Tag Archives: featured

Stephen Tall

What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition after 2½ years

By Stephen Tall | Sun 30th December 2012 - 3:55 pm

lib dem conf votingLib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

+28% says party is on the “right course”


Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track? (Comparison with November’s figures.)

    61% (+4%) – The right course
    33% (-1%) – The wrong track
    6% (-3%) – Don’t know

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “let’s look forward to a successful and enjoyable 2013”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 30th December 2012 - 12:50 pm

It’s a briefer email message from Nick Clegg this week, as he like most of us takes a few days’ R&R to re-charge our batteries for the year to come. He takes the opportunity simply to say thank you to all those working to deliver Lib Dem success. Don’t forget you can sign-up to receive Nick’s emails here.

libdem ltr from nick clegg

This week’s Letter from the Leader will be a lot shorter than usual as this is a time to spend with your family and friends. And as

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Tim Farron tops our poll as Lib Dem politician who enjoyed the best 2012

By Stephen Tall | Sat 29th December 2012 - 11:20 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Farron, Huppert and Oakeshott had best 2012 say Lib Dem members

LDV asked: In your opinion, which Lib Dem MP or peer overall has had the best year?Tim Farron speaking - Some rights reserved by Liberal Democrats
This question allowed an unprompted, free-text response, which over 400 party members filled in. And …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , and | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

Which Lib Dem minister had the worst year? Here’s what party members think…

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th December 2012 - 4:55 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

The Lib Dem half of the Quad top our members’ poll for the worst 2012

Nick Clegg yay2 - Some rights reserved by Liberal Democrats
LDV asked: In your opinion, which Lib Dem government minister has had the worst year?

Unusually for our Voice surveys, this question allowed an unprompted, free-text response, which …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged and | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Party members vote Vince Cable Lib Dem Minister of the Year (again)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th December 2012 - 8:05 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Vince, Ed and Michael: the Lib Dems’ top trio in government

Vince Cable smiling - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsLDV asked: In your opinion, which Lib Dem government minister has had the best year?

This question allowed an unprompted, free-text response, which c.450 of our respondents rose to. And here’s what you told us:

    1. Vince Cable (144)
    2. Ed Davey (70)
    3. Michael Moore (42)
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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
Nick T

Clegg celebrates the “astonishing triumph of politics over conflict” which is the EU

By Nick T | Thu 27th December 2012 - 10:38 am

eu_flagIn his acceptance speech – just over five years ago – after Nick Clegg had just been narrowly chosen as the next leader of the Liberal Democrats, he said that he is a “liberal by temperament, by instinct and by upbringing”. But if those influences make him a liberal, they also make him, arguably to a far greater extent, probably the most pro-European of Britain’s senior politicians. Europe is a subject on which Clegg can speak with the authority of someone who is at least as comfortable, if not more so, in Brussels as he is in Westminster.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 14 Comments
The Voice

Christmas confessions from the Lib Dem Voice team

By The Voice | Mon 24th December 2012 - 4:53 pm

Confession - Some rights reserved by Lori GreigAs the Christmas sherry loosens us all up a bit, here are some confessions from the Liberal Democrat Voice team.

To turn it into a bit of a quiz, no names appear against each confession. So you’ll have to guess who the confessor is in each instance. By all means use the comments field below to have a stab at the identity of the owner of each revelation.

To make it a bit more interesting, there is an unspecified number of

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Posted in Humour | Also tagged | 10 Comments
The Voice

A Christmas Carol, as sketched by Bodz. All 5 Staves Omnibus.

By The Voice | Mon 24th December 2012 - 8:45 am

Over the past five days, LibDemVoice has been delighted to bring you a contemporary updating of Charles Dickens’ classic story, A Christmas Carol, penned for us by Andy Boddington.

LDV scrooge story

If you missed any, or simply want to sit back in a comfy chair with a glass of mulled wine and enjoy the whole saga again from start to finish, here are all five staves of the story as sketched by Bodz. God bless them, every one…

Stave One: Mensch’s Ghost;

Stave Two: The Ghost of …

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Posted in Humour | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “Lib Dems are on the side of reasonable welfare reform, not indiscriminate welfare cuts”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 23rd December 2012 - 10:45 am

Nick Clegg’s latest letter has hit my inbox, this week reflecting on his five years as party leader — and in particular how he believes the Lib Dems are “anchoring this government in the centre ground”. The example he uses is one that is likely to dominate politics in 2013: welfare reform. As Nick points out, the Tories had wanted swingeing cuts: it was the Lib Dems who at least ensured parity between public sector pay and benefits payments, both receiving a below-inflation 1% cash rise.

And if I had a Christmas wish, by the way, it would be this …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 234 Comments
Jo Shaw

Jo Shaw: Secret Courts update – please support our new motion to the Lib Dems’ Spring Conference

By Jo Shaw | Sun 23rd December 2012 - 8:35 am

Supreme Court - Some rights reserved by cphoffman42The Justice and Security Bill, which introduces secret courts into almost all civil cases, was rushed into its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday this week.

The Minister in charge of secret courts in the Commons, Ken Clarke, made an opening statement in the debate which made it clear that the Coalition Government does not accept the amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, some of which were passed by the Lords. It is still …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 12 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd December 2012 - 5:45 pm

It’s Saturday evening, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from the 50+ I’ve linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here.

Kings, queens and the political chess match – Sue Cameron ponders what the invitation to HM The Queen to attend cabinet this week could portend: ‘Charles III might point to that precedent and say he would like to follow it. Moreover, he would like to attend more regularly and speak at it …

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Caron Lindsay

Tavish Scott: Christmas would be cancelled if Santa had to pay these delivery charges

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd December 2012 - 1:42 pm

DSC_0326In recent years I have resorted to doing virtually all of my Christmas shopping online. I’ve never been a fan of trudging round the shops at the best of times, and the festive crowds bring out the worst in me.

It’s lucky that I live in the central belt of Scotland. If I were to live up north in the rural highlands or the northern or western isles, I’d be looking at ridiculous surcharges for delivery.

Shetland MSP Tavish Scott is fed up with this state of affairs and has put retailers and

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments

A Christmas Carol. Stave Four: The Ghost of Austerity Future

By Andy Boddington | Sat 22nd December 2012 - 8:55 am

LibDemVoice is delighted to bring you A Christmas Carol, a contemporary re-imagining of Charles Dickens’ classic tale, told in five staves (as Dickens called them). The fourth stave, The Ghost of Austerity Future, follows. You can catch up with Stave One, Mensch’s Ghost, here; and Stave Two, The Ghost of Avarice Past, here; and Stave Three, The Ghost of Arrogance Present, here.

LDV scrooge story

As sketched by Bodz

Osborne stared at the umbrella and blinked. All around him the Olympic stadium was burning and crashing to the ground …

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Posted in Humour and Op-eds | 2 Comments
Nick T

Do US politicians have a mandate for big changes to gun control laws?

By Nick T | Thu 20th December 2012 - 10:56 am

Assault rifle - Some rights reserved by thebmagThis article, by the Economist’s Lexington correspondent, David Rennie, is one of the best I’ve read on the inevitable debate on gun control following the appalling shooting in Connecticut last week. His argument is essentially that the only change that might actually have an effect is stopping most people having guns, with the rest only allowed under a tough licensing regime.

But since I read the piece a couple of days ago, it is this penultimate paragraph that has had me thinking:

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Posted in Op-eds | 15 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg beats James Bond and the Queen

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th December 2012 - 6:31 pm

The BBC reports that You Tube has published its top trending videos of 2012 in the UK. That Gangnam Style came top is not really a surprise, I suppose. What caught my eye, though, is that the Poke’s auto-tuned video of Nick Clegg’s apology over tuition fees beat that iconic moment from the Olympic Opening Ceremony with Daniel Craig and the Queen.

The Clegg video has been seen by over 2 million people. Here it is again in case you missed it…

Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Did you know the Lib Dems have lost half a million voters to Ukip? Here’s what I think it means.

By Stephen Tall | Tue 18th December 2012 - 4:55 pm

UKIP logoConservative peer Lord Ashcroft — who, as ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie has noted before, spends more on polling than all three parties combined — has today published the latest survey looking at the timely issue of the threat of Ukip. Nigel Farage’s party is now regularly polling around the level of the Lib Dems, seemingly taking voters disproportionately from the Tories, contributing to lengthening Labour poll leads.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 51 Comments
Paul Walter

LibLink: Prateek Buch on Nick Clegg’s speech today

By Paul Walter | Mon 17th December 2012 - 7:30 pm

Double Clegg 2 - Some rights reserved by Liberal DemocratsOn Comment is Free, Social Liberal Forum director, Prateek Buch provides an interesting critique of Nick Clegg’s speech today:

At least Clegg recognises that Liberal Democrats have to stand up for what we truly believe in. The recent direction of travel on Leveson, drugs reform and snooping is welcome, and we await more robust promotion of party policy on things that really matter to most people – a fair, sustainable economy where living

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 12 Comments
Libby Local

Libby Local, Episode 7: “New Year’s Resolutions”

By Libby Local | Sun 16th December 2012 - 2:15 pm

"Demsbury" - Bekonscot Model Village and Railway - London - Some rights reserved by bortescristianIt’s true to say that I had not realised that being a Lib Dem and standing for Libbyshire Council was set to consume my life.

It is already mid-December and there is still so much work for my clients not yet done. But, heck, we are busy delivering a Focus across Demsbury. It does not help that one of my deliverers is too ill to continue. Another couple have inconveniently flown off to Goa for the winter. Others simply don’t have time. Inevitably, I’m delivering most of the leaflets

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Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg: Time to rethink drugs policy

By Mark Pack | Fri 14th December 2012 - 2:01 pm

The Sun running a story about the attitude of politicians to drugs reform is fairly commonplace. A Liberal Democrat politician calling for the drugs laws to be reviewed is fairly commonplace. What is however rather less common – and so all the more significant – is for the former to feature the latter in a positive light as LDV mentioned earlier today:

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Y’know those stories about the death of the Lib Dems? Turns out, they might’ve been exaggerated…

By Stephen Tall | Fri 14th December 2012 - 10:55 am

As Samuel Ellis Rees points out today:

And as I noted last week, after the Lib Dems had gained four seats from the Tory party:

And yes, before the Lib Dem-baiting starts in the comments below, I’m well aware that local council by-elections need to be taken with a liberal pinch of salt and that none of this alters the party’s flat-lining poll ratings. But the main point remains: in spite of everything, the party’s still alive. Speculation of our demise, as so often in the past, is premature…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 65 Comments
Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Anthony Lester – My vision of a Leveson law

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 12th December 2012 - 4:35 pm

Liberal Democrat peer Anthony Lester has written for the Guardian about his independent Press Council bill which he introduced in the House of Lords yesterday.

If his measure became law, it would be the Supreme Court rather than OFCOM which would ensure that the independent self regulatory body was genuinely independent and complying with the principles Lord Leveson set out in his report.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Tracy Connell

Opinion: Time to quash Osborne’s employee-owner status

By Tracy Connell | Wed 12th December 2012 - 8:55 am

I would like to make a plea to MPs of all parties not to support the new employee-owner status and to table an amendment to remove it from the Growth and Infrastructure Bill. Buried in section 25 of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill (as amended in Public Bill Committee), it seeks to provide a new employment status involving company shares in exchange for worker rights. It is due at report stage and third reading in the

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

Equal marriage: it’s a matter of religious freedom

By Mark Pack | Mon 10th December 2012 - 5:59 pm

There’s been a lot in the media today from opponents of equal marriage about how the state mustn’t go about redefining marriage.

What they keep on skating over is that equal marriage isn’t something cooked up by atheists and agnostics. It’s also – as Lynne Featherstone has pointed out – supported officially by Quakers, Liberal Jews and some Unitarian Churches, not to mention many people of other faiths that officially take a different view.

Insisting that the state continues …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 58 Comments
Mark Thompson

Opinion: It’s time for Nick Clegg to make the liberal case on drugs policy

By Mark Thompson | Mon 10th December 2012 - 8:00 am

The Mail on Sunday yesterday reported that the Home Affairs Select Committee report into drugs policy, reporting this morning, is going to recommend that the option of legalisation should be seriously considered and a Royal Commission should be set up to report on the issue prior to the 2015 general election.

As readers of my blog will know, I am a long standing supporter of liberalisation of our drug laws. So this report is a breath of fresh air as far as I am concerned. – A sensible pragmatic look at the problems with

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 32 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s ‘Letter from the Leader’: “You cannot balance the books on the backs of the poor”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 9th December 2012 - 11:20 am

The sixth weekly missive from Nick Clegg hit my inbox this weekend. Here’s what he had to say about the Autumn Statement, in particular the Lib Dem win on helping low-income tax-payers. Oh, and there’s a bit of a dig against the Tories for their ‘irrational phobia’ of taxing the propertied wealthy a bit more…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 57 Comments
Stephen Gilbert MP

Stephen Gilbert MP writes… Equal marriage: a step towards a fairer society

By Stephen Gilbert MP | Sat 8th December 2012 - 12:59 pm

So, there we have it:  equal marriage for same-sex couples in the civil law and the chance for religious groups to choose to offer same-sex religious marriage if they want to.  It’s another step toward equality in front of the law for the LGBT community. The community has come a long way in the 43 years since the Stonewall riots in New York City.

And the Liberal Democrats have led the way in the UK. We were the first party to commit to a policy of civil partnerships, in a Private Members Bill, and at our conference in 2010 we were …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

In praise of people with drawn curtains in the morning

By Mark Pack | Sat 8th December 2012 - 10:25 am

Night time workers. Work at night, sleep at day. That’s not being a scrounger. Shame so many Conservatives and so-called populists crudely label them all as scroungers with their blunderbuss rhetoric for having the temerity to draw the curtains at home when they’re sleeping after a long session at work.

UPDATE: In other curtain commentary news… Jennie has highlighted in the comments her own post. Here’s the link to it; the comments are well worth a read for a mix of the serious and the very funny. And here’s an Olympian …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

Autumn Statement: the good, the bad and the tricky

By Mark Pack | Sat 8th December 2012 - 9:25 am

It’s been a busy week, so for my take on the Autumn Statement, here is my trio of media hits (featuring that tie):

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Stephen Tall

It’s not just this Government that’s unpopular: it’s the idea of Coalition. Here’s what Lib Dems need to do about that.

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th December 2012 - 8:15 am

There are many arguments the Lib Dems are winning in government. But there is one very big debate we’re currently on the losing side of with the public: that coalition government is capable of working. And it’s not surprising that voters are unpersuaded given we Lib Dems look a whole lot less than convinced by the experience.

The known knowns of Coalition

Let’s get two pieces of mitigation out of the way:
1) Coalition government is always tougher on the junior party: we lack the democratic mandate and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 62 Comments
William Powell

William Powell AM writes… Why we must protect rural banking

By William Powell | Thu 6th December 2012 - 11:23 am

Almost every week brings news of the closure of bank branches in rural areas. As an Assembly Member in Wales representing a large rural region, I know at first hand the real effects of bank closures on local communities and businesses. Latest figures from the Campaign for Community Banking Services, published in September, show that in the last ten years just under 2,000 bank branches have closed. There are now 900 communities that have only one bank branch and 1,200 communities with no bank branch at all. The traditional ‘Big 4’ banks closed 178 branches in 2011. Estimates

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