Over on the Guardian’s Comment is Free, David Boyle uses his first-hand experience of the Liberal party/SDP merger to reflect on the new situation with the Independent Group of MPs:
…this is what I believe Vince Cable should do. As soon as possible, the Lib Dems should join the Independent Group in parliament. I suggest this partly for the good of the independents. Joining the 11 Lib Dems (plus Stephen Lloyd, who resigned the whip recently, but who would surely then follow suit) would double their size and give them momentum. The new group would then be almost two-thirds of the way to becoming the third largest party (currently the SNP with 35 seats), and closer to the public funding attached for policymaking.
David Boyle has been writing for the Guardian following the EU referendum result:
I believe that we have to take the referendum result seriously. We can’t just finesse it or constitutionalise it away. We also need to shape a narrative that interprets it in the most liberal way we can. In fact, history may belong to whoever can do that most convincingly.
Now I have my own biases, as a Lib Dem. But, say what you like about my own party, it is one political force that may be united enough to do that. Yet – perhaps for understandable reasons – it spent the first few days of Brexit claiming to speak only for the 48% who voted to remain.
In a series of essays that CentreForum will be releasing over the next few months in anticipation of the book, The Challenges Facing Contemporary Liberalism: 2015 -2025, the liberal think tank has today released “How to save public service choice for liberalism?” by David Boyle, which can be read here.
It is the fourth in the series; the first, On Blasphemy by Maajid Nawaz, can be read here; the second, an essay by Tim Farron, Neil Stockley and Duncan Brack on green growth and climate change, can be read here; the third, “Bold liberal tax reforms for a stronger economy and fairer society” by Adam Corlett, can be read here.
David begins by stating that never has one word caused as many problems as “choice”. The word has become nebulous, and different political parties use it in very different ways. What the paper focuses on is what the word means for liberals.
Imagine that health professionals had the time to make everyone feel valued and cared for personally. Imagine there was an infinite resource to provide the kind of informal care that keeps people healthy. Imagine there was enough time.
Well, the peculiar thing – if you set the questions out like that – is that there is enough time, if you have the infrastructure and institutions that can use NHS patients, their time and experience, and that of their family and neighbours, as a resource.
That is becoming a familiar idea and the NHS is embracing the co-production agenda, even if they don’t yet very fully understand what it means. But the practical application of the idea is to set up time banks in hospitals and health centres, and I was involved in launching the UK’s first – at the Rushey Green Group Practice in Catford in 1999.
Over on the Guardian’s Comment is Free, former editor of Liberal Democrat News and Liberal Democrat blogger of the year, David Boyle, argues that technological change is slowing and we are increasingly re-embracing old “real” ways:
…we cling to the real world ever more tightly as the virtual world presses its claims, a phenomenon predicted by the American philosopher Robert Nozick. A growing minority of us may not shun tablets or ebooks (I write them, for goodness sake). We might even drink instant coffee sometimes. But we are determined that the unspun, unmanipulated and unmarketed shall not perish from this Earth. Even if we have to wait in line for a hissing coffee machine.
Why attend a Lib De conference? And what happens when you do? Those are two of the questions communicatios firm covi set out to get answers to in this 5-minute video featuring Alison Goldsworthy, Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrat Federal Executive: Mark Pack, Editor of Lib Dem Newswire; David Boyle, author and policy maker; and Professor Stephen Lee, Chief Executive of CentreForum…
I felt almost sorry for Richard as we chatted beforehand, a loyal liberal and Lib Dem who finds it baffling to be almost a lone voice making the case against Coalition within the party. … the Coalition — if not always the Coalition policies — is broadly popular across the membership, and across the different sections of
“What’s a nice guy like you doing with a bunch of Tories?” one journalist asked me as I discussed the Barriers to Choice Review.
“You see, I’m a Liberal Democrat,” I explained…
The truth is that this was not a coalition problem. It was a problem about the word ‘choice’.
My task as an independent reviewer, appointed by the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, was to find out how people used the choices they have been given in schools, hospitals, social care and so on – especially disadvantaged people.
But the word ‘choice’ itself divides people, even those who might otherwise agree on pretty …
Under Charles Kennedy’s leadership, the party had a simple and generally popular approach to public services: Kennedy consistently supported higher spending on favourite public services and appointed as party spokespeople those with experience of that service. So in education, for example, it was ex-headteacher Phil Willis leading for the party, promoting costed policies to put more cash into the party’s priorities.
Overall, the party’s plans involved raising at least as much in extra taxes or savings as it wanted to spend, so the net effect was fiscally respectable but for each individual public service the party’s answer was pretty much, “we’ll …
The slightly longer response to David is: “I mostly agree, but “.
The nearly long enough to justify a blog post version is…
David Boyle is right to raise the concerns he did, and had he been in the hall he would have not only heard Gordon Lishman himself express similar concerns but also the excellent news that Gordon is intending to draw in a wide group of people to some of that thinking and updating that we all think is necessary.
‘Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided that they are subject to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new National Planning Statement), and also provided that they receive no public subsidy.’
So declares the Coalition Agreement. However, as the Guardian reports, the finance bill due to be debated this coming week introduces a form of subsidy, and it’s attracted opposition among the party:
A large group of Lib Dems are concerned about clause 78 of the bill, which MPs will consider
Welcome to the latest in our series giving the human face behind some of the blogs you can find on the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator.
Today it is David Boyle, who blogs at The Real Blog.
1. What’s your formative political memory?
I don’t know when I became a Liberal, but found myself cheering the party on during the Sutton & Cheam and Isle of Ely by-elections while I was studying for my O Levels. In 1979, I interviewed the local Liberal candidate (Dermot Roaf) for a student mag and went straight off and joined the party afterwards.
2. When did you start blogging?
2007 I think.
3. Why did you start blogging?
Partly because I seemed to be bursting with things to say; partly because, when I said them, people seemed to have a confused look on their faces. I also wanted to think out loud about the political implications of a book I wrote called Authenticity. (I also have an incredibly small publishing outfit called The Real Press.)
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Liberal, human-scale and optimistic.
5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Radical, green, localist, humane, naive.
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
A post I wrote for Lib Dem Voice which, rather inadequately, tried to set out why I wasn’t as outraged as the Guardian thinks I should be about the spending review.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)? Neal Lawson’s Comment is Free blog about using ‘human’ as the yardstick for a new politics. I was fascinated to read it because I had been thinking along parallel lines myself.
8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
I think it has to be my wife Sarah’s film about our curtain pattern Kandahar.
Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
I was struck by this recent article by the Economist’s political columnist Bagehot, headlined When progressive actually means misanthropic, reflecting on the Lib Dem conference, and specifically the debate on free schools.
Highlighting that, while the party may have lacked power at Westminster, the Lib Dems have for decades now been a major player in local government, it observes that:
… local government occupies much of the mental space taken up by national politics in the Labour and Conservative parties. … more
What I think Richard under-plays is the way the party’s attitude towards the state has changed not in response to different internal ideological views gaining ascendancy but rather in response to changing external circumstances. Given the huge expansion in public spending in the middle years of the Labour government, and the big expansion of central control in the early, middle and late years of Labour government, it is hardly a surprise that many who previously instinctively reached for more public spending and new regulations
The head of the UK Army has said better equipment is needed to protect troops from roadside bombs in Afghanistan. General Sir Richard Dannatt told the BBC troops “needed more” and added that he would be compiling a shopping list of what was required. … The general’s comments will be seen as careful “parting shots”. …
In return for their service, he says more money needs to be spent on equipment for British forces in Afghanistan. Earlier this week, the general – on his last trip
David Boyle brings us news that one of the sample questions in the ‘Britishness test’, which immigrants must pass if they wish to become British citizens, is
to define a quango.
As David comments:
It really is extraordinary, though perhaps not very surprising, that Whitehall Man believes knowing the meaning of government acronyms is one of those pieces information which defines Britishness – alongside knowledge of Shakespeare and all the panoply of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish culture.
For those unsure of the answer (go on, admit it, it’s not like Jacqui Smith will have you forcibly repatriated or anything), the answer is:
Helen Dudden The veterans are one sad fact of life.
It's a 10 year waiting list for an accessible flat or home. Many are left losing limbs. Often a long stay in hospital ...
Roland @Simon “ I think the real lesson there for us is, if the UK ever gets a written constitution, make sure it can be changed and updated without too much difficu...
Suzanne Fletcher Hope that the issues in the important motion are able to be promoted far and wide beyond the Lib Dems, so they end up being put into practice. our Lib Dem parl...
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Chagos Islands, Mauritius and the ICJ
The 'Silk Road' is a myth: Trade with the East went by sea and India was at its heart
Honouring the Real Thing and launching Black History Month in Liverpool
Starmer kills off Leveson two
Michael's weekly ward surgeries today! #dundeewestend
Bye bye coal: A Net Zero milestone
Helen Dudden 
Roland 
Suzanne Fletcher 
Joseph Bourke 
Steve Trevethan 