Tag Archives: featured

Stephen Tall

Is 75% of the Coalition Agreement drawn from the Lib Dem manifesto? Alas, no…

By Stephen Tall | Thu 28th June 2012 - 9:02 am

One of the key justifications for Lib Dem involvement in the Coalition — one which has comforted many party members through the first two difficult years of being the junior partner in government with the Conservatives — has been the finding that 75% of the Lib Dem manifesto appeared in the Programme for Government (commonly known as the Coalition Agreement). This assessment was based on research by UCL’s Constitution Unit, and published a year ago in their interim report on ‘How Coalition Government Works’ (PDF).

However, UCL has …

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Posted in News and What do the academics say? | Also tagged , , , and | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

How leaflets used to look: Sutton, 1972 – no bar chart but a darn good skull

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th June 2012 - 10:25 am

Welcome to another leaflet from the archives, this time courtesy of Sutton Council leader Ruth Dombey who has kindly provided a copy of the first Focus leaflet put out in Sutton back in 1972. It kicked off the winning Parliamentary by-election campaign for Graham Tope and was put together by Liverpool’s Trevor “Jones the Vote” who pioneered many of the campaign tactics now taken for granted.

Some of the issues may feel rather familiar and given its pioneering nature I think we can forgive the missing apostrophes and question marks… Interesting too both the level of personal detail about Graham and the inclusion of a story about what the Liberal Party believed in.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Housing: the IPPR’s answer

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th June 2012 - 8:25 am

Over the last week I’ve highlighted how the Britain’s love of home ownership is not based on any evidence that high home ownership brings economic success (if anything, the opposite is true), that the proportion of people living in private rented accommodation is on a long-term rise and that changes in property prices in Britain are widening rather than narrowing the huge geographic imbalances. Add to all that the increasing importance that Vince Cable and Nick Clegg, in particular, are giving to the housing market for boosting economic growth, and it is a sector clearly in need of action.

But what action?

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Stephen Tall

Lords reform: did we really expect any better of either the Tories or Labour?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 26th June 2012 - 9:10 pm

All three main political parties fought the 2010 election promising the electorate that, if elected, they would reform the House of Lords. All three promised the same in 2005, too. And 2001. Yet in 2012 only one party is staying true to that promise: the Lib Dems. The Tories and Labour, in contrast, are happily indulging in party politics to block progress in advancing legislative democracy.

The Conservatives living up to their anti-reform name…

The Conservative Party has fought the last three elections promising to introduce a mainly/wholly elected second chamber to replace the current House of Patronage. They signed up …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 25 Comments
Mark Pack

Jo Grimond: Towards the sound of gunfire

By Mark Pack | Tue 26th June 2012 - 3:50 pm

A better understanding of Jo Grimond’s life is always a healthy corrective to some of the cartoon caricatures about right-wing lurches and Thatcherite policies that sometimes get thrown around over the views of contemporary Liberal Democrats.

Grimond was, after all, a man who talked of himself as being on the centre-left and who pushed for a progressive realignment of politics that would see a new centre-left party supplant Labour. Off and on feelers went out to those in Labour ranks during his career. And yet, he was …

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Posted in Books | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Merlene Emerson

An historic address

By Merlene Emerson | Tue 26th June 2012 - 11:10 am

“Aung San Suu Kyi – the only woman to have addressed both houses of Parliament apart from the Queen #Burma #WestminsterHall #bbcnews” I had tweeted at 3.44pm on June 21st.

“@merleneemerson The only woman to do so internationally, the only person from Asia and the only non head of state. She’s a record breaker!!” came a reply within seconds from one @gregjudge.

We weren’t the only ones excited by the recent visit by Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Opposition in Burma to London. Celebrated in Norway where she finally accepted her Nobel Peace prize 21 years after the event, entertained by …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

The Liberal Democrats need a core votes strategy

By Mark Pack | Tue 26th June 2012 - 8:50 am

Nick Clegg’s summer tour has one major aim: to reassure, to charm and to motivate Liberal Democrat members and supporters. The risk is that it is done on the basis that all he needs do is meet people, face their questions head on and question by question provide good answers.

The ability to win over people one question at a time has served Nick Clegg well in his ascent up the political ladder, as the key election contests for him have not been winning a council seat from nowhere or a close-fought marginal seat contest at a general election. Rather for …

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

David Laws: let’s cut taxes and spending. For once, I’m unconvinced. Here’s why…

By Stephen Tall | Sun 24th June 2012 - 2:45 pm

David Laws has earned himself a generous write-up in today’s Telegraph, with the paper which triggered his resignation from the cabinet two years ago hailing his ‘radical vision of a liberal state’, and lamenting with crocodile tears that his downfall was ‘a great loss to the Cabinet’.

The cause is an interview David has given to the paper in which he makes the case for further public spending cuts and lower taxes — a case he has outlined in greater depth in an article in the current Institute of Economic Affairs journal, highlighted last week on LibDemVoice. Here’s …

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

Can you tell the heroes from the villains in the sub-prime mortgage disaster?

By Mark Pack | Thu 21st June 2012 - 10:25 am

Michael Lewis’s highly readable account of the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market and the worldwide financial crisis it triggered focuses on a small number of characters. People with iconoclastic views determined not to be constrained by the old conventional rules. People who created new financial investments. People who put money into places their investors did not really understand on a good day and did not even know what had been done with their money on a bad day. People who made huge profits …

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Posted in Books | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Joel Kenrick

Opinion: We can kick start the economy… and might just save the planet too

By Joel Kenrick | Tue 19th June 2012 - 8:45 am

With all eyes on the elections in Greece and the future of the Eurozone, the Earth Summit in Rio is unlikely to be headline news. But it should be. As Nick Clegg wrote on LDV last week 'sustainability and growth go hand in hand, and it's for us as Liberal Democrats to make that case loud and clear.'

As Liberal Democrats we have been making the case for decades, and over the last two years Liberal Democrat Cabinet Ministers have been forceful advocates around the Cabinet table and around the world. We may know that tackling climate change is essential ...

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

The 5 myths about the UK economy which it suits everyone to perpetuate

By Stephen Tall | Mon 18th June 2012 - 8:11 am

The economy is the big issue: it was at the last general election, it has dominated and will dominate this parliament, and it will be the big issue at the 2015 general election. Yet trying to get behind the political rhetoric to discover the economic reality is surprisingly tricky. The purpose of this post is to look at what I see as the top five myths currently being perpetuated about the economy, and to explain why I think our current debate is misleading the public and diverting us from finding proper answers.

Myth 1: UK public spending is reducing

So keen has been the Coalition and Labour (for their own different reasons) to talk up the extent of the Government’s spending cuts that the reality has been forgotten. Public spending is going up year-on-year under the Coalition, rising from £690bn in 2010-11 to £744bn (+8%) by 2014-15. If we allow for inflation, there will be a modest reduction: from £690bn to £668bn (-3%) by 2014-15.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged | 59 Comments
Stephen Tall

Mandatory work: if we believe in evidence-based policy it’s probably best to pay attention to the evidence

By Stephen Tall | Sat 16th June 2012 - 4:10 pm

Four months ago, when the political row over ‘workfare’ was at its peak, I wrote here on LibDemVoice that liberals needed to progress the debate beyond ‘the simple and simplistic ‘left/right’ attitudes currently on display, and start grappling with how best we can empower the individual to make the best of their own lives — including, and especially, those who appear to have settled for a life on benefits, and reject all other offers of help.’

Avoiding dogma, embracing evidence

Key to this, I suggested, would be avoiding the dogmatic approaches of the Tories — who appear to believe that every …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

An 8th reason why the Interception of Communications Commissioner should go

By Mark Pack | Sat 16th June 2012 - 10:25 am

I’ve previously blogged about the catastrophic failure of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, giving seven different failures, any one of which would be damning but cumulatively make the post a good entrant for ‘most failed regulator’.

They included such failures as ignoring warning signs of widespread law breaking:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Lynne Featherstone

Lynne Featherstone writes… In the summertime

By Lynne Featherstone | Fri 15th June 2012 - 9:35 am

Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest one, on that very British subject of the weather.

In the summertime, when the weather is hot… is how the song goes – but as I put on heavy stockings and boots to go to a community picnic on the day I am writing this column, with the wind howling and rain predicted for the next several days yet again, summer and hot do not seem to go together!

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Posted in Op-eds | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Eric Lubbock: From Orpington Man to Buddhist Monk?

By Mark Pack | Thu 14th June 2012 - 10:25 am

For many years Adrian Slade has interviewed prominent Liberal Democrats. To mark his recent decision to make his archive of the interview recordings available to researchers and other interested parties, Lib Dem Voice is running a selection of his write-ups of interviews from over the years. The latest is from 2002 and is with Lord Avebury, formerly Eric Lubbock – victor of the 1962 Orpington by-election, MP for eight years and chair of the parliamentary human right s group from 1976 to 1997.

For a few astonishing days in March 1962, the Liberal Party led the Conservative and Labour parties in the opinion polls, the only time it had ever done so since polls were invented.

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Mark Pack

How leaflets used to look: the 1929 Liberal economic plan

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th June 2012 - 12:54 pm

With the economy continuing to dominate politics, it is time to take another dip into my collection of old political leaflets and have a a look at how the Liberal Party of 1929 talked about the issue:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
Iain Roberts

Opinion: What would Labour do?

By Iain Roberts | Mon 11th June 2012 - 11:24 am

“What would Jesus do?” ran the famous ‘90s slogan, often with little agreement on the answer. But that question seems positively trivial alongside the far more problematic “What would Labour do?”

As the Coalition is finding to its cost, Labour is often very effective at attacking Government plans but rather less forthcoming on what its alternative might be. And I imagine it must be a little galling for Government ministers when Labour decides to attack policies that they trumpeted in their own 2010 manifesto.

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

Local pay for the public sector: a row the Lib Dems and the Coalition will want to dodge?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th June 2012 - 10:15 am

The Huffington Post published an excellent dissection of the twists and turns the debate on local pay for public sector workers (sometimes called regional pay) is taking within the Lib Dems:

Letters written by the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander the number two minister at the Treasury appeared wildly enthusiastic about civil servants being paid different amounts depending on where they work as recently as the start of this year.

But subsequent letters show Alexander softening his stance, suggesting he’s come under pressure from fellow Lib Dems over the proposals, confirmed by George Osborne in the

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 30 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV poll: 80% of Lib Dem members continue to back current Coalition & 63% open to another Coalition after 2015

By Stephen Tall | Fri 8th June 2012 - 9:25 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 560 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Lib Dem members back Coalition by 80% to 16%

LDV asked: Do you support or oppose the Lib Dems being in the Coalition Government with the Conservatives?

    80% – Support
    16% – Oppose
    4% – Don’t know / No opinion

For all the current difficulties the Lib Dems find ourselves in, it’s actually pretty extraordinary how high support for the party being in coalition with the Conservatives remains. …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 28 Comments
Mark Pack

The low earner Liberal Democrats revisited

By Mark Pack | Thu 7th June 2012 - 11:50 am

A couple of years back I posted about the “low earner Liberal Democrats” who have been a major part of the party’s progress, especially in squeezing Labour votes in more rural seats and in making progress in urban areas against Labour. Events in the interim have if anything made this group even more important to the party.

In some ways, with in particular the emphasis on the £10,000 or more income tax allowance, support for a (modified) benefits cap and the Pupil Premium, the party’s policy outlook now addresses all the more their main concerns. However, in other ways, it does not.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Thu 7th June 2012 - 10:25 am

Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?

Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

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Caron Lindsay

Only a week to respond to Lynne Featherstone’s consultation on equal civil marriage

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th June 2012 - 1:25 pm

Time is running out to respond to the Government’s consultation on equal civil marriage which has been implemented by our own Lynne Featherstone.

It’s really important that everyone who believes in equal marriage should make sure that their voice is heard.

The consultation closes a week tomorrow, 14th June. Don’t leave it till the last minute – make sure you do it today.

If you’re unsure about the issues, those nice people at LGBT+ Lib Dems have prepared a helpful pack which outlines all the issues and arguments.

I also thought you might like to see the video Cambridge Liberal Democrat Councillor Sarah Brown did for the Out 4 Marriage campaign, which was reported in Pink News recently.  She talks very movingly about how she and her wife had to dissolve their marriage in 2009 and opt for a civil partnership. She describes how painful it was to have their years of  marriage “confiscated by the state”.

 

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

Tony Greaves: From angry young man to simmering old guru

By Mark Pack | Mon 4th June 2012 - 4:50 pm

For many years Adrian Slade has interviewed prominent Liberal Democrats. To mark his recent decision to make his archive of the interview recordings available to researchers and other interested parties, Lib Dem Voice is running a selection of his write-ups of interviews from over the years. The latest is with Tony Greaves, dating from 2004.

There is something a little incongruous about the notion of the Liberal Democrats’ oldest angry young man donning the ermine of a peer of the realm.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Hunt out to dry? Clegg refuses to back Tory culture secretary as Lib Dem MPs push inquiry

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd June 2012 - 9:05 pm

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is piling the pressure on Jeremy Hunt, whose closeness to the Murdoch empire has been embarrassingly laid bare by the Leveson Inquiry in the past few weeks, by refusing to endorse David Cameron’s decision not to refer his culture secretary to the official adviser on the ministerial code, Sir Alex Allan. Here’s how The Observer is reporting it:

Nick Clegg refuses to back Jeremy Hunt as Lib Dems demand investigation

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has refused to give unequivocal backing to Jeremy Hunt over his handling of the BSkyB takeover controversy as senior Liberal

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

How does UK employee protection compare with other countries?

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th May 2012 - 11:24 am

Rather handily, the OECD complies a set of international indicators of employee protection, the latest version of which was revised in September 2010, using 2008 data. The survey looks at “the procedures and costs involved in dismissing individuals or groups of workers and the procedures involved in hiring workers on fixed-term or temporary work agency contracts”.

What does it show?

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

How referendums are the most effective way to maintain the status quo & what it means for Lords reform

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th May 2012 - 1:55 pm

Warning: this post contains paradoxes and thinking in progress…

Paradox 1: When asked, most people in this country say the current system of British politics needs to change. Yet the public consistently votes for small-c conservative parties and causes.

Paradox 2: As both a liberal and a democrat, I want a more participative democracy. Yet I’m sceptical referendums are the best way to achieve this.

A brief history of referendums in this country

Let’s take a look at our three most recent experiences in this country of referendums:

  • Just three weeks ago, 11 cities in England voted on whether or not they

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

Five of the most common mistakes that Lib Dem campaigners make

By Mark Pack | Wed 23rd May 2012 - 9:50 am

Over the next few weeks, I’m taking part in a handful of training sessions about learning the lessons from May’s elections. There’s much to learn from May and from being in government, but I’ve also noticed that many of the old favourite, long-running lessons are very much still with us. So here’s my selection of the top five of those Golden Oldies.

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Posted in Campaign Corner | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

We must be doing something right – Mail rails at ‘Commie Clegg’, Telegraph blasts ‘Socialist Vince’

By Stephen Tall | Wed 23rd May 2012 - 8:25 am

There’s a measure in marketing known as Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE) — it’s used to assess the impact of coverage in the media. Glancing at today’s right-wing press, the Lib Dems have won headlines money can’t buy…

Nick Clegg’s push for increased social mobility, to equalise opportunities for the poorest in society, has earned him the tag ‘Commie Clegg’ in today’s Mail. This is of course the same paper that only two years ago splashed on the bizarre headline ‘Clegg’s Nazi slur on Britain’.

Meanwhile …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 27 Comments
Mark Pack

Coalition partners: sink or swim together?

By Mark Pack | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 11:50 am

The idea that Liberal Democrat and Conservative political fortunes are tied together comes in two forms. The basic – that with both being in government, the public’s overall view of the government (and in particular its economic record) will heavily determine its view of both parties come the next election. Sink or swim together then. Then there is version which adds an asymmetric twist. Namely that if the public views the coalition as a failure both parties will sink together, but if the public rates the coalition as a success, being the smaller of the two parties means the Liberal Democrats won’t necessarily get their share of the credit.

What does the polling data show?

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Posted in Polls | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

A five point plan to reform the media post-Leveson

By Mark Pack | Thu 10th May 2012 - 12:55 pm

As investigative theatre goes, the Leveson Inquiry has been top-notch. As a route to embarrassing individuals for their past performance, it has excelled. As a way of unearthing previously secret information, it has been gripping.

But as a route for reforming the media? That’s a rather different story.

Some things have already been achieved. The Press Complaints Commission has already been sent to the retirement home for failed regulators and politicians have already been shamed into distancing themselves from newspaper moguls. It will be a long time before Ed Miliband repeats this sort of photo op, for example.

There is, however, an awful lot left to do, especially as Lord Leveson has not been looking at the underlying causes. As I wrote much earlier in the proceedings:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 5 Comments
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