Tag Archives: liberal democrat manifesto 2014

Ed Long

Opinion: A ringfence is not enough for the science budget

By Ed Long | Wed 27th August 2014 - 11:28 am

The party has recently been trailing hints of the content and priorities of the new manifesto. One released last week was an announcement touting a ringfence of the science budget. They write:

The manifesto plans include ringfencing the science research budget and introducing a green innovation arm to the British Business Bank.

It’s great that the manifesto team have chosen to flag investment in science and innovation as a reason to vote Liberal Democrat in the 2015 general election, but what a meagre and unambitious announcement this was. One worrying sign is the wording mentioning only the ‘research budget’, which raises the concern that this ringfence might be a fig leaf hiding underspending in capital investment for science, as we saw in the early years of the current coalition government – though the 2014 budget went some way towards plugging the gap in capital spending in the sector.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Times reports Lib Dem “infighting” but misses out David Laws’ dismissal of their “highly misleading” story

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th February 2014 - 9:52 am

Yesterday, the Times reported that the Liberal Democrat leadership were preparing to ditch policies from our manifesto which wouldn’t get agreement from either the Conservative or Labour parties. I wrote of the dangers of such a move, arguing that our manifesto needed to be brimming with liberalism.

David Laws, who chairs the manifesto group, wrote on the party website that the Times story was highly misleading.

The latest example of this is the highly misleading article on the front page of today’s Times (18 February) under the headlines ‘Lib Dems Axe pledges for coalition deal’ and ‘Lib Dems seeking policies to

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 24 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Ben Wood
    It is such sad news. I was lucky to get to know Micheal over the last few years (working on a book project for the John Stuart Mill Institute). He reaffirmed fo...
  • Ed Sanderson
    Very sad news. I remember many a lively evening of erudite discussion in Leeds - Michael was a true intellect - and a genuinely warm soul. My condolences to his...
  • Jack
    This is bang on. What is the point of a liberal party that won't stand up for rights, especially when both government and opposition want to make hay out of div...
  • Matt (Bristol)
    I totally understand this is a key issue for many Lib Dems (and I'm not speaking for Lib Dems myself, I'm an ex-member). But I don't understand how this 'vangua...
  • John Grout
    Fully agree with all of this. I've seen a few MPs' Pride Month posts reference Section 28 abolition and Same-Sex Marriage - we need to start talking about this...