Tag Archives: featured

Louise Shaw

Opinion: Let’s move to one-member one-vote

By Louise Shaw | Thu 6th March 2014 - 2:59 pm

Following on from Sue Doughty’s excellent invitation to the consultation session on one-member one-vote (OMOV) for our party’s important committees, I’d like to give my perspective as a young(er) member on why I will be supporting this move at conference this weekend.

Sometimes people on the inside of the party can forget what it’s like to be on the outside, and also what it’s like to be a new member. Imagine for a minute you’ve just joined the party, your eyes and ears full of ideas. You’ve joined the party because of a shining commitment to involving members …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 34 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dems as ‘The Party of IN’ – Clegg’s pro-European strategy starts to pay off

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th March 2014 - 7:10 pm

nick clegg v nigel farageKudos to Nick Clegg and his team, including his director of strategy Ryan Coetzee. The gambit of issuing a personal challenge to Nigel Farage to debate Nick on Europe has been accepted not only by the Ukip leader, but also now by the media. As Caron Lindsay reported here this morning – #NickvNigel – We have a date and #NickvNigel: We have 2 dates – any more for the Tour? – the two leaders will face-off both on TV and on radio within the next …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 53 Comments
Keith Aspden

Opinion: York welcomes Spring Conference

By Keith Aspden | Wed 5th March 2014 - 2:25 pm

yorkAs the countdown to this weekend continues, I would like to say how pleased I am to be welcoming Spring Conference to York. I have been speaking to local party members, businesses and organisations like Visit York about the conference and it is clear that anticipation is building.

 Visit York estimate that this weekend will boost the city’s economy by more than £600,000. And I know that hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, and restaurants are reporting soaring demand.

Added to the short-term economic boost is the long-term impact that national exposure will bring. It is a showcase for York as a destination for conferences and events. York is a beautiful, well-connected city with the potential to hold many more big political and business conferences. This weekend should just be the beginning….

It is also a chance for our members in York to meet our ministers and MPs as well as councillors and campaigners from across the country. And as we all know, a chance for local party members to actually debate and decide national party policy.

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Toby Fenwick

Opinion: Ukraine – Next Steps

By Toby Fenwick | Tue 4th March 2014 - 12:27 pm

ukraineAn international affairs policy wonk could be forgiven for thinking that April Fools’ Day had come early. After all, the last 72 hours have seen the Russian Federation occupy Ukraine’s Crimea, and apparently threaten to attack Ukrainian forces in Crimea if they don’t surrender. Such an action is in direct violation of the 1994 Bucharest Memorandum, the OSCE’s Helsinki Final Act, and Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

The use of force without the explicit authorisation of the UN Security Council has a very specific name: aggression. The Nuremburg Tribunal described aggression as the “supreme international crime”: aggression starts wars, destroys lives and is a visceral attack on the international rule of law.

Simply, aggression is international gangsterism of the highest order.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 70 Comments
Mary Reid

Nick Clegg announces 2015 negotiating team

By Mary Reid | Tue 4th March 2014 - 11:34 am

Nick Clegg has announced the team who will handle coalition negotiations after the election in 2015 (if needed, of course).  It will consist of Danny Alexander, Steve Webb, Sal Brinton, Lynne Featherstone and David Laws.

In his book ‘22 days in May‘ David Laws revealed that Nick Clegg had appointed the 2010 negotiating team in secret during the previous year. The team was not put together in haste after the election, as many had assumed, so there were really no excuses for the absence of women. Politically David Laws and Danny Alexander were drawn from the economic liberal wing of …

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Stephen Tall

My favourite Vince Cable quote on Tory immigration policy

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th February 2014 - 2:20 pm

Vince Cable smiling - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsThe good news is that more people chose to come to the UK last year. Net migration to the UK increased to 212,000 in the year to September 2013, up from 154,000 in the previous year. As the independent Office for Budget Responsibility has shown before: if you want increased growth, you should welcome immigration.

Here’s how Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable put it, according to the BBC:

Vince Cable welcomed the increase in net migration to the UK, saying

…

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Caron Lindsay

So what’s happening at Conference? Part 1 The Debates

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 26th February 2014 - 12:42 pm

Jo Swinson Opening Glasgow ConferenceIn just 9 days’ time, Liberal Democrats will gather in York for Spring Conference.

If you haven’t been to Conference before, Spring Conference is smaller and shorter than the main event in Autumn, but it’s no less intense and interesting.

I thought I’d take a wee look around what will be happening next weekend in terms of debates, fringe and training.

But let’s get one thing out of the way first. When the agenda first came out, I had a bit of a wail on Twitter. If there is one thing I don’t want to see in my Conference agenda, it’s a great big enormous picture of Nigel Farage. Please never do this to us again, Conference Team. Thanks.

Unusually for a conference two months before an election, there are some interesting and possibly controversial debates on the agenda.

The debates kick off on Saturday morning with a motion on the large companies which dominate the pub market in this country. Even if you don’t like beer, it’s worth going to see if proposer Greg Mulholland dresses as the Casked Crusader. Andy Boddington wrote here last year about the effect of Pubcos’ behaviour on local communities and tenants. This is a good old liberal attack on the abuse of power and something that’s relevant in every area.

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg and Vince Cable highlight Liberal Democrat achievements in higher education

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 25th February 2014 - 9:47 pm

When I went to speak in the St Andrew’s University debate last week, I did a bit of what I described as getting the tin opener and the worm can perilously close to each other, but pointed out that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were twice as likely to go to university as they were 10 years ago. I also pointed out that those graduates on the lowest incomes would be paying much less than they were under Labour.

I was greatly assisted in preparing my remarks by Stephen Tall’s piece in January on the latest data in which …

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

Cameron to “rule out second Lib-Con coalition” claims Telegraph. It may be a bluff but that doesn’t mean he won’t be forced to do it.

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th February 2014 - 7:50 am

Today’s Telegraph splashes on the claim that David Cameron is preparing to rule out the possibility of a second Coalition with the Lib Dems if the Tories are the largest single party but lack a majority:

The Prime Minister wants to make a commitment in the Conservative Party election manifesto not to sign a second power-sharing deal with a smaller party in the event of a hung parliament next May, it is understood. Instead, a Conservative party that won the most seats but lacked a Commons majority would attempt to rule as a minority government, a course that would almost

…

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Stephen Tall

Who’s afraid of Scottish independence?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 23rd February 2014 - 2:00 pm

Saltire - St Andrews Flag - Scotland - Some rights reserved by byronv2The last month has seen the ‘Yes Scotland’ independence campaign take a battering.

First, Mark Carney raised doubts about Alex Salmond’s plans for a post-independence currency union between Scotland and the remainder of the UK.

This warning was echoed when, with more naked partisanship, George Osborne, Danny Alexander and Ed Balls teamed up to state they would each refuse to form such a currency union.

And then last Sunday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hammered in …

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Posted in Op-eds and Scotland | Also tagged , , , , , and | 33 Comments
Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb writes… Working together for better mental health crisis care

By Norman Lamb MP | Fri 21st February 2014 - 9:47 am

When someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, it essential that they feel able to access the help they need – and quickly. They will probably be in a state of extreme distress and confusion. Without help, people may be at risk of causing harm to themselves and those around them (cases of injury to others are actually very rare). They often end up in police cells – completely inappropriately. They may even commit suicide – and all too often, I hear tragic cases of suicide after someone has repeatedly been unable to access mental …

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Nick T

Yes, food poverty is real – but the situation is complex and solutions are not straightforward

By Nick T | Thu 20th February 2014 - 2:30 pm

Food poverty, it seems to me, is a slightly odd term, but its apparent necessity is, I think, a reflection of the tortuous treatment imposed on the word “poverty”. Poverty now, in common usage (at least among experts in such issues), means “relative poverty”, which essentially means inequality. So when we actually want to refer to poverty as the word would historically have been understood (as being unable to satisfy one’s basic needs) we have to apply a prefix: fuel poverty, food poverty etc.

While Britain clearly has its share of poverty on the relative definition, in theory there ought to be no such thing as food poverty. A generously funded social security system should mean that anyone in danger of being in such a situation (whether in work or not) ought to be caught by the state’s safety net.

I think most can agree, though, that this theoretical scenario is not always the case in practice.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t think the agreement goes any further, particularly when we look at levels of food poverty and its causes.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 97 Comments
Stephen Tall

Clegg v Farage: why Nick needs Nigel

By Stephen Tall | Thu 20th February 2014 - 1:45 pm

Some smart stuff from Nick Clegg this morning, issuing a direct challenge to Ukip’s Nigel Farage to debate him on Europe.

For starters, it seizes the initiative. Nick’s been ambushed often enough on his radio phone-in show, Call Clegg, with the producers lining up disgusted ex-Lib Dem members, and folk like Boris Johnson and Cathy Newman, to spring awkward questions on him. Today he turned the tables. The speed with which emails from the party pinged into my inbox – complete with petition to sign – show this was a planned surprise.

It’s succeeded in catching Nigel Farage off-guard. The Ukip leader wants to think through the pros and cons. If he agrees to Nick’s challenge, will it weaken his case for appearing in 2015’s televised leaders’ debates? Should he demand a four-way debate – even though he must know that’s a non-starter and it might look like he’s unwilling to take up the gauntlet thrown down by Nick? They’re fair enough questions to want to think through. But in today’s insta-response news climate, Nige’s lack of immediate enthusiasm will dent his carefully cultivated image of un-spun, devil-may-care, shoot-from-the-hip, take-on-all-comers man-of-the-people.

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Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes: Lib Dem immigration policy paper is strong, balanced and compassionate

By Julian Huppert | Thu 20th February 2014 - 12:40 pm

Public concern about immigration has been fuelled by the rise of UKIP, and further driven by the Tories desperately trying to show how tough they can be on foreigners, and Labour keen not to be left out of the ‘sounding tough’ rhetoric. I am always disappointed that just about the only thing Labour has apologised for is letting too many people into the country in their 13 years.

We must stand firm against the anti-foreigner tide, and the Immigration Policy Paper, which you can read here, does exactly that. Andrew Stunell has led the working group impressively to produce a …

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Graham Watson

Graham Watson MEP writes: The time has come for the EU to take decisive action over Ukraine

By Graham Watson | Wed 19th February 2014 - 6:24 pm

The past twenty four hours has seen the situation in Ukraine escalate from serious to critical. We are only now seeing the true extent of the clashes between police and anti-government protestors, with the number of fatalities standing at 26 but set to rise as the violence continues. What is clear is that last night’s attack on protestors by the police was at the direct order of the Ukrainian government. While the government claimed it was simply aiming to restore law and order, the underlying motive was for President Yanukovych to reassert his legitimacy. As far as I am concerned, …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 24 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nobody else will speak up for liberalism, so our manifesto has to be brimming with it

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 18th February 2014 - 11:45 am

lib dem manifesto tax cutI find myself bemused by this report from today’s Times (£) which suggests that Liberal Democrats would steer clear of any policies that both the Conservatives or Labour disagreed with in our manifesto for next year’s General Election.

The article reports a conversation with a Liberal Democrat source:

He conceded that the party was not going to win a majority at the next general election, but said it was vital that it left open the opportunity of working with either of the other two parties. “We need to

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 37 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Men, is your behaviour driving women out of politics?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 15th February 2014 - 9:20 am

Imagine you are in a meeting trying to make your case. How would you feel if, every time you opened your mouth to speak, somebody interrupted you before you had got to the end of your first sentence? Not just once. Every. Single.Time.

Imagine you are in a meeting, trying to make your case, but the decision has clearly been made by a small cabal of powerful men who have reached their own understanding over dinner and some booze the night before, at an event that you were not invited to.

Imagine you are in a meeting trying to do your job …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 93 Comments
Stephen Tall

How should PMQs be reformed?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 15th February 2014 - 8:00 am

Hansard-SocietyPrime Minister’s Questions, the half-hour weekly pantomime that transfixes Westminster and the SW1 media, got a deserved pasting from the Hansard Society this week which released a report, Tuned in or Turned off? Public attitudes to PMQs.

The results couldn’t be clearer. PMQs is a significant ‘cue’ or ‘building block’ for the public’s perceptions of Parliament, and it provides a lot of the raw material that feeds their negative assumptions about politicians.

The public like the ‘theory’ of PMQs but dislike the current practice of it. They recognise that the opportunity

…

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Stephen Tall

Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election: Labour win easily, Ukip beat Tories to 2nd, Lib Dems lose deposit

By Stephen Tall | Fri 14th February 2014 - 9:10 am

Labour comfortably won yesterday’s Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election, caused by the sad death of Paul Goggins just five weeks ago. Here are the results:

    Labour: Mike Kane – 13,261 (55%, +11%)
    UKIP: John Bickley – 4,301 (18%, +15%)
    Conservative: Daniel Critchlow – 3,479 (15%, -11%)
    Liberal Democrat: Mary di Mauro – 1,176 (5%, -17%)
    Green: Nigel Woodcock – 748 (3%, +3%)
    BNP: Eddy O’Sullivan – 708 (3%, -1%)
    Monster Raving Loony: Captain Chaplington-Smythe – 288 (1%)
    Turnout: 23,961, 28%

It’s clear there were two winners from the election – though the very low-turn-out (barely one-quarter of the registered electorate bothered to vote in what was a foregone conclusion by-election) …

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged | 128 Comments
Nick T

Ed Davey’s speech to the IPPR on climate change

By Nick T | Thu 13th February 2014 - 4:41 pm

Here’s how the Guardian previewed Ed Davey’s speech this afternoon to the Institute for Public Policy Research:

Britain’s climate change policy is under threat from a “diabolical cocktail” of nimbyism, denial of science and fear of Europe from politicians on the right, the energy secretary will say on Thursday.

Amid growing warnings about a potential link between global warming and extreme UK weather, Ed Davey will raise concerns that the politicial consensus about the need to tackle climate change is in danger of breaking down as some in the Conservative and Ukip parties try to discredit the science.

He will say that the actions of climate deniers are “undermining public trust in the scientific evidence for climate change” and that “we can see around us today the possible consequences of a world in which extreme weather events are much more likely”.

In his speech at the IPPR thinktank on Thursday, Davey will criticise those who seize on “any anomaly in the climate data to attempt to discredit the whole”.

Taking aim at “climate change denying Conservatism”, which he calls wilfully ignorant, he warns that it could create a diabolical cocktail that threatens the whole long-term structure of UK climate change and energy policy.

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Stephen Tall

Must-read analysis from Peter Kellner on where the 5 million missing 2010 Lib Dem voters have gone

By Stephen Tall | Tue 11th February 2014 - 1:20 pm

A fascinating piece of polling research from YouGov’s Peter Kellner in today’s Guardian, looking at how votes have churned since the 2010 general election.

My working assumption looking at the headline poll ratings has been that there’s been relatively little movement between Labour and the Conservatives, with most of the movement from the Lib Dems to Labour and from the Tories to Ukip. YouGov’s research shows how simplistic that assumption about votes lost/gained in the last four years is:

vote churn peter kellner - feb 2014

Three quick points drawn from this table:

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged and | 40 Comments
Nick T

Uncomfortable truths from the IFS on public spending and tax cuts but cautious optimism on economic growth

By Nick T | Mon 10th February 2014 - 11:59 am

Last week, the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies produced its annual “Green Budget”: its attempt to inject some realism into the national debate on the economy ahead of the chancellor’s actual budget in March.

The document makes for uncomfortable reading in parts, particularly as we head towards another general election in which the complicity of silence on deficit reduction is likely to be as deafening as it was in 2010.

IFS borrowingDeficit reduction: significant progress, but some way to go

Starting with the deficit, the IFS’s conclusions are stark. Had the government not taken steps to increase taxes and cut spending in the years since 2008, they estimate that the deficit would have reached 10% of national income by 2018-19. Because of the estimated 16.7% permanent reduction in economic capacity caused by the crash of 2008, 98% of that deficit would be “structural” – i.e. would not be expected to reduce naturally once growth picked up:

For an economy such as the UK, this level of borrowing would have been unsustainable on an ongoing basis. Public sector net debt would have increased markedly year-on-year, likely surpassing 100% of national income before the end of the current decade, and 200% within the next two decades.

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Stephen Tall

Immigration minister Mark Harper quits. An honourable resignation? Inevitable is nearer the mark

By Stephen Tall | Sat 8th February 2014 - 7:30 pm

Mark Harper, Conservative immigration minister, today resigned after learning his cleaner did not have permission to work in the UK. Here’s how the BBC reports it:

Mr Harper notified Prime Minister David Cameron, who accepted his resignation “with regret”, Number 10 said. It added there was “no suggestion” the 43-year-old Conservative MP for the Forest of Dean had “knowingly employed an illegal immigrant”. Fellow Tory James Brokenshire has been appointed the new immigration minister.

His resignation is being hailed as honourable, though I think inevitable is nearer the mark. There is no suggestion he acted illegally, and in his own version …

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The Voice

A longer read for the weekend: Lord (Paul) Strasburger’s submission to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

By The Voice | Sat 8th February 2014 - 3:00 pm

The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament recently issued the following call for papers:

On 17 October 2013, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) announced that it would be broadening its inquiry into the laws which govern the intelligence agencies’ ability to intercept private communications. In addition to considering whether the current statutory framework governing access to private communications remains adequate, the Committee is also considering the appropriate balance between our individual right to privacy and our collective right to security. The ISC is now inviting written submissions from those who wish to contribute to the inquiry.

Lib Dem peer Paul Strasburger has sent us his submission, which we’re printing in full…

Submission to ISC Inquiry

paul strasburgerby Lord Strasburger

1. In January 2014 President Obama said to his country and the world “Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power. It depends on the law to constrain those in power.”
2. In the UK, the Snowden disclosures have confirmed that the legislation intended to constrain intrusive surveillance of its citizens by the State is not fit for purpose. In addition, scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies which is supposed to protect the privacy and liberty of the British people has comprehensively failed.

The difference between watching anybody and watching everybody

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo EXCLUSIVE: “The Lost Liberal Democrat Votes”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th February 2014 - 3:15 pm

Here’s a fascinating 7-minute video from documentary producer Ed Stradling looking at “The lost Liberal Democrat Votes” – and what the party can do to win them back by 2015. Ed’s not a Lib Dem member, so when I asked him what had prompted him to make this short film, here’s what he told me:

I’m not a party member, in fact I’ve never even voted for the Lib Dems, although I may have done had they ever stood a chance in any of my constituencies. However, I do think the Lib Dems have done a fantastic job in Government, and come 2015 I would certainly favour a Lib-Con coalition over an outright Tory Government, just as I’d favour a Lib-Lab coalition over an outright Labour Government. I think the political consequences of joining the Coalition have been terribly unfair on the Lib Dems and I guess that is the main motivation for the video – it’s always struck me as crazy that the Lib Dems should be punished by the left-sided voters for taking a decision which is clearly better for them, than the almost certain alternative of a Tory majority in a second 2010 election.

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Posted in News and YouTube | Also tagged | 63 Comments
Stephen Tall

Fraser Nelson’s must-read guide to utterly and completely misunderstanding the Lib Dems’ Coalition strategy

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th February 2014 - 2:15 pm

Fraser Nelson has written a must-read guide to utterly and completely misunderstanding the Lib Dems’ Coalition strategy today. My guess is he’s reliant on Tory intelligence, which in this case is an oxymoron.

Much of it is the usual half-fair/half-unfair admixture of insults regularly thrown at the Lib Dems by the right-wing media. We are, says Fraser, “a hodge-podge of a party defined by its lack of definition”, “conservative in Somerset and socialist in Solihull” (has he met Lorely Burt?). Unlike the Conservatives, of course, where the small-l-liberal outlook of Ken Clarke and Nick Boles dovetails perfectly with the …

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Mary Reid

Lib Dems amongst the top ten peers’ peers

By Mary Reid | Fri 7th February 2014 - 9:09 am

House of LordsEd Lowther at the BBC has identified the ‘top ten peers’ peers of 2013‘, defined as backbenchers in the House of Lords who were name-checked most frequently by their colleagues in the chamber. As he says: “This approach may not measure popularity or power, but it gives an impression of impact. ”

And are any of those lordly sociometric stars Lib Dem, by any chance? Of course they are.

At number 4 – drumroll, please – is ….

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Caron Lindsay

It’s #timetotalk about mental health at Liberal Democrat Voice

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 6th February 2014 - 10:02 am

Time to talk dayLiberal Democrat Voice is always “Our place to talk” but today, we are talking about mental health. Time to Change is having a national #timetotalk day. Why?

Thursday 6 February is the first ever Time to Talk Day: 24 hours in which to start conversations about mental health, raise awareness and share the message that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, neither is talking about it.

Sometimes it’s the little things we do that make a big difference – like having a chat over a cuppa, sending a text or inviting someone out. And on Time to Talk Day we’re encouraging people to do just that. In fact, we’re hoping to spark a million conversations, and we want your help to do that.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 14 Comments
Mary Reid

YouGov asks: What is it about Lib Dems and Sci-Fi?

By Mary Reid | Tue 4th February 2014 - 4:59 pm

TARDISYouGov has the hard evidence for something that a lot of us have suspected for a long time – that “There is a strange correlation between supporting the Liberal Democrats and being a fan of Science Fiction“.

YouGov regularly polls its panel of 400,000 people (including me, as it happens) so has built up some rich data. The survey last year on Doctor Who showed that while 31% of the population are interested in the programme, that jumps to 41% for Lib Dem supporters. (Nick Barlow blogged about the survey at the time)

Time and time again the Liberal Democrats appeared as the most correlated political party for Sci-Fi related topics. Movies like The Matrix, Blade Runner, Alien, The Fifth Element, Stargate, Back to the Future and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and sci fi classic books like Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, Dune and I Robot – ALL show positive correlations to support for the Lib Dems.

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Alexandra Jones

The Independent View: London – a magnet for talent

By Alexandra Jones | Mon 3rd February 2014 - 9:55 am

london by Harshil ShahVince Cable recently accused London of acting like a giant machine that sucks in all of the talent from the rest of the country. Our new report, Cities Outlook 2014, shows that London is indeed a magnet for young people from across the country. But the big question is: why does this happen, and what does it mean for policy?

First, let’s look at the key stats. Somewhat counterintuitively, overall London loses population to the rest of the country. But this is overwhelmingly to the Greater South …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , and | 11 Comments
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