Tag Archives: security

Mark Valladares

31 December 2018 – 6 January 2019 – the week’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Sun 6th January 2019 - 10:45 pm

Right, the holiday season is over, and it’s back to something resembling normalcy tomorrow, what with Parliament resuming and all. So, here’s the press releases that you missed…

  • Govt must provide answers over forced marriage scandal
  • Javid comments on asylum seekers ‘completely unacceptable’
  • Corbyn cosies up to the Conservatives on Brexit
  • All Gove is offering farmers is uncertainty
  • Cable: PM’s publicity campaign is scaremongering
  • Cable: Govt must end brinkmanship over security in Northern Ireland
  • Lib Dems: Govt must follow airports and invest in drone protection

Govt must provide answers over forced marriage scandal

Liberal Democrats today condemned reports that the Government is charging victims of illegal forced marriages to …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 7 Comments
Mark Valladares

21-30 December 2018 – press release catch-up

By Mark Valladares | Sun 30th December 2018 - 10:30 pm

You’d been wondering where I’d gotten to, hadn’t you? Well, following some consideration of how this regular feature works, I’ve decided to change it a bit. From now on, I’ll publish on Monday to Thursday inclusive, and on Sunday evening. My thinking is that politics goes a bit quiet when Parliament isn’t sitting, and one can develop a false expectation as to the flow of press releases from that.

And now, a catch up of press releases you’ve probably missed…

  • Lib Dem call to scrap Vagrancy Act gets Labour backing
  • Cable: Corbyn offers no real alternative
  • Govt must take no deal off the table

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

Campbell: May’s speech shows that staying in the EU is best for Britain’s security

By The Voice | Sat 17th February 2018 - 12:30 pm

Lord Menzies Campbell gave the Lib Dem reaction to Theresa May’s speech on post-Brexit security:

Everything Theresa May said in this speech illustrated that being in the EU is the best way of securing our security objectives.

This was an opportunity for her to show some pragmatism. She could have shown willingness to compromise on the European Court of Justice so as to break the logjam on the European Arrest Warrant and to make sure we have access to Europol’s information.

The problem she has is that to decide is to divide – Conservative Brexiteers inside and outside her Cabinet will be up

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged and | 17 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Brian Paddick: If we value our national security, we will avoid a hard Brexit

By NewsHound | Thu 30th March 2017 - 2:49 pm

A couple of days before Theresa May’s ill-judged ultimatum in her Article 50 letter over trade and security, Brian Paddick wrote for the Guardian about how hard Brexit could damage our security. That’s right. If Theresa May gets her way, we will be less safe.

He started off by talking about last week’s attack at Westminster in which 4 people, PC Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes and Kurt Cochran were murdered. How do we balance the need to keep Parliament accessible with the safety of those in and around it?

That security must be balanced with an obligation to keep parliament open to the people. We shouldn’t turn Westminster into Fort Knox, even if such a thing were possible. But we can improve security, for politicians, staff and, crucially, police on the frontline.

Those officers are not armed. Armed support is a distance away. No one wants an ostentatious display of force, which would only increase that sense of alienation many feel about “Westminster”. But this attack shows, alas, that armed officers should be directly behind that frontline. Otherwise lives will be lost that could be saved. In this attack, I gather, it was only because a minister’s armed close protection officer happened to be close by that the assailant was stopped.

While millions are spent on surveillance powers and the security services, over the past six years £1bn has been cut from the Metropolitan police budget. That’s huge.

He went on to talk about how a hard Brexit could compromise our security effort both in cost and co-operation. 

Continue reading »
Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes…Nick Clegg has put Liberal Democrats far ahead of other parties on security and privacy

By Julian Huppert | Tue 4th March 2014 - 6:49 pm

This morning was a good day for Liberal Democrats. I and many others went to RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute to hear Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of our party, deliver a speech on security and privacy in the internet age.

He sent out a clear and strong message: the legal framework for the UK’s intelligence agencies and intelligence oversight structure is in desperate need of an overhaul, and this must start with an independent review, which he has commissioned.

His wider ambitions are set out in a piece for the Guardian today. The Tories are blocking changes …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Huppert warns against “sleepwalking into a surveillance society”

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 2nd November 2013 - 11:15 am

huppert_caption compIt’s become a truth universally acknowledged in the Liberal Democrats that wherever there is a threat to our freedoms, Julian Huppert will be there trying to thwart it, whether that’s convenient for the party leadership or not.  Most of the time, it has to be said, it is convenient for the leadership, but it’s worth remembering that if it hadn’t been for the combination of him and some angry bloggers, we might be in a world where the Communications Data Act of 2012 had been passed.

And so it was on …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Gossip from Gateshead #1

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th March 2012 - 4:08 pm

This is a brief foray into the lighter side of Liberal Democrat Conference in Gateshead. There may well be more issues before the weekend is out but that depends on the amount and quality of the information I receive.

The most pressing matter, of course, is the mystery of the missing chocolate. Yesterday, I put a box of Celebrations and a bag of Minstrels in the Liberal Democrat Voice office. By the time Mark Pack arrived here at the crack of dawn this morning, it had disappeared. What could possibly have happened?  I’m sure that we could run to a small …

Continue reading »
Posted in Conference | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Advert



Recent Comments

  • User AvatarYousuf Farah 29th Jan - 6:28pm
    Hopefully someday we can get back into the EU. Catastrophic mistake to have ever left the bloc.
  • User AvatarMichael Maybridge 29th Jan - 6:13pm
    @Paul Murray and Glenn: I love Mrs Brown's Boys and University Challenge and have just auditioned to be on Only Connect (I don't think I've...
  • User AvatarGlenn 29th Jan - 5:27pm
    Paul Murray Not, really. Taste is, in most cases, pretty predicable and tells you more about social/tribal groupings and what is acceptible or not in...
  • User AvatarGordon Lishman 29th Jan - 5:23pm
    Spring Conference has a net cost to the overall Party budget. Abolition of Spring Conf is a regular debate, so far not attracting the support...
  • User AvatarJohn Marriott 29th Jan - 5:06pm
    @Silvio So that rules out Ed Davey then? What an utterly futile, and I would add, illogical idea. When are you folks going to wake...
  • User AvatarPaul Murray 29th Jan - 4:52pm
    With "Mrs Brown's Boys" having won some award or other, YouGov have announced the results of a poll in which they picked out programmes people...