Tag Archives: sarah teather

The curious comparison of the seven North London MPs

By Hywel Morgan | Wed 25th March 2009 - 10:51 am

In exposing the actions Tony McNulty the Mail on Sunday produced an interesting table of the claims of Additional Cost Allowances made by MPs in outer London and the South East.

It makes interesting comparision when you compare the claims of MPs in neighbouring seats. The following MPs all represent seats that are a broadly comparable distance from Westminster. Yet the amounts they claim are vastly different.

MP Constituency ACA claim in the last 5  years+ Claims London Supplement?
Sarah Teather* (LD) Brent East £0 Yes
Dawn Butler** (LAB) Brent South £37,245
Rudi Vis (LAB) Finchley and Golders Green £32,211

…

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem housing proposals unveiled

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th February 2009 - 6:50 pm

There was no escaping Lib Dem shadow housing minister Sarah Teather yesterday … not only did she put in a sparkling performance on BBC1’s Question Time, but, more importantly, she launched the party’s new plans to ‘rebuild social housing and rescue the construction industry’ (full details at the party website here). Which, ahem, LDV managed not to cover yesterday 😳 – fortunately, though, the proposals did earn plenty of coverage in the media:

BBC: Lib Dems unveil housing proposals – The Liberal Democrats have unveiled plans to boost the number of low cost homes and reduce repossessions. They say government efforts to do so have had little effect and suspending stamp duty on homes worth below £175,000 was a “waste of money”. They say more empty properties need to be used and firms with empty commercial properties should get incentives to let them out as temporary homes. … 

Launching their plans earlier, the Lib Dems said they would also introduce a “repair and renewal loan scheme” for people who own empty properties which they are prepared to lease for five years to housing associations. The party said the scheme would cost £400m over two years and would be paid for by scrapping Homebuy Direct, a scheme set up by the government to help first-time buyers on to the housing ladder. That would also allow commercial properties being used for housing, to claim commercial property rate relief – also funded by scrapping Homebuy Direct. The party believes young people – rather than families – would be prepared to live in empty commercial property for short periods of time at low rents.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time (19/2/09): open thread

By Stephen Tall | Thu 19th February 2009 - 10:20 pm

Sarah Teather, the Lib Dems’ shadow housing minister and MP for Brent East, is the party’s representative on tonight’s Question Time (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm GMT).

Sarah will be joined on the panel by Labour’s employment minister, the uber-loyal Tony McNulty, former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, journalist and television personality, the slimily shallow Piers Morgan, and ‘entrepreneur’ (aka the inexplicable winner of The Apprentice 2007) Tim Campbell.

And for those who are staying up extra late for BBC1’s This Week, don’t bother – they’re taking a half-term break, and will be back next week.

If you’re …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV and News | Also tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Thompson

Confessions of a ‘Newbie’

By Mark Thompson | Wed 21st January 2009 - 3:20 pm

I went to the one-day Lib Dem policy conference at the London School of Economics at the weekend. As a fairly new member of the Lib Dems (I joined a few months ago) I was curious to see what happens at these sort of events and was also looking forward to it. I attended with Darren, a fellow member of my local constituency branch in Bracknell, who has been a member for a while longer than myself.

The first thing that struck me was how open everything was. The 300 or so people who were there, who included councillors, …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , , and | 4 Comments
Helen Duffett

Sarah Teather: Blair’s US award “tainted”

By Helen Duffett | Tue 6th January 2009 - 5:18 pm

The Daily Mirror reports today that Tony Blair is to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the USA’s highest civilian award) from George Bush next week:

Mr Blair, to the anger of many British voters, was one of the staunchest allies of the US, particularly over the invasion of Iraq and following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

“White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush is honouring Mr Blair, Mr Howard and President Uribe “for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad”.”

Commenting on the award, Sarah Teather, Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East said,

It is highly

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Posted in News | 4 Comments
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