Tag Archives: chris rennard

Chris Rennard (Baron Rennard of Wavertree) was the Liberal Democrat Chief Executive 2003-2009. They Work For You documents Lord Rennard’s activity in the House of Lords.

David Hennigan

Opinion: why elected Police Commissioners will be less democratic and accountable

By David Hennigan | Wed 30th May 2012 - 11:55 am

Firstly, let me declare an interest. I am against elected Police and Crime Commissioners. I see them as a step backwards, allowing personality politics at the top of our police forces. It was in the Coalition Agreement though, so you would think the Liberal Democrats would be taking their strong message about tackling crime to the country.

On November 15th, we see the first ever Police and Crime Commissioner Elections in England and Wales. London has already plumped for Boris, who will take on this remit as Mayor of London. Let’s just say that the lack of interest in these elections is startling but …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 28 Comments
Mark Pack

Individual electoral registration: welcome changes to the details

By Mark Pack | Thu 17th May 2012 - 9:50 am

Over the weekend, I wrote about how welcome the ancillary details are in the newly published Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. Those are the “and Administration” part of the Bill, but the main act is electoral registration, with the Bill laying out details of the move to individual electoral registration across Great Britain, catching up with Northern Ireland.

I’ve written before about why individual electoral registration is a good policy, and hence has been long pushed for by the Electoral Commission and supported by all the main political parties. In brief, it is to do with principle (your right to vote shouldn’t depend on whether or not someone else fills in a form on your behalf), with fraud (individual registration will be a bit like putting window locks on, cutting crime by making it harder) and with the problem of landlords registering themselves rather than their tenants. You can read more about that in What’s the point of switching to individual electoral registration? but on to the Bill…

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Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes: Dick Newby to be new Liberal Democrat Chief Whip in the House of Lords

By Chris Rennard | Sun 29th April 2012 - 1:17 pm

Lord Newby (Dick Newby) has just been appointed as the new Liberal Democrat Chief Whip in the House of Lords. This appointment is made by Tom McNally (as our Leader in the House of Lords) and at the same time Nick Clegg has asked Dick to serve as Government Deputy Chief Whip in the House. Dick will take up his duties in time for the State Opening of Parliament on 9th May.

Dick is a greatly respected and much liked figure amongst all those who have worked with him (and in roles in which it is sometimes difficult to be both). …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mary Reid

David Walter

By Mary Reid | Fri 30th March 2012 - 10:25 am

Yesterday, sadly, David Walter lost his battle with cancer and died in the Royal Marsden Hospital.

He was widely known in the party, having served as Director of Communications for the Liberal Democrats at Cowley Street.

Chris Rennard writes:

David was widely respected as a decent, principled and trustworthy person.

He was always positive and encouraging to work with as well as being professional and completely loyal to the party that he always supported. He had to be discreet about his party allegiance whilst working for the BBC and ITN and he was greatly respected by both those organisations and friends

…

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Posted in News and Obituaries | Also tagged and | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

LibLink: Chris Rennard – how the Lords reminds him of Lesotho

By Mark Pack | Sun 25th March 2012 - 10:25 am

Writing for Public Service, Lord (Chris) Rennard has focused on just how unusual the House of Lords is:

In one of the many debates in the House of Lords about its future, I recently explained how, “like many noble lords, I take great pleasure in occasionally being able to show visitors around this place. Sometimes they are parliamentarians from other countries. Often they ask ‘How do you become a Lord?’ When you begin by explaining that perhaps your ancestors fought with the King in battle hundreds of years ago, or perhaps that they were what have been called ‘special friends’ of

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , and | 2 Comments
Nick T

Clegg signals new approach to individual voter registration in evidence to Parliamentary committee

By Nick T | Thu 9th February 2012 - 11:28 am

Last Wednesday saw Nick Clegg return for his annual appearance before the  House of Lords Constitution Committee. As one might expect, a whole range of political reform and constitutional issues were covered in the 90 minute evidence session.

One interesting answer by the Deputy Prime Minister which caught my attention was on the topic of individual voter registration. Asked by Liberal Democrat peer Lord (Chris) Rennard whether there would be changes to the government approach as set out in the earlier White Paper when we see legislation on the issue soon, Clegg had the following to say:

The short answer is ‘yes’….We

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Chris Rennard – Integrity in ensuring that people can vote

By Nick T | Thu 19th January 2012 - 6:28 pm

Over on epolitix, Lord (Chris) Rennard has a piece calling for changes to the electoral registration system to place the burden on individuals rather than households following the news that at least 6 million people are unregistered:

All parties and the Electoral Commission are agreed in principle that the electoral registration system should change to put the responsibility on individuals rather than households.

But the Commission report shows that our existing system is not as good as we thought and there are clearly dangers in making any changes. The biggest dangers to the integrity of the process would be to suggest that

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

What Chris Fox did next

By Stephen Tall | Fri 6th January 2012 - 3:45 pm

It’s four months since we reported the departure of party chief executive Chris Fox, who did such a good job of filling the big shoes of his predecessor, Chris Rennard.

Apparently, though, there is life beyond the Lib Dems — as PR Week reports:

Chris Fox today started in his newly created post of director of group comms at London-listed GKN, which employs around 40,000 people in 30 countries. … In an internal email to Liberal Democrat colleagues, Fox said there had ‘been few dull moments’ during his three-year spell with the party, adding: ‘I am looking forward to

…

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Mark Valladares

Coming up in the Lords… 10-20 January

By Mark Valladares | Wed 4th January 2012 - 12:47 pm

Welcome to Liberal Democrat Voice’s coverage of the House of Lords, where we’ll be flagging up some of the forthcoming events at the more reflective end of the Palace of Westminster. So, without further ado…

The House of Lords returns to work next Tuesday after its Christmas recess, with a heavy legislative schedule to be dealt with before the end of the Session, and the first fortnight offers a hint of what is to come.

Days 2, 3 and 4 of the Committee Stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing …

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Mark Pack

The four things the new party Chief Executive must prioritise

By Mark Pack | Sun 1st January 2012 - 11:50 am

Dear Tim,

Congratulations on your appointment as Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats. You take up the post in tough but exciting times.

Even if you were not one person but a superhuman army of fifty you would not be able to do all the things party members and staff are saying they want from the new Chief Executive. As you are but one person (I hold out hope on the superhuman front) you will inevitably have to pass up on many of these demands.

Picking the right priorities will be central to being a successful Chief Executive and so here are the four priorities I think you should pick.

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , and | 14 Comments
Prateek Buch

Lords Rennard, Carlile, and Lester, with Lynne Featherstone, defend rules on religious civil partnerships

By Prateek Buch | Fri 16th December 2011 - 10:20 am

The House of Lords yesterday dismissed fears surrounding new regulations allowing religious institutions to celebrate same-sex civil partnerships on their premises. Some campaigners hard argued that such rules could force them to do so against their will, an argument that was laid to rest by Peers. In doing so, they gave the green light to liberal religious organisations to allow same-sex couples to register their civil partnerships under their auspices.

The Lords debated Conservative Peer Lady O’Cathain’s motion to have new regulations on civil partnerships delayed because of fears that equality campaigners could use the Equality Act 2010 or the Human …

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Mark Pack

Was there a Clegg coup? Review of The Clegg Coup – Britain’s First Coalition Government Since Lloyd George by Jasper Gerard

By Mark Pack | Wed 23rd November 2011 - 9:54 am

Many book titles reveal little about what their book contains, either providing but a banal name for its contents or a clever, clever name which obscures rather than reveals. However, The Clegg Coup – Britain’s First Coalition Government Since Lloyd George by Jasper Gerard has a title which is revealing in two aspects. First, the way general accuracy in the book is marred by detailed slips – for whilst the general point of the title is true, with the May 2010 coalition being the UK’s first peacetime coalition in Westminster since before 1939, the title does not use the …

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Posted in Books | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 25 Comments
Mark Pack

Individual electoral registration, credit and social mobility

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd November 2011 - 3:53 pm

One aspect of electoral registration, and the potential problems with making registration voluntary, is the knock-on effect on credit and social mobility. That was the aspect which Liberal Democrat peer (Lord) Chris Rennard took up during a debate in the Lords this week:

Lord Rennard: My Lords, does the Minister accept that it really is necessary to carry out a thorough, door-to-door, face-to-face canvass in order to ensure both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register? Does he accept that failure to do so not only threatens the integrity of the democratic process but could also cause problems for

…

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Posted in Election law | Also tagged , and | 3 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Chris Rennard – The Lib Dems’ three-pronged strategy for success

By Nick T | Fri 28th October 2011 - 2:58 pm

In the House Magazine, Lord (Chris) Rennard – campaigns guru and former chief executive of the party – has set out the ‘three- pronged’ approach that he believes the Liberal Democrats should take over the coming years.

Here’s a sample:

The first of them follows on from Nick Clegg’s first-year priority, which was to show that the coalition government was stable and capable of taking tough decisions. So an early task for Nick Clegg was to show that ‘coalition works’. This test required huge self-discipline in agreeing a four-year Comprehensive Spending Review, and some compromises that were unpalatable to many Lib Dems.

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

What do the Lib Dems need from the party’s next Chief Executive?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 1st October 2011 - 3:45 pm

As readers of Liberal Democrat News — and the party’s website — will know the Lib Dem are searching for a new chief executive to succeed Chris Fox. Here’s the job ad:

The Liberal Democrat Party is appointing a new Chief Executive.
Liberal Democrat Headquarters, London, SW1

The Chief Executive leads the Party administration and directs the human, financial and administrative resources of the Party – both its senior professional team and its membership and supporter base. He or she will bring energy and outstanding leadership to this crucial job. The post is based in the Party’s new headquarters in the

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Rennard and Webb in the Saturday papers

By NewsHound | Sat 17th September 2011 - 4:36 pm

A double dose of LibLink love with two pieces to highlight.

First, an op-ed from (Lord) Chris Rennard for The Guardian with a lesson from history for the Liberal Democrats:

leaves the Liberal Democrats shaken by the drop in poll support but not entirely surprised by it. My view is that the drop in support should not be regarded as inevitable on polling day in 2015. In December 1996, the Lib Dems were suffering from too close an association with Labour and a poll rating below 10%. Analysis of the new parliamentary boundaries showed that the Lib Dems were down to

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Can we tell what will happen in four years?

By Chris Rennard | Sun 21st August 2011 - 2:55 pm

Four years ago, David Cameron was on the run.

The Conservatives had ‘thrown the kitchen sink’ into winning the Ealing Southall by-election in the summer of 2007 and they had raised expectations of a Tory victory based on the appointment of a well known local Asian businessman as ‘David Cameron’s Conservative candidate’ in a seat with a lot of Conservative Councillors.

But on polling day, the Conservatives not only failed to win the by-election (or even overtake the Lib Dems), but they fell from second place to third in the parliamentary by-election in Sedgfield following Tony …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 22 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Chris Rennard – A fox in the House of Lords

By Nick T | Tue 28th June 2011 - 4:24 pm

Lords of the Blog has a new contributor: Lord (Chris) Rennard, Lib Dem peer and former chief executive of the party. And in his maiden post, Lord Rennard explains why, even after having sat in the place since 1999, he still feels passionately about the necessity for the second chamber’s reform.

Here’s an excerpt:

New visitors to the House usually meet me at Peers’ entrance and often ask fairly quickly about Lords reform.  I point immediately to the progress made since I became a peer in 1999.  I proudly show them my coat peg in the cloakroom and explain that it

…

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Helen Duffett

Chris Rennard profiled in Total Politics: “Think about the swings and roundabouts over the years”

By Helen Duffett | Mon 13th June 2011 - 6:48 pm

Over at Total Politics Iain Dale interviews former Lib Dem Chief Executive Lord Rennard about his views on the local elections, The AV referendum and Coalition government.

Here’s a flavour:

Bernard Jenkin said you could imagine a Lib Dem enclave within the Conservative Party at some point. It’s happened before, hasn’t it? Do you think that that’s at all possible or likely?

I think that’s just trouble-making by someone who is very anti-coalition. I don’t think in the 21st century things will go back to the way they were in the 1920s or 1930s.

Don’t you think this time it just feels a

…

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Mark Pack

Nearly three years on, how does the Bones Report look?

By Mark Pack | Wed 1st June 2011 - 8:21 am

Back in 2008 the Report of the Party Reform Commission to the Federal Executive was published, more commonly known as the Bones Report after its Chair, Chris Bones. Both the process for drawing up the report and the report itself was not without its critics at the time (e.g. see here and here) but since then it has been a topic only rarely talked about, even amongst party administration insiders.

So how does it looking, approaching its third anniversary, and does it set the right or wrong course for the party organisationally – or has it become an irrelevance?

In one respect, …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged and | 15 Comments
Nick T

Chris Rennard: Fill in the blanks of the Big Society

By Nick T | Sun 29th May 2011 - 12:25 pm

Acevo’s Big Society Commission, chaired by Liberal Democrat peer Lord (Chris) Rennard, has now produced its final report into the subject, entitled ‘Powerful people, responsible society’. The report calls on the prime minister to “take the reins” of the policy to articulate a much clearer vision of what the concept means.

Interestingly, the Commission came up with the following vision of what the big society means to them:

Our own vision is a society in which power and responsibility have shifted: one in which, at every level in our national life, individuals and communities have more aspiration, power and capacity to take decisions

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Political Communication in Britain: the latest 2010 election book

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th May 2011 - 8:44 am

Political Communication in Britain, edited by Dominic Wring, Roger Mortimore and Simon Atkinson, joins a long list of books already published on the 2010 general election. As with others it also faces the tough task of finding a niche between the burgeoning coverage of politics in the media, especially online, and the revitalised Nuffield general election series.

In its favour, Political Communication in Britain brings together a strong cast of journalists and politicians who were active participants in the election, with six of the nineteen chapters coming from insiders such as Sky’s Adam Boulton, the Labour Party’s Greg …

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Mark Pack

Learning the lessons from last week #3: Grassroots campaigns don’t win national elections

By Mark Pack | Wed 11th May 2011 - 7:53 am

Liberal Democrats have long known that grassroots campaigns can win a ward, a council or a constituency – but they don’t win national election campaigns. It’s the knowledge that you need both the grassroots campaign and an effective national media and/or advertising campaign that explains why when Chris Rennard was the party’s Chief Executive not only did the Campaigns Department grow hugely in size – but so too did the national press team.

Yet at the heart of the Yes campaign in last week’s AV referendum seems to have been a big mistake: trying to run a grassroots campaign to win …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 41 Comments
The Voice

LibLink – Chris Rennard: AV myths are behind MPs’ opposition

By The Voice | Wed 4th May 2011 - 4:55 pm

Chris Rennard, Liberal Democrat peer and the party’s former Chief Executive, writes today at the Guardian’s Comment is Free about the myths behind MPs’ opposition to AV.

The first myth, Chris says, is that the alternative vote system could lead to more hung parliaments, which has led to the Conservative hierarchy ferociously defending first-past-the-post:

The major misconception about the alternative vote system was expressed by former Tory minister Peter Lilley in the debate on the Queen’s speech that followed the coalition agreement. He supported the coalition “because a hung parliament makes it necessary”. But he said: “I would not support changes

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? The science of bar charts

By Mark Pack | Thu 28th April 2011 - 7:55 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – bar charts. Or, more precisely: why bar charts? Not, why push tactical voting and ‘we can win here’ messages, but why bar charts rather than pie charts, line graphs, scatter graphs or any of the myriad of other graphical devices available?

Pie charts make an occasional appearance in political leaflets but bar charts are so much the dominant form that the idea of switching to pie charts was the concept behind one of Liberal Democrat Voice’s April 1st spoof postings a few years back. …

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Also tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Lord Rennard on the Big Society: “It’s actually quite an old concept”

By Mark Pack | Fri 15th April 2011 - 8:56 am

In February we carried the news that Liberal Democrat peer Lord (Chris) Rennard is chairing the Commission on the Big Society, set up by Acevo, the umbrella body for chief executives. Now he’s been interviewed by Civil Society about this work:

Q: I want to talk to you about your role not just chairing the Commission, but also as a Lib-Dem peer. We’ve heard a lot from the Prime Minister and the Conservative part of the coalition about the Big Society, we’re beginning to hear more from Labour, but we haven’t heard a huge amount from the Lib-Dem side of

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Pratap Chitnis

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th April 2011 - 10:25 am

Listen to Liberal Democrats make speeches and there are frequent references to historical figures, but drawn from a small cast. Just the quartet of John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, David Penhaligon corner almost all of the market, especially since Bob Maclennan stopped making speeches to party conference. Some of the forgotten figures deserve their obscurity but others do not. Charles James Fox’s defence of civil liberties against a dominating government during wartime or Earl Grey’s leading of the party back into power and major constitutional reform are good examples of mostly forgotten figures who could …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Weekend voting: not ruled in, not ruled out

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th March 2011 - 10:27 am

As part of Parliament’s deliberations over the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, this week the House of Lords debated the possibility of moving to weekend voting.

In The two electoral tests the Coalition should run, I made the point that,

Weekend voting has been once briefly trialled (in Watford a decade ago). It was not a success then, but there are good reasons to try again given the details of how the trial was conducted – especially holding the weekend elections just after the usual national round of local elections, with the result that residents in Watford were seeing in all the national

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Mark Pack

In other news…

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th March 2011 - 7:54 pm

Good news on human rights:

Lib Dems thwart Tory hopes of human rights convention withdrawal
Decision will infuriate Tory rightwingers unhappy at what they believe is Strasbourg judges’ interference in UK rights

Chris Rennard writes in The Guardian:

Those seeking a fairer voting system may be rather more dismayed if the Guardian is correct that there are difficulties getting Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg working together in support of the referendum. Political rivalry over other issues should not prevent all supporters of reform from campaigning for a cause on which they agree. Lessons should be learned from the Scottish referendum in 1997

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Chris Rennard to chair Acevo’s Big Society Commission

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th February 2011 - 10:55 am

ThirdSector reports:

After an all-night sitting in the Lords, Chris Rennard tells Third Sector how his group hopes to pin down some practical measures for building the big society…

The Liberal Democrat peer pours a strong coffee, sips it and perks up. He says electoral reform is one of his big interests because it is an important way of getting people to take an active interest in the issues that affect their local area.

He believes the same is true of the voluntary sector’s work, which is why he agreed to chair the Commission on the Big Society, set up by Acevo, the

…

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Posted in News | 12 Comments
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