The political storm over allegations of MI5 complicity in torture escalated tonight after Alan Johnson, the home secretary, accused the media of publishing “groundless accusations” and commentators of spreading “ludicrous lies” about the Security Service.
As defence lawyers prepared to challenge the government’s success in suppressing severe criticism of MI5 officers made by one of Britain’s most senior judges, the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, pointed the finger at the “very top of government” saying senior ministers had probably known about claims of Britain’s involvement in torture but failed to take action to stop it.
By Stephen Tall
| Fri 12th February 2010 - 2:30 pm
Two articles by broadsheet columnists on the prospect of a hung parliament bookended this week. In their contrasting ways, both made a convincing pitch for the attractions of neither Labour nor Tories ending up with an overall majority at the next general election.
The bogeyman of a hung parliament is being used to terrify British voters. What is needed, it is argued, is a government with a strong majority, to rescue the UK from the threat of national bankruptcy. This is nonsense. The UK
Earlier today Nick Clegg today launched another plank of the party’s green economic policies for the general election, pledging to create 57,000 jobs by investing £400 million in upgrading disused shipyards so that they can produce off-shore wind turbines.
It’s a triple win: boost the economy, help parts of the country which have been hit the hardest and improve Britian’s environmental record.
Current plans to expand wind farms in the North and Irish seas could see every one of the 6,400 turbines needed brought in from abroad, as there are currently no turbine manufacturers in the UK.
British ports are ideally located to host turbine manufacturers due to their proximity to the off-shore wind farms; however, they are currently unable to invest due to the lack of appropriate docks with suitable space.
The proposals to invest in physical infrastructure to support a greener economy also include a pledge to invest £100million in training and testing facilities, including at universities with specialist engineering research facilities such as Loughborough, Durham and Newcastle.
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 11th February 2010 - 11:40 am
At the start of the week, Lib Dem Voice invited the members of our private discussion forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200 of you who completed it; we’re publishing the results on LDV over the next few days.
It’s four months since we last asked party members how they felt Nick Cleg was doing as Lib Dem leader – the last time was in …
By Chris White
| Wed 10th February 2010 - 12:25 pm
Keynes was both a serious Liberal and a serious man. His work in two world wars and their aftermath is the stuff of legend. His contribution to economic thinking, recently somewhat vindicated, makes him a giant. Bertrand Russell found him intellectually formidable.
But he also built the Cambridge Arts Theatre and was the first Chairman of the Arts Council, created by the postwar Labour Government.
It would be too easy to say merely that a great man needs a hobby like anyone else. The Classical world and civilisation since have shunned the suggestion that somehow culture was an add-on, like sitting down …
Nick Clegg’s metaphors are on fire. At the weekend we filletted some of the great quotes from his Telegraph interview – and yesterday he came up with another … Speaking of Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s joint refusal to sign up to real political reform, Nick commented:
Listening to the two of them anyone would think they were powerless backbenchers rather than the leaders of the two parties in Parliament which have proved to be the real roadblocks to reform. It’s like a couple of cowboy builders coming back to your house to tell you how bad their workmanship is.”
Yesterday, Pollwatch looked at the state of the parties in January; today it’s the turn of the party leaders. As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Only three polling companies – YouGov, Mori and Angus RS – regularly ask questions specifically to find out the public’s views of the three main party leaders. And each asks variants on the basic question – do you think Clegg/Brown/Cameron are doing a good job – to come up with their figures, so comparison ain’t easy. But, still, we don’t indulge in polls often, so here goes …
There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader …
Here’s Nick Clegg on a recent visit to cheer on Burnley Lib Dems and their candidate Gordon Birtwistle, as they attempt to unseat Labour and stop the BNP. (With thanks to Hywel Morgan for the picture). What do you think they might be saying to each other, or thinking about each other?
If you haven’t read it yet, can I urge you to click here to read a fantastic interview of Nick Clegg by Mary Riddell in today’s Telegraph. For a start, it’s well-written; for another it covers a fair chunk of policy ground accessibly; but most importantly it is one of Nick’s most quote-tastic interviews. Here are a few of the highlights:
On taking over as party leader:
When I took over, morale was low. It was a horrid time, and I made mistakes. You get thick-skinned pretty damn quickly or you just get knocked over in the animalistic culture of the
That’s the striking quote from Nick Clegg which opens The Power of Creativity, a set of new proposals for the arts and creative industries published today by the Liberal Democrats. The paper goes on to make the point that,
The first chairman of the Arts Council was that great Liberal John Maynard Keynes. His vision as set out in 1946 remains ours in 2010: “to create an environment, to breed a spirit, to cultivate an opinion, to offer a stimulus to such purpose that the artist and the public can each sustain and live on the other in that union which
Plenty of media coverage today of Nick Clegg’s announcement that the Lib Dems will pledge to give every child a fair start in life by investing an extra £2.5bn in schools which could be used to cut class sizes, offer one-on-one tuition and provide catch-up classes.
Clegg: ‘Education is everything’ (Radio 4 Today Programme)
Liberal Democrats promise to scrap tax credits for wealthy families (Daily Telegraph)
Once again we see the renewed Lib Dem emphasis on that f-word, Fairness; and in this case, a policy which has long been championed by Nick, the ‘pupil premium’. Here’s Nick describing it in ‘just a minute’ in a BBC interview:
Here’s how The Economist’s Bagehot characterised the performances of Gordon Brown and David Cameron at their respective press conferences this week:
On Gordon Brown: “… was his usual funereal self (even if he did manage a decent joke about the date of the general election). I thought he looked exhausted. But what he had to say was relatively upbeat: the recession is over; the government has plans for the “job-rich prosperity” that is just around the corner and an expanded middle class.
On David Cameron: “… was his usual breezy self, cracking jokes, remembering journalists’ names, etc. But what …
Sir John Chilcot, who is chairing the inquiry into the Iraq war, today expressed publicly his “frustration” that the Government has refused to declassify certain information. The BBC reports:
The Lib Dems have accused the government of trying to “gag” the inquiry by refusing to publish them.
The documents include letters between Mr Blair and President Bush. The Cabinet Office said no documents had been withheld from the inquiry but some needed legal clearance before they could be released to the public.
Nick Clegg has called – once again – for those documents requested by the Chilcot inquiry to be published, and …
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts – each with a question – that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
How good is the Taliban internal communications department?
Rob Blackie asks this because the Taliban have issued their members with a code of conduct:
As anyone in internal communications will tell you – it’s getting people to read and internalise this sort of guidance that’s difficult.
How long does it take to deliver leaflets to the whole parliamentary consituency?
asks Philip Ling, Lib Dem PPC for Bromsgrove. Read on to find out his answer, and to take a couple of bundles off his hands.
It’s nine days since Nick Clegg challenged Gordon Brown to volunteer to appear before Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq war this side of the general election “before people decide how to vote on his record in government?” And now it seems that Nick’s pressure has paid off – the BBC reports:
Gordon Brown will give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry before the general election, the BBC understands.
Mr Brown, who has said he is “happy” to face the inquiry whenever called, had been under pressure to do so before the election, which must be held by June.
The inquiry’s chairman is expected to confirm later that the PM will be asked to appear but will not set a date. However, the BBC understands he will appear in late February or early March.
You can re-live the exchange between Nick and Mr Brown, either on video courtesy the BBC or via the Hansard transcript, here on LDV.
Nick has welcomed the Prime Minister’s decision to face the Chilcot Inquiry:
It is well known that the Prime Minister was a key figure in Britain’s decision to invade Iraq. It is only right that Gordon Brown should explain his role in this disastrous foreign policy failure before asking the British people for their vote.”
This is an excellent result for Nick. Good in its own right: the Prime Minister should be asked about his role in the invasion of Iraq. And good for Nick’s growing stature as leader: once again, as over the Gurkhas and Michael Martin, it is Nick who is making the running, and punching above his weight at Prime Minister’s Questions.
This in stark contrast to David Cameron, whose string of lacklustre Commons’ performances are beginning to be noticed even by his friends at The Spectator. Here’s how the magazine’s Coffee House blog compared the performances of Nick and the Tory leader at this week’s PMQs:
The LibDem leader took a pop at Labour with a very smart weapon. He wondered why the government hadn’t acted to stop RBS lending tax-payers’ money to Kraft which is about to sack Cadburys staff. That’s three bogymen in one. … hate him because they can see he’s capable, plucky and politically shrewd. The house has strange ways of honouring talent. …
Cameron risks turning into the Rafa Benitez of Westminster. He’s living on a reputation which is rapidly fading from memory.
US firm Kraft’s proposed takeover of Cadbury’s has made headlines in recent days. First, because it’s a major, historic British brand being snapped-up by a non-UK business (or ‘foreign predator’, as Vince Cable labels them). Secondly, because of the fear that job losses will result. And, thirdly, because of the role of the Royal Bank of Scotland – in which the British government has a majority stake-holding – in lending the money to Kraft which will fund its acquisition of Cadbury’s.
The Lib Dems – in the shape of Nick Clegg and Vince – have sharply questioned the role of the Government in the takeover. At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Nick asked Gordon Brown:
… there is a simple principle at stake. Tens of thousands of British companies are crying out for that money to protect jobs, and instead RBS wants to lend it to a multinational with a record of cutting jobs. When British taxpayers bailed out the banks, they would never have believed that their money would be used to put British people out of work. Is that not just plain wrong?
Last week, LibDem Voice brought the news of Nick Clegg’s commitment to full rights and equality for gay, lesbian, transexual and transgendered people. In an article entitled ‘Clegg calls for full gay equality – what will Cameron do?’ it explained how Nick Clegg had ‘laid down the gauntlet to the Tory leader David Cameron to justify his ‘liberal Conservatism’ by following suit’.
Today comes another opportunity for Cameron to demonstrate his liberal conservative values. Twenty seven members of the Conservatives’ European Parliamentary allies, the Polish Law and Justice Party, are yet again targeting gays as they demand a government clampdown on paedophiles. Cameron …
In the three months since I last blogged at length about the Liberal Democrat general election manifesto process, Danny Alexander (chair of the Manifesto Working Group) has won widespread praise for restoring a sense of peace, sense and order after the events around the party’s autumn conference.
On the two major flash points – mansion tax and tuition fees – hostilities have ceased and proposals been modified to win widespread support within the party. Tuition fees are still due to be scrapped, but over a longer timescale, and mansions are still due to be taxed, but with a narrower definition …
Nick Clegg has taken the opportunity of a speech today to the Royal Society – on the relationship between science and politics – to press for reform to the UK’s “stifling” libel laws. Here’s how the Press Gazette reports it:
There appears to be a growing political consensus that Britain’s libel laws are too waited in favour of rich claimants and money-grubbing lawyers. Today Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is set to use a speech to the Royal Society to call for libel laws to be reformed, The Independent reports.
“Libel tourism is making a mockery of British justice,” Clegg
Nick Clegg made some waves this week by calling for full gay equality, and challenging the Tories and their leader David Cameron to follow his example. Well, now Lib Dem research has shown what an uphill battle the Tory leader will have on his hand even convincing his own shadow cabinet to back such moves – let alone his even more right-wing backbenchers – as The Guardian reports:
Nearly a third of David Cameron’s shadow cabinet voted against gay rights legislation at some point over the last two parliaments, demonstrating their “shameful” record in tackling discrimination, according to the
Tories claim Labour is using taxpayers’ money to fund election advertising campaign – Telegraph, 15.1.10
“The Conservatives accused Labour of “raiding” taxpayers’ money to fund their election campaign. New figures uncovered by the Conservatives show that spending on advertising has increased to £232 million, which is a 39 per cent increase on the previous year.”
A tenth of schools fail to meet GCSE targets – The Guardian, 14.1.10
“One in 10 secondary schools in England failed to meet basic targets for GCSEs last summer and academies were disproportionately represented among the failing institutions, government statistics published today reveal.
Over at the Financial Times Nick Clegg has pledged to be straight with the British public about the state of the nation’s finances, and the public spending cuts the Lib Dems will make – called on the other two major parties to do likewise. At the moment, he says, Labour and the Tories are treating fiscal discipline like a “political football”:
Gordon Brown is determined to keep spending, whatever the risks, to create a dividing line with the Conservatives. David Cameron is determined to insist on immediate cuts, whatever the risks, to create a dividing line with Labour. It has become
Here’s the verdict of The Economist’s columnist on British politics, the pseudonymous Bagehot:
In some ways, miraculous to report, the Liberal Democrats have the most mature position on the deficit. Nick Clegg, their leader, this week demoted some of the party’s spending pledges (for example, on pensions and university funding) to aspirations, pre-emptively narrowing his manifesto to a few, affordable core themes. He has not promised to protect any departmental budgets. Vince Cable, his Treasury spokesman, has a longer list of items for the chop than Mr Osborne, including some cherished defence projects, but accepts that the axeman’s hand should
Earlier this week I highlighted how Nick Clegg’s speech laying out the foundations of the Liberal Democrat general election manifesto was based around four steps in which health and crime did not feature. Those two policy areas have been dominant in the party’s campaigning over the previous three general elections – in particular in marginal seats.
However, whilst the party seems to be at least dallying with downplaying the emphasis on those two issues from the key national headlines, Labour is headed in the opposite direction. Labour’s 1997 five pledges included one each on health and crime, whilst their likely …
The Liberal Democrats today set out plans to bring a quarter of a million empty homes back into use, making homes available for people who need them and creating 65,000 jobs.
There are over 760,000 empty properties across England which are no longer used as homes but can be brought back into use with some investment. People who own these homes will get a grant or a cheap loan to renovate them so they can be used: grants if the home is for social housing, loans for
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 14th January 2010 - 10:20 am
Calls for the First-Past-The-Post voting system to be abolished in the UK were given a real kick-start last year after it became clear – thanks to the work of Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson – that it was MPs with large majorities who were more likely to be implicated in cheating the expenses system.
It’s obvious if you think about it: if you were given life tenure in a safe seat where the Labour/Tory majorities are weighed not counted, how concerned would you be with the irksome business of being transparent and accountable? To put it bluntly – as …
Nick Clegg pressed Gordon Brown to volunteer to appear before Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq war this side of the general election “before people decide how to vote on his record in government?” The Prime Minister replied that it wasn’t a matter for him. (Odd how when you become the most powerful person in Britain, you seem to lose the power to volunteer to do something inconvenient).
So Nick asked again, telling the Prime Minister he “should insist on going to the inquiry now”, and asking “What has he got to hide?” Again Mr Brown said, “Sorry, guv, more than my job’s worth” (or words to that effect).
Nick still wasn’t happy, so has now written to the Prime Minister, chalenging him to do the decent thing:
Dear Gordon,
I am writing to urge you to indicate immediately to Sir John Chilcot that it is your strong preference to go before the Iraq Inquiry ahead of the General Election.
Following developments yesterday at Alastair Campbell’s hearing, your personal role in the decisions that led to the war in Iraq has now come under the spotlight. The notion that your hearing should take place after the election in order that the Inquiry remains outside of party politics therefore no longer holds. On the contrary, the sense that you have been granted special treatment because of your position as Prime Minister will only serve to undermine the perceived independence of the Committee.
As I said to you across the floor of the Commons today, people have a right to know the truth about the part you played in this war before they cast their verdict o n your Government’s record. I urge you to confirm publicly that should Sir John Chilcot invite you to give evidence to the Inquiry ahead of the election you will agree to do so.
Nick Clegg
Well, I don’t suppose Mr Brown will change his mind – but Nick has at least exposed the Prime Minister’s relief-cum-satisfaction that he can dodge the Chilcot bullet, dominating the main political headlines as a result. And by the time Mr Brown does eventually appear he will be a genuinely powerless ex-Prime Minister so who’ll care what he has to say any longer?
Meanwhile David Cameron asked some windy, unfocused and instantly forgettable questions of the Prime Minister who gave at least as good as he got. Score-draw for theatrics; no-score draw for content.
Here’s Nick’s questions, courtesy the BBC. The Hansard transcript’s below it.
Nick Clegg has taken the opportunity of an interview with The Independent’s Johann Hari for Attitude magazine to lay out a comprehensive range of measures to promote gay equality – and has laid down the gauntlet to the Tory leader David Cameron to justify his ‘liberal Conservatism’ by following suit.
By Sara Bedford
| Wed 13th January 2010 - 12:42 pm
In his blog post in today’s Daily Telegraph Lord Tebbit asks, “Why won’t the two main parties do anything about the madness of taxing the poor?’.
“And I hate to say it, but only one party leader seems to have grasped that, if you construct a system where unskilled people are worse off by taking a job than by staying on welfare, they remain trapped in poverty – and that is Nick Clegg.
As if to prove there’s little new in the world, the recent spat between Nick Clegg and childcare expert Gina Ford reminds me of this 1899 poem by Harry Graham.
Father heard the children scream,
So he threw them in the stream,
Saying, as he drowned the third,
“Children should be seen, not heard!
Caron Lindsay Beat headline in the history of the world.
In other news, what the hell am I doing up at 2:08 am watching a football match. I did not expect this....
Neil Hickman I confess my main feeling about the current World Cup is a burning desire for the USA to lose, preferably extremely humiliatingly, to a team which is brown and/...
expats Putin first attacked Ukraine in 2014; four years after his Feb 2022 attack he has still not succeeded in defeating that single nation... The idea that he poses...
Jana Sorry, meant to say ‘not able to move offshore’....
Jana I disagree with raising income tax, NI or VAT. We need to be taxing those assets that rich people are able to move offshore - let’s start by taxing the owner...
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