Tag Archives: general election 2015

Caron Lindsay

The truth about the “Lib Dem boss” taking over Danny Alexander’s campaign.

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 12th April 2015 - 3:06 pm

A TOP LibDem official has taken personal command of Danny Alexander’s election campaign in a last-ditch bid to save the party’s biggest scalp north of the border.

Scottish convener Craig Harrow, who is also vice president of the UK LibDems, has moved into Alexander’s Highland seat to act as his election agent.

So says the Sunday Herald in an article that goes on to outline the graveness of the threat against Danny and all the other Lib Dem seats in Scotland in the manner of every other article about the Lib Dems these days.

The truth is rather less sensational. It should be absolutely no surprise to anyone that Danny should choose Craig as his agent. For a start, you might want to check out who was his agent in 2005. That’s right, Craig Harrow. Craig then stood for the Inverness seat in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election.

The association between the two of them goes back a very long time, though. They are roughly the same age and both worked for the party at the same time in the 1990s. Craig was Rae Michie’s organiser in Argyll and Bute and Danny was the Scottish Party’s press officer. They have been friends ever since and were, I hear, extremely conscientious in their study of Scotland’s finest malt based products.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Jo Swinson: Shared Parental Leave is an important step to the wider cultural change that they need

By NewsHound | Sun 12th April 2015 - 10:39 am

Jo Swinson has been writing for the Huffington Post about what the Liberal Democrats have done on child care and parental leave.

 Liberal Democrats in the coalition government have taken important steps to support parents with childcare costs despite the challenging economic situation. We extended free early years education to 15 hours a week for three and four year olds, and introduced 15 free hours for four in 10 two-year-olds – those from the most hard-pressed homes. We are also introducing Tax Free Childcare to save working families up to £2,000 per child per year from September.

But there’s more to come. Not only a tripling of paternity leave, but extra help with childcare costs.

We also want to extend free early years education to all two year olds. We know that pressure to budget for childcare costs doesn’t just start when a child is two years old, and that the costs can prevent parents from returning to work. We are committed to bridging that gap so that free childcare is available for working parents from the end of paid parental leave. On average, this will save working parents the equivalent of £2,670 a year.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg on the Digital Rights Bill

By The Voice | Sat 11th April 2015 - 6:32 pm

Today’s campaign theme has been the Digital Rights Bill that the party wants to introduce to protect people’s rights against misuse of their data and protect them from unwarranted intrusion by the state. The Bill would introduce:

Prison sentences for companies conducting large-scale data theft and illegally selling on personal data;

Beefed up powers for the Information Commissioner to fine and enforce disciplinary action on government bodies if they breach data protection laws;

Legal rights to compensation for consumers when companies make people sign up online to deliberately misleading and illegible terms & conditions;

Code of Practice for online services who would by law have to correct information about members of the public where it is inaccurate or defamatory;

Enshrining in law the responsibility of government to defend the free press, including the rights of journalists and citizen journalists to express their views freely online;

Prevent government from watering down cyber-security and encryption measures used by British business.

Nick Clegg talked about why it is important

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Caron Lindsay

Tories seem to be shredding their claim to economic competence with each new spending commitment

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th April 2015 - 1:41 pm

The Tories have gone on about economic responsibility and controlling spending for long enough. It’s bizarre, then, that their list of dubiously funded post-election spending commitments is getting longer by the day.

It’s not enough to say that the NHS will get the £8 billion it needs out of the proceeds of a stronger economy alone as Jeremy Hunt did this morning. That’s like making a commitment on a foundation of fresh air and marshmallow.

Asked how the Conservatives would fund the pledge, he said the economy had been turned around and pointed to investment in the service during the last Parliament, when the government guaranteed an above-inflation increase in funding.

He said: “If you want to be sceptical about the commitment, look at the track record.”

It’s not as if the global economy is in a particularly robust position to be able to rely on that.

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NewsHound

Norman Lamb on the party’s prospects, leadership, mental health and the benefits system

By NewsHound | Sat 11th April 2015 - 9:15 am

We know that many aspects of the welfare reforms have been very difficult for people with mental ill health. Norman Lamb is aware of that too, and sets out what he wants to do to change that in an interview with the International Business Times:

Lamb, who said he was pleased with the progress the government has made on mental health, wants to join up the benefits and health system.

“One of the things that sometimes happens if you are suffering from mental ill health, is that sometimes that you don’t turn up in time you may be in a dark place, struggling to cope on a particular day. The idea of sanctioning that person because of their ill health is something that I’m very resistant to,” he said.

“My mission in trying to link up better the NHS and the benefits system is to ensure that the two systems work rationally together and indeed we are doing a lot to make it much easier for people who are out of work and often because of their mental ill health, to get access to psychological therapies, which can help people recover and often get them back to work.”

Lamb added: “Often work is a good thing for your mental health – it improves your self-esteem and your sense of self-belief. We shouldn’t be trying to resist the idea of helping getting people back to work but we need to make sure that the benefits system is sensitive to the needs of people who suffer from mental ill health.

“We are a long way away from having a properly joined up system and I repeat that I will continue my mission to make sure that the benefits system is sensitive to those who suffer from mental ill health.”

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Eddie Sammon

Opinion: Why I’m voting Liberal Democrat on 7th May

By Eddie Sammon | Fri 10th April 2015 - 1:25 pm

With less than a month to go until the general election and postal voting starting next week I thought I would write a quick piece on why I’ll be voting Liberal Democrat on the 7th of May.

First of all I think the party shares my values more than any other. I care about public services, but I also care about taxes and being self-employed I don’t like overly burdensome regulation.

I care about both my security and my privacy and feel that I shouldn’t have to choose between one and the other.

I don’t want a party that favours privatisation so much that they are willing to sell assets or contracts on the cheap, or so against it that they are willing to run things inefficiently just so they can say they haven’t used any private firms.

Locally Liberal Democrats become embedded into their communities. Community politics is a fundamentally Liberal Democrat principle.

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David Warren

Opinion: The Liberal Democrats are setting the agenda on health and social care

By David Warren | Fri 10th April 2015 - 8:51 am

As the General Election campaign gathers pace all parties are focusing on the future of our NHS and social care, but it is the Liberal Democrats who are setting the agenda.

The announcement of £8 billion of extra funding and thus the challenge to the two big parties to match it, has been met with stunned silence. Combine this with the proposal for a ‘Care Closer to Home Fund’ and you have a party leadership that is getting to grips with what needs to done in this important policy area.

Contrast this with Ed Miliband’s staggering ignorance evidenced by his promise to fund 5,000 extra care workers for the NHS.

Miliband clearly doesn’t realise that care workers are almost exclusively employed by private companies!

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Tim Oliver

Opinion: We need meaningful discourse on Trident, not playground politics

By Tim Oliver | Thu 9th April 2015 - 4:25 pm

I have spent much of the campaign so far wondering when issues of foreign policy would be discussed. This open question soon morphed into a desperate cry for someone, anyone to talk about what goes on beyond the shores of these islands and what Britain can or should do about those events. The 7-way debate that we were graced with by ITV proved to be as devoid of these questions as the rest of the campaign, for even when issues such as immigration floated in, they were stripped of an international context.

So it was that I had essentially resigned myself to a campaign devoid of hard questions about big problems, until today’s news headlines sparked a moment of hope. Trident had risen from the depths to push itself, and surely with it bigger questions about Britain, onto the agenda. At last, I could have almost cried, we can have the debate!

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The Voice

Mike Crockart retiring? Errr, no…

By The Voice | Thu 9th April 2015 - 3:50 pm

Edinburgh West Liberal Democrat candidate Mike Crockart, elected as MP in 2010, has been quick to emphasise that he is standing again for Parliament after a letter sent round by his SNP opponent Michelle Thompson, who was once his boss at finance firm Standard Life, referred to him as the “retiring MP.” She says she didn’t mean to imply that he wasn’t standing. The Evening News has the story:

But Mr Crockart – who worked under Ms Thomson at Standard Life around 15 years ago – said he would fight for re-election on May 7 and blasted the document as “misleading”.

It is the latest spat in a fight that has seen the contenders open campaign offices right next to each other – with Mr Crockart putting up a window display taunting his opponent.
He has also demanded Ms Thomson “correct the mistake” in her letter and ensure nothing else is published with similarly “inaccurate” information.

Mr Crockart was elected as constituency MP five years ago with a majority of 3803 over Labour. He said: “It has been brought to my attention that the SNP candidate for Edinburgh West recently sent a letter to voters across Edinburgh which twice referred to me as ‘the retiring MP’.

“I want to categorically state that I am not retiring. I am fighting this election and intend to be returned as the Member of Parliament for Edinburgh West on May 7.

“Whilst I am sure that this poorly chosen phrase has ­simply been misused, I am concerned that the many voters who received this letter could be misled into believing that I am retiring and standing down at this election.”

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The Voice

Donate to Lib Dems today to be in with a chance of the funniest dinner you will ever have

By The Voice | Thu 9th April 2015 - 1:55 pm

The Obama campaign pioneered the online micro-fundraising that we see so much of today. Remember getting all those email inviting you to donate $3 to have a chance of dinner with Obama.

The Liberal Democrats have today taken another leaf out of their book, offering dinner with comedy legend John Cleese if you donate any amount of money to the party before April 17th.  From Python to Fawlty Towers to hilarious films like Clockwise and A Fish Called Wanda (which was on the other night), he has been making us laugh for decades. These things don’t really date, either. All these things are as hilarious now as they were then.

So, I think the phrase is donate early and donate often. And if you do, there’s a wee surprise for everyone. I won’t spoil it for you but it’s good. 

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The Voice

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez supports Lynne Featherstone’s campaign

By The Voice | Thu 9th April 2015 - 10:21 am

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez went to Hornsey and Wood Green yesterday to campaign with Lynne Featherstone. Here they are putting up the 500th stake board.

It’s great to see two women who have done so much to help women and girls in this country and across the world together.

If you have been impressed with her work over the past five years, you might want to donate to Lynne’s campaign.

Miriam said of Lynne:

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Newspuppy

Well that’s different! Boyband broadcasts and Nick Clegg going ape

By Newspuppy | Wed 8th April 2015 - 10:21 pm

So what do you make of the Greens boy-band broadcast?

I love the idea. It’s something a bit different. However, it is not fair to put the Liberal Democrats in the same group as Nigel Farage and UKIP. I really object to that. I don’t like being lumped into the establishment with Tories and Labour, but Farage is going too far. Lumping any of us in with a party whose leader thinks demonising people with HIV as part of his “be shocking and awful” strategy is really unfair.

We can be sure that everyone’s going to watch it. I suspect there will be many people who hadn’t realised what an old-fashioned socialist bunch this lot were. Nationalise the railways? How much is that going to cost?

It’s interesting that they’ve done a broadcast that doesn’t even have their leader in it.

It’s all a bit unconventional.

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Caron Lindsay

Fundraising emails just got grimmer…

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th April 2015 - 7:30 pm

So the Tories are out to “destroy” the Liberal Democrats? So reported the Telegraph on Monday. Well, there’s a surprise. When have they ever done us any favours? Or the other lot? Our gains have been made by grit, sweat and community based campaigns run on a shoestring. The Tories are pouring resources into its target seats. They have obscene amounts of money and aren’t afraid to spend it.

Many individual seats have got their crowd-funding sites up now. My bank balance is suffering accordingly.

Chief strategist Ryan Coetzee is in no mood to stand for this. Whether his latest fundraising missive, with the gruesome subject line “Destroy and decapitate the Lib Dems” was a good idea or not, I’ll leave for you to judge. Here’s what it said:

Caron, I don’t know about you, but when I see the Tories saying they want to destroy Lib Dems I have a simple response: over my dead body.

Here’s what one Tory strategist told the Telegraph last night:

“The way we win this election is by taking a couple of seats off Labour and then just destroy the Lib Dems.”

Every day I see evidence that shows we can beat the Tories in the seats we’re fighting them in, but only if our campaign teams have the resources they need.

Caron, can you help with a donation today and show the Tories that we’re not going to give up any of our seats without a fight?

It’s no surprise that the Tories want us out. We’ve blocked them from doing some really nasty things—even Cameron said we stopped him from governing like a true Tory.

That’s what makes this election important. They want to ‘decapitate’ us this election so they can lurch off to the right—and they’re using the millions they’ve raised to do it. We can only defend our seats if we have the money to do so, please donate what you can.

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Caron Lindsay

The two most talked about things from last night’s Scottish Leaders’ debate and two things the press got wrong about Willie Rennie

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th April 2015 - 5:14 pm

At Wimbledon, you generally, if you’re lucky and it hasn’t been raining, get a day between matches. This isn’t the case for Scotland’s political leaders. After a two hour marathon on STV in Edinburgh last night, Nicola Sturgeon, Jim Murphy, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie head to Aberdeen where they will face another hour of debate, joined by the Greens’ Patrick Harvie and UKIP’s David Coburn. The moderator will be BBC Scotland’s James Cook, who took a bit of a pasting from cybernats for daring to suggest that he’s had SNP sources tell him that a Tory Government would be the best option for their independence cause.

Last night’s debate took place in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. The format was a bit weird. There was a 20 minute session at the start where the moderator, Bernard Ponsonby, had a chat with some people in the audience and then put some questions to the leaders. Then they each had a 10 minute session on their own, giving a statement and taking 8 minutes of audience questions. That dragged a bit, to be honest. Then there was a 45 minute Question Time style free for all. It wasn’t as relaxed and well-behaved as the one at Glasgow University last month, but there were a few noteworthy moments. The most talked about on social media was the man in the crowd wearing a false moustache. Who could it be?

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Childs talks about living with HIV

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th April 2015 - 12:55 pm

Liverpool Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Childs had been thinking of speaking publicly about his HIV status and was inspired by Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett’s powerful interview last week to do so. Nigel Farage’s horrible comments about the NHS treating foreigners with HIV in last week’s debate finally made up his mind and he contacted Buzzfeed.

He talked about how it felt when he was diagnosed:

I was never expecting it to happen. I remember being at work, sitting in a corridor and bursting into tears. I started shaking and getting really scared.” He went back to the hospital the next day. The second test was also positive.

I cried in front of the nurse – the staff were very supportive. I knew a little bit about what HIV meant because I’d done some work with a gay men’s health charity in Glasgow but I still had in my head that it was a terminal diagnosis. I asked the doctor how long I had to live.

He learned, though, that the condition could be kept under control, though:

Childs’ doctor explained that when treated properly, HIV is an entirely manageable chronic condition with a near normal life expectancy.

That simple sentence is something many people don’t realise.

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Kelly-Marie Blundell

My Guildford campaign photo diary

By Kelly-Marie Blundell | Wed 8th April 2015 - 11:25 am

As the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Guildford, I get to do a range of things, some of them quite remarkable.

Being a candidate is an amazing opportunity, and I’m incredibly grateful to the huge team I have behind me in Guildford; including our Executive and Campaign team, our Councillors, our organiser and a myriad of volunteers.

But there’s some things you just can’t prepare for when you look at standing in a General Election. I doubt any other voluntary role (except maybe a UN ambassador) affords anyone as much fun, strange experiences or feelings of fulfilment.

Here’s some of my campaigning highlights;

Last year, I got to wash a bus. Not just for the photo, although that was useful, I actually found it really fascinating. Who knew washing a bus would be so complicated?

Here I am with Antony Hook (MEP Candidate for South East) and Councillor Julia McShane as we put forward our best brush strokes at  Safeguard’s 40th Anniversary Gala

14.03.29 Bus washing Antony Hook, Kelly-Marie Blundell and Julia McShane

 

The advent of smartphones means there are a range of campaigning experiences caught on camera that just weren’t in 2010 and earlier. In particular, I like the interesting  and beautiful things one finds in the gardens and homes of people you canvass. Here’s a few things, no identification of homes though!

Guildford-20150208-00576

 

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The Voice

You don’t have to choose between the NHS and the Economy…

By The Voice | Wed 8th April 2015 - 9:55 am

…as this infographic from Richard Morris reminds us. It definitely deserves a wider audience.

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Newspuppy

One word to sum up the Liberal Democrats

By Newspuppy | Tue 7th April 2015 - 2:25 pm

The Telegraph asked members at our recent Liverpool conference to sum up the Liberal Democrats in one word. Here is the video they made which features, among others, Paddy Ashdown, the LDDA’s Gemma Roulston, Scarborough PPC Mike Beckett, Hinckley and Bosworth PPC Michael Mullaney and Ealing’s Joanna Dugdale. What would your word be? Mine would be radical to reflect that we are anti-establishment reformers at heart.

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Caron Lindsay

What’s happening on P-30, Tuesday 7th April?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 7th April 2015 - 8:00 am

Before anything else, I’m going to abuse my editorial privileges on this site to wish my wonderful niece Emma a very happy 18th birthday. Unusually, she has already had her first vote, in the referendum on independence last year. She’s an amazing young woman who organised her mum’s surprise 40th birthday party last month and made sure that we all fulfilled our roles to her satisfaction. That unfortunate incident when she was a week old and I put an outfit on her back to front has led her to develop quite a perfectionist streak. Did I say she was amazing? So, Happy Birthday, Emma.

And now back to more routine matters. The election campaign continues today with Nick Clegg  travelling to Montgomeryshire to focus on mental health with candidate Jane Dodds. They will visit a local mental health charity to promote our plans to provide the extra £8 billion the NHS needs over the next Parliament and our prioritisation of mental health.

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NewsHound

Lib Link: Stephen Tall: The ins and outs of tactical voting (nose pegs optional)

By NewsHound | Sun 5th April 2015 - 7:55 pm

Our esteemed former co-editor Stephen Tall has a piece on the Independent Voices site looking into tactical voting. Why might you, he asks:

For all the complexity of political debates about the economy, public services, the environment and immigration, the choice each of us faces when handed our ballot paper is simple: which candidate should receive our solitary “X”?

Suppose you’re a Conservative supporter living in Nick Clegg’s seat of Sheffield Hallam; should you stick by your party, even if that means handing the seat to Labour? Or lend your vote to the Lib Dem leader this time?

Or perhaps you’re a Scot who wants to see the UK stick together – then the canny choice will be the candidate best-placed to thwart the SNP. Danny Alexander is pinning his hopes of survival in his Inverness seat on rallying anti-nationalist voters.

He adds that voting for the party that most reflects your values is not always the best way of getting something like your values enacted under the first past the post electoral system:

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NewsHound

LibLink: Jo Swinson: Across much of Scotland, Lib Dems are the only party who can beat the SNP

By NewsHound | Sun 5th April 2015 - 2:55 pm

Jo Swinson has written for Scotland on Sunday’s Election Essays series. First of all she outlines the Liberal Democrat contributions to the Government:

The last five years have demonstrated beyond doubt that the Liberal Democrats made the right decision and are a force for good in government. We’ve taken tough decisions to get growth up and the deficit down, while also protecting the public services on which we all rely. We have been able to deliver vital Liberal Democrat policies, while preventing the Conservatives from dancing to the right-wing tune of their Eurosceptic backbenchers and the populism of Nigel Farage’s Ukip.

As a result, the economy is recovering strongly: we grew faster than any other G7 country last year, and we’re borrowing half as much as we were in 2010.

You don’t have to choose between governing fairly and balancing the books as Labour and Conservatives would have you believe:

Liberal Democrats will balance the books by 2018, and do so fairly. We won’t drag out the pain for years longer like Labour, or slash public services to the bone like the Conservatives. These parties will try and convince you that you have to choose between eliminating the deficit or protecting public services. You don’t. With the Liberal Democrats’ balanced plan, we can do both.

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The Voice

This is everything a leaders’ debate should be – with one of the best put-downs ever

By The Voice | Sat 4th April 2015 - 3:15 pm

Last month, Scotland’s four main party leaders debated each other for Glasgow University’s Politics Society. Willie Rennie, Jim Murphy, Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon spent an hour and a half discussing everything from austerity to Trident to drugs policy. They did it with loads of thoughtfulness and bags of humour. It makes me very optimistic about the tv debate between these four on Tuesday night and the subsequent one with Greens’ Patrick Harvie later in the campaign. Unfortunately, UKIP will also be taking part in that second debate and given the horrid comments by their MEP about an SNP minister, that could really sour the atmosphere.

It’s actually a very good watch and relevant to people across the whole UK. Willie Rennie was very strong on the economy, highlighting how France had tried the sort of policies that Nicola was advocating and these simply hadn’t worked.  When Nicola Sturgeon implied that her party represented Scotland, he very effectively called her out. Another highlight came when he invited Ruth Davidson to write a joint letter with him to Theresa May asking her to release the drugs policy review that Norman Baker said the Tories had blocked.

That drugs question, by the way, saw an open admission that three of the leaders had taken Cannabis.

You can watch the whole thing below:

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Caron Lindsay

Are you feeling like you need some good old fashioned civil liberties talk in this election?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 4th April 2015 - 12:15 pm

You need look no further than Ben Mathis, Lib Dem candidate for Hackney South who looks at the constituency’s liberal values and wonders why it “settles for social conservatism in a red bow.” Enjoy.

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Caron Lindsay

Nicola Sturgeon faces similar press trashing to Clegg in 2010 – but with added misogyny

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 4th April 2015 - 10:39 am

I might have some fairly fundamental disagreements with Nicola Sturgeon on the best future for Scotland, but I have a great deal of time for her as a human being and as a politician. She is a much cleverer tactician than Alex Salmond ever was. I am perfectly happy to argue with people on their political outlook, but I’m not struck on the sort of nasty personal mudslinging that we see at PMQs, or in Labour’s deeply misleading personal attack on Nick Clegg last year and I sure as hell am not going to make up my mind how to vote based on how someone eats a bacon sandwich. Nor, I suspect, are the rest of the population.

It appears that after her very good performance in Thursday’s Leaders’ Debate that Nicola Sturgeon is, highly predictably, being done over by the right wing press in much the same way that Nick Clegg was in 2010. Remember Nick Barlow’s wonderful way of dealing with that – the #nickcleggsfault meme on Twitter where Clegg was blamed from everything to the weather to the cat being sick?

Of course, Nicola is getting much different treatment to a man. Her clothes come in to it. The Daily Fail describes her as a “glamorous power-dressing imperatrix.” Wow. A woman goes out wearing smart clothes. How remarkable. Of course, if she rocked up for FMQs in Parliament in her jeans, they’d have something to say about that, too. On appearance, women really can’t win.

The Telegraph’s splash is a bit different. Last night, when I read their account that she’d told the French ambassador that she’d prefer David Cameron to be Prime Minister, it didn’t seem right to me. Apart from anything else, the Nicola Sturgeon I know has more sense than to be so indiscreet. The paper bases its story on a memo written by a UK Government official who wasn’t even at the meeting in question and who actually doubts its veracity. It’s all very third hand and clearly questionable.

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The Voice

Something to keep you giggling on the campaign trail

By The Voice | Sat 4th April 2015 - 9:15 am

Possibly not if you are going canvassing though. You can just imagine knocking an a door and then an image of Sky News’ mash up of Clegg, Miliband, Cameron and Farage singing Boyzone’s I Swear pops into your mind unbidden. By the time the voter opens the door, you are giggling, and possibly drooling. Not the best way to win votes.

The thing about this is that after Thursday night, it seems so dated with just the four of them.

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Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy writes…Time to dig deep and believe

By Charles Kennedy | Fri 3rd April 2015 - 4:19 pm

Well, you will have heard it time and time before. Commentators will tell us that we simply cannot win, opposition will tell us that we simply don’t matter. I can tell you, they are all wrong.

This General Election will be the hardest fought in our history. However, there has never been a more important time to stick our head above the parapet and make the unambiguous case for a strong liberal voice in politics. I for one am up for the challenge.

I have been an MP for over 30 years (a point my campaign team like to emphasise more than I). I am often asked what motivates me to stay the course. My motivation is straight forward; my motivation is to fight on the issues that matter for the people of Ross, Skye and Lochaber.

In Ross, Skye and Lochaber it is a two horse race between myself and the SNP. The race is between two competing views of the world. Indeed, our views on the NHS contrasts the options well.

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The Voice

New campaign poster highlights tax cut.

By The Voice | Fri 3rd April 2015 - 2:32 pm

The party issued a new poster today to highlight the raising of the tax threshold which comes into effect on Monday. It means that every taxpayer is £825 a year better off thanks to the implementation of the pledge that was on the font page of our manifesto.

Tax cuts election poster

 

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Patrick Murray

Opinion: Let’s make this the Housing General Election

By Patrick Murray | Fri 3rd April 2015 - 10:58 am

Last month,  2,300 people descended on Westminster for the Homes for Britain rally calling for all political parties to end the housing crisis in a generation, and publish a plan within a year of office setting out how they would do this. It was an inspirational moment, and one of the biggest campaign rallies I have ever seen. Many people from took part in the relay leading up to it – walking, running, cycling from all over the country. There was even a bus, Betsy, who journeyed up from Land’s End, visiting towns and cities along the way taking the message about the housing crisis to the people.

So why is it so important? Well we are in the midst of a terrible crisis. For over 30 years no Government of any political party has built anywhere near enough homes. We need 245,000 homes a year now, yet we only built around half that figure last year. As a result for young people in many parts of the country owning a home is something they can only dream of. There are still 1.6 million families on waiting lists for affordable housing. And we lack suitable housing options for older people despite the massive demographic changes coming our way. Of course this crisis looks different in different housing markets, for example in some parts of the country the challenge is about regenerating communities and replacing decrepit homes, but one thing is clear – our housing system is dysfunctional and fails almost everyone.

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Simon Foster

Opinion: The silence of the Miliband

By Simon Foster | Fri 3rd April 2015 - 9:06 am

Yesterday I got an email from Ed Miliband, which included part of his online Q &A session:

“I am stuck as to whether to vote Labour or Lib Dem. I am not interested in past records either, I am looking to the future. Many people fall in an “in-between zone”, not poor enough to receive help with living costs, but not rich enough to be able to stay on top of general living costs. How would Labour deal with this? — Zoe, Norfolk

Ed: Hi Zoe, you’re absolutely right that the problem in our economy right now is that recovery just isn’t reaching working people — just a few at the top. Many working people aren’t getting paid enough to be able to stay on top of the bills. Tackling this cost of living crisis will be the key mission of the next Labour government. Unlike the Tories, Labour understand that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed, and that’s why only a Labour government can tackle the cost of living crisis. One of the ways we will do this is by freezing your energy bills until 2017 and giving the regulator the power to cut bills this winter so that people can afford to heat their homes. To make sure work pays, we will ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, raise the minimum wage to £8, and provide 25 hours free childcare per week for working parents with three or four year olds. We’ll also introduce a new, lower 10p starting rate of tax, paid for by scrapping the unfair marriage tax allowance, which will benefit 24 million people on middle and lower incomes…”

Well the minimum wage should go up to £8.25 in the long run anyway, and the 10p tax rate is completely wrong, we should be looking at national insurance now instead.

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Caron Lindsay

Candid, competent Clegg puts in good performance in debate that fails to break the poll deadlock

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 2nd April 2015 - 11:12 pm

The NHS doesn’t need warm words, it needs hard cash.

Probably the line of the debate for me, from Nick Clegg as he highlighted Liberal Democrat plans to invest £8 billion in the NHS in England with resultant Barnett Consequentials. Clegg was at the top of his game tonight. Paddy Ashdown said he was flawless, but I wouldn’t quite go that far. He stumbled a bit on immigration – taking the right line but with some strange comments about good and bad immigrations. I actually feel prouder of him than I did in 2010. After all the grief he’s taken, after everything that’s happened in the last five years, for him to come out with humility and clarity and perform so well was very good.  As I write, a public speaking expert says that he thought Nick was excellent.

He was pretty strong on the economy, too and repeatedly challenged Cameron on the Tory plans not raising taxes on the rich.

Having lived through the independence referendum and all the nonsense spread by the Yes campaign that the NHS had been privatised in England, it was good to see Nick call Nicola out on that.

Nicola Sturgeon  was very good too. It was funny when she turned and faced Cameron to ask him to specify his welfare cuts and he turned away from her. She made a lot of claims about what was happening in Scotland, from NHS Funding (actually going down), NHS car parking (you still have to pay in some places) and on the failure of the SNP to keep its promise to dump student debt. Oh, and let’s not forget the young people denied opportunity because of the SNP’s slashing of college places. 

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