Tag Archives: labour party

Simon Hebditch

Opinion: Creating a new Alliance

By Simon Hebditch | Tue 18th June 2013 - 9:02 am

There has always been a need to blend parliamentary, representative politics with the social activism of extra parliamentary movements. Recent examples of informal action outside the confines of the parliamentary system include UK Uncut on companies avoiding corporation tax and the Occupy movement. Liberal Democrats and their antecedents have an honourable history of involvement in single issue campaigns and community movements.

Indeed, it can be argued that “community politics” grew out of the widespread social campaigning movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Given this history you would expect Liberal Democrats to be at the forefront of such campaigning today but we …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 38 Comments
Nick Clegg MP

Nick Clegg MP writes… The Labour and Tory exodus

By Nick Clegg MP | Mon 29th April 2013 - 12:50 pm

Something is happening on the centre ground of British politics. An exodus. The Conservative leadership is being lured to the right. Ed Miliband is pulling his party to the left. Only the Liberal Democrats are holding firm.

That creates an opportunity for our party. Over the last twenty years the centre has become a crowded place. First New Labour pitched up, determined to demonstrate a new found credibility on the economy. Then followed a detoxified Conservative Party, hugging hoodies and frolicking with huskies. Yet now – in what, in time, may prove to be a highly significant political shift – the …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 80 Comments
Nick Tyrone

Opinon: The Liberal Reconfiguration. Thoughts inspired by the One Nation Labour conference

By Nick Tyrone | Wed 24th April 2013 - 12:23 pm

Last week, my job took me to the One Nation Labour conference at Queen Mary, University of London. There I saw a series of lectures followed by Q&A’s on what the future direction of the Labour party should and should not be. It was a fascinating day – the Lib Dem baiting they have gotten used to falling back on has (mostly) stopped and there seems to be an honest appraisal under way within Labour’s ranks about how they want to move forward. Of most interest to Lib Dems, and indeed liberals of all self-applied stripes, were ideas around …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 34 Comments
Stephen Tall

A reply to Dan Hodges: why it’s not surprising some Tories aren’t bothered about winning in 2015

By Stephen Tall | Fri 29th March 2013 - 4:10 pm

dan hodgesThe Telegraph’s token Labour blogger Dan Hodges has a typically punchy post today – Do the Tories actually want to win in 2015? – highlighting the fatalism of some Tory MPs who think victory next time is possible but not worth it:

Hardly worth it? What, just managing to scrape a win at the next election, just managing to govern for another five years, just managing to drive through your agenda on health care reform, welfare reform, education reform, etc?

The Conservative Party is currently in the middle of the biggest

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 9 Comments
Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes…..The Preamble, 25 years on

By Julian Huppert | Sun 3rd March 2013 - 3:30 pm

25 years ago, our party agreed its new constitution – and the preamble to that constitution, setting out our core values and vision.

Many of us will know some of it – ‘The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, … in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance, or conformity’.

This extract – the bit that appears on membership cards – is in my view truly poetic, and captures brilliantly what we are trying to do. We are concerned about people, and empowering them to do what they can and want to do. …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 54 Comments
David Allen

Opinion: Against liberalism

By David Allen | Mon 31st December 2012 - 2:23 pm

Statue of David Lloyd George - Some rights reserved by GabludlowI am a liberal. I believe in standing up for people and communities against over-powerful vested interests – in business, the State, the media, or the unions. However, I also believe that liberalism alone is an inadequate political philosophy, and an insufficient foundation for this Party.

The problem centres on our determination to play down the significance of Left and Right. We sneer that the concepts are simplistic. We seek to defuse or ignore left-right conflict. The inconvenient truth we deny is that Left and Right do matter, often enough to split our party.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 62 Comments
George Potter

Opinion: We’ve got our strategy the wrong way round

By George Potter | Mon 31st December 2012 - 12:53 pm

Liberal Democrat badge - Some rights reserved by Paul Walter, Newbury, UKLast Friday Lib Dem HQ sent out an email to parliamentarians, PPCs, council group leaders and other office holders about our party’s new message script. The full email, if anyone is interested, can be found herehere, courtesy of the Liberator.

Aside from the immensely catchy wordy message of “the Lib Dems are working to build a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life” (complete with an incredible 16 sub messages), a key point was this:

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 41 Comments
NewsHound

Launch of Labour for Democracy

By NewsHound | Tue 4th December 2012 - 1:51 pm

Today, an influential group of Labour members are launching a new movement within their party: Labour for Democracy.

Its aim is to reach out to Lib Dems (and possibly Greens as well) in order to prepare a pluralist agenda around progressive issues. Although it does not explicitly say so, it is presumably also preparing the ground for a possible Labour-led coalition after 2015. Their position is based on polling evidence:

On all the major issues  Labour and Lib Dem voters tend to give similar levels of support to broadly  ‘progressive’ value statements, with Labour voters giving slightly stronger levels

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged and | 38 Comments
Nick T

Manchester Labour’s “crazy” decision to spend £425k on pop concert

By Nick T | Thu 4th October 2012 - 10:56 am

The decision of Manchester’s Labour-run Council to spend almost half a million pounds on a pop concert starring Alicia Keys has been branded “crazy” by Lib Dems in the city. Manchester City Council is currently in the process of making £296m of cuts to its budget over a two year period – cuts condemned as “ideological” by the Labour Council Leader Sir Richard Leese.

Here’s what the Lib Dem group leader on Manchester City Council, Simon Wheale, had to say about this use of scarce public money:

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
Ruth Edmonds

Opinion: Make a clean break – You shouldn’t flirt behind your partner’s back

By Ruth Edmonds | Mon 24th September 2012 - 10:53 am

On Saturday evening at Brighton, I attended a meeting organised by the Social Liberal Forum (SLF) with the controversial title ‘Disengaging with the Tories before 2015’. A number of equally controversial speakers were featured, including Neal Lawson (Chair of Compass), Stuart Weir (former Director of Democratic Audit) and Green MP, Caroline Lucas.

Between them, they suggested essentially that we break up the coalition as soon as possible and form a progressive leftist coalition. (Lord Renard and Tim Farron were also there and

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 20 Comments
Paul Walter

Time now to prepare for a progressive centre-left coalition in 2015

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st September 2012 - 12:17 pm

Compass chair Neal Lawson has a must-read letter to the Lib Dems in this week’s New Statesman. In it, he argues that the centre left bungled a governmental opportunity in 2010 due to unpreparedness. He encourages us to start the ground work now for a potential centre left progressive coalition in 2015, rather than leaving it to the likes of David Laws and Michael Gove to “stitch it up again”.

That’s why we have to build relationships now – through policy, ideas debates and campaigns. We

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 43 Comments
Sean Davey

Opinion: Moderates vs Radicals: the battle for the Liberal Democrat soul

By Sean Davey | Fri 24th August 2012 - 10:26 am

Why did you join the third party? The party with no hope of winning the election? The party who now linger at 10% in the polls, under constant attack on all sides?

Many commentators openly wonder why there is a Liberal Democrat party at all. In an unforgiving two-party system these doubts are not so easily dismissed: how is it that as a small, stubborn party polling just a core vote barely in double digits we are able to sustain our existence, and why do we?

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 57 Comments
NewsHound

Clegg: ‘I’d form a new coalition with Ed Miliband’

By NewsHound | Mon 23rd July 2012 - 10:23 am

There was an interesting interview with Nick Clegg in yesterday’s Sunday People:

Nick Clegg would form a coalition with Ed Miliband in the next government, he told The People.

The Lib Dem leader could even stay on as Deputy PM if a general election ­replaced one governing party with another.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 25 Comments
Stuart Bonar

Opinion: Lords reform – how Labour could learn from the Germans

By Stuart Bonar | Thu 19th July 2012 - 2:29 pm

Labour clears the way. So says the century-old Labour campaign poster depicting working men smashing down the door to the House of Lords. Oh dear. Given the opportunity earlier this month to live up to that proud boast they sided instead with rebel, anti-reform Conservatives and together succeeded in forcing the Government to abandon a vote on its proposed timetable for the bill.

Without the timetable, those who, for whatever bizarre reason, don’t believe that the governed should elect those who govern them could talk until the cows come home, ensuring the reform bill is killed off.

Labour could easily have sided with the Government. The …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 14 Comments
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 …

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

Revealed: The document that explains how Unite intends to take over the Labour party

By Mark Pack | Sun 24th June 2012 - 10:50 am

That’s the headline on a post over on Labour Uncut, and they have the full internal Unite strategy document to corroborate those claims:

The strategy is a powerful statement of intent. It’s clear that Unite intend to fundamentally change Labour…

In one passage, plans are set out to recruit 5000 new members from Unite into the Labour party. But this is no altruistic membership drive; the purpose of this influx of activists is to control local constituency parties…

The document goes on to outline how these new activists will be marshalled by Unite’s political structures to act as a bloc within CLPs. There

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 10 Comments
The Voice

Labour councillor apologises for using hose pipe during ban

By The Voice | Mon 18th June 2012 - 4:24 pm

GetReading reports:

One of Reading’s newest councillors has been spotted using a hosepipe to clean his car – despite the ban.

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 16 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.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 32 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Labour’s legacy: £1 million every month on unused fire stations

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 26th May 2012 - 12:55 pm

We are used to stories of how Labour in Government wasted stacks of cash during their 13 years in office. From aircraft carriers to PFI projects to centralised ID databases and other IT projects, billions were needlessly thrown away. Those billions burnt the gaping hole in our public finances that the Coalition is trying, in difficult circumstances, to fix.

Another example of Labour profligacy came to light this week in the Times (£). Apparently, £1 million a month of our hard earned taxes is going to pay costs on unoccupied state of the art fire service control rooms built by …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged and | 11 Comments
The Voice

Professor John Curtice: ‘Labour cannot afford simply to ignore the Liberal Democrats’

By The Voice | Mon 21st May 2012 - 1:24 pm

On Juncture, the website of the Institute of for Public Policy Research, psephologist Professor John Curtice provides some very interesting data which suggests Labour would do well to keep talking to the Liberal Democrats:

…the hung parliament brought about by the 2010 election was no accident. It was a consequence of long-term changes in pattern of party support that mean it is now persistently more difficult for either Labour or the Conservatives to win an overall majority. Meanwhile, although the current review of parliamentary boundaries will not deliver the Conservatives quite the

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Polls | Also tagged | 43 Comments
Mark Pack

Police investigate Labour in Leeds over fake poll card allegations

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd May 2012 - 10:04 pm

The Leeds Labour Party is being investigated by the police for over claims it has broken the law against issuing imitation poll cards. Parties and candidates are not allowed to issue leaflets which look like official poll cards, but this is what Labour has been distributing in the Otley and Yeadon ward:

After the legality of the leaflets was raised with them, the Labour Party has said they stopped delivering the leaflets.

Continue reading »
Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Cardiff Labour candidate faces police investigation over their home address

By Mark Pack | Sun 22nd April 2012 - 10:25 am

Following a referral by Cardiff Council’s Electoral Registration Officer, the police are investigating one of the city’s Labour council candidates over allegations that he provided a false home address for use on the ballot papers.

Luke Holland gave as his address a property that he moved out of last year. However that old address is in the ward where he is standing and his current address is outside the ward. Mr Holland does not deny the crux of the allegations, having told the media:

It is true that I currently rent a flat in a neighbouring ward – a fact that

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Election law, Local government, News and Wales | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour candidate suspended over ‘kill Justin Bieber’ jibe

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th April 2012 - 10:44 pm

Via @suttonnick:

Western Mail front page -

Posted in News and Wales | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

The Tories’ and Labour’s collective tax omnishambles

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th April 2012 - 8:55 pm

Labour is against reducing the 50p top-rate tax to 45p for those earning more than £150,000. What could be clearer? As it happens, quite a lot could be clearer.

First, the omnishambles…

Given how widely predicted George Osborne’s decision to reduce the top-rate was you would have thought Labour would have anticipated it and worked out their line. They failed to — as Mark Pack noted here, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna contradicted himself within 24 hours, while Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls declined to declare his hand.

When Labour did …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 3 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Labour put down tax amendment that would have given Tories tax cut they want – which Lib Dems stopped

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 18th April 2012 - 7:59 pm

I realise that Parliamentary shenanigans and point scoring isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s worth pointing out that Labour today squandered a relatively good position going into the first PMQs of the new Parliamentary term. Ed Miliband had an open goal ahead of him given controversy over the pensioners’ tax allowance,  “pasty tax” and charity tax relief yet he and his strategists still managed to misunderstand parliamentary procedure to a ludicrous extent. He’s just lucky that more excitable members of the Tory benches didn’t take their chance to have some fun.

Miliband looked not to Labour big hitters of the …

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged , , and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour pulp election leaflets over Welsh language comments

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th April 2012 - 8:55 am

From WalesOnline:

Labour has pulped 5,000 copies of a Cardiff council election leaflet because it contains a resident’s comment that they “can’t apply for most jobs in Wales because you need to speak Welsh”…

A Welsh Labour spokesman said: “Following external production of a leaflet for the Ely ward in Cardiff, the local party identified a small paragraph which contained words from a local resident that clearly ran contrary to Welsh Labour’s policy position and core beliefs…

“The leaflet in question – leaked to the South Wales Echo with the claim that it was being distributed – was stolen from a storage

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Wales | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Labour’s not-so-very-local election broadcast shows how unimportant local decision-making is to Ed Miliband’s party

By Stephen Tall | Wed 11th April 2012 - 7:58 pm

Tonight’s Labour local election broadcast, starring telly’s very own Lord (Robert) Winston, climaxes with the rallying cry:

On Thursday May 3rd, vote NHS, vote Labour

Exactly how voting Labour then will help the NHS isn’t explored — not surprisingly, because it won’t. There’s a reason these elections are called local elections, after all.

Before highlighting Labour’s misleading tactics I thought I should first check out the Lib Dem record on fighting local elections. I have to say I was expecting to find comparable examples, times when the party leadership had called …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 23 Comments
Nicola Prigg

Opinion: Ed Miliband is out of touch

By Nicola Prigg | Wed 4th April 2012 - 2:05 pm

On Monday, Ed Miliband, Leader of the Opposition, launched the Labour Party’s local election campaign.

Ed proclaimed that the government is “out of touch”, and challenged us on growth, fairer taxes and a stronger society.

On growth, he claimed that we need to deal with the deficit otherwise we won’t have growth in the future.

On fairer taxes, Ed said we “are raising taxes for pensioners but cutting them for millionaires”.

Actually, this month has seen the personal tax allowance for pensioners increase, and from next year they are frozen until the personal tax allowance catches up. Or does Ed believe that pensioners …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 11 Comments
Sid Cumberland

Opinion: It wasn’t in anybody’s manifesto, was it?

By Sid Cumberland | Wed 28th March 2012 - 12:25 pm

I haven’t read the Health and Social Care Bill (soon to be Act). More pages than a Harry Potter novel, and qualified by a thousand amendments, I’m not sure reading it would throw much light on my darkness. However, there are aspects of the bill I am aware of.

I know, for instance, that the NHS Bill was in no one’s manifesto, and I know there wasn’t the slightest hint of its major elements in the coalition agreement. The government has absolutely no mandate for NHS reform at all. It all seemed so clear … and then I made a foolish …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 23 Comments
NewsHound

Tax controversy and flash cars – that’s life in the modern Labour Party

By NewsHound | Thu 22nd March 2012 - 10:25 am

We’ve heard lots about Labour mayoral candidate “Red Ken” Livingstone’s tax affairs recently, as this Telegraph article reports.

Then we have Labour leader Ed Miliband turn up in a Rolls Royce to a football match. Leaving aside the clear communications ineptitude about his diary for that day, it’s not the best look for the leader of a party which claims to be all about social justice.

Especially when he has such a strong record of standing up to rich and powerful media moguls whose operations are under investigation at the moment. 

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 2 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Peter Martin
    @ Paul, I accept you are agreeing to an extent. A limited extent. "There are ample legal mechanisms for ensuring that the financial settlement with t...
  • Paul WalterPaul Walter
    Peter: “We shouldn’t tolerate the term “Crown Dependency” being a synonym for “tax haven”.” I don’t know whether you are actually reading my ...
  • David Raw
    I rather thought the 3rd Duke and Duchess of Atholl sold the Isle of Man's feudal and sovereign rights in 1765 for £70,000 via the Isle of Man Purchase Act 176...
  • Roland
    @Peter Martin - I was responding to the curved ? ball Jeff throw out about Motability: If they can't charge VAT then its okay to reclaim the VAT rather than sim...
  • Peter Martin
    @ Simon, "Low earners on the IOM pay tax at 21% compared to – I think – 20% in the UK" I don't know where you get your IOM figure from. It is easy eno...