Tag Archives: lynne featherstone

Mark Pack

Featherstone appointed International Violence Against Women Champion

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th November 2010 - 12:18 pm

A party news release brought the news yesterday:

Liberal Democrat Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone, was today appointed International Violence Against Women Champion. This role will see her lead British efforts to tackle violence against women overseas.

Commenting on her appointment, Lynne Featherstone said:

“Today marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and I am delighted to have been asked by the government to fulfil the role of championing this cause around the world.

“Today, women around the world are still subject to rape, domestic violence and abuse, the scale and true nature of which can often remain hidden.  Britain …

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Posted in News | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Huge public support for removing sex discrimination in royal inheritance

By Mark Pack | Wed 24th November 2010 - 1:58 pm

With the Royal Family very much in the news at the moment, a recent YouGov poll asked if people thought the rules favouring men over women when it comes to succeeding to the throne should be changed:

Currently male children of the monarch takeprecedence over female children in terms of thesuccession. Do you think men and women shouldbe treated equally in the line of succession to the throne?

Should 70%
Should not 17%

Both Lynne Featherstone and Evan Harris took up this issue in the last Parliament, with Lynne getting widespread media coverage for her mini-campaign and commenting:

For me the basic

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Criminal records regime to be reviewed

By Mark Pack | Fri 22nd October 2010 - 1:25 pm

The headlines have been caught by the Home Office’s formal annoucement today of a review into the vetting and barring system:

The review will examine whether the scheme is the best way to protect children and vulnerable people and, if so, how many roles it should cover.

Home Secretary Theresa May suspended the “draconian” scheme in June.

Launched in 2009, critics said it cast too wide a net and risked poisoning the relationship between generations.

Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone said: “While it is vital that we protect the vulnerable, this scheme as it stands is not a proportionate response.

“There should be a presumption

…

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Caron Lindsay

Sport, body confidence and gender stereotyping – Interview with Jo Swinson MP, part 2

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th October 2010 - 9:14 pm

As mum of an 11 year old daughter, I’m really worried about the pressures on her to look a certain way, so Jo’s and Lynne Featherstone’s Campaign for Body Confidence is very close to my heart.  I asked Jo – what’s happening with it?

Jo: It’s really exciting about this. Lynne and I had always planned to continue it after the election but we hadn’t reckoned on her being Minister for Equalities which is a great boost. We’ve had a steering group meeting and we’ve got Mumsnet, BEAT, the eating disorders charity, Girl Guiding UK, the YMCA who do all sorts …

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Meral Ece

Opinion: The last chance saloon on diversity?

By Meral Ece | Fri 24th September 2010 - 3:24 pm

I went to conference expecting something entirely different, perhaps influenced by the daily articles and news reports, that this conference was going to be like no other. That there was much unrest, and even anger amongst the Party’s ranks. Instead I found myself amongst many Lib Dem party members and friends who were upbeat and positive.

I didn’t speak to anyone – nor as far as I can gather did the media – who was vehemently opposed to the Coalition Government. Yes, this conference was like no other. It was the largest conference we’ve ever had, and our Leader is …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 21 Comments
Stephen Tall

87% back Lib Dem Lynne’s rogue wheel clamping clamp-down

By Stephen Tall | Sun 22nd August 2010 - 12:45 pm

Lib Dem Voice reported earlier this week the news that Lynne Featherstone had secured government support for a new policy to ban wheel clamping and towing away of vehicles on private property, bringing England and Wales in line with Scotland.

YouGov asked the following question directly of members of the public:

The government have announced they intend to ban wheel clamping on private land. Under their plans only
the police and local councils would have the right to use wheel clamps or tow cars away. Would you support or oppose a ban on private wheel clamping firms?

The result? 87% supported the …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Worth a second outing: Lessons from Gordon Brown’s use of YouTube

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 2:20 pm

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message.

Gordon Brown’s foray during his premiership into YouTube in order to promote his plans for reforming MPs’ expenses was widely panned. So what lessons should be drawn by anyone thinking of using YouTube to strengthen …

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Iain Roberts

Goodbye to rogue wheel clampers – another Lib Dem policy to become law

By Iain Roberts | Tue 17th August 2010 - 1:20 pm

Lynne Featherstone has announced that the Lib Dem policy to ban wheel clamping and towing away of vehicles on private property is to become law. The measure will bring England and Wales in line with Scotland.

As Lynne writes on her blog

There cannot be an MP in the land who has not had constituents come to them who have been clamped ‘unfairly’. The complaints that have come in to the Home Office are tales of exorbitant fees, abusive behaviour, signage being invisible and so on.

In a recent adjournment debate I recall that examples were given of a disabled motorist

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 35 Comments
Caroline Pidgeon

Peddling myths over London’s bike hire scheme

By Caroline Pidgeon | Sat 14th August 2010 - 11:50 am

In London one of the most exciting developments this year has been the long awaited launch of the bike hire scheme.

Despite its launch being associated with quite a number of problems – including a highly complex registration process, and a number of cyclists being overcharged – no one can deny that the scheme is proving incredibly popular.  And let’s be realistic, no major scheme ever starts without at least some minor teething problems. Of course I will be chasing hard until these glitches are resolved, and they certainly …

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Posted in Local government and London | Also tagged , and | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

Who is popular with party members?

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th August 2010 - 9:20 am

The choice of which Liberal Democrat Parliamentarians to feature in the party’s fundraising letters is usually a hard-headed choice of who is most popular and will bring in the most money, sprinkled with a dusting of covering internal political sensitivities. So it’s interesting to see who was selected to feature in the lastest fundraising letter from Party President, Ros Scott: Vince Cable, Simon Hughes, Lynne Featherstone and Nick Clegg.

All of them came out well in the most recent Lib Dem Voice survey of party members which suggests the evidence the party sees paints a similar to picture to that …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Swinson: We need to make girls feel confident about their own body

By Stephen Tall | Wed 4th August 2010 - 3:35 pm

Almost exactly a year ago, Lib Dem MPs Jo Swinson and Lynne Featherstone were among those in the party’s Real Women group leading the campaign to “Ban airbrushing in children’s adverts”, a view later endorsed by an independent Home Office report.

They’ve been joined in their campaign now by Girlguiding UK, which is today launching a petition to introduce compulsory labelling on airbrushed images.

Jo comments:
 

I am delighted that Girlguiding UK is taking up this issue. I co-founded the Campaign for Body Confidence out of concern that people of all ages are feeling so much pressure

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

Want to win an election? Not sure how to use the internet?

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th July 2010 - 11:40 am

In the early twentieth century, large public meetings and lengthy public speeches were expected of – and needed by – Parliamentary candidates fighting vigorous campaigns. A century on, candidates fighting vigorous campaigns frequently get by without organising any public meetings or giving any public speeches longer than a few minutes of opening remarks at a local organisation’s hustings.

Yet although these forms of personal, direct contact between candidate and voter have declined sharply over the last century, the opportunities for such contact via the internet have increased sharply in the last few years.

We are already at the stage where voters find …

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Mark Pack

Government 100% committed to completing the journey to LGB and T equality

By Mark Pack | Fri 2nd July 2010 - 11:04 pm

A news release from the Home Office brings the news:

Home Office Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone today set out the Government’s ambitious plans to tackle homophobia and transphobia and promote equal rights for all.

Speaking to the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) LGB and T conference ahead of Pride London 2010, the Lynne Featherstone stressed that the battle for equality is far from over and promised that the Government would do everything in its power to protect LGB and T people from discrimination.

The Minister highlighted the Government’s plan of action for the LGB and T community – the first of its kind to …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Charlotte Henry

Opinion: General Election 1.5 – 2010, the almost Internet Election

By Charlotte Henry | Thu 1st July 2010 - 11:20 am

As a Lib Dem working in online and multimedia communications, the concept of an ‘Internet election’ is something I have thought quite a lot about. In the build up to the election I expressed my concerns about the Lib Dems use of online tools on my own blog.

I am pleased to say that on a national level my fears were misplaced. Our online campaign was excellent, and by far the best of the three major parties.  In particular the Labservative spoof campaign was innovative, eye catching, and added a new entry to the politco dictionary. It was exactly the …

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Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | 6 Comments
The Voice

Nick Clegg’s message to Lib Dem members: Reforming politics & restoring civil liberties

By The Voice | Wed 9th June 2010 - 8:44 am

On Tuesday, Nick Clegg sent the following message by email to party members:

Yesterday I was proud to be at the Government Dispatch Box in the House of Commons moving a motion in support of a Queen’s Speech that committed to delivering long cherished Liberal Democrat policies.

Over the coming months we will bring forward legislation for much needed political reform and the restoration of our civil liberties. We will bring in a proportionally elected second chamber, strengthen the role of parliament, increase devolution to Scotland and Wales, regulate party funding and lobbysists, introduce the power of recall for corrupt MPs and give people a chance to vote to end First Past the Post elections for the House of Commons. All huge leaps forward in reforming our politics.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: social action

By Mark Pack | Fri 4th June 2010 - 3:45 pm

Welcome to the eighteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

At the time David Cameron started talking about the Big Society, the concept struck me as a mix of traditional community politics and vagueness. Looking at the specifics in this section, there is still a fair amount of vagueness, but the specifics are ones that often touch on themes which our party (or more precisely the Liberal Party) has talked about in the past and rather neglected in more recent years. In other words, it’s …

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Iain Roberts

Media attacks are in full flow – what do we do now?

By Iain Roberts | Mon 31st May 2010 - 4:20 pm

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Lib Dems should get used to constant attacks and scrutiny. Everyone used to it now?

Enoch Powell may not have said a great deal I agree with, but he certainly had a point with his oft-repeated quote that:

For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea

This is what the press do. We can point out the errors when they’re particularly egregious or complain to the rather-toothless PCC.

Parliament might even want to take one of its occasional looks at changing the law.  …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 41 Comments
Mark Pack

Is the Mail on Sunday in a different time zone? Or how it got a string of facts wrong

By Mark Pack | Sun 30th May 2010 - 2:18 pm

The Mail on Sunday appears to have made a basic and repeated series of factual errors in a piece today about Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone.

In the piece the paper repeatedly claims that Lynne has sent tweets in the middle of the night: “1am tweets”, “one post, made at 1:38am…”, “at 12:29am…” and so on. There’s even a screenshot apparently verifying this pattern of middle of the night tweets.

Except, if you take a look at the Twitter website and look up the tweets in question you see they are all time-stamped with different times. Take the two in …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: equalities and Europe

By Mark Pack | Fri 28th May 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to the ninth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The equalities section continues a theme common throughout the coalition document: if this section was presented to Liberal Democrat conference as the party’s policy in this area, people would be generally pretty happy with it. It doesn’t include everything the party wants, but that is balanced out by it being a list of policies which the government is actually going to put into practice rather than being just a policy motion wish list. Added …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 27 May 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 27th May 2010 - 7:33 am

Detail of the art deco crown of the Chrysler Building, New YorkGood morning, and welcome to Daily View on the day which sees New York’s Chrysler Building celebrate its 80th birthday. Completed in 1930, it was the tallest building in the world for all of 11 months, before being replaced by the Empire State Building. After 9/11, it is once again the second tallest building in New York.

Also celebrating birthdays today are the chef Jamie Oliver (who is currently applying for planning permission to build a restaurant in Nottingham I will probably never be able to afford to eat in); West Wing actor Richard Schiff and the Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron. Some have speculated he might be in the running to replace Vince Cable as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats; he tweeted last night that as Vince Cable’s PPS, he got to hear the “Stalin to Mr Bean” gag in rehearsal. Tim is 40 today.

2 Big Stories

Coalition government sets out radical welfare reforms

So says the Guardian headline, anyway, but the article is light on detail if heavy on mood music. A lot of people will be watching anxiously for the detail.

Duncan Smith says he is to propose to the Treasury a radical scheme that includes simplification of the complex benefits system designed to make it financially worthwhile for unemployed people to work, including in part-time jobs.

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 14 May 2010. “Do or do not. There is no try.”

By Helen Duffett | Fri 14th May 2010 - 11:51 am

Welcome to the Daily View for May 14. Happy 66th birthday to George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars movies.

“Do or Do not. There is no try” video also available on YouTube.

Perhaps Lynne Featherstone had this in mind this morning when she wrote Doing – not saying! Congratulations, Lynne, on your appointment as Under Secretary of State for Equalities.

Do or do not? – 2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

  • We have to make this work

    • From Cllr Steve Guy’s blog, “The Sandals are Off”:

    To be a Lib Dem who doesn’t agree with the new politics is to fundamentally have misunderstood what being a Lib Dem means. Central to our manifesto in every year of our existence has been our commitment for fair votes (proportional representation). If you believe in PR, then by definition, you believe that the old two party seesaw was bad.

  • Why I am leaving the Liberal Democrats…

    • by Jane Watkinson:

    I do leave the Liberal Democrats still fully supporting what they stand for. Unfortunately, I think we have compromised too many of our central beliefs in a bid for power. I know many of you agree with the coalition, and it has become apparent that it is best I leave instead of trying to argue my case within.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

Doing and trying – 2 Big Stories

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , , and | 1 Comment
NewsHound

LibLink: Lynne Featherstone calls for peace in Jewish Chronicle

By NewsHound | Sun 25th April 2010 - 10:35 am

Lynne Featherstone has a balanced piece in the Jewish Chron this week:

In Hornsey & Wood Green in North London, there is a strong pro-Israel lobby and a strong pro-Palestinian lobby. When Jenny Tonge made her disgraceful and ignorant comments in the JC, calling for an inquiry into Israel taking organs in Haiti, I got emails from the pro-Israel lobby saying that the Liberal Democrats were pro-Palestinian.

When Nick Clegg then rightly sacked Baroness Tonge from the front bench, I received emails claiming that he had only done so because the “Zionist conspiracy” had got to him. Both were symptomatic of the

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

A tale of two MPs

By Mark Pack | Wed 21st April 2010 - 3:20 pm

This story comes to us from the London Borough of Haringey.

David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, told a hustings meeting that he has done 10,000 pieces of casework in ten years.

Lynne Featherstone, Lib Dem MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, meanwhile has helped over 28,000 people in less than ten years.

(As many people have made more than one piece of casework done for them, that means the rate of work is more than three times David Lammy’s – and in less time and including a period before Lynne became an MP, i.e. before she got an office and Parliamentary …

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Posted in General Election | Also tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Why should the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGB&T) community vote Liberal Democrat?

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

That’s the question asked by the Lesbian & Gay Foundation and answered by the party’s Equalities spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone:

How do you feel about Labour taking credit for a lot of Liberal Democrat Policy around LGB&T issues?

Imitation is the highest form of flattery! But Labour still hasn’t gone far enough. It is an absolute scandal that Labour chose not to explicitly outlaw gay bullying in schools. As a result thousands of younger gay people do not have full protection from bullying they need.

Labour enjoy a pretty good record on LGB&T rights. How would the Liberal Democrats go further

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Digital Economy Bill: the key decision to be made after the election #debill

By Mark Pack | Sat 10th April 2010 - 11:20 am

Although Labour, with Conservative support, managed to ram through the Digital Economy Bill, that’s not quite the end of the matter as far as votes in Parliament are concerned.

That’s because one concession the Liberal Democrats did manage to extract was the provision that no ‘technical measures’ (i.e. cutting off people’s internet connections) can be introduced for at least a year, and only then can be done so after a period of analysis and consultation. Parliament will get a chance to vote on these  measure – even if the Government is a Tory or Labour one that doesn’t want to change …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Missteps on the online campaign trail

By Mark Pack | Sat 10th April 2010 - 9:50 am

Although I’m an enthusiast for the possibilities for sensible use of the online world in political campaigning, it doesn’t always go right for people:

…

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Posted in General Election, News and Online politics | Also tagged , , and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

How YouTube is being used on the ground in the general election

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 5:20 pm

Richard Osley as an entertaining piece on his blog titled, “The You Tube War: Hornsey and Wood Green”.

I’m not quite sure what Lynne Featherstone will make of the description of her as an “old aunt” 🙂 Not very gallant of you Richard, but the full description is friendly:

One of the reasons, Featherstone has been a hit locally, it seems, is her obvious knowledge of the area and her apparent interest in even the smallest of issues. She is the interfering old aunt that the fragile Labour council in Haringey must be sick to the back teeth of. Featherstone has after

…

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Posted in Online politics | Also tagged , , , , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 29 March 2010 (with added poster spoofs)

By Stephen Tall | Mon 29th March 2010 - 1:45 pm

Happy Monday morning afternoon, everyone, on the day in history when the Royal Albert Hall was opened by the Royal Victoria (1871), Dr John Pemberton brewed the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia (1886), and voters in Washington DC became eligible to vote in presidential elections (1961).

And now let’s move forward half a century, to the present day …

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Labour launch 5 pledges; Lib Dems attack 13 wasted years

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Mark Pack

‘It’s not what you say about the issues, it’s what the issues say about you’

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th March 2010 - 11:50 am

I’ve recently stumbled across a piece by Lynne Featherstone MP which I’d forgotten about. Written in 2006, the points it makes about political campaigning still read well:

Vietnam war vet and Republican John McCain and London mayor and former restaurant review Ken Livingstone are probably not often bracketed together politically! But I have been thinking recently about them both and their own rather different political personas.

Both have had periods of great popularity – though McCain still seems to be basking in it whilst Ken’s has well and truly worn off – and it has not been for their stances on particular

…

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Helen Duffett

The Leaders’ Wives obsession: why it’s missing the point

By Helen Duffett | Sun 21st March 2010 - 9:23 pm

Tonight it’s Nick Clegg’s turn for a Sunday evening party leader’s interview – with Mary Nightingale on ITV1 at 10:15pm.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (Nick’s wife) also appears in the programme. At first I was dismayed that Miriam might be wheeled out as yet another politician’s wife, dreading revelations about socks or other foundation garments…

Until I watched her in this extract :

I don’t like that name: “political wife”. I’m the wife of a politician… I don’t have a role. I’m just married to him…

…It’s a personal choice and I think it’s perfectly possible to have a normal life

…

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Posted in Lib Dem TV and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 14 Comments
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