Tag Archives: david cameron

Mark Pack

Lords reform: what the failure means for the Coalition, David Cameron and Nick Clegg

By Mark Pack | Tue 7th August 2012 - 8:06 am

First up, here’s Nick Robinson’s take on yesterday’s events followed by myself, via the BBC News Channel:

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Chris Rennard

Chris Rennard writes… Restoring balance to the Coalition

By Chris Rennard | Mon 6th August 2012 - 2:42 pm

Nick Clegg’s statement dropping Lords Reform in this Parliament should come as no surprise following David Cameron’s failure to persuade barely half of his backbench MPs to support the Government’s Bill on this.

Two years ago, Conservative MPs were supporting a Queen’s Speech that made explicit the Coalition agreement to elect members of the House of Lords through Proportional Representation.

The Coalition Agreement is the contract that underwrites this government. In its name many Liberal Democrats have voted for compromises in legislation that we would not on our own have put forward.

So, the question is what to do when one side fails to honour its side of the contract?

You act swiftly and decisively, even ruthlessly, as Nick Clegg has done, to redress the balance. Hence, the boundary changes are no more.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 82 Comments
Stephen Tall

Are politicians really getting younger?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 5th August 2012 - 2:15 pm

“The worship of youth has diminished – perhaps generally – in recent years.” So said Vince Cable a couple of weeks ago in a newspaper interview which inflamed speculation he’d be partial to a tilt at leading the Lib Dems. It also prompted various politicians-are-getting-younger pieces in the media.

LibDemVoice’s Mark Pack took the time and trouble to dig out the data. He showed that while the trend-line in the first half of the last century was for prime ministers to get older, in the 50 years since there has been a movement towards younger premiers (James Callaghan being …

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Stephen Tall

The Coalition Agreement does not commit Lib Dems to supporting boundary changes

By Stephen Tall | Sun 5th August 2012 - 8:45 am

Over the last couple of months, Conservative MPs and commentators have made great play of the fact that the Coalition Agreement does not explicitly commit the Tories to voting for House of Lords reform. Let’s remind ourselves of its words again:

We will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft motion by December 2010. It is likely that this will advocate single long terms of office. It is also likely that there will be a grandfathering system for

…

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Stephen Tall

++ Clegg to announce Lords reform sunk; Tory rebels defeat Cameron; first breach of Coalition Agreement.

By Stephen Tall | Fri 3rd August 2012 - 8:44 pm

The Guardian reports tonight:

Nick Clegg is expected to announce next week he has been forced to abandon Lords reform in the face of implacable Conservative backbench opposition that David Cameron has been unable to overcome. … Clegg has to decide whether to respond to the Lords rebuff by insisting legislation designed to cut the number of MPs to 600 should be abandoned. The change is being promoted by Cameron as a way of cutting the cost of politics and equalising the electoral size of constituencies.

Lord Rennard, the Liberal Democrat peer and former party chief executive, denied the reverse on

…

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Stephen Tall

Why the Lib Dems cannot end the Coalition. And what we should do to try and rescue it.

By Stephen Tall | Sun 15th July 2012 - 8:55 am

How do we revitalise the Coalition? I realise that for many Lib Dems that’s the very last question on your minds. After a week in which Tory rebel MPs forced the Government to delay a key plank of the Coalition Agreement — House of Lords reform — rather more Lib Dems, and not just the ‘usual suspects’, are turning to the question: how quickly can we be shot of the Tories?

After all, didn’t enough of our MPs walk the plank on the Coalition’s behalf on tuition fees, a policy directly counter to the Lib Dem manifesto? Meanwhile David Cameron cannot even persuade his party to back a reform that’s featured in the last three Tory manifestos. So what’s the purpose of the Coalition any more?

I get the emotional pull of the argument… but it doesn’t persuade me.

Coalition matters more to the Lib Dems than the Tories

The simple truth is that it’s more important for the Lib Dems to try and make this coalition work than it is for the Tories.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 65 Comments
Sara Bedford

Lib Link: How does David Cameron charm the Liberal Democrats?

By Sara Bedford | Fri 13th July 2012 - 2:17 pm

Over at his day job at MHP Communications, Mark Pack turns his thoughts to how David Cameron should react to , stating that the Prime Minister has ‘two tricky problems to mull over’.

The first, and most talked about, is how to get his party to back some measure of Lords reform else risk seeing Liberal Democrats outside ministerial ranks (and even some inside) see it as open season on future legislation as it goes through Parliament. The sort of effective and tight whipping operations that saw Liberal Democrats in both Houses votes for a range of measures they did

…

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Bill le Breton

Opinion: Why a referendum on second chamber reform would be good for the party

By Bill le Breton | Fri 13th July 2012 - 11:56 am

The Liberal Democrats built their electoral success on the three ‘Cs’: Concentrate, Communicate and Campaign. The campaigning zeal of the Party took us from a handful of councillors and a few MPs dotted around the Celtic fringe in the mid ‘Seventies to a truly national party, with over 3,500 councillors, 60MPs, power and influence in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament, power and influence in over 150 councils, from Newcastle to Newquay, Liverpool to Islington.

Campaigning is the life blood of the movement we endeavour to create around the drive to seize and redistribute power. We do this by the simple means of helping people to take and use their power in their communities. Campaigning succeeds by involving people beyond the party in our campaigns. It energies and strengthens communities and nurtures the tolerance that comes from understanding others and identifying the common causes that link us. These common causes centre upon the injustice stemming from subjection to illegitimate power – be that banks that gamble with our money and provide shocking service, supermarkets that drive farmers to ruin and fix prices or bureaucrats who entangle citizens in red tape and restrict people’s opportunities.

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Paul Walter

PMQs: Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

By Paul Walter | Thu 12th July 2012 - 10:53 am

By golly by gosh, I think Ed Miliband has finally got in the swing of this Prime Minister’s Questions thing. While Cameron reeled from his Tuesday night beating by a right Jesse, the leader of the opposition appeared poised, relaxed and skilful. He’s learnt the knack of brevity and humour, as his first question demonstrated:

At this last Question Time before the recess, may I remind the

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg’s e-mail to party members on Lords reform

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th July 2012 - 7:55 am

In the aftermath of last night’s vote (and non vote) in the Commons, Nick Clegg sent a remarkably temperate e-mail to party members. Calm though the language may have been, his message to David Cameron, that he needs to sort his MPs out, is clear. Here’s the e-mail in full:

This evening we overwhelmingly won an historic vote on the Second Reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill – a Bill that will finish something our party started a century ago.

This is a huge triumph for our party, and a clear mandate to deliver much needed reforms to the House

…

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Stephen Tall

The 15 words that mean the Coalition won’t fall, no matter what happens to Lords reform

By Stephen Tall | Mon 9th July 2012 - 10:45 pm

There’s a very simple reason why — even if enough Tory MPs inflict the Coalition’s first defeat on a key plank of the Coalition Agreement which appeared in their last three manifestos — the Government will not fall tomorrow. It’s these 15 words from the May 2010 Programme for Government:

The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement.

There is also, of course, the small matter of the current opinion polls: neither the Tories nor the Lib Dems will relish a rush to the ballot box at the moment. A Coalition once held together by radicalism and conviction is now bound together by a pact of mutually assured destruction.

The inconsistencies in Tory backbenchers’ position on Lords reform are legion. I won’t unpick them here, as Nick Thornsby has already highlighted six examples on his blog here.

What the Lords fracas reveals about the Tories’ mood

More interesting than trying to pick through the rubble of Tory excuses is to try and understand why a policy on which the two Coalition parties officially agree should be showing up so clearly David Cameron’s inability to lead his party.

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Stephen Tall

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

By Stephen Tall | Sat 30th June 2012 - 2:25 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 560 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Miliband surges to -43%, best rating yet among Lib Dems

LDV asked: Do you think Ed Miliband is doing well or badly as leader of the Labour party?
(Results in March in brackets)

    1% – Very well
    25% – Well
    Total well = 26% (7%)
    51% – Badly
    18% – Very badly
    Total badly =

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 11 Comments
Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Tim Leunig – David Cameron should know better than this Housing Benefit gimmick

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th June 2012 - 9:27 am

I wrote the other day that I wanted to see our party in general and Nick Clegg in particular come out and roundly condemn David Cameron’s ridiculous plan to stop under 25s from claiming Housing Benefit. Centre Forum director Tim Leunig did just that in an article for the Guardian on Monday.

His calm and forensic evisceration of Cameron’s argument put me in mind of the way Nick Clegg took apart the Tory Marriage Tax Break plan ahead of the 2010 election. This, of course, has been kicked into the long grass because of the Liberal Democrats. I’m also reminded of …

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg needs to condemn Cameron’s welfare plans in the strongest language imaginable

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 25th June 2012 - 8:53 am

Many Liberal Democrats will have been choking on their Sunday Corn Flakes yesterday as they read, with horror, David Cameron’s plans to slash benefits even further than this year’s Welfare Reform Bill. If he had his way, there would be no Housing Benefit payable to anyone under 25. The critical part of the reports is, however, this sentence:

Downing Street said they were Conservative plans for after the next general election.

That’s all right then. This rubbish isn’t going to happen on our watch.

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie says Salmond should meet Dalai Lama

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 20th June 2012 - 6:55 pm

First Minister Alex Salmond loves to meet international dignitaries and world leaders. Every chance he gets, he’s off playing a larger than life role on the international stage. Just last weekend, he was in Los Angeles promoting Scottish business and schmoozing with celebrities at  a film premiere.  It’s all the more surprising, then, that he can’t find a space in his diary to meet the Dalai Lama when he visits Scotland this week. This is in stark contrast to the reception the exiled Tibetan Spiritual Leader received in 2004 when he addressed the Parliament and met the then First …

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Paul Walter

PMQs: Coalition comrades and Kettering cabinets

By Paul Walter | Thu 14th June 2012 - 12:15 pm

David Cameron rather wiped the floor with Ed Miliband yesterday. He did so with the very simple device of producing a letter from Sir Alex Allan, regarding the Hunt BSkyB imbroglio, which stated:

The fact that there is an on-going judicial inquiry probing and taking evidence under oath means that I do not believe I could usefully add to the facts in this case.

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The Voice

Jo Swinson: there are questions to be answered over Jeremy Hunt

By The Voice | Wed 13th June 2012 - 9:50 am

Nick Clegg’s Parliamentary aide Jo Swinson was up early on BBC Breakfast this morning to talk about Liberal Democrat MPs’ decision not to support Jeremy Hunt in the Commons tonight.

She started off by saying that the Prime Minister’s decision not to refer the Culture Secretary to the Independent Adviser on the Ministerial Code was not a collective one therefore the Liberal Democrats were not bound by collective responsibility. The decision not to refer Hunt is not endorsed by the Liberal Democrats therefore we would not be voting with the Conservatives tonight.

The Voice wonders if the real issue is the exclusivity …

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Sara Bedford

Does mislaying your child really make you a bad parent?

By Sara Bedford | Tue 12th June 2012 - 11:55 am

As soon as Eric Pickles announced his ‘Back to Basics’ crackdown on ‘troubled’ families, it was odds on that a Conservative minister would oblige by executing his own family faux pas. How many would have placed their bets in the culprit being the Prime Minister himself, who with model mum Samantha appears to have chillaxed a little too much after Sunday lunch at the pub, leaving their daughter Nancy in the Ladies.

The uncomfortable end to Nancy’s comfort break apparently happened ‘a couple of months ago’, according to a Downing Street spokesman, but conveniently surfaced in the press as soon as …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 26 Comments
Stephen Tall

Hunt out to dry? Clegg refuses to back Tory culture secretary as Lib Dem MPs push inquiry

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 9:05 pm

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is piling the pressure on Jeremy Hunt, whose closeness to the Murdoch empire has been embarrassingly laid bare by the Leveson Inquiry in the past few weeks, by refusing to endorse David Cameron’s decision not to refer his culture secretary to the official adviser on the ministerial code, Sir Alex Allan. Here’s how The Observer is reporting it:

Nick Clegg refuses to back Jeremy Hunt as Lib Dems demand investigation

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has refused to give unequivocal backing to Jeremy Hunt over his handling of the BSkyB takeover controversy as senior Liberal

…

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Paul Walter

VIDEO: Stomping off in the middle of a debate is never a good look…

By Paul Walter | Mon 28th May 2012 - 6:48 pm

The Twittyblogsphere is abuzz with this one. Number Ten Communications director, Craig Oliver is allegedly “caught on camera” berating the BBC’s Norman Smith about a News at Six report. Oliver says he was “genuinely shocked” by the report and that it was based on “opinion rather than impartial reporting of the facts”. He also says he has complained to Smith’s boss about the report. He seems most upset by the “spider’s web” graphic which featured with the report.

Then at the end he stomps off, leaving a rather bemused Smith.

It’s a calm, even boring discussion. But, it is all very redolent of the “hairdryer” school of Campbell/Mandelson.

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Stephen Tall

LDV Caption Competition: Vince & Dave “Watch your step” Edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th May 2012 - 3:10 pm

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…

Here’s Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable, the man who declared war on Murdoch, side-by-side with the man who LOL-ed with News International. What do you think might be being said or thought by or about them?

And the winner of our last caption comp is…

Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Nick & Dave “Can you feel the love?” Edition.

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Posted in Caption Comp | Also tagged , and | 15 Comments
Paul Walter

PMQs: Wouldn’t you also crack under this sort of pressure?

By Paul Walter | Fri 25th May 2012 - 10:57 am

Here are some quotes from Ed Balls MP from past Prime Minister’s Questions:

No No No No No No No No No No

and

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

and

Down Down Down Down Down Down Down Down Down

and

Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Up

All this mono-syllabic heckling has gone on amidst a variety of facial squirms and gurns and even the exhibition of a wide portfolio of hand signals which have had puzzled observers searching umpiring manuals. This …

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Posted in PMQs | Also tagged | 22 Comments
NewsHound

Vince Cable winning out on employee rights

By NewsHound | Mon 21st May 2012 - 11:20 pm

Via The Voice’s Mark Pack:


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Caron Lindsay

And I would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for these pesky Lib Dems – Cameron

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th May 2012 - 7:55 pm

I read the Daily Mail every day. It’s worth it because in amongst the inaccurate, scaremongering bile, there’s quite often a wee gem which shows off the Liberal Democrat influence in the Coalition.

Today, it carries an interview with David Cameron in which he tells how these pesky Liberal Democrats have stopped him doing things like getting rid of human rights legislation, eroding people’s employment rights and stopping him introducing a tax break for married couples.

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Bill le Breton

Opinion: Austerity and defying the Laws of gravity

By Bill le Breton | Wed 9th May 2012 - 10:58 am

“It’s ideology, stupid.” – a subtext to the Queen’s Speech

On Five Live a bond trader says that austerity isn’t working and the government should be more expansionary. In Wake Up to Money a fund manger says that austerity has been overdone and it’s time for countries like Germany and Britain to borrow more.

Yet on Tuesday’s Today programme, David Laws continued to advocate austerity.

It is more and more apparent that ‘economics’ is being used to serve the ideology of a smaller State, damning the idea that the State should have different responsibilities at different times, especially when the private sector is …

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Stephen Tall

Is this the day the Coalition admitted reality and buried its claim to be a radical government?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 8th May 2012 - 9:50 pm

One of the iconic images of the early days of the Coalition — in the midst of the summer haze of the leggeron rose garden bromance — was The Economist’s front cover depicting the Prime Minister as a punk, representing the Coalition’s self-appointed claim to be one of the most radical governments in history.

Economically (a cuts agenda intended to rebalance the economy between the private/public sectors), socially (from free schools to gay marriage) and politically (police commissioners to Lords reform) — this ‘liberal conservative government’ was supposed …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 27 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV Caption Competition: Boris & Dave “Happily ever after” Edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 5th May 2012 - 4:25 pm

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…

Here is re-elected London mayor Boris Johnson with his fellow Etonian, Tory leader David Cameron. After this week’s local election results, what do you think might be being said or thought by or about them?

And the winners of our last caption comp is…

Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, David Cameron & Jeremy Hunt “Human shield” Edition.

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Posted in Caption Comp | Also tagged and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

‘Brand Clegg’ continues to out-poll ‘Brand Miliband’: what it means for the Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Tue 1st May 2012 - 9:15 am

It’s a harsh reality that ‘Nick Clegg’ has become an easy punchline for many comedians. Nick can perhaps draw some comfort from the truth universally acknowledged that it’s better to be joked about than never to be joked about at all.

But he can draw greater comfort from some of the polling evidence showing him doing better than Ed Miliband, even though the Lib Dems’ ratings significantly trail Labour’s. The Independent’s Matt Chorley noticed this little-noticed phenomenon last week:

Most, though not all, months the Independent on Sunday/Sunday Mirror/ComRes poll has asked voters whether they agreed or disagreed with these statements

…

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Posted in Op-eds and Polls | Also tagged , and | 42 Comments
Stephen Tall

David Cameron’s jibe at Dennis Skinner: forget the ageism, it was just badly done.

By Stephen Tall | Mon 30th April 2012 - 6:55 pm

David Cameron, it became clear today, was not impressed by Commons Speaker John Bercow’s decision to grant Labour leader Ed Miliband an urgent question on the subject of Jeremy Hunt’s hanging-by-a-thread career as culture secretary. His not-impressedness manifested itself as indignant anger — it was “spectacularly ill-judged” according to the Telegraph’s Iain Martin:

From the off Cameron’s approach was wince-inducingly ill-judged. He rushed his statement and sounded steadily more touchy as he got deeper into it, lashing out and even shouting at one point about Charlie Whelan. It wasn’t very Prime Ministerial.

Mr Cameron has faced particular stick for his dismissive suggestion to veteran Labour backbencher Dennis Skinner that it was time he took his pension:

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Paul Walter

PMQs: Miliband hits barn door – twice

By Paul Walter | Fri 27th April 2012 - 1:54 pm

Britain back in recession, embarrassing emails about government links to Murdoch. These are gifts to the opposition. The most open of open goals at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.

I liked Miliband’s opening question:

Today we had the catastrophic news that Britain is back in recession. I am sure that the Prime Minister has spent the past 24 hours thinking of an excuse as to why it is nothing to do with him, so what is his excuse

…

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