Tag Archives: lord smith of clifton

Nick Clegg’s leadership: 3 thoughts from me

Today’s papers are full of speculation about Nick Clegg’s leadership prompted by a handful of party members — inevitably labelled ‘senior’ — calling on Nick to go, such as Lib Dem peer Lord Smith of Clifton, with Torbay MP Adrian Sanders urging Nick to get better advice to avoid “bumbling along”. Here are the three thoughts on the issue which strike me (before I head off to the Olympic stadium for tonight’s Paralympic athletics action)…

1) I’m more surprised by how few people are calling for Nick Clegg to go

It’s not especially surprising there’s some discontent among members. The party is …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 71 Comments

LibLink: Lord Trevor Smith – looking to the future of the Liberal Democrats

Over on the Social Liberal Forum’s website, Lord Smith of Clifton has given a backbench peer’s perspective on political events and where the Party should be going, opening with a warning;

The Lib Dems are in a very serious state, possibly facing meltdown of the kind experienced by the Canadian Conservatives some time ago (though they managed a spectacular comeback), or the Canadian Liberals in last year’s elections. The burning question is how, at the very minimum, to limit the electoral damage and hopefully to revive the party’s fortunes.

For more of his thoughts, the full article can be found here.

Posted in LibLink and Parliament | 17 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Judy Abel
    @Nigel Indeed - lots of people know the current economic model is not working for too many ordinary businesses, including farmers. The Lib Dems could/should do ...
  • Jeff
    Pawel Urbanski 14th Aug '26 - 4:28pm: WHat bothers me is that the shortfall has to come from somewhere, and it lands on income and on high street bus...
  • Jeff
    Peter Davies 7th Aug '26 - 7:48pm: The broken part is not the provision of water (a commodity and natural monopoly supplied to households) but the di...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    @Jeff thank you, the detail on the 2013 rule is useful and I had not seen it. My concern is that there is a set of mechanisms available to people with substant...
  • Jeff
    Brexit was also an open goal for the water industry who no longer faced stiff fines from the European Court of Justice for pollution incidents. The...