Tag Archives: julian astle

Over on his Telegraph blog Julian Astle, after much focus this week on the Liberal Democrats’ short-term prospects in the upcoming local and devolved elections, takes a look at the party’s likely fortunes over a slightly longer period.

It’s a lengthy but perceptive piece which is well worth a read, but in the meantime here’s a short taster:

It would be a mistake to think that the Lib Dems are where they are because of circumstances alone, however. Clegg heads a serious and ambitious cohort of MPs who have no interest in the politics of perpetual opposition. They want to change the

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Julian Astle, former Paddy Ashdown adviser, has blogged his reaction to a piece in last week’s Sunday Telegraph which claimed that the Liberal Democrats are planning to change – as Julian puts it – “their logo, their name, their direction and their leader”.

Of these, Julian speculates that there is a possibility that the party’s logo may change in some way during this Parliament. However here’s what Julian has to say about the latter three – as one might expect, he’s pretty sceptical:

The Liberal Democrat party was created by the merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (it

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Over on the website of the Financial Times, director of the liberal Centre Forum think-tank, Julian Astle, argues in his response to the budget that the route to medium- to long-term sustainable economic growth will be the “patient application of liberal economic principles”, not only by the Chancellor but also by the business secretary, Vince Cable.

What does this mean? Julian explains:

This means clearing the way for growth through labour market flexibility, liberalising our overly restrictive planning laws and protecting businesses (particularly small businesses) from unnecessary and burdensome regulation. The chancellor has sought to do exactly this today.

A liberal approach, however,

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Over on his Telegraph blog, Julian Astle, director of the CentreForum think-tank and former adviser to Paddy Ashdown, argues that the real threat to the coalition’s plans to reform public services comes not from European law, but more pertinently from the system of national pay bargaining.

Here’s an excerpt:

Although the government is trying to raise standards across the board, its particular focus is on reducing the UK’s intolerably high levels of health and educational inequality. But as Professor Alison Wolf has demonstrated, it is the system of national pay bargaining that locks these inequalities in place. Leave that system in place, and all the Government’s

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