Our place to talk – an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK.

The most-read independent website by and for Lib Dem supporters. Not paid for by trade unions or millionaires.

Advert

Tag Archives: nick clegg

Lib Dems launch ‘Enterprise in a fair society’ plans to boost business

By The Voice | Thu 1st April 2010 - 11:00 am

Want to know what the Lib Dems will do to boost the enterprise culture here in the UK? Well, Nick Clegg and shadow business secretary John Thurso this week launched their programme in keeping with the party’s campaign emphasis on fairness, Enterprise in a fair society.

Here’s the party’s news release announcing the programe …

The proposals include:

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged business, enterprise and john thurso | 2 Comments

Howard Dean backs Nick Clegg as next PM

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st April 2010 - 10:30 am

And no, this is not an April Fool joke, for those of a mischievous mindset – the former Democratic Presidential hopeful and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee has publicly stated he thinks the Lib Dems could win the election. Here’s how the BBC reports it:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg could be the surprise winner of the UK’s general election, former US presidential candidate Howard Dean has said. Mr Dean praised Mr Clegg as a “young, dynamic leader”. And he said he could be the big winner from Britain’s first televised election debates, capitalising on disillusion with the

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged howard dean | 4 Comments

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:

Wearing the crucifix – a national crisis? – Paul Walter injects some common-sense into the debate with this bishop-fisk.
General election nearly here – at last! – And Lynne Featherstone cannot wait.

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

Continue reading »

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged evan harris, lynne featherstone and paul walter | Leave a comment

Lib Dems set pace in signing up for Royal British Legion pledge

By The Voice | Sun 28th March 2010 - 2:50 pm

The Royal British Legion is asking candidates from all parties to sign up to its manifesto ahead of the coming election campaign. Nick Clegg, along with the other two party leaders, has signed up to the Legion’s pledge, meeting recently with its Director General; while defence spokesman Nick Harvey has spoken at Legion fringe events.

The Legion has been keeping a tally of the proportion of MPs from each of the parties who have signed up to its manifesto – and as they comment, “Lib Dem MPs are setting the pace!”

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged armed forces, defence, nick harvey and royal british legion | Leave a comment

Nick Clegg writes to Friends of the Earth…

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th March 2010 - 4:50 pm

Over on the Friends of the Earth site they’ve published Nick Clegg’s response to their 2010 election lobbying campaign:

This election could be a turning point, not just for Britain but for the world environment. Some people think that’s overstating it, but the scientists tell us that the coming five years could be our last chance to avert dangerous climate change. That means the government we elect next has the most enormous responsibility: to provide change at home and leadership abroad to stop the disaster from happening.

I am a huge supporter of Friends of the Earth. I’ve met up with FoE

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged environment and friends of the earth | Leave a comment

Should this poll result worry us?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 26th March 2010 - 6:45 pm

Today’s BBC Daily Politics / ComRes poll asking which of the three major parties’ leadership teams is more trusted to steer the economy through the current downturn has caused a bit of a stir – it shows Labour’s duumvirate of Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling out ahead of the Tories, an about-turn on three months ago.

Here are the results:

Putting your party allegiance aside, who do you trust most to steer Britain’s economy through the current downturn?

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Polls | Also tagged economy, recession and vince cable | 11 Comments

Memo to the media: Clegg was first on Labour’s stealth tax, as Tories play catch-up

By Stephen Tall | Thu 25th March 2010 - 1:40 pm

Excuse me, while I discard my customery mode of politness, and begin to vent …

From Nick Clegg’s budget response, 24 March 2010:

Finally, on tax, the other gross disappointment in this Budget was the failure to make our tax system fair. Under Labour, the bottom 10 per cent. pay a staggering 48 per cent. of their income in tax, while the richest pay 34 per cent. The Chancellor took pride in saying today that he would make no big announcements on tax. How can he look at a system such as that and say, “Let’s have more of the same”?

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged bbc, budget 2010 and Ming Campbell | 3 Comments

Nick & Vince’s Budget 2010 response in full

By The Voice | Wed 24th March 2010 - 6:10 pm

Missed the Budget? Well, you didn’t miss much. But if you’re wondering what the Lib Dems have to say about it, then look no further.

First up, here’s Vince’s instant vdieo response:

(Also on YouTube here).

And now for the detail, as provided by Nick Clegg’s instant response to the Commons after Alasdair Darling’s budget statement:

Mr Speaker, this Budget has been billed as the preface to the Labour manifesto. Based on what we have seen today. It won’t be a manifesto but an obituary. The Prime Minister may have wanted a “giveaway budget”. What we got was a “given up budget”.

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged budget 2010 and vince cable | 1 Comment

Nick calls for cross-party Council of Financial Stability

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 10:35 pm

Hmmm, well I have my doubts about this one. Not the idea: that’s obvious and right. Of course we need to build political consensus in order to carry through the tough spending cuts any party (or parties) which finds itself in government will have to implement.

Only myopic Labour/Tory tribalists will try and pretend a government with the support of one-in-five of the electorate can decimate (in that word’s literal sense) public spending to bring the deficit under control with any kind of legitimacy.

No, the problem I have with Nick Clegg’s idea is this: the name, ‘Council of Financial …

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged council of financial stability, recession and vince cable | Leave a comment

Clegg gets specific on cuts: Lib Dems to cut winter fuel payments for under-65s

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 10:10 pm

So reports the BBC:

The Liberal Democrats have said if they won power they would stop the winter fuel allowance for people under 65. Anyone aged 60 can claim the allowance, worth £125 to £400, but the minimum age is due to rise to 65 in 10 years’ time.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said his party would implement the change now – saving about £400m in public spending. He said just under £200m would be used to give extra winter help to about one million severely disabled people or those who are terminally ill. …

Mr Clegg told the BBC his plan

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged child benefit, universal benefits, vince cable and winter fuel payment | 19 Comments

Nick Clegg interview draws 1.1 million viewers

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 1:15 pm

Nick Clegg was the subject of an hour-long feature interview with ITV’s Mary Nightingale on Sunday night – if you missed it, you can catch up courtesy of itv Player by clicking here. (It’s available online for the next 29 days).

Helen Duffett examined the 1950s-style newspaper previews of the Dead Tree Press, which focused on the shocking news that Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (Nick’s wife) has her own life, for LDV here.

Meanwhile MediaGuardian reports that over 1.1 million viewers watched last night. Okay, so it’s not as many as watched Gordon Brown be interviewed by Piers …

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged mary nightingale and miriam gonzalez durantez | 1 Comment

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

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Lib Dem TV and Op-eds | Also tagged Jo Swinson, lynne featherstone, mary nightingale, miriam gonzalez durantez and ros scott | 14 Comments

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe confirms: “I’ll be voting Lib Dem”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st March 2010 - 3:15 pm

It was last summer that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe first indicated he would be backing the Lib Dems at the election, coming out as a party supporter in an interview in Attitude magazine.

Now, it seems, Daniel’s endorsement is official according to the Daily ~~Prophet~~ Mail:

In next month’s US edition of Vogue, Radcliffe – who will be able to vote for the first time at the General Election – discusses his affiliation to the party. ‘I’ll be voting Lib Dem, without a shadow of a doubt,’ he said. ‘Nick Clegg rang me and we had a good

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged daniel radcliffe and harry potter | 3 Comments

Watch Nick Clegg on the BBC Politics Show tomorrow

By Helen Duffett | Sat 20th March 2010 - 3:50 pm

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will take part in a special Politics Show debate this Sunday, meeting undecided voters and trying to win them over for the Lib Dems.

Wonders the BBC website:

Will they be won over or continue to waver?

And once he has answered the questions that the people want to ask, will they prove to be the answers they want to hear?

Watch Nick on the Politics Show at noon, Sunday 21st March, BBC ONE.

Posted in Lib Dem TV and News | Also tagged politics show | 3 Comments

LibLink: Could Nick Clegg be next Imperial Commander?

By NewsHound | Sat 20th March 2010 - 10:45 am

The Guardian leader column notes that yesterday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, billed as a two horse race, was won by a promising outsider when the two favourites both faltered; and wonders if the same might happen on May 6th.

Imperial Commander was always a true, in-form, thoroughbred contender…Can Nick Clegg be the two-legged equivalent of Imperial Commander? In a good year anything is possible – even under first past the post.

Posted in General Election and LibLink | 2 Comments

The Independent View: A Lib-Con coalition? Don’t hold your breath

By Julian Astle | Fri 19th March 2010 - 9:20 am

In the past week, the Conservatives have been talking up their chances of doing a deal with the Liberal Democrats if the forthcoming general election fails to deliver them a working majority. Conservative shadow business secretary Ken Clarke has even suggested that “Nick Clegg is a conservative”. David Cameron meanwhile regularly describes himself as a “liberal Conservative” and has claimed that on a range of policy issues, “there’s barely a cigarette paper between us”.

But in a new report from CentreForum, the liberal think tank, we argue that the two parties’ similarities …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged centreforum, david cameron and ken clarke | 5 Comments

Nick’s privacy pledge: only the Lib Dems will “bring an end to the endless snooping on innocent people”

By The Voice | Thu 18th March 2010 - 6:05 pm

Nick Clegg will be speaking tonight at the 20th annivesary celebrations of human rights group, Privacy International, and will stress the importance of this coming general election as an opportunity to win back privacy.

Here are some extracts from his speech:

Labour has spent 13 years trampling over people’s privacy. From allowing children’s fingerprints to be taken at school without their parents’ consent; to making us a world leader in CCTV; to wasting vast sums of taxpayers’ money on giant databases that hoard our personal details. And now we hear that ministers want pensioners to swap their bus passes for ID cards.

“The Government’s staggering record on losing private data – leaving it in pub car parks and on commuter trains – just makes matters worse.

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged privacy and privacy international | 11 Comments

Was 6th October the day it started going awry for the Tories?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th March 2010 - 7:40 pm

The opinion polls are up-and-down day-in-day-out at the moment, making it almost impossible to say with any confidence whether we are firmly in hung parliament territory, or whether the most likely result is still a Tory victory at the coming general election. But one thing is beyond doubt: the last six months has seen a substantial narrowing in the Tories’ opinion poll lead.

In October 2009, the Tories were polling at around 42%, Labour at 28% – a convincing Tory lead of 14%. Last month, the Tories were at 39%, Labour at 31%, a 3% swing from the …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bagehot, conservative party, david cameron, george osborne, opinion polls and philip stephens | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg on winning people over for deficit reduction

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th March 2010 - 2:55 pm

Nick Clegg addressed the ippr this morning to set out his approach to the single biggest problem facing all three major political parties in the coming weeks and months: how to keep the support of the British people given the need for huge public spending cuts to tackle the deficit.

We’re re-printing Nick’s speech in full, below, but here are the key points which struck me:

Re-iterating Vince Cable’s five conditions to take account of before cutting public spending: the rate of growth; the level of unemployment; credit conditions; the extent of spare capacity in the economy and the cost of Government borrowing.
A clear statement “that the conditions will be right for cuts from 2011-12, but not before.”
A clear statement of the level of cuts needed: “at some point in the next eight years the government is going to have to stop spending as much as 10% of what it spends today.”
A promise that the Lib Dems will follow the example of Canada’s Liberal Government in the 1990s and undertake “a massive consultation about every last line of public spending”.
A cash limit on public sector pay rises of £400, ensuring that the lower your salary, the higher percentage pay rise you are eligible for.
In addition, Nick sets out once again the party’s four key election campaign pledges: fair taxes, the £2.5bn ‘pupil premium’, a sustainable economy, and a fair political system.

The sharp eyed will notice no mention of “progressive austerity“. Nor indeed does Nick use the term “savage cuts” – though for all the embarrassment and mockery with which that phrase is identified, it’s the reality of what all the parties would have to implement in their own ways if elected to government.

Here’s what Nick said:

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged ippr and spending cuts | 7 Comments

LDVideo Special: Lib Dem Birmingham spring conference – Nick & Vince uncut

By Stephen Tall | Mon 15th March 2010 - 8:15 pm

Yesterday, LDVideo brought you some of the media reportage from the party’s spring conference. Today, for those of you who want to re-live it all unexpurgated, here are Nick and Vince’s conference speeches in full …

First, here’s Nick:

(Also available on YouTube here).

And here’s the 3-minute video which introduced Nick:

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference and YouTube | Also tagged vince cable | Leave a comment

A reply to Tom Harris: Lib Dems wait for the voters to speak. (It’s called democracy, and we kind of like it).

By Stephen Tall | Mon 15th March 2010 - 7:45 am

Labour MP Tom Harris, bless him, is clearly feeling a little bit insecure, as the Lib Dems enjoy a successful conference with a spring in their step and the full glare of the media spotlight. Tom’s blog is a good, fun read – but like his Tory equivalent Iain Dale, he has a bit of a tribal blind spot when it comes to the Lib Dems.

Here’s what Tom has to say about Lib Dem shadow schools secretary David Laws declining to take the media bait asking whether the party would back Labour or the Tories in the …

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and Op-eds | Also tagged hung parliament, iain dale and tom harris | 33 Comments

Nick Clegg’s speech delivers on all fronts

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th March 2010 - 4:45 pm

If Nick Clegg sounded a little hoarse from a sore throat throughout his leader’s speech to the Birmingham spring conference then it’s not surprising: he has been omnipresent in the media this week, winning the Lib Dems more coverage than I can remember outside of an election campaign.

The first responsibility of any Lib Dem leader’s speech is to forget that he is talking to the party faithful in the conference hall – they will vote for the party regardless – and to pitch directly to the wider public watching the speech live or on news bulletins.

The second …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference, General Election and Op-eds | Also tagged featured | 12 Comments

LDVideo Special: Lib Dem Birmingham spring conference

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th March 2010 - 1:58 pm

Welcome to the latest instalment of LDVideo, where we highlight some of the best, most interesting political videos avalable on the internet. Today we focus on the Lib Dem spring conference in Birmingham, which has concluded today …

Nick Clegg states, “I am not the kingmaker”:

Vince sets out how the Lib Dems will cut public spending – but not this year:

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference and YouTube | 5 Comments

Nick Clegg’s #ldconf speech: read it in full here

By The Voice | Sun 14th March 2010 - 12:20 pm

A hoarse-sounding Nick has just started adressing the Lib Dems’ spring conference in Birimingham. Here’s what he’s saying …

Shall I tell you the one phrase that bothers me more than any other? It’s this. “That’s just the way things are”.

No.

The way things are is not the way they have to be. We do not have to live in a country where the poorest pay the biggest chunk of their income in tax. We do not have to live in a country where politics is the plaything of wealthy donors and corrupt MPs. We do not have to live in a

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference and News | 17 Comments

The Indy on Nick: ‘Clegg the Credible’

By NewsHound | Sun 14th March 2010 - 11:30 am

That’s the headline in today’s leader column in the Independent on Sunday. Here are 4 things especially worth picking out …

1. On Nick’s task as Lib Dem leader:

Nick Clegg has done a good job of preparing the Liberal Democrats for an election that suddenly looks likely to be the closest since 1992, and possibly since 1974. His task has not been an easy one. … Mr Clegg has to fight to be heard in this restricted space, while leading a party that, perhaps even more than Labour, harbours a deep suspicion of its leaders. And yet, somehow, Mr Clegg

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | 3 Comments

Teachers, Thatcher, tax and troops: Nick Clegg Q&A

By Helen Duffett | Sat 13th March 2010 - 7:26 pm

In this afternoon’s Q&A from the Conference hall, Nick Clegg tackled questions from the floor with a relaxed and confident manner that bodes well for the upcoming TV Leaders’ Debates.

He took questions from party members in the hall, before taking supplementaries.

First up was education and whether schools should use the Pupil Premium to reduce class sizes. Nick said that the Pupil Premium seeks to give back trust to teachers and headteachers. Smaller class sizes are important for instilling a sense of self-confidence and …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference | Also tagged afghanistan, mansion tax, nigel farage, pupil premium and ukip | 7 Comments

The Clegg coalition line emerges

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 11:52 am

Very sneakily, Clegg’s team have found a neat way to turn questions about hung parliaments into a positive message about Lib Dem policy. We saw it on the news today, and I’m sure we’ll see it wheeled out again – and again, and again, probably until journalists get bored of asking the question.

When asked what the Lib Dems would do in the event of a hung parliament, Nick’s strategy is to say what the Lib Dems would want to get from any sort of deal, which mysteriously matches closely with the four key themes. Nick says we would …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference and General Election | Also tagged hung parliament | 4 Comments

Paddy Ashdown in existential shock at rally

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 10:47 am

A good conference rally is fun to attend and tricky to report on, simply because there should be nothing new. The audience ideally leaves reminded of the key messages and enthused to fight the good fight – there’s plenty of time for controversy over the rest of the weekend.

As in Bournemouth, the rally took on a glitzy feel: dry ice, bright lights, (relatively) slick presentation.

Lorely Burt opened procedings with a few jokes, and promise of holding her seat in Solihull, where the Lib Dems overturned a 9,400 Tory majority last time round.

Then a selection of …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference | Also tagged #ldconf, paddy ashdown, rally and shirley williams | 11 Comments

Why Rory Bremner won’t impersonate Nick Clegg

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 8:50 am

The Birmingham Mail reports:

He’s recently been touted as a Lib Dem supporter after attending one of their parties at the House of Commons, but Rory admits that, professionally speaking, he doesn’t want them to do well in the general election – because he can’t take off Nick Clegg.

“I struggle with David Cameron, but I find Clegg particularly difficult to master,” confesses the impressionist and satirical comic, who is about to embark on his first tour in five years.

“I imagined meeting him at the party and him asking ‘Can you do me?’ I was going to say ‘No, can you?’.

“I don’t

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged david cameron and rory bremner | 1 Comment

Nick Clegg’s conference speech: what does it need to do? #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 10:20 am

With the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, Nick Clegg is giving his last conference speech before the general election. Who knows, there may even be two general elections before he gets to give his autumn conference speech…

So what does Nick need to achieve with his Sunday speech?

Conference speeches have two audiences: the external and the internal. For the external one, the job is in the main fairly straightforward: give a speech that has at least one eye-catching section which means it gets more than a nano second of passing media coverage.

The party’s overall messages for the general election …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference | Also tagged digital economy bill and featured | 6 Comments