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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 ed davey, energy, friends of the earth | 11 Comments

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 featured, Interception of Communications Commissioner, journalism, lord leveson, Phone hacking, press complaints commission | 5 Comments

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 humour | 12 Comments

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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Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

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 brian paddick, gawain towler, london mayoral election, ukip | 2 Comments

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 pasty tax, stephen gilbert | 25 Comments

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 carla trimingham, chris huhne, crawley, internships, Jo Swinson, michael brown, simon hughes | 2 Comments

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 2012 Brighton Conference, andrew emmerson, andrew wiseman, caron lindsay, conference accreditation, dave page, elephant, FCC, gareth epps, lgbt+ lib dems, liberal england, millennium dome, the widow's world | 5 Comments

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 coalition agreement, electricity market, nuclear power | 17 Comments

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 charity | 18 Comments

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

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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Posted in News | Tagged alex salmond, barbara sloan, birmingham council, david walter, duwayne brooks, liverpool city council, london mayoral election, martin mullaney, martin tod, richard kemp, winchester council | Leave a comment

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 Concern, G8, hunger | 2 Comments

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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Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

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 fuel queues | 23 Comments

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 charles farr, coalition agreement, communication service providers, database state, eu data retention directive, home office, interception modernisation programme, jenny woods, ripa | 26 Comments

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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Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

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 Mark Pack, policy making | 9 Comments

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 diversity, emld, integration strategy | 6 Comments

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 christopher kelly, david cameron, nick clegg, party funding, peter cruddas | 20 Comments

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 budget, jonathan calder, liberal democrat bloggers, mark thompson, neue politik, sandy walkington | 10 Comments

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 budget, economy, tax | 21 Comments

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 brian paddick, economy, jobs, london mayoral election | 2 Comments

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 Road transport | 9 Comments

‘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 connect, general election 2015, mark getteleson, tim farron | 38 Comments

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

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 liberal party, orpington | 7 Comments

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 women | 5 Comments

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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Posted in News | Tagged boundary commission for england, chris huhne, daily telegraph, eastleigh, ed joyce, gerard vernon-jackson, lembit opik, local government boundary commission, mary reid, prateek buch, sara bedford, sayeeda warsi, vince cable | Leave a comment

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