Well, now he knows he’s really arrived… the Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister is to be the subject of a biography published by Biteback next summer, 2011:
The book, which so far has only a working title ‘Nick Clegg: The Biography’, is being written by the writer and broadcaster Chris Bowers, and will be published by Biteback in time for next year’s party conference season.
“We’ve been looking to appoint a biographer of this year’s breakthrough figure in British politics,” says Biteback’s managing director Iain Dale, “and in Chris Bowers we believe we’ve found an experienced biography writer in
Part of the Coalition deal was that the Lib Dems secured five cabinet posts, a number in proportion to the party’s number of MPs. But there was another appointment which can be counted a success of the Coalition from the Lib Dem perspective: the appointment of Ken Clarke as secretary of state for justice.
It’s a success on two levels.
First, Ken Clarke is a liberal Tory — so for the first time in 17 years (since Ken Clarke was home secretary in John Major’s government) the UK has a believer in restorative justice setting government policy. After the right-wing …
Also crucial, it seems, was Nick Clegg’s role, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Iain Martin:
I revealed in the summer that IDS and George Osborne had a stand-up row over the welfare budget, with a deal eventually being brokered in which IDS delivers cuts but gets to keep several billions for his reforms. The shape of those reforms will be announced at Tory conference next week.
On Friday I mentioned how the old Liberal Democrat policy of integrating and simplifying the tax and benefits systems is getting a revival courtesy of Iain Duncan Smith. The former Conservative leader turned Work and Pensions Secretary has been arguing hard for the funds to introduce a simplified universal benefit that also is more generous than current rules to people in low-paid jobs. This would mean that people who currently find that taking a job makes them worse off, or only marginally better off, than being unemployed thanks to loss of benefits would lose less of their benefits and so …
Unusual political times indeed courtesy of the front page of today’s Times. For a long time a central part of Liberal Democrat welfare policy was to integrate and simplify the tax and benefits system. The policy faded away from the party’s priorities, partly because the details were never that straightforward; for example, how do you integrate a system based on weekly payments and assessments (benefits) with another one based on monthly and annual payments and assessments (tax, particularly income tax and PAYE)?
A large chunk of that policy is now very much back on the political agenda, as ConservativeHome reports:
By Helen Duffett
| Tue 28th September 2010 - 11:37 am
Politicos use Twitter to communicate with voters, activists and the media. It’s sociable and fashionable. It’s useful but it has its limits.
And if this was Twitter I’d stop there, for the paragraph above is a 140-character summary of the popular micro-blogging service and its emerging role in politics. Having the luxury of a whole chapter, rather than a couple of lines, I can expound a bit. But sometimes I relish Twitter’s brevity and the way it gives me both the discipline and the excuse not to write at length.
Twitter was to the 2010 General Election what blogging had been to the previous one: novel, topical, conversational, personal. Blogging, in long and short form, is good for quickly spreading campaign messages, news and rumours and it’s freely accessible for anyone with an internet connection.
When I first subscribed to the service a couple of years ago, few news outlets or political candidates were tweeting, although the three main parties were already using it to link to party information and election results.
Over the past year, Twitter has been increasingly taken up by MPs and councillors, bloggers and journalists, even government departments, but crucially by thousands of people who are none of the above, but want to converse with them on an equal footing.
The parties continue to tweet, but now candidates, MPs and party leaders themselves are using the medium, with varying degrees of skill.
Love your coalition partner all the time in public: that was the clear line taken by Nick Clegg, reinforced by other senior party figures and not challenged directly in any high profile way during conference (save for one question during the Nick Clegg Q&A). And yet… whether or not the party should let its strong debates with the Conservatives within the coalition show a little more in public was …
What a strange few months it’s been for the Liberal Democrats. In Bournemouth a year ago, few LibDems would have truly believed that this was to be their last annual conference in opposition.
My sense of the mood in Liverpool this year was that it matched the political and economic times we live in. Serious, but somewhat apprehensive. There seemed a lot of quiet satisfaction – although never smugness – that there were Liberal Democrats in government, but a nervousness about what the “end game” might be.
A few things truly surprised me. Support for the principle of entering Coalition with the Conservatives was close to unanimous. A straw poll at the IEA’s fringe meeting showed about 95% felt that Nick Clegg had made the right decision in those tense few days after the General Election. The national media were, of course, on the look out for any sign of coalition-fatigue, but seemed initially disappointed – and then rather impressed – about the absence of much strategic dissent.
But looking through the tea leaves of Liverpool, there are some longer term issues which the party will have to address.
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 …
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 8:45 pm
Anyone starting to get conference withdrawal symptoms? For those of you who were there, here’s a few videos from the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool to help you catch up with what you missed by, erm, being there. And for those of you who weren’t there and saw it all on telly anyway… well, here’s another chance to enjoy some of the highlights.
(Please note, as these are BBC videos it’s not possible to link to them: they will therefore only be visible to readers viewing Lib Dem Voice directly through your web browser.)
Nick Clegg addresses UN on poverty: here’s why Nick left the party conference early
By Helen Duffett
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 7:33 pm
Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is representing the UK at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals summit in New York.
The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan writes fulsomely about Clegg’s diplomatic experience and linguistic skills here.
Meanwhile, here’s his speech:
Introduction
It is an honour for me to address the General Assembly today for the first time as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
And it is a privilege …
By Helen Duffett
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 6:08 pm
The Liberal Democrats have today launched an organisation to communicate with the party’s overseas supporters.
Liberal Democrats Abroad aims to keep members and supporters in touch with the UK party, to encourage supporters to join, and to register to vote in the UK.
Nick Clegg was not around for the whole of the Lib Dem conference this year. After giving his keynote address he got on a plane and flew to New York, as the UK’s most senior representative to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Review Summit.
The MDGs were agreed in 2000, and signed by world leaders from 189 nations, pledging to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
However, a decade later the MDGs are badly off-track. The MDGs Review Summit is a chance to accelerate progress and keep the promise to the world’s poor.
Nick Clegg made his first UK public speech on international development on 15th September, explaining how the UK Government will meet its commitments to the Millennium Development Goals. He was presented with a giant suitcase, representing the hopes of the 1.3 million people across the UK who have taken part in campaigns for the MDGs over the last year.
The weekend before the MDGs Review Summit began, 1,324 campaign actions took place in 74 countries, calling for a breakthrough plan to meet the MDGs. In the UK, campaigners from the Bond network of NGOs gathered with drums, bells, whistles, pots and pans outside the House of Commons. The message, clearly expressed on banners and in chants was clear: Keep your promises: Deliver the MDGs.
The Millennium Development Goals are clear, measurable, and achievable. They are the best articulation of what progress on tackling global poverty might look like. Delivering them will involve supporting civil society in poor countries, maintaining aid levels, stopping climate change and reforming the international financial institutions that too often harm poor countries instead of helping them.
Nick Clegg has reaffirmed his commitment to the MDGs to NGOs, to party activists, and to countries of the world at the UN.
As the below video shows – people in the UK have consistently shown their support for government action on development. With five years to go until the 2015 deadline, the Liberal Democrats are well placed to make sure the UK’s part of the deal is kept.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 22nd September 2010 - 2:30 pm
It was the speech which revived the Lib Dem conference, oddly listless after Nick Clegg’s speech on Monday: Vince Cable’s rallying final day speech gave members and activists a real lift, and provided plenty of red meat for the media to chew on. Here’s my first impression…
Perhaps what was most impressive about Vince’s conference speech was how unchanged it was from his usual fare: uncompromising, wise-cracking, punchy, intelligent.
The right-wing media has focused on Vince’s attacks on capitalism, with the Daily Mail in typically shrill mood, and ConservativeHome giving it the silly billing of ‘Red Vince Day’.
That’s the thing about some right-wingers: too often they are unable to see past their own dogma which assumes Big Business must always be right. It’s the same blind spot left-wingers have about the unions.
Liberals — and I’m not using that as a party label because it also encompasses Adam Smith — understand that unfettered capitalism is not the same thing as the free market, and capitalism does not automatically promote market competition. That is why liberals, and Liberal Democrats, believe in a regulated free market, to curb the excesses of capitalism and to promote the interests of healthy market competition from which individuals and society can benefit.
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 21st September 2010 - 7:35 pm
That’s the Channel 4 News headline tonight, and it seems a fair reflection of Nick Clegg’s interview with Jon Snow this evening:
As I tried to explain in my speech yesterday, some of the misgivings expressed in the conference hall I genuinely think slightly misunderstand what the government policy is going to do. I think there is a misunderstanding bluntly between what the free schools proposal is alleged to be trying to do and what it will actually do. It won’t be taking resources and people and attention away from other schools… and crucially, as I stressed in my speech yesterday, it won’t do what would be genuinely divisive. It won’t be introducing selection through the back door, which I’m staunchly opposed to.”
Slipped in near the end of Nick Clegg’s keynote speech to Liberal Democrat conference was the news that the first democratic elections to the House of Lords are pencilled in for 2015.
Party sources have confirmed that the reference to Liberal Democrat candidates at the next general election fighting alongside candidates for a reformed Upper House means the draft Lords reform legislation due to be published early in 2011 is being planned on the basis of elections in 2015.
By Alex Foster
| Mon 20th September 2010 - 8:22 pm
Yesterday saw the first Q&A of the Lib Dem leader since entering government. We covered it on Lib Dem Voice with a live tweeting session, Stephen Tall’s excellent live-blog and we also recorded it for posterity.
Because quite a lot of what was said might be useful for campaigning purposes, and because in the fullness of time we will want to hold Nick Clegg to account for his answers, I asked BOTY-nominee and Total Politics List star Caron Lindsay to mobilise an army of volunteers to transcribe it from our slightly ropey recording.
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 20th September 2010 - 6:05 pm
As the music fades, and the hoardes of conference delegates file out of the Liverpool hall, what did Voice readers make of what he had to say? Here’s my first impression…
First, and above all, this was a sober speech. It wasn’t a barn-stormer, it didn’t grip by the throat or tug the heart-strings. This was a serious analysis of why the Lib Dems have gone into government, and what the party wants to get out of it for the country. Nick was careful to go through the famous four pledges — fair taxes, a fair start for children, a fair …
Speaking at Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference today , Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will say:
Two and a half years ago, I stood in this very hall to make my first speech as Leader of our party. I said that the chance for change was within our reach, and we had to seize it. That chance came. Perhaps not quite in the way many of us could have expected.
But the chance came and you – we – responded with real courage and conviction.
Cynics expected us to back away. Instead, we confounded those who said …
Strategy: the party’s official line of loving our coalition partners in public has been firmly stuck to by the party’s senior figures, and argued for by Nick Clegg during Q+A at the weekend. Bubbling under the surface are many questions about whether this is the right strategy and if the party could and would be better if it more often made public its disagreements, such as over the opting out of the EU directive
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 20th September 2010 - 1:05 pm
Never say Mike Hancock doesn’t have a sense of timing… On the morning of Nick Clegg’s leader’s speech to the party conference, Mike has delivered what might be considered a stark warning:
I would be grateful if you could confirm in your speech on Monday that you will in the future bring any fundamental policy changes to the agreement without going through the triple lock democratic arrangements of the party. Or if that is not going to be the case that you will bring forward changes to the party constitution to change the triple lock. As I say that was not the case with the VAT rise and the Academies Bill. We are, I believe above all, a democratic party relying on the work and goodwill (more than the other parties) of our volunteers, activists and councillors. This cannot be a party of a dictatorship of 20 Lib Dem ministers.
However, before Labour activists get too excited that — like, erm, Charles Kennedy — Mike might be about to defect, he makes plain his continuing loyalty to the Lib Dems, and indeed to Nick:
Let me also be clear where I am as regards Labour. If Dennis Skinner can remain a member of Labour throughout the past twenty years of new Labour, I as a founding member of the SDP with over 25 years membership of the Lib Dems can certainly remain a member of the Lib Dems.
We should remind people of the actions of new Labour and the Labour ministers who are now going around trying to be their leader did. In fact there is such amnesia amongst them that I fear they have may have had a complete lobotomy! They supported things that you and I campaigned and voted against. Attacks on the poor through the abolition of the 10p tax rate. Attacks on students introducing tuition fees. Attacks on pensioners with the miserly 75p increase in the pension. Attacks on civil liberties with ID Cards and increasing the big brother state. The decimation of the local post office network. And just the down-right mean spirited with not allowing Ghurkhas to settle here. And you are rightly to be congratulated on the campaign that you ran on this.
I know that I and my constituents will not forget these things.
And Mike goes on to acknowledge the democratic strengths of the Lib Dems:
It probably remains one of your frustrations that leading the Lib Dems is a bit like herding cats! However it remains one of the strengths of this party that we can have a proper grown up discussion.
Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, former Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris develops some of the points he made at Sunday’s LibDemVoice.org fringe (which you can listen to here) — that while he’s broadly supportive of the Coalition he rejects entirely Nick’s claim that the austerity cuts can be “fair”. Here’s an excerpt:
The progressive wing of the Lib Dems broadly supports the coalition and the agreement underpinning it … The party voted to endorse the coalition agreement, but we did not vote to endorse the implementation of illiberal or unfair government policies that have emerged since. The
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 19th September 2010 - 2:55 pm
Nick Clegg has just taken to the podium to take questions from the floor…
2.52 pm… First up is Linda Jack, who asks, “Can I still trust you with my party?”
Yes of course you can, says Nick. We’ve restored the pensions link, taken 900,000 people out of income tax, imposed a bank levy, addressed capital gains, etc. “There’s nothing fair or socially just about asking our chldren or grandchildren to pay off our debts.”
2.55 pm… Linda comes back: I don’t see enough to deal with young people or poverty or inequality in the Coalition agreement. You can share power with others, …
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 19th September 2010 - 11:20 am
Nick Clegg is interviewed in today’s Observer, and — as ever with Nick — there are many eminently quotable lines. So here’s a filleted gamble through what he has to say…
On the Lib/Con Coalition:
“It’s seen as unnatural. It’s like cross-breeding between animal strains that shouldn’t,” he says, finally alighting on a comparison from the world of dogs. “We’ve got a sort of Crufts-like language about politics. It’s all about purism and tribalism. And you’re dealing with a government which is a mongrel mix of different blends and ideologies.”
Speaking at tonight’s Yes to Reform! rally at the Liverpool LibDem conference, Nick Clegg was joined by Jo Swinson MP, former independent MP Martin Bell, actor Art Malek and others. You can also now download campaign materials and find out more about the Fairer Votes Referendum at www.libdems.org.uk/fairervotes.
This was the text of Nick’s speech:
The last few months have been some of the most remarkable in the history of our party. I’m proud that for the first time in our party’s history Liberal Democrats will be addressing a party conference as Secretaries of State and government ministers. And it’s fantastic to …
Paris Gourtsoyannis was editor of the Journal, a newspaper serving Edinburgh’s higher education institutions, last year, and is a Lib Dem supporter. In an article for the paper, Paris sets out reasons for continuing to back Nick Clegg and his party — here’s an excerpt:
You only have to listen to the chatter from the right of the Conservative party to understand the effect that the Liberal Democrats are having on the government. Crusty relics like Norman Tebbit and John Redwood speak for the silent majority in rural Conservative safe seats, and they’re aren’t happy. That makes me happy: it’s one
It’s a fair bet that much of the media coverage of Liberal Democrat conference will be of the form ‘THEY’RE DOOMED!’, with the more subtle coverage for the more discerning journalists being ‘Are they doomed?’.
That has, after all, been the standard media fare since long before the Coalition, since before Nick Clegg became an MP, since before David Cameron became an MP, since before Tony Blair become Labour leader and since before John Major became Prime Minister. My money isn’t on the old standard formula changing this time round for …
By Iain Roberts
| Thu 16th September 2010 - 10:57 am
Nick Clegg has written an article on welfare in The Times (£) , which the fine organ is keen to portray as putting him “on a collision course with his party by championing radical benefit cuts and arguing that the state must not compensate the poor for their predicament”.
Having read the article, I don’t believe many Lib Dems will find themselves disagreeing with much of what Nick has to say.
Instead of turning the system from a “safety net” into a “trampoline” as Labour promised, people have been stuck on benefits, year in, year out. One and a half
Liberal Democrats are understandably confused about whether child detention is ending or not.
Nick Clegg got the commitment to end child detention into the Coalition Agreement. Only last Thursday Sarah Teather promised: ‘Rest assured. It will be done.’ She also said: ‘We have to be careful not to rush into this as we are dealing with the safety and well-being of often vulnerable children and it is essential it is done properly.’
Quite how children’s safety might be served by not rushing to end a practice proven to wreck their lives is a mystery that suggests leading Liberal Democrats have been
Adam Well, LibDemVoice keeps posting articles about the need to be "radical", so maybe a radical move might be to stop being one of only 4 countries in the world tha...
Jenny Barnes What sort of taxes? Well, given the need for a some fossil fuel demand destruction for 1) supply loss from Hormuz closure and 2) risk of excessive global temp ...
Nonconformistradical "The land registry should already have areas for each holding."
According to https://www.landregistry.org.uk/faq/
"Not all land is registered, and there ...
Peter Davies Exact valuation of land is difficult as in most areas it is seldom sold as a separate entity. Initially it should be introduced at a very low rate so inaccuraci...
Nonconformistradical Land Value Tax - on what basis should land be valued and how much work would there be in carrying out the valuation across the country?...
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