Tag Archives: evan harris

The email the party could have sent to members and supporters

By Mark Pack | Thu 13th January 2011 - 8:55 am

When doing my series of posts at Christmas about the party’s challenges for 2011 one issue I picked up on was using members and supporters as a campaigning resource:

The party is not exactly short of opponents to overcome when it comes to implementing Liberal Democrat beliefs in government, yet we are not using the party’s grassroots strengths to help win those struggles.

The Conservative Party is, to take one example, split on civil liberties. Many key figures take a similar view to the Liberal Democrats, yet there are also many opponents of what a Liberal Democrat majority government would

…

Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | Also tagged bank of england, banking, howard davies and vince cable | 9 Comments

Which Way’s Up? The long-term future of the coalition

By Mark Pack | Tue 11th January 2011 - 10:25 am

The rapid appearance since the formation of the Coalition of Conservative MP Nick Boles’s book Which Way’s Up? is a tribute to the speed with which Biteback turns round books – recognising that the previous slothful pace of much political publishing meant books were no longer able to capture the political weather. Boles’s book, by contrast, certainly does that and attracted immediate headlines about his support for a two-term coalition and for an electoral pact.

The heart of the book, however, is about policy rather than political tactics. Boles himself has long been a Conservative moderniser – “a Cameroon before …

Posted in Books and Op-eds | Also tagged chris huhne, nick boles and william gladstone | 13 Comments

Huge public support for removing sex discrimination in royal inheritance

By Mark Pack | Wed 24th November 2010 - 1:58 pm

With the Royal Family very much in the news at the moment, a recent YouGov poll asked if people thought the rules favouring men over women when it comes to succeeding to the throne should be changed:

Currently male children of the monarch takeprecedence over female children in terms of thesuccession. Do you think men and women shouldbe treated equally in the line of succession to the throne?

Should 70%
Should not 17%

Both Lynne Featherstone and Evan Harris took up this issue in the last Parliament, with Lynne getting widespread media coverage for her mini-campaign and commenting:

For me the basic

…

Posted in News | Also tagged lynne featherstone and royal family | 14 Comments

Federal Policy Committee elects its three Vice-Chairs

By Mark Pack | Thu 18th November 2010 - 8:44 pm

Last night Cambridge MP Julian Huppert, former Oxford West and Abingdon MP Evan Harris and Jeremy Hargreaves were elected to be the Federal Policy Committee’s three Vice-Chairs. Evan and Jeremy have long been high-profile figures in the party’s policy-making process and Julian has rapidly joined their ranks as his profile in the party has risen over the last couple of years.

So what is notable about the trio is not any of their presence in it, but that Danny Alexander, former FPC Vice-Chair and in charge of the 2010 manifesto team but now a Cabinet Minister, is no-longer one of the …

Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged Danny Alexander, federal policy committee, jeremy hargreaves and julian huppert | 6 Comments

Opinion: Interpreting the internal election results

By David Hall-Matthews | Tue 16th November 2010 - 3:57 pm

The bare bones of the internal party election results were set out here on Saturday showing who had been elected by conference reps to the various committees.

The detailed results for the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee, hosted by Colin Rosenstiel, show some revealing trends when compared with previous years’ election results.

This year, in the Federal Executive elections, Evan Harris came top on first preference by a long stretch with 263 votes. Following him was David Rendel (107) and Ramesh Dewan (77) with others on 55. Evan is clearly identified with the progressive, Social Liberal wing …

Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged david rendel, duncan brack, gareth epps, linda jack, ramesh dewan, sandra gidley, social liberal forum, susan gaszczak and tony greaves | 38 Comments

Opinion: science should be protected from the cuts

By Ed Long | Fri 8th October 2010 - 1:05 pm

It’s been a heady week for British science in the wake of the Nobel prize announcements.

British reproductive biologist Robert Edwards was awarded the prize for medicine for his role in developing the in-vitro fertilisation techniques that led to the world’s first “test-tube baby”. In the same awards, the prize for physics was given to a pair of Russian-born scientists, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who we are lucky enough to have currently working at Manchester University. Incidentally, Geim is also an Ig Nobel laureate for developing an experiment in which he levitated a live frog using magnetic fields acting …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged julian huppert and science | 22 Comments

John Leech MP: The door is not shut on Labour

By Helen Duffett | Sat 25th September 2010 - 11:33 am

Manchester Withington MP John Leech is due to speak at a Fabian Society fringe event at the Labour Party conference on Monday.

Titled “Is the Lib/Lab coalition Gone Forever?”, the event will also feature former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris, Labour Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone and former Labour cabinet minister David Blunkett.

According to the Press Association, John Leech has said,

The door is not shut on the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties working together.

Labour need to re-think the mistakes they made over the last 13 years and get out of this immature opposition mentality that they appear to be so

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Posted in News | Also tagged david blunkett, john leech, ken livingstone and labour conference | 16 Comments

PODCAST: Equal marriage debate

By Alex Foster | Wed 22nd September 2010 - 10:24 am

After a brief hiatus during which our podcast host migrated us to an account we hadn’t asked for during our busiest week, we can now bring you, in full, the debate on LGBT marriage from Tuesday’s conference floor.

This debate may not necessarily be of interest to the wider public, but certainly anyone who loves Lib Dem conference will recognise many of the aspects of the debate.

Highlights for me include Dr Evan Harris’s explanation, in the opening minutes of the debate of his stint as the only openly gay Lib Dem MP despite not actually being gay; the Voice’s own Sara …

Posted in Conference and Podcasts | Also tagged gay marriage, LGBT rights, podcast and sara bedford | 1 Comment

Opinion: Evan Harris’s major error

By Andy Mayer | Tue 21st September 2010 - 1:15 pm

So defeated Oxford West & Abingdon MP and left-liberal firebrand Evan Harris doesn’t like the coalition and worries about the message it sends to his preferred allies on the old left of Labour. Or so says in his article for The Guardian.

What’s new? Evan has shown disquiet about non-lefto-neo-revisionist-libero-economism by the party leadership for much of his career. He is about as likely to embrace a broad centre-ground positioning for the Liberal Democrats as Bob Crowe welcoming a restructuring plan on the London Underground.

He isn’t, though, a thoughtless polemicist, and much of what he says is …

Posted in Op-eds | 39 Comments

LibLink: Evan Harris – Nick Clegg’s major error

By NewsHound | Mon 20th September 2010 - 9:40 am

Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, former Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris develops some of the points he made at Sunday’s LibDemVoice.org fringe (which you can listen to here) — that while he’s broadly supportive of the Coalition he rejects entirely Nick’s claim that the austerity cuts can be “fair”. Here’s an excerpt:

The progressive wing of the Lib Dems broadly supports the coalition and the agreement underpinning it … The party voted to endorse the coalition agreement, but we did not vote to endorse the implementation of illiberal or unfair government policies that have emerged since. The

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged nick clegg | 4 Comments

PODCAST: Fairer? For whom?

By Alex Foster | Sun 19th September 2010 - 5:32 pm

This lunchtime, Lib Dem conference representatives gathered in the staggeringly poorly signposted Hall 1B to hear a stellar lineup of Susan Kramer, Evan Harris and interloper Will Straw from Left Foot Forward hold forth on the subject of “Fairer? For whom?” – excellently wrangled by the chairman, our own Stephen Tall.

As with all Lib Dem Voice fringe events, we were there with …

Posted in Conference, Events and Podcasts | Also tagged fairness, stephen tall, susan kramer and will straw | Leave a comment

Help spread the word about LDV’s event today

By Alex Foster | Sun 19th September 2010 - 8:55 am

LibDemVoice are hosting four events at conference – fuller details are available here.

It was brave of us to have events on two consecutive days, particularly as many of us are nursing hangovers after the display of the BOTYs last night.

And yet, our next event featuring the lovely Dr Evan Harris and the erudite Will Straw takes place this lunchtime.

If you’d like to come along, why not click here to let your twitter friends know.

Posted in Conference and Events | Also tagged will straw | Leave a comment

Final details for our Fringe tomorrow

By Alex Foster | Sat 18th September 2010 - 3:20 pm

Many many thanks to Lib Dem Voice editor Helen Duffett for organising our major fringe event tomorrow. She’s been hunting around the country for the best talent to speak to us, and has overcome many seemingly insurmountable obstacles to bring a stellar event to the conference.

Hall 1B is a lovely room with a giant set of seats sitting on an enormous turntable, for reasons that will probably become clear if you come and see the fringe.

Without further ado, our speaker lineup is:

Evan Harris

Susan Kramer

Will Straw

The title is:

Fairer? For Whom?

As will all our fringe events, we are planning …

Posted in Conference and Events | Also tagged susan kramer and will straw | 1 Comment

Opinion: The pressing need for libel reform

By Lord Anthony Lester | Mon 13th September 2010 - 10:27 am

Our libel law is complex, costly and out of date. It lacks certainty and sweeps too broadly in ways that threaten freedom of speech. That is why I have prepared a Defamation Bill to act as a catalyst enabling the coalition Government to give effect to their commitment to review libel laws, and to give Parliament the opportunity to make better law.

Recent calls for libel law reform have come from the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Report Press Standards, Privacy and Libel, the Ministry of Justice Working Group on Libel, and the Libel Reform Campaign led by a coalition …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged libel and lord mcnally | 1 Comment

LibLink: Evan Harris – Vince Cable’s science spending cuts: how harsh will they be?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 8th September 2010 - 2:45 pm

This morning’s news that Vince Cable will announce in a speech today how the cuts to his Business, Innovation and Skills department will impact on science attracted a vigorous reaction from commenters on the Voice today.

Former Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris — whose Political Science blog for the Guardian has quickly established itself as essential reading — has contributed his throughts to the debate there. Evan, as Lib Dems will know well, is firmly on the social liberal ‘wing’ of the party (a staunch defender, for example, of higher taxes for the wealthiest), and has great credibility …

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged science and vince cable | 17 Comments

LibLink: Education, not indoctrination – Evan Harris’ 10 commandments for RE teaching

By Helen Duffett | Tue 31st August 2010 - 4:41 pm

Evan Harris, writing in the Guardian today, shares his blueprint for better RE teaching. He says that the evolution-creationism debate in schools should take place in RE lessons as well as science lessons:

Secularists like me believe that RE is a valid subject for study in the curriculum but should be about what different religions (and other world views like humanism) believe; it should not be about what ought to be believed. So Catholic schools should be allowed to use RE lessons to teach that the Catholic church opposes contraception and believes that homosexuality is a sin, but not that

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged religious education and secularism | 24 Comments

LibLink: Evan Harris – The relevance of a doctor’s religion

By NewsHound | Fri 27th August 2010 - 7:45 am

Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris argues that it’s misleading to say atheist doctors are ‘more likely to hasten death’, and asserts that the real issue is adequate patient consultation. Here’s an excerpt:

Read in isolation, the headline of the Guardian’s report into newly published research on doctors’ attitudes and behaviour (“Atheist doctors ‘more likely to hasten death'”) might lead you to think that there are a bunch of humanist physicians poised, with potassium chloride-filled syringes, over the bedside of sick patients. However, the article itself informed us that the problem did not

…

Posted in LibLink | 2 Comments

Nick Clegg meets … Showing the Lib Dem fight against the Tories is alive and well

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th July 2010 - 12:55 pm

In just over an hour’s time, at 2pm, the Lib Dem leader is holding the first of his ‘Nick Clegg meets …’ open question-and-answer sessions outside of his own constituency. This isn’t a party event: this is a chance for voters to question the Deputy Prime Minister, and will be broadcast live on TV.

It’s being billed as follows:

An opportunity to ask the Deputy Prime Minister anything you like…
– What will the coalition government’s programme mean for me?
– How will the current spending

…

Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg and oxford west and abingdon | 46 Comments

More details of Lord Lester’s libel reform bill released

By Mark Pack | Thu 27th May 2010 - 9:20 am

Yesterday I covered the news that Liberal Democrat Lord Lester is going to table a bill to reform libel law. He’s now released details of what approach the bill will take:

Introduce a statutory defence of responsible publication on a matter of public interest;

Clarify the defences of justification and fair comment, renamed as ‘truth’ and ‘honest opinion’;

Respond to the problems of the internet age, including multiple publications and the responsibility of Internet Service Providers and hosters;

Protect those reporting on proceedings in Parliament and other issues of public concern;

Require claimants to show substantial harm, and corporate bodies to show financial loss;

Encourage the speedy settlement of disputes without

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Posted in News | Also tagged libel, lord lester and robert douglas | 3 Comments

Stephen Fry urges a vote for Lib Dem MP Evan Harris

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th May 2010 - 6:35 pm

Stephen Fry, once a staunch Labour supporter, has already dropped hints during this election campaign that he’s thinking of voting Lib Dem … After the rightwing press’s desperate smear tirade at the height of ‘Cleggmania’ he declared “Frankly I’m tempted to vote Lib Dem now. If we let the Telegraph and Mail win, well, freedom and Britain die.”

Well, Mr Fry didn’t quite make it onto the Lib Dems’ list of celebrity endorsements announced yesterday, but he has thrown his weight fully behind one Lib Dem, Oxford West and Abingdon’s Dr Evan Harris. Neil Fawcett’s Liberal Dose blog quotes …

Posted in General Election | Also tagged neil fawcett and stephen fry | 4 Comments

Over £6,000 raised online for Evan Harris

By Mark Pack | Sat 1st May 2010 - 4:40 pm

Regular readers of my posts about online politics will know my scepticism of the extent to which online fundraising can work in the UK on the same scale as it does in the US (e.g. because there’s a different attitude towards supporting causes by giving money rather than time in the US and because in the UK campaigns, courtesy of their parties, usual start with a significant donor lists rather than having to create ones from scratch).

However, what it certainly can do is to catch a moment of enthusiasm and to make it easy to do that which would otherwise …

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged neil fawcett and oxford west & abingdon | 2 Comments

New government powers to snoop on your post – forced through by Labour and Tories

By Mark Pack | Mon 12th April 2010 - 12:20 pm

The ramming through of the Digital Economy Bill during Parliament’s ‘wash-up’ period has got the most attention, online at least. However there is another measure that was forced through, and this one without even a proper vote, which should have people up in arms.

A change to Section 106 of the Postal Services Act 2000 might not at first sound that important, but the change means that in future postal operators (such as the Royal Mail) can decide to detain any item of post and send it on to Customs and Excise for inspection.

Previously this could be done, but only if …

Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged civil liberties and featured | 9 Comments

LibLink: Evan Harris – Here comes the Lib Dem science

By NewsHound | Fri 9th April 2010 - 7:45 am

Over at TheEngineer.co.uk, Lib Dem science spokesman Evan Harris – the party’s star Twitterer – sets out the party’s policy on all things scientific. Here’s an excerpt:

We have long-argued that the UK has become over-reliant on the financial services as a foundation for growth; that a knowledge-intensive economy is not only more reliable, but also more rewarding and a better strategic base in the long-term. It is the scientist and the engineer who will ultimately develop and build the supply of clean energy we will need, the artificial organisms key to future biotech, or the robotics crucial to our

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged science | Leave a comment

How do Lib Dem MPs compare on Twitter? April update with a new number one

By Mark Pack | Fri 2nd April 2010 - 9:20 am

Changes in position and score are since March’s figures, and the same caveats apply as before to these numbers from TweetLevel (i.e. Twitter isn’t the only thing in the world, and this isn’t the only way of measuring people’s influence on / use of Twitter).

New this month to Twitter are Evan Harris, Nick Harvey and Charles Kennedy, bringing the total number of tweeting Liberal Democrat MPs up to 30.

UPDATE: Mark Williams has also joined Twitter recently. Apologies for missing you first time round Mark.

New entrant Evan is straight in at the top of the list. That’s no fluke: Evan’s put the work into working out how to use Twitter well and has built up a good community which reaches out beyond the usual activists suspects. Paul Burstow’s rise up the table is the other striking move.

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged twitter | 8 Comments

Harris and Huhne question legality of Labour’s ‘meow meow’ ban

By The Voice | Thu 1st April 2010 - 11:25 am

With just a fortnight until the Government’s mephedrone ban comes into effect, Lib Dem MPs Chris Huhne and Evan Harris have challenged the legality of the move (though the party has supported the ban itself). Today’s Guardian reports:

Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said the six resignations from the government’s advisory council on the misuse of drugs had left it inquorate and legally unable to issue formal advice to the home secretary. He also questioned how a decision to ban mephedrone without first publishing the council’s report on its potential harms complied with

…

Posted in News | Also tagged chris huhne, drugs and mephedrone | 9 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 29 March 2010 (with added poster spoofs)

By Stephen Tall | Mon 29th March 2010 - 1:45 pm

Happy Monday ~~morning~~ afternoon, everyone, on the day in history when the Royal Albert Hall was opened by the Royal Victoria (1871), Dr John Pemberton brewed the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia (1886), and voters in Washington DC became eligible to vote in presidential elections (1961).

And now let’s move forward half a century, to the present day …

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Wearing the crucifix – a national crisis? – Paul Walter injects some common-sense into the debate with this bishop-fisk.
General election nearly here – at last! – And Lynne Featherstone cannot wait.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Labour launch 5 pledges; Lib Dems attack 13 wasted years

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged lynne featherstone, nick clegg and paul walter | Leave a comment

MPs vote to reform Parliament – and reject Tory/Labour plan to water down plans

By Mark Pack | Fri 5th March 2010 - 11:10 am

From the BBC:

MPs have backed a series of reforms aimed at beefing up the ability of backbenchers to create new laws and hold the government to account.

Proposals backed include a creating a backbench committee to set a timetable for Commons business.

A bid by the Labour and Tory front benches to restrict the committee to setting a timetable for just 15 days per session was rejected by MPs…

The reforms were drawn up by Labour MP and chairman of the public administration committee Tony Wright in the wake of last year’s expenses scandal…

MPs also agreed to back proposals ensuring the chairman

…

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged david heath | 3 Comments

House of Commons reform: contact your MP about tomorrow’s vote

By Helen Duffett | Wed 3rd March 2010 - 2:44 pm

MPs will vote tomorrow on an amendment to the Government’s resolutions on the reform of Parliament, put forward by Evan Harris MP on behalf of the Wright Committee. (Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons.)

The Wright Committee was set up as a response to the expenses scandal in 2009 to make recommendations on how Parliament could be reformed to carry out its functions better.

The reforms being put to a vote tomorrow will include the amendment approving the establishment of a House Business Committee. This committee would decide the scheduling of all business before the House, including scrutiny of legislation, and to put an agenda before the House for decision. This would be vast improvement on the current state of affairs:

Posted in News | Also tagged george young, henry porter, mysociety, tony wright and wright committee | 3 Comments

Evidence-based policy – MPs call for an end to homeopathy on the NHS

By Prateek Buch | Wed 24th February 2010 - 12:50 pm

It isn’t often that Members of Parliament are praised, vilified as they are over their expenses, point-scoring and deference to vested interests. Yet this week has seen a moment of real clarity in Westminster, a true demonstration of how our elected leaders can exercise critical thinking and formulate policy based on objective, rational evidence – and all this over some tiny sugar pills.

Monday saw the publication of Evidence Check: Homeopathy, a report by the House of Commons Science and Technology committee (full report available as a PDF here). This report followed months of taking …

Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged ben goldacre, edzard ernst, homeopathy, NHS, phil willis and placebo | 43 Comments

Wide backing for radical reform of Parliamentary scrutiny function

By The Voice | Thu 11th February 2010 - 2:20 pm

So reports a news release from Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris:

An amendment to the Government’s resolutions on reform of parliament following the report of the Wright Committee due to be debated on the 22nd of February, which calls for the establishment of a House Business Committee has attracted widespread support, including that of Sir George Young, its backers announced today.

The Select Committee on Reform of Parliament (the Wright Committee) was set up in July 2009 as a response to the expenses scandal to bring forward recommendations on how Parliament could be reformed to carry out its functions better. The Government …

Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged george young and wright committee | 1 Comment

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