Tag Archives: david cameron

Iain Roberts

Opinion: Cameron’s porn ban – what does it mean?

By Iain Roberts | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 3:55 pm

"PC Baan" internet cafe in Seoul, Korea - Some rights reserved by HachimakiDavid Cameron is out to make the world a safer place by tackling what he sees as the problems caused by pornography. We don’t really know the details of the policy yet, but with Cameron doing the rounds on TV and radio today we’ve got a reasonable idea of what he’s got in mind.

Block pornography by default
Web filtering software is very common – most schools and businesses have it installed. It does a passable job of blocking access to undesirable sites whilst allowing others. Inevitably, some sites that you don’t want to block get caught up, but by and large the filters work OK.

Cameron’s concern is that they aren’t being extensively used by parents of younger children, and the suspicion (probably rightly) is that in many cases it’s because parents aren’t tech savvy enough to know they exist or how to implement them.

So this main headline item – that ISPs all implement filtering software for all customers, and that it be turned on by default (with someone in the household having to make a positive decision to turn it off) – is a “nudge” policy.

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MP Martin Horwood socks it to the Tories over their “dramatic flip-flopping” on in/out EU referendum

By Stephen Tall | Sat 6th July 2013 - 11:15 am

martin horwoodWhile most of the country was enjoying yesterday’s sunshine, the Tory party indulged its own carnival of (to coin a phrase) banging on about Europe.

James Wharton’s private member’s bill legislating for an in/out referendum on the European Union to take place by 2017 (a pledge David Cameron has already conceded to his rebellious backbenchers, who don’t believe him) passed its second reading in the Commons by 304 votes to zero.

Only one Lib Dem MP made a speech: Cheltenham’s Martin Horwood. It’s a punchy tour de force which details …

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Posted in Europe / International, News and Parliament | Also tagged , , , and | 45 Comments
Stephen Tall

Will Ed Miliband “do a John Smith” and push for an early EU in/out referendum? There are advantages, y’know…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 29th June 2013 - 12:05 pm

John Major and David CameronCould Labour be about to “do a John Smith” to the Tories over the timing of an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union?

In the 1990s, Labour wrought havoc on the fourth-term Tory government by (cynically) teaming up with the right-wing ‘Maastricht rebels’ to inflict damaging Commons defeats on their common enemy, John Major.

Could Ed Miliband try and do the same to David Cameron? That’s the hint in today’s Guardian:

Labour is considering backing an in-out referendum on Europe as early as

…

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Stephen Tall

Could the Lib Dems stay in the Coalition in the event the Tories dumped David Cameron?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th June 2013 - 11:00 pm

As my Voice colleague Mary Reid notes, today’s Telegraph was keen to alert readers to the contingency plans drawn up by the Tories to carry on governing in the event that Nick Clegg were defenestrated as party leader.

I assume one of those contingency plans was the laughably blatant attempt by Michael Gove to try and undermine Nick Clegg last month and so distract the media from the Tories’ own ongoing internecine warfare over Europe.

Still, it should be a very exciting next couple of months for we Lib Dems if the Telegraph is to be believed …

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Mary Reid

David Cameron says “I can be Prime Minister without Nick Clegg”

By Mary Reid | Tue 25th June 2013 - 5:06 pm

David-Cameron-and-Nick-CleggThe Telegraph has the news that the Tories have drawn up plans for a minority Government, should Nick Clegg be ousted and replaced by someone who is less sympathetic to the Coalition.

Apparently, Cameron’s advisers have told him that he could stagger along to 2015 without Nick Clegg, because the Liberal Democrats would still support the key reforms to state pensions and long-term care.

What they haven’t revealed is how much of the programme would have to be ditched.  I cannot imagine a full timetable of legislation in those circumstances.

The article once …

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Stephen Tall

Tory rebels launch their own alternative Queen’s Speech as helpful reminder of why Lib Dems vital to Cameron

By Stephen Tall | Fri 21st June 2013 - 9:05 am

It’s enough to make you feel sorry for David Cameron. The Telegraph report gives the highlights:

Conservative MPs launch attempt to bring back death penalty, privatise the BBC and ban burka

Conservative MPs have drawn up an “Alternative Queen’s Speech” with radical policies such as bringing back the death penalty, privatising the BBC and banning the burka in public spaces.
The 42 bills also include legislation to scrap wind farm subsidies, end the ringfence for foreign aid spending and rename the late August Bank Holiday “Margaret Thatcher Day”. Britain’s relationship with Europe features prominently in the action plan, with draft laws setting

…

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MPs to abstain on Tories’ EU in/out referendum bill?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 14th June 2013 - 11:55 am

EU flag - Some rights reserved by European ParliamentOn 5th July, Tory MP James Wharton’s private member’s bill — laying out Conservative plans for an in-out referendum on the EU in 2017 — will get its second reading.

The Tories are on a three-line whip to support it (very unusual for a private member’s bill). Labour has confirmed they’ll shun the vote, branding the bill “a gimmick, a political stunt”. The Lib Dem parliamentary party will decide its position in a couple of weeks’ time, but is likely to abstain with …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Stephen Tall

Are employment levels one of the “better stories” of the Coalition, as Fraser Nelson claims? Not really.

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th June 2013 - 2:15 pm

The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson is — rightly — very hot on politicians being accurate in their use of stats. For instance, he’s — rightly — called out both Nick Clegg and David Cameron for confusing (whether accidentally or deliberately) the terms ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’, claiming the former is falling when they mean the latter.

However, Fraser is sometimes a bit casual with facts himself — for instance, wrongly claiming that an old report for the Department for Education ‘proved’ the pupil premium was flawed when it did no such thing.

And today he makes a point of highlighting …

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Stephen Tall

Registers and recall: I support them both. But they’re not going to clean up our democracy

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th June 2013 - 7:25 pm

The weekend’s revelations that two Labour peers and an Ulster Unionist were filmed offering to lobby ministers for cash, following hot on the heels of Tory MP Patrick Mercer’s resignation of the Tory whip over similar allegations, has re-ignited the question of how to clean up Parliament.

Two proposals are being pushed, both of them originally pledged in the Coalition Agreement.

Register of lobbyists

First, there’s a register of lobbyists, intended to bring greater transparency to the way in which professional lobbyists seek to influence government decisions. This is one of Unlock Democracy’s top campaigns:

If we don’t know

…

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Caron Lindsay

The “affair” is none of our business – but how did it get in the papers anyway?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd June 2013 - 9:45 am

Today’s Daily Mail carries a story of a love affair which, apparently, has shocked David Cameron so much and got Downing Street panicking to the extent that they are worried about his political agenda being derailed.

From the story, which has no names or much in the way of detail, we can deduce that two middle aged people had an affair which is now over and which caused distress to others. No current cabinet ministers are involved and, from what I can gather, no Liberal Democrats either.

When you get down to it, it seems that the Mail has published a story …

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Duncan Hames MP

Duncan Hames MP writes… Must we continue to use food for fuel?

By Duncan Hames MP | Fri 17th May 2013 - 8:25 am

The European Union is currently committed to ensuring that 10% of each Member State’s transport energy will come from biofuels by 2020. This originated as a well-intentioned attempt to combat climate change, but time has shown that using food for fuel can have devastating impacts on hunger and the environment. I’ve come to accept that it is time for a re-think.

In addition to concerns over their green credentials, biofuels are now recognised to be a key cause of hunger, affecting millions of people in developing countries. The World Bank, OECD, WTO, IFPRI, IMF, and five other UN agencies recommended …

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Stephen Tall

That EU vote: 6 thoughts on what it means for the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th May 2013 - 8:40 am

clegg cameron miliband116 Tory MPs last night backed an amendment to the Queen’s Speech and called for an EU referendum bill. Here’s six thoughts from me on what it all means…

This wasn’t about Europe (much): this was about Cameron’s leadership

The Tory outers/Eurosceptics had already won: David Cameron capitulated in January, conceding an in/out referendum he’d tried hard to dodge. But that wasn’t enough for them. So they forced the Tory leader to capitulate again this week, forcing him to rush out a draft Bill legislating for just such a …

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Stephen Tall

“We cannot afford it” – Cameron on raising income tax threshold to £10k. In 2010.

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st May 2013 - 7:05 pm

With a hat-tip to Ed Stradling, here’s a reminder of what David Cameron told Nick Clegg about raising the income tax threshold in the first leaders’ debate:


(Watch it on YouTube here.)

I think it’s fair to say the Tories have since had a change of heart. Apparently it was their idea all the time:

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Stephen Tall

While David Cameron and Owen Jones unite in favour of universal benefits, I want us to get explicit about why redistribution matters to society

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th April 2013 - 8:30 am

owen jones david cameronIt’s an odd coalition: left-wing commentator Owen Jones and Tory leader David Cameron united as one. Yet that unlikely alliance was formed yesterday, as both defended universal benefits for wealthy pensioners and both fought shy of asserting the importance of redistribution.

David Cameron’s defence was in response to Iain Duncan Smith’s rather odd suggestion that the answer to millionaires getting a fuel allowance is that they should voluntarily hand it back to the government. Those trusty ‘sources close to the Prime Minister’ briefed journalists that IDS was on …

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Caron Lindsay

Tory marriage tax break back on the table, says Cameron

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 27th April 2013 - 11:20 am

From the Telegraph:

The Prime Minister categorically said he will recognise marriage in the UK tax system within the next two years after receiving heavy criticism for his failure to assist traditional British families.

Speaking in Carlisle, where he was answering questions from workers at a Pirelli factory, Mr Cameron piled pressure on the Liberal Democrats to allow the policy to pass through Parliament.

Asked whether he still has plans to recognise marriage in the tax system the Prime Minister said: “Yes I do, we set them out at the last election in the Conservative manifesto. The Coalition agreement specifically said that

…

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Stephen Tall

Clegg threat to block any further welfare cuts unless Cameron agrees to tax wealthy pensioners’ benefits

By Stephen Tall | Thu 25th April 2013 - 8:35 pm

It’s 18 months since Nick Clegg first publicly aired the idea that some universal benefits given to better-off pensioners should be means-tested — an idea that’s found favour with two-thirds of Lib Dem members.

There have always been three problems with the idea.

The first problem is that means-testing is bureaucratic and potentially expensive. However, there is an easy way around that: treat their cash value as income, and tax this income at the appropriate marginal rate, as proposed by CentreForum last year. Pensioners with annual incomes below the personal tax threshold would be wholly unaffected; those …

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Stephen Tall

Times: ‘Cameron is told to drop snooping on web users’

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd April 2013 - 8:05 am

Today’s Times front page is dominated by the news that nine cyber-security experts and academics have issued a stark warning to David Cameron to halt ‘sweeping plans to hand the security services the power to snoop on emails, website visits and social media sites’: “they remain as naive and technically dangerous as when they were floated by the last government,” they warn.

times web snooping

The paper notes the opposition both of Nick Clegg — who highlighted his disagreement with the draft Bill last December — and of Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert, who points out: “Where we lead, other countries would follow, snooping on their citizens’ legal activities. … The case for these proposals is massively out-weighed by the cost and the harm to privacy, here and overseas.”

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Stephen Tall

How Thatcherite are you?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th April 2013 - 7:30 pm

margaret-thatcher“We are all Thatcherites now,” declared David Cameron on the morning of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. Not so, said Nick Clegg:

“He’s the leader of the Conservative Party he’s perfectly entitled to say that. I certainly wouldn’t call myself a Thatcherite. I’m a Liberal, she wasn’t a Liberal. I’ve always called myself a Liberal, I always will.”

Do you think you’re a Thatcherite? Well, the Daily Telegraph has devised a test to help you find out: you’re 10 questions away from finding out on how much you and The Lady (dis)agreed.

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Stephen Tall

How Labour saw Clegg before the 2010 election TV debates

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th April 2013 - 12:15 pm

clegg debateThere have been a couple of fascinating posts this week by election expert Philip Cowley, a politics professor at Nottingham University. They reveal for the first time the internal briefing prepared for Labour dissecting the debating skills of each of the three party leaders — Clegg, Brown and Cameron — ahead of the 2010 leaders’ debate.

Yesterday’s focused on David Cameron. Today the spotlight of hindsight is shone on Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown. Below is the assessment of the Lib Dem leader — and what’s perhaps most interesting …

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Stephen Tall

58% of Lib Dem members against pledging in/out EU referendum in 2015 manifesto

By Stephen Tall | Mon 1st April 2013 - 12:45 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 650 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

nick clegg euDavid Cameron has said the next Conservative election manifesto will include a pledge to hold an in/out referendum on the UK’s continuing membership of the European Union. Do you think the next Liberal Democrat manifesto should include the same pledge?

    34% – Yes, it should

    58% – No, it

…

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Stephen Tall

Revealed: What Lib Dem members think of Ed Miliband and David Cameron

By Stephen Tall | Fri 29th March 2013 - 9:30 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 650 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Miliband edges ahead of Cameron among Lib Dems (though ratings of both decline)

We’ve been asking this question for 18 months, and over the past year there has been quite a reversal in fortunes for the two party leaders, as this graph illustrates:

miliband cameron ratings - mar 2013

Here’s the detail from this month’s survey…

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Posted in LDV Members poll and News | Also tagged | 12 Comments
Giles Goodall

Opinion: Freedom to travel and work is the essence of the EU and we should embrace it

By Giles Goodall | Wed 27th March 2013 - 1:20 pm

Another week, another attack on EU citizens living and working in the UK. This time it didn’t come from that familiar old grouch Nigel Farage, but from the Prime Minister himself. In a speech which was clearly playing catch-up with UKIP after the Eastleigh by-election, David Cameron ratcheted up the rhetoric, calling for new curbs on the rights of EU migrants to claim British benefits and social housing. He wants to stop our benefit system being a ‘soft touch’ and end the ‘something for nothing culture’, in language which could have been copy-pasted from any front page of …

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The Voice

Nick Clegg on Leveson: “I want a free and fair press”

By The Voice | Thu 14th March 2013 - 3:00 pm

cameron clegg miliband 2Nick Clegg has emailed Lib Dem members today to set out his view on David Cameron’s decision to pull the plug on cross-party talks seeking to find an agreed way forward on the Leveson Report’s recommendations for self-regulation of the press underpinned by statute:

As you may have seen this morning the Prime Minister has decided to call off the cross-party talks on implementing the Leveson proposals on press regulation.

Throughout the talks I have sought to defend a free press while making sure ordinary people can be protected

…

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The Voice

Eastleigh Tory candidate “running scared” from hustings

By The Voice | Thu 21st February 2013 - 9:52 am

Missing Tory candidateThe Conservative candidate has pulled out of the BBC Radio 5 Live hustings this morning, and is facing accusations of running scared of voters.

From The Guardian:

There is growing concern within the party that with a week to go before polling day her no-nonsense and frequently off-message approach is damaging its chances of seizing the seat from the Liberal Democrats.

Candidates from the other major parties were attending the debate – chaired by Victoria Derbyshire – on Thursday morning for 5 Live, a major set-piece of the week. But Conservative

…

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Stephen Williams

Stephen Williams MP writes… Making tax taxing again – 2013 is the Year of Tax Justice

By Stephen Williams | Fri 15th February 2013 - 2:50 pm

“I do believe that as leaders, we all have a common interest in being able to tell our taxpayers who work hard and pay their fair share of taxes, that we will make sure others do the same…But to achieve this will require strong political leadership…I hope we can be ambitious.”
(David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Letter to G8 Leaders, 2 January 2013)

This year the UK holds the Presidency of the G8, with the world’s top leaders coming to Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June. This is a momentous and perfectly timed opportunity to turn public anger, evident around the …

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Stephen Tall

The PM and the EU: Cameron’s zen art of compromise maintenance

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th February 2013 - 10:25 am

David Cameron - Some rights reserved by The Prime Minister's OfficeCredit where it’s due. If David Cameron had returned to Britain empty-handed or walked out of the EU budget talks in a fit of pique he’d have been pilloried. Plenty of his opponents were hoping he’d do just that.

As it is, he’s able to boast (not without justification) that he’s successfully negotiated a 3% real-terms cut in the EU budget — to a cumulative €960bn (2014-20) — and protected the British rebate. Nick Clegg, who’s been a particular critic of …

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Posted in Europe / International | Also tagged , , , , and | 13 Comments
Stephen Tall

Project Cameron RIP: more Tory MPs vote AGAINST than vote for equal marriage

By Stephen Tall | Tue 5th February 2013 - 7:55 pm

David Cameron deserves a lot of credit for the stance he’s taken on equal marriage. But in addition to the principle, there was also calculation: he wanted to project an image of a modern Tory party, at ease with the the society it seeks to represent.

Unfortunately for him he didn’t quite reckon on his party’s entrenched opposition to equality for minorities, with today’s Commons vote splitting his party. In the end, more Tory MPs voted against equal marriage than voted in favour of it:

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Stephen Tall

Why Cameron is now the ‘Yes to the EU’ campaign’s best hope

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th January 2013 - 2:30 pm

cameron-europeThere are two very good reasons David Cameron didn’t want the Tories endlessly to bang on about Europe. First, because most of the public just aren’t that interested. Secondly, because the Tories are irreconcilably split on the issue and not even a referendum will settle matters.

That’s why for seven years as Tory leader Cameron tried to quell discussion, and then when that failed sought to steer a mid-course with gestures of Euroscepticism, such as December 2011’s faux-veto. In the end, he couldn’t hold out any longer. The …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 27 Comments
Daniel Wright

The Independent View: Cameron’s European vision and the Liberal Democrat opportunity

By Daniel Wright | Wed 23rd January 2013 - 2:55 pm

Not sallying forth to Amsterdam, but in the more functional surroundings of Bloomberg Europe in London, David Cameron has finally given forth his vision for the future of the UK’s relationship with the EU. Despite the context of the speech as a necessary manoeuvre to shore up support for Cameron from his hardline eurosceptic backbenchers and head off a UKIP challenge, the prime minister clearly made a great effort to ensure he sounded reasonable and moderate. Who could disagree with a vision of a more efficient, effective and accountable EU?

In this, Cameron made an astute address, in terms of his …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 13 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg: Renegotiating EU membership is not in the national interest

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 23rd January 2013 - 11:06 am

The BBC reports Nick Clegg’s reaction to David Cameron’s speech on the EU. The Liberal Democrat leader made it clear that he thought it was not in the national interest to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership. He said that the biggest challenge facing Britain was a fragile economy and that the Liberal Democrat priority was to build a strong economy in fair society. Yes, that phrase again. Something tells me we’d better get used to hearing it.

He added that it was up to David Cameron what went in the Tory manifesto, but that his priorities were reforming …

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