Tag Archives: nick clegg

Mike Tuffrey

Opinion: Good news on affordable housing, but spare me the house builders’ crocodile tears – their share prices have doubled

By Mike Tuffrey | Fri 7th September 2012 - 12:11 pm

Winning an extra £300m from the Treasury for affordable housing and tackling empty homes is good news by any standard (well done, Andrew Stunell, and thanks for all you did at DCLG). Moving forward on the £10 billion government guarantees for infrastructure spending is positive too. And if the Montague Review to encourage private renting is implemented, that’s proof patience can be rewarded…. I spent ten years on the London Assembly calling for both Labour and Conservative mayors to act. Back in June I had put housing at the heart of a four-point plan for a sustainable recovery. So it is great to see this issue come to the fore.

But forgive me for not believing the crocodile tears from developers about how they can’t afford to start work on ‘commercially unviable’ sites. The Times just revealed they’ve been quietly squirreling away land banks big enough for a quarter of a million homes. Not unviable, so much as slightly less massively profitable. Just look at their share prices. They’ve doubled over the last year even before the boost this announcement gave them (Taylor Wimpey up from 30p to 54p; Barratt up from 76p to 150p; Persimmon up from 425p to 700p). Yes, doubled. Not bumping along the bottom, like the rest of the economy.

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The Voice

LDV debate: The Lib Dem leadership

By The Voice | Fri 7th September 2012 - 10:54 am

On September 2nd, Liberal Democrat Voice co-editor, Stephen Tall, strongly supported Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Liberal Democrats, in his piece, Nick Clegg’s leadership: 3 thoughts from me.

Giving one other side of the debate, Monday editor of LDV, Paul Walter, here explains why he cannot support Nick Clegg as leader any more. Below Paul’s piece, fellow day editor, Nick Thornsby responds.

Against – by Paul Walter

This week I have had a peculiarly “beard and sandals” type of personal crisis.

I heard that Jeremy Hunt had been promoted to run one of the largest and most cherished government departments – Health. This …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 154 Comments
Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes… My thoughts on the Cabinet reshuffle

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 6th September 2012 - 6:38 pm

The first proper reshuffle for our party since the 1920s was always going to be a weird situation. I am extremely sad to see Sarah Teather, Nick Harvey, Paul Burstow and Andrew Stunell leave the government. Sarah’s work on the Pupil Premium will leave an outstanding legacy for the next generation, Andrew’s work on releasing empty homes to meet the needs of those in desperate circumstances will make the difference to thousands of people and Nick Harvey’s tenacity in ensuring that a like for like replacement for Trident is kicked off into the long grass has been a quite immense …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dems should have had no part in ‘Knights of the Long Knives’ reshuffle honours

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th September 2012 - 11:50 pm

Nick Harvey’s had a tough week. On Tuesday his ministerial career was brought to an abrupt and surprising halt when Nick Clegg told him he was ‘trading’ his post of armed forces minister for a Lib Dem foothold in another department.

The North Devon MP has been a victim of his own success. So shrewdly has he overseen the Trident nuclear weapons review — the crunch defence decision which divides Lib Dems and Tories — that it is highly likely to produce more effective, better value deterrent options, with a final decision not needed until 2016, after the next …

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Transfer deadline day: Laws, Brake, Foster & Swinson in, Burstow, Teather, Harvey & Stunell out, Clarke loan finishes

By James Percival | Wed 5th September 2012 - 1:32 pm

I love reshuffle days, they’re just like transfer deadline day. You sit there at your office computer pretending to work while secretly updating the Guardian live blog to see who your side has brought in and let go.

So, have we strengthened the side for the second half of the season or left gaping holes in our defence?

Well, we have managed to hold on to all our big players – Cable, Alexander, Davey and Moore – and, despite losing his place to Alexander after his suspension early in the season, we now have a fighting fit Laws back and ready …

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Mark Pack

Reshuffle thoughts: how does it score against my four criteria?

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th September 2012 - 9:31 pm

Ahead of the reshuffle, I posted four criteria against which the Liberal Democrat part of the shuffling should be judged. Now nearly all the details are in, how does it look?

 

Most importantly, have people been put in jobs they’ve got a decent chance of doing well? It’s hard enough being a minister in the smaller party in a coalition government without having lots of people thrown into policy areas they are completely new to.

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Stephen Tall

ComRes poll: Vince leadership would boost Lib Dem fortunes

By Stephen Tall | Mon 3rd September 2012 - 10:02 pm

It’s not often that polling companies ask how alternative Lib Dem leaders would impact the party’s popularity — in fact, I’m struggling to recall a single example — but ComRes has asked what difference Vince Cable leading the party would have on its fortunes. Here’s the result:

Two findings of note:

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Posted in News and Polls | Also tagged , and | 12 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg: in politics you’ve got to get your hands dirty

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 3rd September 2012 - 9:08 pm

Jo Swinson MP has today emailed party members to draw their attention to an interview Nick Clegg gave to The Times over the weekend. I’m not sure that many Liberal Democrat Voice readers will have a subscription to the heart of the Murdoch Empire, but, never fear, Liberal Democrat Voice will do its best to give you the general jist.

Asked about his decision to go into Government with the Tories, Nick was clear that he was in the business of getting things done:

I marvel at some people who think it’s better to have completely clean but entirely useless hands. What’s

…

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Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s leadership: 3 thoughts from me

By Stephen Tall | Sun 2nd September 2012 - 2:15 pm

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 …

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Mark Valladares

If you’re going to suggest that Nick Clegg isn’t the answer, you need a plan B ready…

By Mark Valladares | Sun 2nd September 2012 - 10:52 am

Lord Matthew OakeshottFollowing the interventions of Matthew Oakeshott and Trevor Smith, there will be those both inside and outside the Liberal Democrats, who will be looking forward to next month’s Federal Conference with an eye to a future. Not necessarily the future, but a future nonetheless.

But before anyone gets terribly carried away, there are two key questions that need to be asked and, ideally, answered.

What are you changing the Leader for?

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Nick T

Clegg starts Public Negotiation: Phase 2

By Nick T | Thu 30th August 2012 - 9:21 am

Public Negotiation: Phase 1 kicked off on Thursday 26 January 2012. It ended on 21 March 2012. The deputy prime minister’s first demand was to allow the lowest paid to keep more of the money they earn next year by implementing more quickly the Lib Dem policy of raising the income tax personal allowance to £10,000. However badly the budget was presented, Clegg’s stance can only be judged a success: the policy was implemented significantly more quickly, with the threshold being raised by £1100 next April.

Yesterday, Clegg signalled the start of Phase 2, and it’s tax …

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg in Scotland: another opportunity for Scots to get to know him wasted

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th August 2012 - 2:25 pm

I am proper livid today. Nick Clegg came to Scotland yesterday. Not that you’d know from the amount of media coverage the visit attracted. There’s not much in today’s papers, although STV covered his visit to a factory in Jedburgh.

What would Scots have learned about our Deputy Prime Minister over the last year? People remember that he had paint thrown at him when he came up last August but his visits since then have largely gone unnoticed. That, I believe, is because we are being far too timid in what we do with him: every time he comes …

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg calls for emergency taxes on wealthy

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th August 2012 - 8:06 am

Nick Clegg has told the Guardian that he wants to see a time limited extra tax for the wealthiest so that it can be seen that they are shouldering their share of the burden of the country’s economic challenges. He warned that, with the “economic war” we’re facing likely to be longer term than we thought, it wouldn’t be either “socially or politically sustainable  or acceptable” if the richest weren’t asked to pay more.

He said:

If we are going to ask people for more sacrifices over a longer period of time, a longer period of belt tightening as a country,

…

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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?

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Caron Lindsay

That poll on Nick’s leadership – what the papers say

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 4:25 pm

Strangely, that Liberal Democrat Voice poll which showed that members were split 47%-46% on whether Nick Clegg should still be Liberal Democrat leader at the next election has attracted a bit of coverage in the press.

The Guardian suggests that:

Clegg is vulnerable because he is seen as one of the few people at the top of the party who is ideologically sympathetic to the Conservatives.

Well, that’s maybe because Polly Toynbee and the Guardian are always trying to paint him that way. David Cameron, on the other hand, who is probably in a better position to judge, is

…

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Caron Lindsay

Paddy Ashdown: Why the World will never be the same again

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 1:01 pm

Last week, Paddy Ashdown came to the Edinburgh Book Festival. He filled the main theatre twice over with two very different talks.

The first, Why the world will never be the same again, was chaired by the Today Programme’s James Naughtie.

“I wouldn’t trust the UN to run a Liberal Democrat jumble sale”

Speaking without notes and with compelling candour, Paddy told us that we were condemned to living in one of those turbulent times when the balance of power in the world shifts. He saw two such major shifts. The first was a vertical one. Individual nation states could not alone regulate …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , , , , and | 12 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Independent’s spin on Nick Clegg and The Thick of It

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 9:25 am

LDV readers will no doubt be delighted that The Thick of It will be back on our screens this Autumn. The political satire has been greatly missed over the past two years and it will be interesting to see how they interpret the dynamics of Coalition Government.

If today’s Independent is to be believed, the script writers had a bit of help. The headline suggests a co-ordinated strategy – “How Nick Clegg’s aides tried to put him in the thick of it”. Sadly, the actual story doesn’t really stack up. “Nick Clegg may wish to interrogate his private office,” says …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members split 47%-46% on whether Nick Clegg should fight 2015 election as party leader

By Stephen Tall | Wed 22nd August 2012 - 7:15 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

47% say Nick should stay to fight 2015 election; 46% say he shouldn’t

LDV asked: Thinking about Nick Clegg’s position as Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lib Dems, which of these scenarios do you want to see happen?

  • 47% – I want Nick Clegg to continue both as Deputy

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged and | 62 Comments
Stephen Tall

What do we Lib Dems want from a reshuffle?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 20th August 2012 - 9:45 am

While the massed ranks of the mostly right-wing political commentariat obsess about the imminent Cabinet reshuffle, Lib Dem interest has been relatively muted.

In one sense this isn’t surprising.

As it stands, 18 of the party’s 57 MPs are on the government payroll, so Nick Clegg has little room for manouevre even among the middle ranks of government. And with only five cabinet positions (four if you exclude Nick himself as Deputy Prime Minister) there’s even less wiggle-room at the top table. Nonetheless, this reshuffle will most likely be …

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Stephen Tall

What Lib Dem members say about the party’s direction and Nick Clegg’s leadership

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th August 2012 - 9:05 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Net satisfaction with party’s direction dips to +23%

LDV asked: Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track? (Comparison with June’s figures.)

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 21 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg should say no to any link between state funding and boundary changes

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th August 2012 - 7:12 pm

It’s August, so I’m not going to take too seriously kite-flying suggestions by Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph that Nick Clegg might consider rescinding his threat that the Lib Dems will vote against boundary changes (following the Tories’ decision to break the Coalition Agreement over Lords reform) in return for a deal on party funding which would include state aid for political parties:

Here’s how it was presented to me: over the next year or so Mr Clegg will find a way to back the boundary review when it comes up for a vote in the Commons. In exchange, Mr

…

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Stephen Tall

In other news… on Jess Ennis, Judy Steel & other stories

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th August 2012 - 4:45 pm

Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past few days…

Campaign to rename Tudor Square in honour of Jess (Postcode Gazette)

Sheffield politicians want to rename Tudor Square in honour of Jessica Ennis. The Liberal Democrats have backed a campaign which went viral on twitter on Saturday night, following Jessica’s victory in the women’s heptathlon. The suggestion follows calls by Nick Clegg, MP for Sheffield Hallam, that Ennis be granted Freedom of the City. Coun Shaffaq Mohammed, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Sheffield Council, said: “Every Sheffielder will have been bursting

…

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Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg invites ‘Golden Dozen community Team GB’ to Olympics closing ceremony

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th August 2012 - 11:15 am

We don’t normally publish press releases in full on LibDemVoice — but I’m very happy to make an exception for this announcement from Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg:

    The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has invited 12 guests to attend the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics on Sunday evening. All the guests are people he has met over the last year and who have made a major contribution to society, their local communities and the country.

    The guests will all attend a reception for Olympic VIPs hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister before taking their highly sought-after seats for the ceremony, marking the official end of the Games. Guests include:

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Adam Corlett

Opinion: Is this the start of Plan A+?

By Adam Corlett | Sun 12th August 2012 - 9:25 am

It looks like the coming months will see new initiatives to boost the economy, following the second quarter contraction (now revised up slightly to -0.5%) and a record trade deficit.

As The Spectator reports,

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The Voice

LDV Caption Competition: Nick Clegg & Tinchy Stryder “Cool Guy” Edition

By The Voice | Sat 11th August 2012 - 4:45 pm

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…

Here’s Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg meeting rapper Tinchy Stryder and music producer and rapper Dirty Dangerous, who tweeted this picture on Thursday:

What do you think might be being said or thought here?

And the winner of our last caption comp is…

Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Lynne Featherstone “Reach for the Stars” Edition.

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Posted in Caption Comp | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Clegg set to open the way for churches to hold gay marriages

By Mark Pack | Sat 11th August 2012 - 1:55 pm

Via The Independent:

Nick Clegg will allow Parliament to go further in its plans to legalise gay marriage and enable churches and other religious institutions to conduct the ceremonies, The Independent has learned…

In a letter to the Quakers, Unitarian and Free Christian churches and Liberal Judaism, who all want to conduct same-sex marriages, Mr Clegg indicated that religious groups could be given the option.

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Mark Pack

Danny Alexander set to up the ante on anti-Tory rhetoric and housing

By Mark Pack | Sat 11th August 2012 - 12:52 pm

One of the best speeches given by a Liberal Democrat Cabinet Member in the last year was Danny Alexander’s to the GMB conference. It was not only a good speech, it went down well with a tough audience that disagrees strongly with many things the government is doing.

As I wrote at the time:

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Mark Valladares

Lords Reform – reflection​s from Alaska in the rain

By Mark Valladares | Fri 10th August 2012 - 12:35 pm

And so, what some, myself amongst them, feared as inevitable has come to pass, as serious Lords reform goes the same way as electoral reform, probably dead for a generation. Here, aboard the MV Columbia, shrouded in fog at the ferry terminal in Haines, it is hard, almost impossible, to tell what is ahead, a bit like the next few months of coalition. Better to look back, perhaps.

I’ve been something of a pessimist on the likely success of Lords reform from the early stages of the process. That could be because, whilst in retrospect the signs were always there, nobody much wanted to see them.

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Stephen Tall

62% of Lib Dem members agree with Clegg decision to vote down boundary changes over Tories’ Lords reform retreat

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th August 2012 - 8:15 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. 446 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

What party members say about Tory breach of Coalition Agreement

LDV asked: Within the package of constitutional reforms proposed in the Coalition Agreement was a pledge to reduce the number of parliamentary constituencies and re-draw them to ensure each individual’s vote counts roughly equally no matter where they live. It is believed by electoral experts this will benefit the Conservatives and have an adverse …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged and | 24 Comments
Mark Pack

Lords reform: what the failure means for the Coalition, David Cameron and Nick Clegg

By Mark Pack | Tue 7th August 2012 - 8:06 am

First up, here’s Nick Robinson’s take on yesterday’s events followed by myself, via the BBC News Channel:

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