Tag Archives: lord wallace of saltaire

Wallace: Undermining the roots of our democracy

By Lord William Wallace | Sun 8th May 2022 - 10:04 am

If you’ve read Sally Hamwee’s account last week of the way that the government pushed the Nationality and Borders Bill through both Houses of Parliament, and of the failure of the Labour Party in the Lords to stand up against some of its most illiberal elements, you won’t be surprised to hear that the same happened at the end of the parliamentary session to the Elections Bill – rightly condemned by Alastair Carmichael in an article for the Times as ‘undermining the roots of our democracy.’

The Bill arrived in the Lords with a report from the Commons Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, drafted after it had been through the Commons, which declared the Bill ‘unfit for purpose’. Ministers simply ignored the committee’s criticisms. They similarly ignored the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life on Political Finance, published last summer, and the earlier warnings of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia Report that the Electoral Commission needed stronger powers to prevent foreign funding and influence corrupting UK campaigns.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged elections bill and featured | 14 Comments

Wallace: Who’s patriotic now?

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 14th April 2022 - 9:36 am

Liberals are too nice to go for our opponents in the way they go for us. But now is the time to throw back at them the insult that they are patriotic and we are not. Who is more committed to this country: those who work in its public services, educate its young and hold together its local communities, or those who play around with the financial markets, hold their wealth as far as they can offshore, own properties in other countries and share in the privileges of international elites?

One of the most effective epithets in the Brexit camp’s dismissal of ‘Remoaners’ was the claim that those who continued to argue for a close relationship with our neighbours were ‘people from anywhere’, betraying the honest loyalties of the good ‘people from somewhere’ who preferred England and its eccentricities to foreign ties. Theresa May used the argument repeatedly. It comes straight from the right-wing populist playbook: blaming the ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’ of the intellectual classes for popular discontent, thus distracting attention from the activities – and great wealth – of financial elites, and the negative impact on ordinary citizens of private equity takeovers and the tax avoidance.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured | 8 Comments

Who will follow in Tom McNally’s ermine footsteps?

By The Voice | Sun 6th October 2013 - 10:25 am

The news Helen Duffett posted this week — Tom McNally to stand down as Leader of the Lib Dem Lords — was rather drowned out by the Tory conference and the row over the Daily Mail’s smearing of Ralph Miliband. But as the BBC’s parliamentary correspondent Mark D’Arcy (no, not the fictional Mr Bridget Jones: different guy) points out here, it’s a role that matters lot these days, especially with the House of Lords here to stay for the forseeable…