Tag Archives: john mcdonnell

LibLink – Giles Wilkes: £93bn of corporate welfare? What nonsense

Giles Wilkes, who was a special adviser to Vince Cable and chief economist at CentreForum, is now a leader writer at the Financial Times (which usually charges an online subscription). One of his recent editorials has been transferred to the free blog section so we are able to bring it to you.

Labour should be wary of giving credence to a very suspect number.

The £93bn figure now routinely used to evaluate the scale of “corporate welfare” in Britain is badly misleading. If the Labour Party is to re-establish its economic credibility, it needs to give the number a very wide berth.

First of all, the very concept of “corporate welfare” is tricky and question-begging. When applied to individuals, welfare is easy to understand – it means payments from the state provided on the basis of need.

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 42 Comments

Opinion: Job share MPs – an idea whose time has come

As regular LDV readers may know, I’ve long advocated the idea of allowing candidates to put themselves forward for election on a job-share basis (letting constituents decide whether they want to elect job-share MPs). Today a Bill making this possible will be presented to the House of Commons.

The Representation of the People (Members’ Job Share) Bill will be introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by Labour MP John McDonnell. It will be interesting to see how much cross-party support the Bill gets. Individual Lib Dems have certainly been sympathetic to its aims. Mark Williams MP tabled an Early Day Motion …

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

LDV members’ survey (2): Labour leadership – Ed Miliband wins your vote (but Ed Balls would be best for Lib Dems)

Lib Dem Voice has been conducting a survey this week of party members registered on our members’ forum asking them for their views of the coalition, Labour leadership and the party’s general election result. Over 400 have responded, and here’s part two of what you’ve told us …

LDV asked: Putting aside your Lib Dem allegiance who do you think would make the best Labour leader?

Here’s what you said:

37% – Ed Miliband
25% – Diane Abbott
17% – David Miliband
9% – Andy Burnham
8% – John McDonnell
3% – Ed Balls
(Excluding Don’t know / No opinion =

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , , , and | 11 Comments

Opinion: Opposition is only half the fight – we must spell out our plan for Heathrow

What follows is very much not dissent in the ranks or any kind of support for a third runway at Heathrow – if for no other reason than I don’t want to give John McDonnell any excuse to start wielding the Mace again. I fully support and agree with the Lib Dem campaign being ably led by Susan Kramer and Norman Baker against blighting south-west London and surrounding areas with yet more noise, pollution and congestion.

But the Government has now announced its decision on a new runway and Terminal 6 and, while I hope we will be able to …

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



Recent Comments

  • Paul Reynolds
    Josh Babarinde has done a precision job here, in understanding the nature of the problem and forensically setting out what must be done. His work on this subjec...
  • David Allen
    Farmers do hard and vital work, and get hit by many difficulties and uncertainties. So should we: (1). Create good support systems for farming incomes whic...
  • Ahmad
    What comes next is HTS will raise conflicts with Israel as planed by both, so Israel can expand into Damascus to be like Ghazah and the US will handle north Syr...
  • Matthew Radmore
    Roland 10th Dec '24 - 3:46pm Unfortunately, it does seem Israel is taking advantage of the situation… with it taking “temporary control” of demilitarized...
  • Matthew Radmore
    Thank you for this important and shocking read. The whole civilised world, if their is anything civilised left should, only support Syrians at their request ...