Tag Archives: devolution

The Voice

Ming to head up Scottish Lib Dems’ Home Rule Commission

By The Voice | Wed 2nd November 2011 - 7:06 am

As the Scottish Lib Dems’ website announces:

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP has announced that former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell MP will chair the Home Rule Commission, set up to develop a blueprint for Home Rule in Scotland. The party’s Scottish conference in Dunfermline last month voted to establish a Commission to look at a settled distribution of powers between London, Edinburgh and local councils. Sir Menzies will join other Liberal Democrats to set out a long-term vision for a strong Scotland within the UK and powerful local communities in every part of Scotland.

Here’s what …

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Posted in News and Scotland | Also tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Government presses ahead with devolving more powers to Scotland

By Mark Pack | Fri 28th January 2011 - 10:55 am

The coalition agreement’s commitment to devolve more powers from Westminster to Scotland was one aspect that helped it win strong support from Scottish Liberal Democrats as further devolution has been a long-running Lib Dem demand. Now the Scotland Bill is moving through Parliament to turn those commitments into action.

The BBC reports:

Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said the Scotland Bill, giving Holyrood increased responsibility for borrowing, would bring a new phase in devolution.

Mr Moore said the legislation contained the right balance of powers and would give Holyrood greater accountability…

The most eye-catching proposals in the Scotland Bill are plans to give Holyrood

…

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Posted in News and Scotland | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Nick Clegg & David Cameron – We’ll transform Britain by giving power away

By NewsHound | Mon 12th July 2010 - 11:20 am

The Pirme Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, have jointly authored an article in today’s Telegraph setting out their hopes for the coming Parliament. Dealing with the deficit is vital, they say – but the real mission of the Coalition is to give people control over their lives.

On dealing with the deficit:

… for both of us, sorting out the public finances is a responsibility, not a passion. We didn’t come into politics just to balance the books. We are both ambitious for Britain: we want to change our country for the better. We want to

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , and | 12 Comments
The Voice

By the way, the word you’re looking for is, “Whoops”

By The Voice | Tue 23rd February 2010 - 5:35 pm

Or there’s the alternative headline the Voice decided not to use: The six Lib Dem MPs who were in favour of devolution before they were aginst it …. The BBC reports:

Liberal Democrats say an “error” led to several of their MPs supporting an attempt to block new powers for the Welsh assembly. Six signed an amendment to a new law that would have stopped the assembly acquiring powers over home education.

The Lib Dems are in favour of more devolution, and their Welsh education spokeswoman Jenny Randerson said her colleagues had signed in error. They will now remove their names

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #12

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 1st December 2009 - 5:53 pm

Yesterday was St Andrew’s Day, a special day of celebration in Scotland. If Iain Smith, Liberal Democrat MSP for NE Fife which includes the town of St Andrews had his way, it would have been a full public holiday, not just the half day that civil servants can take if they want that the SNP have delivered in Government.

There’s a lot going on in Scottish politics at the moment. Here are just a few snippets:

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The Voice

LibLink … Paddy Ashdown: Afghanistan’s future lies in strengthening its tribal structures, not in its corrupt government

By The Voice | Wed 21st October 2009 - 6:14 pm

Over at The Independent, former Lib Dem leader Lord (Paddy) Ashdown assesses the situation in Afghanistan in the light of President Karzai’s belated acceptance of the need for new, legitimate elections. Here’s an excerpt:

… no one should be in any doubt what the new vote will cost, not just in treasure but in blood. A new election may do something for President Karzai’s legitimacy, but it won’t alter the problem he poses if, as Mrs Clinton at least seems to expect, he is re-elected. What then?

Some say that Karzai II must be very different from Karzai I and the international

…

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Posted in Europe / International and LibLink | Also tagged , and | 1 Comment

The Independent View: Time to be honest about English matters

By David Rickard | Thu 17th September 2009 - 3:55 pm

The scandal provoked by MPs’ dodgy expenses claims earlier this year led to unprecedented professions of interest in constitutional reform on the part of the three main parties. For the Liberal Democrats, unlike the other two parties, this was set in the context of a long record of advocating constitutional change; hence the party’s contributions to the debate carried more credibility than most.

However, amid the flurry of proposals for parliamentary reform, very little of the debate addressed the English Question: the issue of how England should be governed as a nation, taking into consideration the impact on England and …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 32 Comments
Stephen Glenn

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #7: The Megrahi Documents

By Stephen Glenn | Wed 2nd September 2009 - 12:45 pm

The Megrahi case has ripped apart the peace of the Scottish Parliamentary recess, with even some former Lib Dem leaders taking a differing view to our leader in Holyrood. Today the UK Government and Scottish Parliament have released papers relating to the discussions that have gone one over the last two years. It ranges from correspondence between Westminster and Holyrood, to memos of meetings with Libyan officials, to the compassionate release request listing medical conditions.

These start chronologically with the first letter from then-Lord Chnacellor Lord (Charles) Falconer to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond outlining the Memorandum of Understanding that Westminster had set up with Libya regarding a number of judicial issues. The Memorandum was drawn up to look at increasing bilateral co-operation covering, amongst other things, commercial and criminal issues. The legal issues were not exclusively about Mr Al Megrahi, but looking at the bigger picture of co-operation between the two nations at large. However, Lord Falconer did say that nothing could be ruled in or out, but that co-operation and consultation between Westminster and Holyrood would be carried forward.

However, it the path of the UK’s justice secretary Jack Straw’s correspondence that sheds a lot of light on the situation, especially considering the Labour response in Holyrood.

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Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds and Scotland | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MP attempts to create devolved ‘Cornwall Assembly’

By Stephen Tall | Wed 15th July 2009 - 7:45 pm

A few months ago, Lib Dem Voice highlighted North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson’s attempts to create a new Cornish bank holiday on 5th March, St Piran’s Day. Well now he’s taken up cudgels again on behalf of the county, but this time with a more serious and far-reaching proposal – by introducing a new bill which would take power from Whitehall and unelected regional quangos and pass it to the new Cornwall Council, effectively transforming the new Council into an Assembly similar to that in Wales.

Dan’s Government of Cornwall Bill was presented in the House of Commons yesterday, …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Ross Finnie – Devolution ‘mistakes were made’

By The Voice | Tue 9th June 2009 - 3:50 pm

Over at BBC.co.uk, Lib Dem MSP Ross Finnie reflects on some of his personal highs and lows in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of Scottish devolution on 1st July. Here’s an excerpt:

For Liberal Democrats, the election itself was an achievement. Due to our advocacy of proportional representation, the political parties won the number of seats in the new parliament that reflected the number of votes cast by the people of Scotland.

The Liberal Democrats entered into coalition government for the first eight years of devolution and were pleased to introduce ground-breaking social health policies like free personal care for

…

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Posted in LibLink and Scotland | Also tagged and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

Scottish Lib Dems win anti-independence vote, call for new Holyrood powers

By Stephen Tall | Fri 6th March 2009 - 9:41 am

As anticipated on Lib Dem Voice here, the Scottish Lib Dems’ call for a referendum on Scottish independence to be postponed until at least 2011 – the date of the next Holyrood elections – received a substantial majority last night. The FT reports:

Labour and the Conservatives backed a Liberal Democrat call for the SNP to ditch its plans for an independence referendum, and the amendment was carried by 72 votes to 47. …

Mike Rumbles, the Liberal Democrats’ chief whip, said Thursday’s vote was a “reality check” for the SNP. “They need to ditch the referendum and ditch it

…

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Posted in News and Scotland | Also tagged , , , and | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

Cameron / Clegg yawn

By Alex Foster | Fri 20th February 2009 - 10:13 am

The lovely Iain Dale interviewed David Cameron the other day, and has posted extracts of the interview on his blog.

He’s also, depending on your point of view, EITHER courteously pointed out to the LDV team that Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is mentioned in passing, OR has engaged in a massive blog link whoring project to stir it within the Lib Dems who will hate what Cameron had to say.

Here’s what their dear leader had to say about our dear leader:

ID: Do you think Nick Clegg is in the wrong party? ?

DC: I don’t really know him well

…

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged , , , , , and | 18 Comments
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