Tag Archives: featured

Gove and Laws scrap it out on front pages over sacking of Ofsted head. Here’s what the row is all about.

By Stephen Tall | Sun 2nd February 2014 - 11:22 am

Today’s newspaper front pages are full of the scrap taking place at the heart of the Department for Education between Conservative secretary of state Michael Gove and Lib Dem schools minister David Laws:

Ofsted row: Lib Dems furious at Conservative plan to ‘politicise’ classrooms (Independent on Sunday)

Lib Dems savage Gove over sacked schools boss (The Sunday Times, £)

Angry Lib Dems accuse Michael Gove of bid to politicise education (Observer)

Why is there a row?

On Friday night, The Independent broke the news that Baroness (Sally) Morgan, the Labour

…

Posted in News | Also tagged baroness (sally) morgan, david laws, michael gove, ofsted and schools | 28 Comments

Sarah Yong selected as Liberal Democrat candidate for Somerton and Frome

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 1st February 2014 - 8:06 pm

Sarah Yong has received a very special 30th birthday present – selection as Liberal Democrat candidate for Somerton and
Frome. She hopes to replace David Heath MP who is standing down.

So, who is Sarah? Well, her Leadership Programme profile tells us:

Sarah was born in Edinburgh to a Scottish mother and a Chinese Malaysian father, and her family moved to Somerset when she was three years old. Sarah attended local state schools before graduating with a BA in Politics and History.

Upon leaving university, Sarah embarked on a military career and attended The Royal Military Leadership Academy for Officer training in 2007.

…

Posted in News | Also tagged david heath, Sarah Yong and somerton and frome | 13 Comments

The Malcolm Bruce interview, Part 1 on the Liberal Democrats’ achievements in Government and how the SNP’s promises are undeliverable

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th January 2014 - 8:43 pm

This morning I dropped an email to our new Deputy Leader, Sir Malcolm Bruce MP, asking him if I could have a chat with him so that our readers could get to know him. He called me this afternoon and we chatted for nearly half an hour. We talked about how he sees his new role, how to get more women into Parliament, the European elections, his role as chair of the Select Committee on International Development and the Scottish Independence referendum taking place later this year.

Malcolm Bruce was elected as …

Posted in News | Also tagged liberal democrat achievements in government, malcolm bruce and scottish ndependence referendum | 8 Comments

Opinion: More money in your pocket from April

By Alex Smethurst | Wed 29th January 2014 - 8:28 am

At the last election, Liberal Democrats up and down the country campaigned hard to cut taxes for working people and put money back in your pocket. It was our top priority – taken from the front page of our manifesto – to increase the amount you can earn before paying tax to £10,000. This has made a real difference to taxpayers up and down the country.

Since 2003, middle wages have failed to rise with growth. When we came into government, someone working full time on the minimum wage would lose …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged income tax and tax threshold | 24 Comments

Nick Clegg MP writes…The recovery would not be happening without us

By Nick Clegg MP | Tue 28th January 2014 - 4:25 pm

This morning we’ve seen yet more proof that the economy is firmly on the path to recovery. Growth is returning, with today’s figures showing the longest period of growth since 2007. We’ve also had good news on jobs – with youth unemployment down, jobs outside of London up and a surge in new full time jobs.

In Government we’re clearing up Labour’s mess. Here are four reasons why it would not be happening without the Liberal Democrats.

1. Our decision to go into coalition gave Britain the stable government needed to get the country through these difficult times. Despite the endless clamour …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged economy | 14 Comments

Opinion: Football, Freedom of Speech and the Y-word

By Paul Head | Sun 26th January 2014 - 10:20 am

In the last few days, the Crown Prosecution Service has taken the decision to charge three Tottenham Hotspur supporters with “using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour”. The charges relate to the use of the word “Yid” by the fans.

The decision to charge the fans should be a cause of major concern to anyone who values freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

For those unaware of the history and context behind the use of the word by Spurs fans, it’s worth a quick …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged crown prosecution service, football, spurs and tottenham hotspur | 26 Comments

Opinion: The demise of the middle classes

By David Boyle | Wed 22nd January 2014 - 8:55 am

I was on a policy panel recently, when I heard somebody dismissing the idea of ‘choice’ in public services as a sop for the middle classes.

Now, there are two rather odd aspects of this.

The first is that, depending on what you mean by choice – and every political party has its own distinct meaning – it isn’t actually true.

The polling I carried out during the Barriers to Choice Review showed that nearly 90 per cent want ‘choice’. It is just that they are often muddled about what that actually means.

The second is that I hear this kind of sentence in …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged middle classes, public services and standard of living | 27 Comments

Opinion: Why I am against Grayling over Criminal Legal Aid

By Antony Hook | Tue 21st January 2014 - 5:16 pm

As a candidate for the European Parliament my focus is on EU-related issues: trade, climate change and cross-border crime. But some national issues are, in my view, so pressing that I cannot ignore them. Among these are Chris Grayling’s proposed cuts to criminal legal aid, so severe they threaten whether defendants will have proper representation at all.

On 6 January, I was in Oxford to support a protest against these cuts. Concurrent protests happened at courts all over England & Wales. The campaign aims to raise public awareness and persuade parliament to say ‘no’ to Grayling, as Parliament did over Price …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged chris grayling and legal aid | 14 Comments

We should support Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz in the face of death threats

By Stephen Tall | Tue 21st January 2014 - 2:00 pm

On 12th January, Maajid Nawaz, the Lib Dems’ parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn, tweeted the following message:

This Jesus & Mo @JandMo cartoon is not offensive&I’m sure God is greater than to feel threatened by it الله أكبر منه pic.twitter.com/dEwlapWUSi

— Maajid Nawaz (@MaajidNawaz) January 12, 2014

He did so following his appearance on BBC1’s The Big Questions, which debated “whether human rights should always outweigh religious right”. Two audience members had worn the image on their T-shirts, with the BBC choosing not to show the image – which was the same as that worn by …

Posted in News | Also tagged bbc the big questions, george galloway, hampstead and kilburn and maajid nawaz | 134 Comments

Opinion: Step forward true liberals

By Anonymous Liberal | Tue 21st January 2014 - 12:10 pm

True liberalism is hard. Sometimes we don’t understand this. Lacking an urgent, reformist edge, we let others define us. Our milder critics used to style us sandal-wearing fruitarians who knitted their own CND badges. Hostile tabloids called us dangerous deviants.

Oddly, we were comforted by these perceptions. Underlying them was a sense that Liberals are relaxed and open to all-comers. But this vision of our tolerant Party has two problems. Tolerance can degenerate into shoulder-shrugging passivity and turning a blind eye. And we’re not that open anyway.

We’re a Party of ageing, white males. Just like we used to be.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberalism | 49 Comments

Opinion: What does ‘bringing the party into disrepute’ mean?

By David Howarth | Tue 21st January 2014 - 9:00 am

The suspension and threatened expulsion from the party of Chris Rennard for ‘failure to apologise’ takes the Rennard affair into a new and much darker place. Even those of us who think Chris should apologise should stop and think about where this is taking us.

Alistair Webster’s statement seemed to me to be entirely sensible, but there was one issue Alistair should have said more about, namely what can count as ‘bringing the party into disrepute’. That issue is crucial because on it depends the rights of minorities in the party to stay within it. If, for example, disagreeing with the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alistair webster and chris rennard | 116 Comments

Opinion: Why local banks need Lib Dems to act

By David Boyle | Fri 17th January 2014 - 8:15 am

It hardly seems worth Ed Miliband’s time to actually make the speech on economics today, because it has been previewed, leaked and debated – almost sentence by sentence – all week.

There was a debate about the middle classes on Tuesday. Then there was the important commitment to competition in the banking sector, where he flagged the idea of a market cap, an important idea – but there are three practical problems with it.

First, there is a danger that it will lead to the big banks dumping poorer customers – though equally, there will be more banks available for them to …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged banking and ed miliband | 8 Comments

Nick Harvey MP writes… Robert Gates poses stark defence question to UK: Do we want to be a real military partner or a nuclear power and nothing else?

By Nick Harvey | Thu 16th January 2014 - 1:58 pm

Former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning decrying the UK’s defence cuts. He said the squeeze meant the UK could no longer be a ‘full spectrum’ military partner of the US, acknowledging that our relationship with the US has been fundamentally altered.

A sceptic would quickly dismiss the comments of a man currently promoting his memoirs, but Gates makes a wider point about what exactly we want to be doing with a smaller defence capability.

Both Labour and the Tories continue to cling to the idea that we should maintain a full-scale Cold War …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged nuclear disarmament, nuclear weapons and trident | 31 Comments

And the winner of our Liberal Voice of the Year award is… Edward Snowden

By Stephen Tall | Wed 15th January 2014 - 10:39 am

It's a fortnight since we launched our search for the Liberal Voice of the Year with the aim of finding the individual or group which has had the biggest liberal impact in the past 12 months. This is LibDemVoice's seventh such annual award, and as is our tradition, we looked beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the liberal who’s most impressed our readers and is NOT a member of our party.

We unveiled the shortlist here on New Year's Day. In total, 363 readers cast a vote in the past two weeks using a preferential voting system. The final (13th) round of voting gave the following result:

Posted in News and Polls | Also tagged liberal voice 2013 | 30 Comments

Hollande’s affair – do you care? Gallic shrug

By Stephen Tall | Tue 14th January 2014 - 8:10 pm

The President of France, Francois Hollande, held a a long-planned news conference today to launch policies to help France’s struggling economy. Along with cuts to government spending, he plans a ‘responsibility pact’ to incentivise firms to hire workers, and… oh, I’m sorry, am I boring you? You’re only interested in his liaisons dangereuses, the reported affair he’s having with the actress who is not his First Lady? If so, then you’ve a lot in common with UK journalists…

And that's it! Next question on economy. The French media are a collective disgrace

— Tim Shipman (Mail) (@ShippersUnbound) January 14,

…

Posted in News | Also tagged alastair stewart, andrew neil, francois hollande, janan ganesh and jon sopel | 47 Comments

Opinion: UKIP – let’s have a debate about low skills

By Helen Flynn | Tue 14th January 2014 - 5:04 pm

There has been an inconsistency between two highly prominent policy areas that has been niggling away at the back of my mind for quite some time now. UKIP needs to take note.

So, take two policy areas and also take into account the temperature (at least according to the Daily Mail, etc) of the voters.

The first area is education. Schools that do not match up to the floor levels at Key Stage 2 and at GCSE are pounced upon by Ofsted. They require improvement or are put into special measures. All children must get 5 good GCSEs. They must progress and they must aspire. Think of the slogans that populate the UK and US education policy discourse: “no child must be left behind; “every child matters”; and social mobility is regarded and upheld as a kind of rebalancing panacea to address all social ills and help narrow the gap.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged education, immigration and ukip | 26 Comments

The three dimensions to Alistair Carmichael’s speech: positive vision of UK, incoherent nationalist ideas and future powers

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 13th January 2014 - 4:54 pm

Alistair Carmichael’s keynote speech and subsequent question and answer session in Stirling today touched three different dimensions of the constitutional debate, the last of which should cheer any Liberal Democrat heart. Up until now, roughly, the nationalist campaign has been all about painting a pretty picture of how all our problems would disappear if we controlled our own destiny, and in dismissing all searching for detail and questioning as scaremongering. The pro UK campaign has been about robust analysis of the SNP positions, but it hasn’t even made my heart sing and I’m voting for them. It’s been all head and fact and evidence based and worthy, but it’s not appealed to the emotions. The parts of Carmichael’s speech trailed overnight heavily emphasised what Scotland gains as being part of the UK, though. Were we about to see a change of emphasis?

The positive vision for the UK

It’s not just about money, said Alistair. It’s about what the 4 nations of the UK have built together. He said Scotland gets more out than it puts in which will no doubt have the nationalists in a tailspin of indignation – but the same is the case for all the countries which make up the UK, greater than the sum of their parts.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Alistair Carmichael, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 5 Comments

Danny Alexander MP writes: We shouldn’t fritter away our EU influence when we can lead drive for jobs and growth

By Danny Alexander MP | Fri 10th January 2014 - 7:57 pm

As the House of Lords debates the EU Referendum Bill, you may be forgiven for thinking that the Coalition Government has already legislated for a referendum. In fact we did – in 2011 Parliament passed the EU Act which holds that there will be a referendum if there is a transfer of powers from the UK to the EU. This is a sensible approach which means that the British people will get their say in a referendum when our terms of membership change.

At the time, Conservative Ministers strongly supported the EU Act and rejected attempts by their own backbenchers to …

Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged conservatives, eu and eu referendum | 22 Comments

Lord Roger Roberts writes…Focussing attention on the humanitarian cost of the Syrian civil war

By Lord Roger Roberts | Thu 9th January 2014 - 12:32 pm

This afternoon, the House of Lords will discuss the tragedy of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Syria. Lord Roberts secured the debate, and here he sets out his views exclusively for LDV.

The crisis in Syria, which the UN has described as ‘the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of modern times’ is now reaching overwhelming levels. The total number of Syrian refugees is now estimated to be 2.3 million, of whom 0.5% – around 12,000 souls – are spread across the whole continent of Europe. Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest country, is bearing the brunt of this: an estimated 100 Syrians enter Bulgaria daily, many of them illegally. The country simply cannot cope.

The United Nations and its non-governmental organisation and local government partners in the region face many pressures. These organisations are fighting to ensure social stability. In Lebanon, in light of extraordinary population growth, essential resources, space, and labour are all causes of significant social tension. In East Lebanon, a makeshift refugee camp providing shelter for hundreds was burnt down last month, and the Lebanese town of Tripoli saw bloodshed mirroring the Syrian conflict in the latter months of 2013. Alarmingly, car bombs in Beirut are once again headline news. The spread of violence will continue, threatening to destabilise the whole region, unless practical and immediate measures are taken to relieve the pressure on Syria’s generous but inundated neighbours.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged house of lords and syria | 3 Comments

Should MPs be allowed to take their babies into the voting lobby?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 9th January 2014 - 11:28 am

There’s been a bit of controversy over the issue of breastfeeding in the House of Commons and taking babies into the voting lobby sparked by comments by Jo Swinson, who gave birth to her son Andrew on 22 December. The argument goes that you can take a sword into the Commons voting lobby, but not a baby. On face value, it sounds like yet another way in which Westminster needs to be dragged into the 21st century.

Jo said to the Guardian:

“I think it’s been lovely the way people have been really supportive in parliament of my pregnancy,” she said. ” I think some of the structures of the institutions of the House of Commons probably don’t make it as easy as it could be, in particular that you don’t get maternity cover. As a minister, I get cover for my work … but nobody else will be being the MP for East Dunbartonshire.”

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged breastfeeding, david steel, jenny willott, Jo Swinson and Parliament | 29 Comments

Nick Clegg lambasts George Osborne’s “monumental mistake”

By Mary Reid | Tue 7th January 2014 - 11:31 am

The media are full of stories and commentary about George Osborne’s announcement yesterday on the need to make a further £25 billion cuts after the next election, the bulk of which would come from welfare benefits. Even the Telegraph refers to him as a “prophet of gloom“.

There is also much coverage of Nick Clegg’s response at his monthly press conference in which he said the Tories were making a “monumental mistake”.

You’ve got a Conservative party now who are driven, it seems to me, by two very clear ideological impulses. One is to remorselessly pare back the state – for ideological reasons just cut back the state.

Posted in News | 14 Comments

Julian Huppert writes… an end to the chilling effects of libel action on free speech

By Julian Huppert | Mon 6th January 2014 - 12:03 pm

As we start a New Year, we always tend to look back on the past, as well as think to the future – and we do have a bad tendency to focus on the problems, not the successes.

But for a change, let’s celebrate another achievement – another manifesto commitment delivered, as the Defamation Act 2013 came into effect on New Year’s Day. This will hopefully mark an end to libel tourism, an end to the abuse of libel law by companies, and an end to the chilling effect threats of libel …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged defamation bill and libel reform | 2 Comments

Immigration: 87% of Lib Dem members back free movement of EU people; but 65% also support benefit restrictions for EU migrants

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th January 2014 - 10:45 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 750 party members responded – thank you – and we’re publishing the full results.

87% of Lib Dems support the free movement of EU citizens

Overall, do you support or oppose the right of people in EU countries to live and work wherever they want?

87%

An overwhelming proportion (87%) of Lib Dem members support the right of …

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged david cameron and immigration | 23 Comments

How can we do politics better?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 4th January 2014 - 9:59 am

There’s been a spate of articles and comments by Liberal Democrat politicians which, at a guess, isn’t co-ordinated, but they all address the same themes – the problems with the way that we do politics and lack of trust in politicians and institutions.

Paddy Ashdown told the Times (£), reported also for free in the Guardian that public faith in British institutions was “crumbling into dust” with some very harsh words for the BBC and NHS:

The BBC is revealed as an organisation which can’t manage its own affairs, misspends public money and seems to have been complicit in aggrandising

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged mark valladares, paddy ashdown, politics, sarah teather, tessa munt, the guardian, the mirror and the times | 46 Comments

NEW POLL: Who is your Liberal Voice of the Year?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st January 2014 - 2:45 pm

Today’s the day we launch our search for the Liberal Voice of the Year to find the individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in the past 12 months. This is the seventh annual award, and as is our tradition, we’re looking beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the greatest liberal who’s not a member of our party.

The list of 14 nominees appears below. These were sought from Lib Dem members via our most recent survey; some 250 nominations were submitted, and each of those short-listed needed to clear a threshold of four separate mentions.

To vote, please use the poll below to rank the nominees in order of preference.

This year’s shortlist for Liberal Voice of the Year is as follows

(in alphabetical first-name order):

Posted in News and Polls | Also tagged liberal voice 2013 | 29 Comments

New Year reflections from Charles Kennedy: 2014 is not for the politically timid

By Charles Kennedy | Wed 1st January 2014 - 12:00 pm

Locally and nationally 2014 is going to be a decisive one – not just for us Liberal Democrats but for Scotland, the UK and the European Union as a whole.

It is going to be the most overwhelmingly political calendar year in the experience of most political participants. I believe that we are about to live through a period quite without precedent since 1974 – the year which saw two general elections. And its impact will be even more far reaching.

Both the European elections and the Scottish independence referendum offer us Liberal Democrats two pivotal platforms upon which to convey what, …

Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged charles kennedy, eu, Scotland and Scottish independence referendum | 18 Comments

2,000 new Lib Dem members join in last 3 months of 2013: “first governing party in recent history to have increased its membership while in power”

By Stephen Tall | Mon 30th December 2013 - 12:01 pm

Today’s Independent reports the story that Lib Dem membership is on the up – 2,000 new members joining in the last three months of the year mean the party has recorded a net increase of up to 800 members across 2013:

Much of the success, party sources said, was down to a new incentive scheme for local Lib Dem associations to recruit new members. Under the policy, if they can prove that their membership has grown over a three-month period, they get back 20 per cent of their subscriptions in that time to spend on local campaigning. If it has

…

Posted in News | Also tagged party membership | 34 Comments

Who’s up, who’s down? How party members rate the performances of leading Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Sun 29th December 2013 - 2:50 pm

LDV asked: How would you rate the performances of the following leading Liberal Democrats and government ministers?

Full results are published below, but here’s two key lists for those who want to cut to the chase… (with comparison to September 2013 ratings in brackets)

Top 5 Lib Dem performers in the Government:

Posted in LDV Members poll | 6 Comments

Who’s your leading Liberal Democrat Star of 2013? Part 1

By The Voice | Sat 28th December 2013 - 11:57 am

We have our Liberal Voice of the Year award, but that’s for people outside the party.

We also thought it might also be a good idea as we reach the end of the year to celebrate people in the party who we thought had made an outstanding contribution in 2013. When I say we, I’m including you in this. Some of the team will be making their own suggestions and we invite you to either submit your own posts by emailing [email protected] or just put your suggestions in the comments to the various posts that will be appearing over the next …

Posted in News | Also tagged liberal democrat stars of 2013 | 36 Comments

LDVideo: Nick Clegg’s Christmas message

By The Voice | Tue 24th December 2013 - 11:45 am

Not just a talking head this year. We see pictures of Nick visiting a school and Great Ormond Street Hospital, pulling crackers and chatting with children. Someone needs to tell him not to stick his hands in his pockets after he’s done the antibacterial wash, though. Oh, we just did.

Enjoy.

Posted in News | Also tagged christmas messages 2013 and nick clegg | Leave a comment

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