Tag Archives: paddy ashdown

Tim Gordon

Tim Gordon writes… Gearing up for the next General Election

By Tim Gordon | Wed 17th October 2012 - 4:04 pm

With Paddy’s appointment as Chair of the General Election Campaign, an imminent start to the 2015 manifesto process, and clarity on the GE electoral boundaries, the party has very clearly entered a new strategic phase. This requires an organisational shift to ensure that we are focused on both the 2015 General Election task ahead, as well as the series of vital elections before then.

There were five key priorities for Liberal Democrat Headquarters (LDHQ) to consider when approaching the

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , and | 40 Comments
Geoffrey Payne

Will Israel attack Iran, and will this break the Coalition?

By Geoffrey Payne | Fri 28th September 2012 - 3:52 pm

Although not widely reported in the British media, there is a build up of expectation that Israel will attack Iran. It amazes me that this was barely discussed at our recent Brighton conference. There were two motions on this submitted for conference but both with rejected by Federal Conference Committee and, perhaps as a consequence, there were no foreign policy motions debated at conference.

To raise the question I had to wait until Tuesday when there were two Centre Forum fringe meetings on foreign policy. Neither of the fringe meetings was specifically on Iran, but the question was asked about what …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

+++ Paddy Ashdown to chair 2015 general election campaign

By Mark Pack | Wed 26th September 2012 - 3:13 pm

Party leader speeches at conferences rarely contain completely untrailed and fresh news. Nick Clegg’s does: that Paddy Ashdown will chair the party’s 2015 general election campaign.

Although his name wasn’t one of those I speculated about previously, it is a logical choice because the party’s plan is to fight a 1997-style general election campaign, with a tough national vote share environment hopefully bucked by very effective Parliamentary by-election style campaigns …

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged , and | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

Paddy on the Coalition, joining the party & that Sun headline

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th September 2012 - 9:50 am

There’s a fantastic interview with Paddy Ashdown by The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone published here. As you’d expect it’s crammed full of anecdotes and quotable bon mots. I’ve picked out just three to enjoy…

Paddy on the Coalition

He regards those who feel betrayed by the party as weak or naive – notably Guardian leader writers who backed them in 2010. “The Guardian feels like a jilted lover. It hates the Liberal Democrats. The Guardian feels personally betrayed because for the very first time it gave the Liberal Democrats its support and what did we do? We went off with the Tories.

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference preview: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

By Mark Pack | Fri 21st September 2012 - 9:20 am

This year, the Liberal Democrat autumn conference has one day per theme, covering jobs, education, environment and tax.

Monday is jobs, with policy motions on creating jobs and policy papers on both sustainable prosperity and also on mutuals, employee ownership and workplace democracy. The first of these (F23) may generate some lively debate around an amendment that would delete the reference to keeping to the government’s “fiscal mandate”.

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Caron Lindsay

Paddy Ashdown talks about his new book “A brilliant little operation”

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 23rd August 2012 - 12:57 pm

I had to stifle a giggle as Paddy Ashdown strode on to the stage at the Edinburgh Book Festival and said:

What are you lot doing here at ten in the morning?

There was a certain irony at this coming from the man who notoriously held meetings at the crack of dawn when he was party leader.

The morning after his “why the world will never be the same again” talk, he was back to tell us about his new book, “A brilliant little operation”, about the founding raid of the Special Boat Service, the special forces unit where he would later serve. …

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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
Stephen Tall

Who Lib Dem members think are the most effective non-MPs at promoting the party

By Stephen Tall | Tue 14th August 2012 - 7:55 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.

Oakeshott, Ashdown and Pack top your list

LDV asked: Which prominent Lib Dems who are NOT MPs (eg, peers, campaigners) are doing an effective job of promoting the party to the public? Please write-in.

    Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott
    Lord (Paddy) Ashdown
    Mark Pack
    Evan Harris
    Baroness (Shirley) Williams
    Lord (Chris) Rennard
    Caroline Pidgeon AM
    Willie Rennie MSP
    Baroness (Susan) Kramer
    Stephen Tall
    Kirsty Williams AM
    Lord (Tom) McNally
    Baroness (Ros) Scott
    Brian

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 6 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Blast from the past: Paddy Ashdown on principled opposition

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th July 2012 - 9:01 am

As I’ve watched the shameful shenanigans in the House of Commons this week over Lords reform, one event from our not so recent past kept popping into my head. Those of us of a certain age can remember the eventful passage of the Maastricht Bill through Parliament in 1992/93.  Even though they agreed with the principles of the Maastricht Treaty, Labour teamed up with Tory Eurosceptics to try to undermine the Government.

The Liberal Democrats, enthusiastic about closer European partnership, played no such games. I would be lying if I said I had taken this entirely calmly at the time. After …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Helen Duffett

LibLink: We can’t sit in our golden chamber resisting democracy – Paddy Ashdown responds to attack on reform

By Helen Duffett | Tue 10th July 2012 - 6:55 am

In the Mail on Sunday this week, Lord Ashdown responded to Lord Carlile’s article from the previous week, which had opposed Nick Clegg’s plans for Lords reform:

If ever there was a time for a strong democratically based second chamber to buttress our democracy, it is now. Whatever view you take of the Cameron/Clegg proposals, nobody can seriously call them ‘ill-considered’. They were preceded by a Royal commission, four white papers and three joint committees. Every party called for it in their manifestos at the last Election.

The Cameron/Clegg reform Bill does not ‘trash’ the Lords, as some claim

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Lord Tom McNally

Lord McNally writes… Conscience and reform

By Lord Tom McNally | Fri 6th July 2012 - 12:23 pm

Shirley Williams has recently been made Peer of the Year in one of the regular Parliamentary Awards. Eric Avebury was recently given a life time achievement award at a ceremony in the Speaker’s House. Matthew Oakeshott received praise for his persistence in pointing out that there is much in our banking system which is rotten and in need of reform. When issues affecting children are debated in the Lords it is often Joan Walmsley who holds the House with informed and practical opinion. Ditto when Margaret Sharp speaks on science, technology and higher education. Sally Hamwee and Martin …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 45 Comments
Helen Duffett

Paddy Ashdown meets his younger self

By Helen Duffett | Mon 2nd July 2012 - 4:23 pm

Broadcast on Saturday, a Radio 4 interview with Lord Ashdown, featuring clips from the BBC archive from throughout his career:

From rookie MP to Liberal Democrats leader, from the Royal Marines to high office in Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown relives his life from the archives in a frank and sometimes emotional conversation with John Wilson.

From his early days in the army to his leadership of the Liberal

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Mary Reid

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – Silver Linings to the Storm Clouds of Rio

By Mary Reid | Tue 26th June 2012 - 6:06 pm

Last week we linked to an article by former party leader Paddy Ashdown headed “Rio+20 is a chance to secure our children’s future“.

Over on Huffington Post he has now given his assessment of the summit.

 … as the summit reached its conclusion on Friday criticism from environment groups, charities working on poverty issues and the mainstream media over the strength of the agreement was becoming louder.

And yet the news coming from Rio has not been all bad. Indeed, some positive outcomes have emerged from

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 5 Comments

Opinion: Dear Progress, come in and have a nose around

By James Percival | Mon 25th June 2012 - 2:43 pm

In the run up to the 1997 election, Tony Blair led Paddy Ashdown up the garden path with a promise of a progressive alliance between a modern reforming Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Well, ‘fool us once’ and all that.

15 years later the Liberal Democrats remain a broad church. Orange Bookers, social democrats, Coalition supporters, Coalition sceptics, whatever Evan Harris is – there’s room for all of us.

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Nick T

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – Rio+20 is a chance to secure our children’s future

By Nick T | Thu 21st June 2012 - 6:54 pm

Paddy Ashdown – former Lib Dem leader and president of Unicef UK – has an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph setting out his hopes for the Rio+20 summit currently taking. Here’s a sample:

Right now an estimated 18 million people in the Sahel region of west Africa are being affected by drought, disease and conflict. In 2011 alone UNICEF, the world’s leading children’s organisation, responded to 292 humanitarian emergencies in 80 countries. Children are always the most vulnerable in such situations, typically representing over 50 per cent of those affected by disasters, equating to between 100 and 175 million children each

…

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Mary Reid

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – Syria shows the lessons of Libya still unlearnt

By Mary Reid | Fri 1st June 2012 - 11:23 am

Paddy Ashdown writes in the Times today about Syria. He was, of course, the international community’s High Representative in Bosnia, so is ideally placed to comment on western diplomacy in the face of tyranny.

Megaphone diplomacy has failed. The West must let Turkey lead a relief operation.

The slaughter of the innocents in Syria is, of course, horrific, barbaric, shocking, terrifying medieval, bestial — choose your own adjective; they’ve all been used — some many times over. In our attempts to camouflage impotence we are now devaluing hyperbole.

But it is not sufficient. With the West’s moral force in tatters after the blunders

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

Shirley Williams on the high point of her political career

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th May 2012 - 10:50 am

For many years Adrian Slade has interviewed prominent Liberal Democrats. To mark his recent decision to make his archive of the interview recordings available to researchers and other interested parties, Lib Dem Voice is running a selection of his write-ups of interviews from over the years. The latest is with Shirley Williams, from 2002 when she was Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Shirley Williams picks election day in October ’64 as the high point of her long political career.  That was when, after three tries, she not only became a Labour MP (for Hitchin/Stevenage) but started immediately on her ministerial path. “It was always difficult for a woman but finally all these people had voted for me. I felt euphoric,” she says.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

In other news… Paddy in Lords bust-up; Manchester elects Lib Dem lord mayor; Defections round-up

By Stephen Tall | Sun 20th May 2012 - 5:25 pm

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

Lord Ashdown and Lord Phillips in Lords reform clash (BBC News)

Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown has clashed with one of his party colleagues during a debate on government plans to reform the House of Lords. Lord Phillips of Sudbury complained that the proposal would turn Parliament’s second chamber into a clone of the House of Commons, with politicians simply following the party line when it comes to voting. In finger-jabbing exchanges, Lord Ashdown argued that most peers should be elected. A

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Paddy: So you want to be a politician? Get a life (first).

By Stephen Tall | Sun 20th May 2012 - 10:35 am

That’s Paddy’s view, as reported in the Independent’s diary here:

Paddy Ashdown, the first leader of the Liberal Democrat party, has remarked on how politics has been taken over by people who have never had a job anywhere else but in politics, giving the strong impression that he does not approve. “The difference with politics today, and politics when I was leader of the Liberal Democrats, is the people working in politics,” he said. “I worked in the military. I was involved in business. I have been unemployed twice, working as a voluntary youth worker. Today’s politicians have simply only

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 38 Comments
Chris Richards

Opinion: A message from Paddy over a decade later

By Chris Richards | Tue 15th May 2012 - 12:10 pm

Back in September 1999 Paddy Ashdown gave his farewell speech to the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference. The speech set out some challenges for Liberal Democrats as we approached a new century. What is interesting to note, reading it almost 13 years later, is how prescient his speech is when looking at the credit crunch and the current Eurozone crisis:

Here is the inescapable fact. Power is now moving, increasingly, beyond the confines of the nation state and is rapidly making many of its institutions irrelevant.

He continued,

We must start taking global governance seriously. The nation states, their governments and their politicians are

…

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Posted in Op-eds | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo: What are your memories of 15 years ago today, 1st May 1997?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 1st May 2012 - 8:50 pm

It’s exactly 15 years ago today that Tony Blair led New Labour to a landslide general election victory over John Major’s Tories, and Paddy Ashdown saw the Lib Dems secure the largest third party representation in the House of Commons since 1929. Here are three videos to remind you of a quite extraordinary night…

The exit poll predicts Labour’s landslide

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Posted in YouTube | Also tagged , , and | 31 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – I understand why many voters on the progressive wing of politics are struggling with voting for Ken Livingstone

By NewsHound | Fri 27th April 2012 - 12:25 pm

Writing in the Evening Standard, former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown says:

I understand why many voters on the progressive wing of politics are struggling with voting for Ken Livingstone. His campaign has been sad, desperate and divisive. He has just one big idea — a seven per cent cut in Tube fares. It’s a perfectly decent policy at a time when fares have risen for years on end but the problem is he can’t do it and he knows it.

Transport for London knows it too, having worked

…

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Posted in LibLink and London | Also tagged and | 14 Comments
The Voice

Paddy Ashdown: If everyone dodged taxes there would be no hospitals, no schools, no welfare

By The Voice | Mon 16th April 2012 - 9:24 am

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Paddy Ashdown was at his most forthright on the subject of tax relief for charitable donations.

Paddy reminded Marr that he is the President of UNICEF UK, and therefore knows exactly how charities will be hit by the government’s proposal of a £50,000 or 25% of income (whichever is higher) limit on tax exempt donations from one individual.

But he told Marr that it is the poor who pay when tax monies are diverted excessively to charities. He said …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 8 Comments
Andrew Wigley

Marking the 20th anniversary of the Siege of Sarajevo

By Andrew Wigley | Fri 13th April 2012 - 3:35 pm

This month marks a clutch of anniversaries ranging from the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago to John Major’s astonishing election victory in 1992.

More tumultuous events were taking place in Europe that same year, notably the escalation of war in Yugoslavia. While a 6-week conflict had marred Slovenia’s break-away from Belgrade the previous year, Croatia’s bid for independence quickly became ugly. It was, arguably, the announcement of independence by Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1992 which triggered the most vicious and intractable conflict since World War II. At its heart, was the cruel siege of Sarajevo which lasted almost four …

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Posted in News | 1 Comment
Caron Lindsay

Liblink: Paddy Ashdown says Snoopers’ Charter breaches the Coalition Deal

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 12th April 2012 - 1:55 pm

Writing in today’s Times, former leader Paddy Ashdown, a key ally of Nick Clegg, has condemned Government’s proposals to increase internet surveillance and warned that we must not “part company with our principles.”

He wrote:

The Government claims that it will have unfettered access only to “data” (ie, sender, recipient, time and duration) rather than content, so this does not constitute “a communications interception”. That is sophistry.

It is one of our rights as free citizens to talk to whom we wish, when we wish and wherever we wish without the State knowing about it, unless there is good cause for it to

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , , , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Remembering the 1992 general election, 20 years ago today

By Stephen Tall | Mon 9th April 2012 - 10:45 am

Thursday, 9th April, 1992 — the first election for the newly-formed Liberal Democrats, and the last election when the Tories won a parliamentary majority. Here’s a video trip down memory lane…

Andrew Marr on John Major’s biggest popular mandate in electoral history

Paddy Ashdown on the campaign trail

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Posted in YouTube | Also tagged , and | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

Paddy Ashdown: A Fortunate Life

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th March 2012 - 4:50 pm

It is a tribute to Paddy Ashdown’s varied and fascinating careers that even hardened politicos reading his autobiography, A Fortunate Life, do not express regret at how relatively briefly his British political career features in it.

Around two-thirds of the book document his times as a Royal Marine, in the Special Boat Service, then as a spy and finally, after time as an MP and leader of the Liberal Democrats, international peacemaker in the former Yugoslavia. Even if his time as leader of the Liberal Democrats had ended quickly in ignominious failure, Ashdown would have multiple impressive legacies to outweigh it. That in fact his time as leader saw remarkable success in rescuing the party from death’s door makes all but the most hardened reader end up feeling their life is just rather tame, straight-forward and under-performing compared to Ashdown’s.

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Stephen Tall

EXCLUSIVE: Majority of Lib Dem members back Coalition’s benefits cap

By Stephen Tall | Wed 8th February 2012 - 1:20 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 570 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

59% of Lib Dem members back benefits cap at £26,000 or lower

LDV asked: Under the Coalition government’s proposal the cap on benefits will apply to the total sum of all benefits a household receives, including income support, jobseekers allowance, child benefit and housing benefit. The government is setting the maximum at £26,000, the average earnings of a British family after tax. What do …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged and | 20 Comments
Mark Pack

Paddy Ashdown’s eight steps to winning a Parliamentary constituency

By Mark Pack | Fri 3rd February 2012 - 8:25 am

In December 1976 Paddy Ashdown put to the local party in Yeovil a plan for winning the constituency for which he had been recently selected and where the party was third at almost every election. Thirty-five and a bit years on, it still reads as a pretty good plan.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 5 Comments
Linda Jack

Opinion: What price democracy in the Lib Dems?

By Linda Jack | Thu 2nd February 2012 - 6:02 pm

Over the past 21 months I have had many moments when I have felt close to despair about the behaviour of our parliamentarians. Sometimes, like voting in favour of tuition fees, they can rightly point to the Coalition Agreement – endorsed overwhelmingly – as Nick Clegg observed at the time – by a North Korean like Special Conference. Other times, like voting against party policy on Legal Aid and Welfare Reform – there is no such defence. Last night calls into question the fundamental values and principles of our party, not just in terms of flying in the face of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 133 Comments
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