Tag Archives: featured

Baroness Falkner on Syria and intervening abroad

I join Paddy Ashdown in feeling depressed about my country today.

In my near thirty years as a Liberal Democrat I have heard two tropes consistently from campaigners: that policy is irrelevant and that foreign policy is particularly irrelevant.  Yet it is foreign policy above all that shapes our party’s fortunes.

Take the SDP split over Europe – that got me into the party in ’85. Then came our opposition to the UK’s ban in letting in Hong Kong residents before the handover to China  – several of my friends joined too, and it put Paddy Ashdown on the map.  In the 90’s it was Bosnia and subsequently Kosovo that made us carry a uniquely and sometimes lonely flag for freedom and humanitarian intervention – last night the same isolationist Foreign Secretary of that period was arguing against doing anything in Syria – some things don’t change!  We subsequently made the right call on Iraq, and will shortly see the trial of Seif Gaddafy in Libya – who threatened to stamp out Libyan dissenters as cockroaches. Despite current troubles, on balance I am proud that we averted that.

Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged | 41 Comments

Syria debate: how Lib Dem MPs voted

Last night, thirty-three Lib Dems voted for the government’s motion; 9 voted against; one abstained and 14 did not vote.

Alexander, Danny: For
Baker, Norman: For
Beith, Sir Alan: For
Birtwistle, Gordon: Against
Brake, Tom: For
Brooke, Annette: Did not vote

Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged | 39 Comments

** Lib Dem members’ poll results on Syria ** Military intervention: 25% say No, 7% say Yes. 62% say Yes BUT…

Lib Dem Voice yesterday polled our members-only forum  to discover what Lib Dem members think of the situation in Syria. Some 580 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results today. The survey remains open and we’ll update these results in the next day or so if they change.

Lib Dem members: opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan wars; supportive of Libyan and Kosovo interventions

First, we asked about views of UK involvement in recent conflicts abroad. There was a big span of views. Unsurprisingly, given the Lib Dems were the only party to vote against military action against Iraq …

Posted in Europe / International, LDV Members poll and News | Also tagged | 33 Comments

Clegg: Five reasons why this is not Iraq

Nick Clegg has just sent the following email to Liberal Democrat party members:

Dear member,

Tomorrow Parliament will consider international action in Syria.

I have been adamant from the outset: any case for international action must be taken to the UN in an effort to achieve as great an international consensus as possible. And I have made certain this is taking place.

We must wait until we hear from the weapons inspectors.

Ahead of tomorrow’s debate, you can read the full wording of the motion we’ll be laying before Parliament here.

For the past week I have been in regular discussions with the Prime Minister, …

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Syria: what do Liberal Democrats want?

Last night we brought you Nick Clegg’s view on Syria, which can be summarised as follows:

  • if we stand idly by we set a very dangerous precedent
  • the use of chemical weapons is a repugnant crime
  • we will not stand idly by when chemical weapons are used in complete breach of international law
  •  Government “is not going to act outside the remit of international law”
  • we want to stand up for the standards and norms in the civilised world

In the last couple of days Paddy Ashdown and Sir Menzies Campbell, two of the most respected voices this country has on foreign affairs, have been …

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Book review: Liberal Democrats do God

liberaldemocratsdogodMainstream Christianity often does battle with mainstream liberal values, be that over women in the church, LGBT rights or contraception and abortion. So when I learned that there was a Liberal Democrat Christian Forum and they’d embarked on a new publication entitled “Liberal Democrats do God” my interest was piqued.

At £6.67 on Amazon, I was somewhat surprised when it arrived at its rather lightweight look and feel. At just 70-80 pages, this is no War and Peace.

My first impression of the book upon opening was the number of high profile writers from Tim Farron, Duncan Hames, to Baroness Brinton and Sir Alan Beith … an  undoubted breadth and range of Lib Dem opinion and experience.

The books is split into two sections, the first “Why should we do God?”  covers essays by John Pugh MP, Tm Farron MP, Greg Mulholland MP and Sir Andrew Stunnell MP. All seek to explain why they hold their respective faiths and how they interlink with liberalism.

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Party Reform: The Interim Peers List, is it fit for purpose?

House of Lords. Photo: Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of ParliamentTim Farron, our Party President has long championed concerns about how democratic  the Lib Dems really are and how can we do better.  Federal Executive has now set up the Democratic Reform Group which I chair.  Our first task has been to take a hard look at the Interim Peers List and we have published a consultation paper on this together with organising a meeting at Glasgow to consult members about improvements to the process.  The Interim Peers list is an group of people elected by Conference Representatives from which the Party Leader can make nominations to the House of Lords.

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Tom Brake on 38 Degrees and the Transparency and Lobbying Bill

Tom Brake MPI’m sure some Liberal Democrat members and readers of Liberal Democrat Voice will have recently received a rather alarmist email from 38 Degrees claiming that the Government, through the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, is attempting to stop charities and campaign groups criticising government policy.

I would like to reassure Liberal Democrat Voice readers that 38 Degrees have rather regrettably misrepresented and exaggerated the effect and intent of the bill. We are doing nothing of the sort.

Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged | 84 Comments

Opinion: Does the central and local government relationship need rewiring?

Wired Government smallerThe relationship between central and local government in the UK has always been strained. The UK is one of the most centralised democracies in Europe, and as we have no written constitution local government has no automatic right to exist or do anything. Everything is dependent on the decisions of ministers.

The new Government in 2010 did good things in reversing some of the things the last right-wing, authoritarian and centralising government had done. The huge inspection and reporting regime was abolished. Ring fencing of budgets was mainly done away with. The Localism Act was brought in that gave local government the power of local competence.

Posted in Local government, News and Op-eds | Also tagged | 6 Comments

I’m a liberal and I’m sticking up for Nick Clegg over David Miranda and The Guardian

Civil liberties. It’s the issue that unites Lib Dems like no other. While you’ll find a range of views within the party on big issues that matter more to the voters — such as the economy or the NHS or even tuition fees — personal freedom, the right to live your life as you choose, is at the heart of liberalism. Nick Clegg made his name within the Lib Dems as shadow home affairs spokesman by proposing measures like the Freedom Bill and threatening to go to prison rather than carry an ID card.

Yet civil liberties is also the …

Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 46 Comments

Why we should consider the detention of David Miranda and destruction of the Guardian’s data as distinct issues

The conflation of the detention of David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, and the story of the Guardian having destroyed the computers on which a version of the data released by Edward Snowden was stored was perhaps inevitable, and has certainly been encouraged by the Guardian. But we should avoid considering the issues as a single whole, for there are separate arguments at play in each in relation to the actions of the state and others, particularly when it comes to the actions of Liberal Democrats in government.

I have relatively few concerns about the state’s actions regarding …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 41 Comments

Some more information on the reasoning behind Nick Clegg’s approval of the destruction of the Guardian’s information

I think it’s been quite clear, both in the comments to our earlier post giving Nick’s views on the Miranda/Guardian case that people were still unhappy and many felt, including me, that they didn’t really understand why he decided to approve the request to the Guardian to destroy the data that they held. Elsewhere in the Liberal Democrat blogosphere, people like Neil Monnery and Andrew Brown have expressed their concern about Nick’s actions.

This has not gone unnoticed by the party’s spokespeople. They’ve noticed that people have been wondering why they had a quiet word with the Guardian rather than …

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Opinion: A Liberal approach to Higher Education

University campusWhen people ask me why I’m a Liberal Democrat, I simplify it slightly. Yes, it’s because I have a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament and I think he’s pretty great, but it’s also because I quite like freedom, and I think it should be applied more liberally (see what I did there?).

I always describe Liberalism as being obsessed with freedom. It’s a very simple way of encompassing so many of the campaigns and issues we care so passionately about. We raised the tax threshold, because people on low incomes deserve freedom from a punitive tax burden. We legalised same-sex marriage because people deserve the freedom to marry whoever they see fit. The changes to benefits – controversial thought they are – are about ensuring that people aren’t beholden to the state without good reason.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 15 Comments

Opinion: Paxman, politics and pogonophobia

Bearded Nick Clegg

Oh what a fuss about a beard!

The media has gone mad over Jeremy Paxman’s beard, egged on a ‘Twitter storm’ last night. Even the BBC has got in on the act, declaring its presenter’s beard to be ‘notorious’.

What is it about beards that generate such interest, dislike, even fear? (This fear, the media tell us with glee, is properly called pogonophobia.)

Distrust of beards is nothing new. I grew mine the moment I escaped from sixth form. As an archaeologist, being hirsute was pretty much obligatory for men in those days. But when I led a dig for a county council, the head of personnel laughed out loud at the ‘odd habit’ of us diggers growing facial hair.

Posted in Humour and Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 15 Comments

Daily Mail accuses “grasping politicians of pocketing spinster’s £500,000 legacy”. Let’s have some facts first, please.

mail grasping politicians front page - 14 aug 13This morning’s Mail Online has a shocking headline: Grasping politicians pocket spinster’s £500,000 legacy she bequeathed to government to spend ‘as they may think fit’. The newspaper’s front page also splashes on the story (right).

This follows the story we reported here yesterday of Miss Joan Edwards, who had apparently bequeathed £520k to the two Coalition partners as the current governing parties. This was divided 80:20 between them, with the Lib Dems getting almost £100k.

The Mail disputes that interpretation, asserting instead that she intended to leave the money as a bequest to the nation. They say the will’s wording was not (as claimed in newspaper reports yesterday) for the money to be passed “to whoever was the party of government of the day” but that it should be passed to “whichever Government is in office at the date of my death”. On that basis, the paper accuses the Conservatives and Lib Dems of deception bordering on fraud.

My Twitter timeline today suggests two things. First, everyone believes the Daily Mail when it suits them. Secondly, that there are a surprising number of people who think they’re experts on legacy bequests.

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 48 Comments

Reminder: 10 days to get your nominations in for the Liberal Democrat Voice Awards

Last week, I introduced this year’s Liberal Democrat Voice Awards and invited you to submit your nominations by Friday 23rd August.

This is just a reminder to you. We’ve already had a fair few nominations, but there’s plenty room for more, so send your suggestions to [email protected] as soon as you can. Please also feel free to publicise the awards on your own blog or via social media. In the olden days, before I was a member of the team, I used to do posts about the bloggers I’d be nominating.

This year’s awards are as follows:

  • Liberal Democrat Blog of the

…

Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference and News | Also tagged and | Leave a comment

Duwayne Brooks selected as candidate for Mayor of Lewisham

duwayne brooksCongratulations to Cllr Duwayne Brooks who has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Mayor of Lewisham. He will be challenging Sir Steve Bullock who has held the post for 11 years. The election will take place in May 2014.

Last year Mark Pack identified him on Lib Dem Voice as a Local Liberal hero. He charted Duwayne’s political career so far, which includes being nominated as one of Brian Paddick’s Deputy Mayors in the London Mayoral contest in 2012.

Duwayne has posted an open letter to the …

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EXCLUSIVE: What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition as it enters its 4th full year

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. More than 600 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

(All comparisons are with our most recent survey conducted in March 2013.)

61% of Lib Dems say party on “right course”

Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track?

    61% (+3%) – The right course

    31% (-2%) The wrong track

    8% (-1%) – Don’t know /

…

Posted in LDV Members poll | 21 Comments

All-women shortlists to select Lib Dem candidates? 66% of party members say no.

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. More than 600 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Party members oppose all-women shortlists by 66% to 26%

Events this year have once again shone an unflattering light on the party’s lack of female representation in the House of Commons. Though, as Mark Tompson has previously highlighted here on LDV, this is in part at any rate down to first-past-the-post skewing Lib Dem election results. All-women shortlists is …

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 65 Comments

Lessons of Coalition (12): what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

ldv coalition lessonsLibDemVoice is running a daily feature, ‘Lessons of Coalition’, to assess the major do’s and don’ts learned from our experience of the first 3 years in government. Reader contributions are welcome, either as comments or posts. The word limit is no more than 450 words, and please focus on just one lesson you think the party needs to learn. Simply email your submission to [email protected]. Today Patrick Murray shares his thoughts.

Make sure our policies are reflected in our manifesto

One of the great challenges facing our society is the housing …

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Opinion: How can we advance nuclear disarmament?

To many the answer to this question is simple: de-commission Trident and don’t replace it. But this only leads to the next question – how do we get a British government to do this ?  It is a common mistake, and one that I have made too, to believe that passing a motion at our conference changes the world.  Trident

Of course, all we need to do then is win an election on the basis of policies agreed at conference and form a government.  Our brief current experience in government tells us that it may be a little more difficult.

The recent Trident Alternatives Review (TAR) and leaked versions of the party’s Defence Report to conference have become muddled and people are taking positions either before or without reading either document.  Certainly the speeches of Labour and Tory front and backbenchers in the Commons debate on TAR on 17th July revealed a depressing combination of wilful ignorance and prejudice. Both sides fell over each other to praise the need for a full Cold War system of nuclear deterrence and to denounce the Liberal Democrats for challenging it.

A couple of facts may bring some light instead of heat.  Firstly, all options including moving straight to no nukes would save nothing in the next parliament. Even decommissioning is expensive in the short run. As it is we still have old Polaris submarines awaiting safe removal of nuclear material. No option has a significant impact on the country’s current financial problems.

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Opinion: Shale Gas exploration – Why a cautious approach is the right one.

Many Liberal Democrats will, like me, have read with wry amusement the reaction of the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph and some Tory MPs to the local opposition to Cuadrilla drilling in Balcombe in Sussex and the potential of fracking in their area given their previous hysterical support for fracking and shale gas.

Clearly there are a number of groups who are taking the opportunity to mount a vigorous campaign against fracking with, for example, the publication of a map of a “licence to frack” raising fears of fracking taking place across the country. In fact the so called …

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Tougher penalties for owners of dangerous dogs

Dangerous_DogsUnder current legislation dog owners can only be prosecuted if their dogs attack people in public spaces. Recent cases of dogs causing serious injury in the home, where the owners cannot be prosecuted, have prompted the Government to look again at the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. Earlier in the year the Government undertook to change the law so that owners would be held responsible for an attack by their dogs wherever the attack took place.

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15 things to look out for at the Lib Dem conference

The Lib Dems have published the agenda for our autumn conference — I’ve uploaded it to read at the foot of this post. It’s a pretty meaty agenda, too, with big issues up for debate. This, after all, is the penultimate autumn conference before the 2015 general election, which means it’s important for determining what makes it into the party’s manifesto.

I’ve skim-read the agenda this morning. It seems it can be read in alternative ways. My main impression was “How different is this to what a Conservative agenda would look like?” I don’t just mean that Lib Dem conferences give our members a real say in our policy-making (compare that with the Tories who won’t even publish their official membership numbers). I mean that if you look at the topics being discussed and the recommendations arising you wouldn’t for a moment confuse this with a party that’s a sub-set of the Tory party. Which is more or less the impression you’d get if you relied on Patrick Wintour’s reporting in The Guardian.

Anyway, here are 15 things which caught my eye based on a quick skim-read (so apologies in advance if I’ve missed out the bit you think’s most important):

1) Commitment to a living wage:

Saturday afternoon’s debate on policy motion F4, A Balanced Working Life, calls the establishment of an official living wage, one that it is paid by central government (with local government encouraged also to lead by example), and making companies that employ over 250 people be transparent about how many of their employees are not paid the living wage.

2) Extending free childcare:

Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 16 Comments

40 sleeps till the Liberal Democrat Voice Awards and we need your help

Jo Swinson wins "Best use of e-campaigning 2009"It’s less than 6 weeks until Federal Conference in Glasgow. And late on the Saturday night of Conference, as always, Liberal Democrat Voice will be holding its annual awards. This is the 8th such ceremony, and this year, we’re making a few changes.  As usual, they’ll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony in Castle 2 at the Crowne Plaza between 10 and 11:30 pm. The dress code is “imaginative.”

There will be some Very Important Guests. Some we will keep as surprises, but we can …

Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference and News | Also tagged | 5 Comments

Today’s #TwitterSilence – are you in or out?

For those of you who don’t inhabit the Twittersphere, many people today are taking part in a #TwitterSilence (that’s its hashtag).

It was the idea of Times columnist Caitlin Moran as “a symbolic act of solidarity” intended to shame Twitter into taking more seriously the rape/bomb threats and other abuse being targeted against women. You can read her blog about it here.

I’m not taking part. I summarised my reasons here:

My Co-Editor Caron Lindsay wrote an excellent piece on the topic here last week. And Index on Censorship’s Padraig Reidy has written an excellent response to Caitlin Moran, highlighting how the well-intentioned desire to limit the free speech of people who abuse it can have damaging consequences:

A lot of time spent defending free speech is not actually about defending what people say, but defending the space in which they can say it (I’ll refrain from misquoting Voltaire here). It may be idealistic, but we genuinely believe that given the space and the opportunity to discuss ideas openly, without fear of retribution, we’ll figure out how to do things better. Censorship holds society back. In fact, it’s the litmus test of a society being held back.

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Lessons of Coalition: what do the Lib Dems need to learn from the first 3 years?

ldv coalition lessonsWe’re more than three years in. What started in the Rose Garden has turned into a bed of thorns. The quieter summer weeks are as good a time as any to reflect on the key lessons the Lib Dems need to learn from this stint in government. Who knows? We may have a second chance after 2015: best to plan ahead now to avoid the obvious pitfalls we fell into this time (tuition fees, NHS Bill, secret courts) as well as to max-out the successes we’ve delivered (tax-cuts for the low-paid, the ‘pupil premium’, new apprenticeships).

Over the next few days, we’ll be running a daily feature, ‘Lessons of Coalition’ to which those of us who contribute to LibDemVoce will be adding. But we welcome reader contributions as well. The word limit is no more than 450 words, and please focus on just one lesson you think the party needs to learn. Simply email your submission to [email protected]. Here’s mine for starters…

Stronger policy development and campaigning on issues that matter to the public (AKA where’s our liberal equivalent of the benefits cap?)

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 42 Comments

Lib Dem publish latest accounts, shows £410k deficit and party membership down to 42,500

The latest set of accounts for the Lib Dems have been published – I’ve uploaded it at the foot of this post. Here are 5 points that struck me I read through the document.

1) The party ended 2012 with a £410k deficit

The party recorded a £410k deficit, with £6m income and £6.4m expenditure. This is noted as a “disappointing result” and ascribed to the late receipt of a substantial legacy donation “which would have brought the result down to something much nearer to break-even”. Yet legacies are by their very nature unpredictable: it’s not something we can rely on this year. Ideally the party needs to break even on its regular incomings/outgoings and then be able to use windfalls for investment.

2) Membership falls again: it’s now 42,501, down 34% since 2010

“As at December 2012 there were 42,501 members of the Party.” This is a further 13% drop since last year, and a massive 35% drop since the heights of Cleggmania in 2010. What’s clear from the chart, though, is that this is in reality a continuation of a decline in membership evident over the past 15 years, which I explored here last year:

lib dem membership figs since 1988

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 41 Comments

Finally, the media pick up on Coalition split on offensive poster vans

There’s a big lesson to learn from the offensive poster van fiasco this week. Sometimes we Liberal Democrats, including me, can be quick to feel a dividing line between those inside the Whitehall Bubble and the rest of us. This week, we spoke with one voice. Liberal Democrats inside Government were every bit as livid as those of us outside at the presence of these vans on our streets. With their stark message “Go home or face arrest”, illustrated by handcuffs, they can only inflame tensions in communities.

We now know that the Tories have pulled a fast one on us. …

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EXCLUSIVE: Nick Clegg’s ratings get a boost & 55% of party members want him to lead party in 2015

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. More than 600 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Nick Clegg’s ratings recover to +18%, best in over a year

nick clegg
What is your view of Nick Clegg’s performance as Lib Dem leader?

    14% – Very satisfied

    44% – Satisfied

    Total satisfied = 58% (+10%)

    20% – Dissatisfied

    20% – Very dissatisfied

    Total dissatisfied = 40% (-8%)

    2% – Don’t know / No opinion

When we last polled party members on their view of Nick Clegg’s performance as Lib Dem leader, in March 2013, he had a rating of -2%. This was only the second time perceptions of Nick within the party had dipped into the negative zone. July’s rating sees his position recover significantly to +18%. That’s Nick’s best rating since June 2012 (when it was +19%).

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 27 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Chloe
    Exactly Jason ; It needs to be called out on all sides. Numerous videos of Young Bob online being attacked by students who've little in the way of any coherent ...
  • Jack Meredith
    @Jason Connnor It's funny, usually I'm the one pointing out the issues of both extremes! My piece is more focused on domestic issues, using an international ...
  • Jana
    “ The normalisation of fascism is becoming a common occurrence” I disagree. What I think we have is too many people shouting ‘fascism’ whenever they ...
  • Jason Connor
    Yes agree with both above. And I'm far more persuaded by the leader of the Unite Union, Sharon Graham. As a trade union leader she recognises that ordinary pens...
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    The case for social care yes but not at the expense of diminishing pensions considering the UK state pension is lower than that of most other European countries...