Tag Archives: featured

Support fund set up for Alex Folkes

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 5:35 pm

You might remember Stephen Tall’s article about the way Liberal Democrat Cornwall County Councillor Alex Folkes had been treated by his council’s Chief Executive, who had branded him as a “potential risk” to children and written to youth groups to say so. This unelected official even called on Alex to resign as a councillor and publicly said so. All this action was taken despite there being no actual evidence of wrongdoing.

As Stephen said at the time:

Alex is determined to establish his innocence and clear his name (the latter especially hard in cases like this). He has not only resigned from the cabinet but also voluntarily suspended his party membership and referred himself for investigation under the Lib Dems’ own disciplinary procedures.

Cornwall Council and its chief executive Andrew Kerr have a number of questions to answer.

If Cornwall Council has evidence of any wrongdoing by Alex that should be shared with the police so they can act on it. Has this been done? It appears not, or at least if it has the police don’t regard the evidence as meriting re-opening an investigation, according to a police statement reported in the local paper: ‘”We are not investigating him,” the force spokeswoman said. “It is an internal investigation by the council.”

On what basis, then, is Cornwall Council warning local people of a risk posed by Alex, and on what basis is it demanding his resignation? Why has Alex been given no opportunity either to hear the allegations against him, or been subject to any form of due process investigation so he can defend himself?

Cornwall Council’s press statement suggests they have based their decision publicly to name and shame Alex based on information received from the police — yet if the police have decided not to charge Alex with any crime why has the Council used its powers to pronounce him guilty as not charged?

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Posted in News | Also tagged cornwall county council | 16 Comments

Nick Clegg’s Christmas message 2014

By The Voice | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 4:05 pm

It has cute children, Nick doing what for him is fairly sophisticated cookery and a message of Christmas that unites everyone.

The text in full follows:

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Posted in News | Also tagged christmas messages 2014 and nick clegg | Leave a comment

Kirsty Williams’ Christmas Message 2014

By The Voice | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 2:38 pm

In her Christmas and New Year message, Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Kirsty Williams has challenged the other parties to make a “strong commitment” to bringing more powers closer to the people of Wales.

Kirsty also spoke of her hope for the passing of her More Nurses Bill, which will go through the Welsh Assembly scrutiny process in 2015, saying that it has the potential to be the “good news story” that the Welsh NHS needs.

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Posted in News | Also tagged christmas messages 2014 and kirsty williams | Leave a comment

Jo Swinson slams gender stereotyping of toys – and is attacked by Jeremy Browne

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 23rd December 2014 - 10:25 am

If you’ve been buying presents for children these days, you’ll doubtless have noticed that there seems to be a bit o a gender divide in the way toys are marketed. For the girls, you have dollies, little puppies, things you brush the hair of and put in houses. In some stores, these things are housed in garish pink aisles. For the boys, you have anything remotely interesting. Science sets, dinosaurs, space stuff. For role playing, girls get to dress up as nurses or princesses while boys get to do exciting world-saving superhero stuff.

This should be offensive to all liberals, who have a massive respect for the individual. Children should never be told that a particular toy is for them or not dependent on their gender. Jenny Willott, when she was standing in for Equalities Minister Jo Swinson, said that gender stereotyping of toys limited children’s ambitions and even harmed the economy.

Toys are a hugely important part of our children’s learning and development. It is of course for children and their parents to choose the toys they play with, as we were just discussing. They should be able to make those choices freely from a full range of toys. How our children play helps to shape their aspirations for the future, and I want those aspirations to be based on their abilities and interests, not on stereotypes. I value the right of every single child to be treated as a unique individual and to be given the opportunity to explore their own interests and develop their own potential and talents, wherever they may lie. That is important not only for children now playing, but for the future of the economy.

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Posted in News | Also tagged gender stereotyping and Jo Swinson | 98 Comments

Jo Swinson MP on new measures to rank companies’ human rights performances

By Jo Swinson MP | Mon 22nd December 2014 - 4:44 pm

In early December I attended the 3rd annual United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva.

The Forum gave an opportunity for key stakeholders to discuss how we can ensure universal human rights standards are upheld in business practices. As a Liberal Democrat and an internationalist I know, on an issue as important as this, co-operation with our global partners is the best way of ensuring transnational businesses maintain their responsibilities to their employees and their consumers.

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Posted in News | Also tagged human rights | 6 Comments

What does Alex Salmond think he’s playing at?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st December 2014 - 4:16 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

When he saw the writing on the wall and was desperate to get people to vote Yes, Alex Salmond made a last ditch appeal on the Andrew Marr Show the Sunday before the independence referendum. He said that people had a once in a generation or even a lifetime chance to vote for independence and they should take it.

Now, it was fairly clear to me and I expect most other people that he absolutely didn’t mean what he was saying. There was no way that the entire nationalist movement was just going to give up and take up crochet if they lost. Of course they were not. They sincerely believe that independence is the best option for Scotland in the same way that I believe that a liberal approach to our problems is the best way to run a society. I’ll never give up my quest to see a truly liberal world.

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Posted in News | Also tagged alex salmond, christine jardine, gordon, independence, politics and Scotland | 31 Comments

Tribute to Jeremy Thorpe

By Nick Harvey | Sat 20th December 2014 - 9:54 am

Jeremy Thorpe’s funeral was held last Wednesday at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. It was attended by around 400 people including all five leaders of the Liberal party and the Liberal Democrats who succeeded Jeremy Thorpe: David Steel, Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, Ming Campbell and Nick Clegg. There was a gathering afterwards at the National Liberal Club. The following tribute was delivered at the funeral by Nick Harvey MP, and is reproduced here at his suggestion.

It is a great honour to be asked to say a few words today about the political life and times of Jeremy Thorpe, though I do so with considerable humility as many present here witnessed and lived the Thorpe era first hand, whereas I was still at school at the time.

To describe Jeremy’s footsteps as giant ones in which to follow in North Devon would be a huge understatement.

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Posted in Obituaries | Also tagged jeremy thorpe and nick harvey | 5 Comments

Morrissey Progress Report – first thoughts

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 18th December 2014 - 9:28 pm

As promised earlier, here are my first thoughts on Helena Morrissey’s progress report which she published earlier today. There is so much in the report that I could go in to but these are the main points I’ve noticed.

The party needed to come out of this well, and show good progress in 18 months. To a certain extent it does, and the people who needed to come out of it most well were the leader, chief executive and president, the holders of most power in the party and who are perceived by the public as its face. They were praised for their commitment and for what has been achieved. It was the lack of progress at regional and local level that concerned Morrissey and she wants to see that changed. In many respects I agree with her. However, those of us who value the say that grassroots members have in this party should make sure that there is no “mission creep”. It may be a temptation to take more power than is strictly necessary to the centre and we need to be vigilant on this point.

Morrissey outlines the solid progress that has been made so far on each of her recommendations but is clear that there is still more to do. She suggests further action on two broad themes – structural reform and specific action to make sure that people are aware of the standards of behaviour expected of them.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged helena morrissey and morrissey report | 17 Comments

Helena Morrissey evaluates party’s progress on her recommendations

By The Voice | Thu 18th December 2014 - 4:30 pm

Last year, Helena Morrissey published her Report into the Processes and Culture of the Liberal Democrats and made 9 recommendations for change. Here are Stephen Tall’s and Caron Lindsay’s thoughts on it from then.

It was always intended that Helena would come back and evaluate the party’s progress on implementing her recommendations. Her progress report is published today and can be seen here.

This is what she has written in the foreword:

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Posted in News | Also tagged helena morrissey and morrissey report | 18 Comments

Vince’s Royal Mail privatisation: independent report concludes “the right decisions were made”

By The Voice | Thu 18th December 2014 - 7:35 am

An independent report by Lord Myners published today has concluded Vince Cable and the Government made “the right decisions” during the process of selling off Royal Mail.

The BBC explains the background:

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Posted in News | Also tagged lord myners, privatisation, royal mail and vince cable | 11 Comments

Fixed-term parliaments: 56% of voters support them, finds YouGov

By Stephen Tall | Wed 17th December 2014 - 2:00 pm

I’ve written before about the fact I like fixed-term parliaments: In praise of 5-year fixed-term parliaments. You may remember that a few years ago, former Cambridge MP David Howarth tried to introduce them. Then in the Coalition Agreement, they became reality.

YouGov has asked the public what they think about them, and you can see the result below courtesy the New Statesman’s May2015 polling website:

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Posted in News | Also tagged david howarth, fixed-term parliaments, may2015 and yougov | 20 Comments

Opinion: London’s house clearing and what the Focus E15 campaign tells us

By Teena Lashmore | Wed 17th December 2014 - 10:35 am

View image | gettyimages.com

The introduction of the Benefit Cap and Housing Benefit changes is adding fuel to the gentrification of our urban centers, throwing out many small businesses that can just afford the London Living Wage, and pushing micro urban economies into a transition that will inevitably see the marginalized and low income workers evicted from London’s salubrious centre zones.

Local Authorities (LAs) are already reconfiguring their homeless departments which, if pursued to their natural conclusion, will see changes in their service delivery because officers will have to eventually move out with their service users – starting the same homeless process all over again in the outer areas.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged housing and london | 13 Comments

Lib Dem Lawyers on Judicial Review

By Graham Colley | Mon 15th December 2014 - 12:30 pm

The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill is returning to the Commons today after being ‘batted’ back in ping-pong proceedings between Lords and Commons.

Lib Dem peers working with the crossbenchers are refusing to approve two measures:

1) The Government’s Secure College plans for under 15s.
The Lib Dem Lawyers Association are not the experts in this field, but are concerned that MPs should consider all the risks and issues raised by leading experts. The Lords amendment would exclude under 15s from the Secure College until such time as Parliament agrees that it is safe to send them there.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Criminal Justice and Courts Bill and judicial review | 13 Comments

Vince speaks out against “devastating and ideologically driven” Tory spending cuts plan

By The Voice | Sun 14th December 2014 - 11:00 am

The Tories have been “well behaved” over the past few years because the Liberal Democrats have kept them on a tight leash, apparently. So said Vince Cable on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. He said that we were now getting a glimpse of what they would be like without that leash, adding that the consequences of their spending decisions would be that there would be around half as much money to spend on Police, defence, local government and social care.

He highlighted the differences between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat approaches to the economy and what a vote for each would mean:

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Posted in News | Also tagged andrew marr show and vince cable | 56 Comments

Dear Liberal Democrat MPs: Judicial Review restrictions are a messy compromise too far.

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 14th December 2014 - 9:41 am

Dear Liberal Democrat MPs,

Tomorrow you will be asked for the second time amendments which the House of Lords has made to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. The Government wants you to severely restrict the right of citizens and organisations to use Judicial Review to examine its decisions and those of local authorities. This interferes with a key check on government power.

I don’t think any of you would have come up with this idea on your own. The Liberal Democrats are there to challenge entrenched power and vested interests, after all. This measure is one of those “messy compromises” of coalition.

Anyone who has ever been in any sort of relationship, business or personal, will know you don’t get things your own way the whole time. You have to do things you would rather not do. However, there have been a number of times when we have accepted Conservative measures and had to revise our support for them after they became law because the evidence showed that they were the wrong thing to do.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Criminal Justice and Courts Bill and judicial review | 39 Comments

Can Murphy and Dugdale resurrect Labour’s fortunes in Scotland?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 13th December 2014 - 12:14 pm

So, we know that Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale will be the new leadership team for Scottish Labour. Murphy won the leadership with 55% of the vote and Dugdale won the deputy post with 63%.

The result was announced at the Emirates – the one in Glasgow, not, as I initially thought when I was told yesterday, the one in London. But Labour wouldn’t be so stupid as to announce in London when their last leader quit after complaining that Scotland was treated as a branch office.

Murphy is a Big Beast, having been part of the last Labour government for 9 years. He was a staunch Blairite and, of course, voted for the Iraq war and all of Labour’s authoritarian policies from ID cards to 90 days detention. A pro-war blairite seems hardly in keeping with the zeitgeist, it has to be said.

He’s a deeply polarising figure. It’s hard to see how he can unite the Labour Party, let alone the country. His rhetoric way back when he was Secretary of State for Scotland was divisive and he’s continued in that vein. In 2010, he described the divide between Labour and the SNP as Patriots vs Nationalists, language which I find at best unhelpful, at worst irresponsible. I wrote back then about how wrong I felt it was to use patriotism as a political weapon. Particularly when our country is recovering from an emotionally bruising referendum, it’s even more nasty, brutal and irrelevant than ever. Even combining it with the word “optimistic”, as he did this morning, makes me feel queasy.

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Posted in News | Also tagged jim murphy, kezia dugdale, scottish labour party and willie rennie | 39 Comments

MPs to debate curtailing judicial review on Monday as rebel Lib Dem peers face wrath of senior party figures

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 11th December 2014 - 7:44 pm

Yesterday we told you about the Liberal Democrat rebels in the Lords who voted against the Government’s plans to restrict judicial review and to reject the plans for the new secure college to be open to girls and under 15s. It’s worth adding that the NSPCC are totally opposed to the secure college plans. Penelope Gibbs from the Standing Committee on Youth Justice wrote in an LDV article two weeks ago that young children and girls would be put at risk if this were to go ahead.

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Posted in News | Also tagged judicial review and secure colleges | 43 Comments

Clegg’s letter to Burnham: “you may have inadvertently misled” Commons on Labour’s NHS privatisation record

By The Voice | Wed 10th December 2014 - 6:30 pm

Nick Clegg fielded Prime Minister’s Questions today, during which he noted that Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham is “the only man in England who has ever privatised an NHS hospital”. Mr Burham complained that Nick had misled the House of Commons over the issue of Hichingbrooke Hospital, accusing him of “sheer inaccuracy”. The Lib Dem leader lost no time in responding:

Dear Andy,

I see that you raised a Point of Order in the House of Commons and that you accused me of “sheer inaccuracy”. I am always happy to confirm the accuracy of what I have said.

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Posted in News, Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged andy burnham, health, hitchinbrooke hospital, NHS and nick clegg | 32 Comments

Opinion: Localism is dead – what hope for Local Government ?

By Rabi Martins | Mon 8th December 2014 - 9:26 am

The Localism Act was introduced in November 2011 on a promise of new freedoms and flexibilities for local government, new rights and powers for communities and individuals, and a guarantee to make the planning system more democratic so as to ensure decisions about housing reflect local community wishes. Even the most ardent supporters of this coalition government will be hard pushed to provide evidence that localism has done anything of the sort.

Instead, what we have witnessed in the past four years is a constant reduction of local government budgets …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Local government, localism and localism act | 31 Comments

Game on in Gordon: Liberal Democrat Christine Jardine has to defend seat against former First Minister Salmond

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 7th December 2014 - 8:55 am

In the biggest surprise since the sun last rose in the east, Alex Salmond will announce today that he’s going to be standing for the Westminster Parliament in the Gordon Constituency which is currently held by Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Sir Malcolm Bruce.

It’s almost a year since Christine Jardine was selected to fight the seat. She has been leading a fun and spirited campaign since then which saw voters in Gordon reject independence by almost 2:1. Her campaign manager is the party legend who masterminded Nicol Stephen’s election campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s. Mr Salmond should underestimate them at his peril.

Salmond represents part of the Gordon constituency at Holyrood. He no doubt thinks that he can do as he did in 2007, swan in to the seat and win. Certainly the SNP will resource his campaign to the max and there are plenty new members in that party to help out.

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Posted in News | Also tagged alex salmond, christine jardine, gordon and malcolm bruce | 36 Comments

Jeremy Thorpe – a life in pictures

By Paul Walter | Sat 6th December 2014 - 9:54 am

#3142939 / gettyimages.com

There are a host of fantastic photographs of Jeremy Thorpe in the archives. He had a real sense of showmanship to which photographers responded. Here are a few images which reflect his life.

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Posted in Obituaries | Also tagged jeremy thorpe and liberal party | 19 Comments

And it’s good-bye from me as LibDemVoice Co-Editor…

By Stephen Tall | Fri 5th December 2014 - 7:55 am

Today marks the countdown to my final day as Co-Editor of LibDemVoice. I guess I could say the past seven years and seven months have flown by, but actually it seems like a long, long time since I started here. Tony Blair was prime minister, Ming Campbell was Lib Dem leader, and I was still a councillor.

I think I officially took over as Editor (from the site’s co-founder Rob Fenwick) on 31st May, 2007, though I’d started the Golden Dozen round-up of the best of the Lib Dem blogs a few months earlier.

A couple of years later, …

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Posted in News and Site news | Also tagged caron lindsay, Mark Pack and rob fenwick | 42 Comments

Former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe dies

By Stephen Tall | Thu 4th December 2014 - 11:00 pm

The party website records the passing of former Liberal Party leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who died today aged 85:

Mr Thorpe died today (4 December) at his home in London. He had battled with Parkinson’s Disease for more than 35 years. He was elected as Liberal MP for North Devon in the 1959 General Election and held the seat for 20 years. Following the retirement of Jo Grimond, he was elected as leader of the Liberal Party in 1967. He was a fervent supporter of Britain’s membership of the the EU

…

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Posted in Obituaries | Also tagged david steel, jeremy thorpe and nick harvey | 32 Comments

Baroness Floella Benjamin writes…Tax break for children’s programmes is great news

By Floella Benjamin | Thu 4th December 2014 - 3:05 pm

I am overjoyed with the wonderful news that the Chancellor has extended tax breaks to children’s television productions. This is something I have campaigned on for years as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children’s Media and the Arts. I have asked questions and spoken on this issue in the House of Lords, supported by Pact (Producers Alliance for Cinema & Television) and the Children’s Media Foundation.

I always say, ‘Childhood lasts a lifetime’ and we can all remember our favourite children’s television programme, they hold fond memories, which are part of our formative years.

But even though children’s programmes are much loved, they are often undervalued and those who contribute to this sector of the creative industries are rarely credited.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Autumn Statement 2012, children's programmes, media and television | 3 Comments

Lib Dems Telegraph splash: EU bashing “weak, opportunistic and fundamentally un-British” say Ashdown, Ludford, Brinton, Farron and 90 Lib Dems

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd December 2014 - 11:09 am

Even Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t have taken the isolationist path that David Cameron’s Conservative party is romping its way down, according to 90 Liberal Democrats in a letter to the Telegraph today. The letter states:

David Cameron’s recent speech on European immigration is the latest in a series of desperate moves from a Conservative Party in full-scale panic.

We’ve had: “Go home or face arrest” vans. We’ve had: if you are from the EU and want to move to Britain, go and register at a police station. We’ve had: if you’re out of work, even for a few months, go back to where you came from.

In her Bruges speech in 1988, Margaret Thatcher said: “Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community. Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community.”

What happened to that Conservative destiny? The dual menace of the Tory headbangers and the rise of Ukip.

There is nothing patriotic about bashing immigration from Europe. It is opportunistic, weak and fundamentally un-British. Migrants from the EU claim less in benefits than people born in this country. They are a massive net positive to the British economy. The Tories are scared to admit this. They have lost all sense of political courage – and that is why people have lost confidence in them.

We, the undersigned Liberal Democrats, konw that the real patriotic case is for Britain to remain in Europe; our jobs and our economic future depend on it.

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Posted in News | Also tagged conservatives, eu, immigration, margaret thatcher, robin meltzer and telegraph | 26 Comments

Stephen Knight AM writes…Putting the car first in urban areas comes with a huge cost to human life and health

By Stephen Knight | Tue 2nd December 2014 - 10:59 am

Lying on a cold and damp pavement in central London as part of a ‘“die in”protest to highlight the level of deaths facing pedestrians and cyclists might not be everyone’s idea of a fun Saturday afternoon, but a couple of weekends ago that is exactly what I was doing.

The reason why?

Because the current level of road deaths – let alone serious injuries – is something we can’t continue to accept as being “inevitable”.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged cycling and london | 14 Comments

What is going on with the Liberal Democrat media strategy?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th November 2014 - 10:20 am

This morning we have George Osborne all over the media talking about how wonderful it is that he’s able to give £2 billion to the NHS. Let’s bear in mind that Norman Lamb has been pushing for a cash injection for some time. All he gets is billing on the Liberal Democrat website for the months of tenacious evidence building and making the case for further investment.

I was quite pained to see Simon Hughes put out round the news channels on Wednesday to promote the Counter Terrorism Bill. While he was in the BBC News Channel studio, David Anderson was criticising the very plans that Hughes was defending. It seemed like a bit of a stitch-up. Nick Clegg has always set great store by David Anderson’s judgement. Anderson’s opinion of the Government’s plans to exclude people they think have been fighting in Syria for up to two years was pretty scathing.

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Posted in News | Also tagged george osborne, media strategy, norman lamb and simon hughes | 26 Comments

A chance to say thank you to Tim Farron

By Stephen Tall | Sun 30th November 2014 - 8:45 am

The Lib Dems now have a President-elect: yesterday it was announced that Sal Brinton had won the only post other than that of party leader subject to an all-member ballot. Congratulations to her; and a big thanks to runner-up Daisy Cooper as well as Liz Lynne for ensuring a healthy debate.

However, this post isn’t about them, it’s about the current President (until 31st December, when the second of his two-year terms expire), Tim Farron.

Tim might not have been party president. Initially he stood for election as the Deputy Leader in June 2010, following Vince Cable’s decision to quit that post when he entered the cabinet. He lost out to Simon Hughes, himself a former president. So when a few months later, Baroness (Ros) Scott unexpectedly decided not to stand for a second term as party president, Tim threw his hat into the ring, and beat off tough competition from Susan Kramer to win. He was elected unopposed for a second term in 2012.

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Posted in News and Party Presidency | Also tagged tim farron | 21 Comments

++ And the new President of the Liberal Democrats is…

By The Voice | Sat 29th November 2014 - 5:25 pm

SAL BRINTON!

Many congratulations to her and well done to all three candidates for competing in an excellent campaign. This post will be updated with fuller details and reaction in due course.

Special thanks also to the staff and volunteers who have been counting in Liberal Democrat HQ since early this morning. It’s been a bit of a marathon with initial problems in getting the votes verified but they’ve all done a great job.

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Posted in Party Presidency | Also tagged daisy cooper, liz lynne, party presidency, party presidential election 2014 and sal brinton | 46 Comments