Tag Archives: shadow cabinet (lib dem)

Tim Farron announces new shadow cabinet

Tim Farron has announced his new Shadow Cabinet team, saying:

I am pleased to announce my new Shadow Cabinet team. Together we will provide the strong Liberal voice that Britain desperately needs to stand up to this Tory Brexit Government.

The Tories have no plans to protect the interests of the country in the wake of Brexit. Labour is in disarray. Only the Liberal Democrats can confront the Government and stand up for people’s jobs and livelihoods.

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Danny Alexander, not Vince Cable, designated Lib Dem shadow chancellor (oh, and no Lib Dem reshuffle)

speech danny alexander 6The Guardian’s Nick Watt reports today the long-trailed announcement that Danny Alexander, Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury, will take on the role of the party’s shadow chancellor at the 2015 election:

Nick Clegg has decided that Alexander, his closest ally in the cabinet, will be the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman during the campaign and will face George Osborne and Ed Balls in any television debates on the economy. … The Lib Dems insisted that the election roles for Alexander and Cable were consistent with their cabinet roles. A Lib Dem spokesman said: “We are enormously fortunate to have two talented and well-known ministers on economic matters that are recognised and respected by the public. By the next election Danny Alexander and Vince Cable will have both served for five years as chief secretary and business secretary respectively, so they know their areas inside out. It therefore makes complete sense that they should continue in those roles during the election.”

I’ve made no secret of my view on this: there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Vince Cable should have continued in the role he held in 2010 as the party’s shadow chancellor. He is, quite simply, head and shoulders above any of his colleagues when it comes not only to understanding the British economy, but, just as crucially, explaining it in a way that is both credible and distinct from the Tories.

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Independent: “Lib Dems fall out over who should take on George Osborne in election debate”

Cable alexander clegg some rights reserved by liberal democratsStephen Tall’s article here yesterday – Without a shadow of a doubt: Vince Cable should be the Lib Dems’ Shadow Chancellor at the 2015 election – has been picked up by today’s Independent:

As the minority coalition partner, the Lib Dems do not have a shadow chancellor. Nick Clegg must choose between the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, and the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, who represented the Lib Dems in the 2010 debate.

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Even top Tory admits their shadow cabinet “haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery”

The Public Finance website reports the comments of Stephen Greenhalgh, Tory leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and head of the Conservative councils’ innovation unit, at a debate two days ago:

‘My mates are all in the shadow Cabinet, waiting to get those boxes, being terribly excited. I went to university with them, they haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery,’ he said.

‘They’re going to get a department of state, in one case running the finances of the nation.’

Greenhalgh pointed to other countries, such as France and the US, where members of the government had typically

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Lib Dem shadow cabinet media tarts, #ldconf special

Donning the hat of his day-job, LDV’s Dr Mark Pack has been busy number-crunching to discover which of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet attracted most media coverage, in print and online. (Of course, column inches is no guarantee that the coverage will have been altogether positive).

Here’s the top 10:

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