dems were confident the decision would be overturned, given that they have seven MPs in the capital, 246 councillors, and

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments
    Caron Lindsay

    PMQs: Tragedy, comedy and the Continuing Saga of the Family Bone

    By Caron Lindsay | Published Thu 23rd February 2012 - 4:28 pm

    I’m not used to learning anything from the weekly pantomime that is Prime Minister’s Questions. Sadly, though yesterday’s session brought  me the news of the death of Marie Colvin, the veteran Sunday Times reporter whose often heartbreaking reports from war zones I’ve been reading most of my adult life. Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband paid tribute to her work, the latter calling her brave, tireless and an inspiration to women in her profession. More tragedy followed as Sajid Javid, the MP for Bromsgrove, asked the PM to join in with sympathy for those killed and injured in the bus crash …

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    Posted in News, Parliament | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    “A shitty time to be a liberal”: The Economist’s must-read piece on the Clegg paradox (and 2 reasons why it’s wrong)

    By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 19th February 2012 - 9:55 am

    There’s a must-read column by The Economist’s Bagehot this week focusing on the Lib Dems’ dilemmas, titled The Clegg paradox. It’s a serious and weighty analysis, which asks some uncomfortable questions of the party’s strategy. Here’s it’s conclusion:

    At a recent meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party, Tim Farron, an ambitious left-winger and party president, reportedly cheered this anti-Tory success, but bemoaned the fact that unelected peers had led the charge against the NHS reforms and got the credit for it, rather than Lib Dem MPs who need votes. That drew a rebuke from Jeremy Browne, a foreign office

    …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments
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