Tag Archives: gareth epps

Rennie calls for emergency summit on alcohol pricing

By The Voice | Wed 23rd December 2015 - 2:00 pm

Today the European Court of Justice ruled that minimum alcohol pricing is contrary to EU law if other tax options exist.

From the BBC:

A legal challenge was brought by the SWA, which argued the Scottish government’s legislation breached European law.

The European court ruling said: “The Court of Justice considers that the effect of the Scottish legislation is significantly to restrict the market, and this might be avoided by the introduction of a tax measure designed to increase the price of alcohol instead of a measure imposing a minimum price per unit of alcohol.”

It added: “The court states that it is ultimately for the national court to determine whether measures other than that provided for by the Scottish legislation, such as increased taxation on alcoholic drinks, are capable of protecting human life and health as effectively as the current legislation, while being less restrictive of trade in those products within the EU.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie called for an emergency summit to review options:

Posted in News | Also tagged minimum alcohol pricing and willie rennie | 21 Comments

Could Tim Farron’s band reunite at the Glee Club?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 30th May 2015 - 7:46 pm

It didn’t take long for a photo of a very New Romantic Tim Farron and his two band-mates to appear on the internet. Within hours of Jonathan Calder revealing the name of our leadership hopeful’s band this morning, he was sent a photo, from around about 1987, of a teenage Tim Farron in his band, Fred the Girl, previously known as The Voyeurs until they realised what exactly that meant.

I have spent many fruitless hours trawling You Tube to see if I could find some footage. I suspect if it’s there, it’s unlisted so nobody will be able …

Posted in News | Also tagged glee club, jennie rigg, jonathan calder, liberal england and tim farron | 16 Comments

Gareth Epps to stand for Liberal Democrats against Community Pubs minister at the General Election

By NewsHound | Sat 7th February 2015 - 3:30 pm

Long standing Liberal Democrat, Glee Club MC, CAMRA member and anti-pubco campaigner Gareth Epps has been selected to fight the seat of Keighley in Yorkshire at May’s General Election. Gareth has sought out this seat as the current incumbent is the community pubs minister Kris Hopkins. He highlighted all the reasons why he was, shall we say, dissatisfied with Hopkins’ performance in a blog post n November:

Mr Hopkins has been given evidence by among others CAMRA locally and nationally that the Article 4 system is not working. The farcical scenes at Wokingham Council where under legal threat from Tesco, officers asked councillors to rescind an Article 4 they had only just granted, illustrate this perfectly. He is siding with the pubcos who are flogging pubs like those in Cuckfield and Earley, and ignoring communities.

Posted in News | Also tagged keighley, kris hopkins, pub and pubcos | 14 Comments

Jeremy Browne to stand down as MP: what Lib Dem bloggers have made of his decision

By The Voice | Thu 16th October 2014 - 8:40 pm

Jeremy Browne’s decision to stand down as MP for Taunton Deane at the next election surprised many in the party. Ed Fordham wrote a tribute to Jeremy’s long service for the party on LDV here today — and the Lib Dem blogosphere has also had plenty to say. Here’s a selection…

Posted in News | Also tagged andrew page, jeremy browne, jonathan calder, mark mills, Mark Pack, paul walter and stephen tall | 4 Comments

LDV Debate: Could One Member One Vote work for Liberal Democrat Conference?

By The Voice | Mon 31st March 2014 - 2:20 pm

Sue Doughty and Gareth Epps discuss the issues.

Sue: During the consultation at conference and before conference there were many positive reasons to support this. For example, younger members who may not have a permanent address find it difficult to maintain links with a local party and so don’t get elected as voting reps and sadly some parties didn’t notify HQ of their voting reps. Although conference can be expensive the work by Federal Conference Committee with York Local Party meant that there …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, internal party democracy, liberal democrat conference and sue doughty | 22 Comments

EXCLUSIVE: Alistair Carmichael and Sheila Ritchie pitch for your Go Sober sponsorship

By The Voice | Tue 29th October 2013 - 12:00 pm

We have been following the often humorous progress of party legend Sheila Ritchie and Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael as they take part in Macmillan Cancer Support’s Go Sober for October challenge. At the time of writing, Sheila is the top fundraiser in the UK and Alistair is fifth. They have raised, between them, over £6,000. When we predicted that they might get to £5,000, we thought were being wildly optimistic. We’ve noticed that when we write about their quest on here, it leads to an upsurge in donations for them both.

In order to encourage you to donate, and to choose whether you give your money to #TeamAlistair or #TeamSheila, the two old friends have written exclusively for you. The order in which the posts appear was decided by the toss of a coin.

Posted in News | Also tagged Alistair Carmichael, featured, go sober for october and sheila ritchie | Leave a comment

Race Equality motion passed unanimously

By Mary Reid | Mon 16th September 2013 - 3:12 pm

While all eyes were on the Economy debate today, in the hour before Conference debated another important motion. It was entitled ‘A new Liberal Democrat approach to Race Equality’, and can be found on page 36 of the Conference Agenda. This motion was the outcome of the first report by the Liberal Democrat Race Equality Task Force: ‘Towards Race Equality: A Liberal Democrat Approach‘, which focused on education and employment.

This new approach sought to bring race equality back into focus in public debate. In recent years it has been …

Posted in Conference | Also tagged janice turner, jemima bland, liberal democrat race equality task force, merlene emerson, neville farmer and race equality | 6 Comments

Economy motion carried: Nick Clegg wins overwhelming backing from Lib Dem conference

By Stephen Tall | Mon 16th September 2013 - 12:45 pm

Lib Dem conference has spoken — and it has overwhelmingly backed Nick Clegg. Before the debate I had a hunch the result would be somewhat different. Though Nick had shrugged off a reported split with Vince Cable as “a storm in a tea cup”, I thought Vince’s obvious discontent with the decision to make this vote a test of strength, together with the assiduous ground-work and careful drafting of the Social Liberal Forum’s amendments, would pose a real problem for the party leadership.

And for the first third of the debate I thought my hunch might be fulfilled, with …

Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged brian matthews, economy, featured, katherine bavage, nick clegg, nick thornsby, steve webb and tim farron | 10 Comments

The most important factor for Liberal Democrats in any 2015 Coalition negotiations

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st August 2013 - 9:12 am

The Silly Season continues with yet more speculation on what happens after the 2015 election. Monday’s Independent carried the loaded headline:

Lib Dem Supporters spell it out: we won’t be fooled by Nick Clegg again over support for a coalition

That Liberal Democrats will be wary about any future coalition, with anybody, should come as no surprise. The deductive reasoning powers of the average goldfish could have worked that out.

The article quotes people like Martin Tod, Gareth Epps and Cllr Richard Kemp, all of whom are saying quite reasonable things, none of them suggesting that Nick Clegg fooled us in 2010, …

Posted in News | Also tagged 2015 general election, independent, martin tod, nick clegg and richard kemp | 31 Comments

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

By The Voice | Thu 1st August 2013 - 8:03 am

LibDemVoice 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 Gareth Epps shares his thoughts …

Government: What’s Occurrin?

A couple of years ago I took a trip to Barry Island and went on one of the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged lessons of coalition | 3 Comments

LDVideo: Liberal Democrats: coalition, polls and 2015 election

By The Voice | Tue 22nd January 2013 - 8:55 pm

Today’s BBC Daily Politics looked at the Lib Dems’ electoral fortunes.

In clip 1, they interview Lib Dem peer Lord (Tony) Greaves, former Lib Dem turned Labour councillor James Allie, and Gareth Epps, of the Social Liberal Forum…

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged daily politics (bbc), james allie, tim farron and tony greaves | Leave a comment

Conference Accreditation Consultation – what Liberal Democrat bloggers are saying

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 19th April 2012 - 5:53 pm

Last Saturday, Federal Conference Committee chair Andrew Wiseman invited responses in an article on Liberal Democrat Voice from members on the controversial issue of an accreditation system for Conference. Sussex Police had requested that party members would have to submit their identity details and past addresses so that they could be checked out by the Police to keep out people who might cause security issues.

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrat blogosphere has been vocal in response. If there has been a post out there in favour of such a system, then I’ve not been able to find it.

At Liberal England, …

Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged 2012 Brighton Conference, andrew emmerson, andrew wiseman, caron lindsay, conference accreditation, dave page, elephant, FCC, lgbt+ lib dems, liberal england, millennium dome and the widow's world | 5 Comments

Reading Labour Party leaflet’s “born and bred” racist innuendo: will Labour now apologise and withdraw it?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 7th April 2012 - 12:45 pm

This is the leaflet the Labour Party is delivering through letter-boxes in a ward where the sitting Conservative councillor — Cllr Azam Janjua, a Reading resident for half a century — is facing a Labour opponent, Eileen McElligott. See if you can notice the oh-so-subtle way in which Labour puts its lips together to dog-whistle:

You read that right:

“Eileen McElligott … was born and bred in Reading … She will fight for us here … because she is one of us.”

Posted in News | Also tagged azam janjua, eileen mcelligott and reading council | 74 Comments

Why Liberal Left?

By Linda Jack | Wed 15th February 2012 - 12:56 pm

My good pal Gareth Epps asked the question last week………..so I thought I would answer it for him. We are at a hugely important juncture as a party – nearly two years in – with little prospect of the Coalition not continuing until 2015 and what appears to be the start of the leadership’s “differentiation” campaign. Nick Clegg and his aides are spinning the line more and more that we are a “centrist” party – a clear desire to move us from the centre left position we have erstwhile held and which has served us well

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Liberal Left | 88 Comments

Opinion: What price democracy in the Lib Dems?

By Linda Jack | Thu 2nd February 2012 - 6:02 pm

Over the past 21 months I have had many moments when I have felt close to despair about the behaviour of our parliamentarians. Sometimes, like voting in favour of tuition fees, they can rightly point to the Coalition Agreement – endorsed overwhelmingly – as Nick Clegg observed at the time – by a North Korean like Special Conference. Other times, like voting against party policy on Legal Aid and Welfare Reform – there is no such defence. Last night calls into question the fundamental values and principles of our party, not just in terms of flying in the face of …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged benefits, federal policy committee, Joan Walmsley, legal aid, meral ece, Ming Campbell, paddy ashdown and welfare reform bill | 133 Comments

Lib Dem MPs set to rebel over ‘back-door’ nuclear power subsidy

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd July 2011 - 4:15 pm

‘Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided that they are subject to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new National Planning Statement), and also provided that they receive no public subsidy.’

So declares the Coalition Agreement. However, as the Guardian reports, the finance bill due to be debated this coming week introduces a form of subsidy, and it’s attracted opposition among the party:

A large group of Lib Dems are concerned about clause 78 of the bill, which MPs will consider

…

Posted in News | Also tagged chris huhne, Danny Alexander, david boyle, energy, john leech, louise bloom, nuclear power and tim farron | 26 Comments

Opinion: Interpreting the internal election results

By David Hall-Matthews | Tue 16th November 2010 - 3:57 pm

The bare bones of the internal party election results were set out here on Saturday showing who had been elected by conference reps to the various committees.

The detailed results for the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee, hosted by Colin Rosenstiel, show some revealing trends when compared with previous years’ election results.

This year, in the Federal Executive elections, Evan Harris came top on first preference by a long stretch with 263 votes. Following him was David Rendel (107) and Ramesh Dewan (77) with others on 55. Evan is clearly identified with the progressive, Social Liberal wing …

Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged david rendel, duncan brack, evan harris, linda jack, ramesh dewan, sandra gidley, social liberal forum, susan gaszczak and tony greaves | 38 Comments

Lib Dem party membership: “10 members joining for each departure”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 9th July 2010 - 11:25 am

With the Labour party claiming an influx of new recruits, Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Reading East at the last election, Gareth Epps, has written to The Guardian pointing out the Lib Dems too have seen a significant increase in new members:

Your report (7 July) of a “surge” in Labour membership makes claims about recruits from the Liberal Democrats. Labour’s claims are Walter Mittyish. My local Lib Dem party has had its most sustained membership boost since the 1988 merger. Since the election, we have had 10 members joining for each departure. As Labour’s crocodile tears continue over cuts

…

Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged party membership and reading east | 96 Comments

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Tag Archives: gareth epps

Rennie calls for emergency summit on alcohol pricing

Could Tim Farron’s band reunite at the Glee Club?

Gareth Epps to stand for Liberal Democrats against Community Pubs minister at the General Election

Jeremy Browne to stand down as MP: what Lib Dem bloggers have made of his decision

LDV Debate: Could One Member One Vote work for Liberal Democrat Conference?

EXCLUSIVE: Alistair Carmichael and Sheila Ritchie pitch for your Go Sober sponsorship

Race Equality motion passed unanimously

Economy motion carried: Nick Clegg wins overwhelming backing from Lib Dem conference

The most important factor for Liberal Democrats in any 2015 Coalition negotiations

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

Government: What’s Occurrin?

LDVideo: Liberal Democrats: coalition, polls and 2015 election

Conference Accreditation Consultation – what Liberal Democrat bloggers are saying

Reading Labour Party leaflet’s “born and bred” racist innuendo: will Labour now apologise and withdraw it?

Why Liberal Left?

Opinion: What price democracy in the Lib Dems?

Lib Dem MPs set to rebel over ‘back-door’ nuclear power subsidy

Lib Dem party membership: “10 members joining for each departure”

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