Tag Archives: the times

Caron Lindsay

How can we do politics better?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 4th January 2014 - 9:59 am

There’s been a spate of articles and comments by Liberal Democrat politicians which, at a guess, isn’t co-ordinated, but they all address the same themes – the problems with the way that we do politics and lack of trust in politicians and institutions.

Paddy Ashdown told the Times (£), reported also for free in the Guardian that public faith in British institutions was “crumbling into dust” with some very harsh words for the BBC and NHS:

The BBC is revealed as an organisation which can’t manage its own affairs, misspends public money and seems to have been complicit in aggrandising

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 46 Comments
NewsHound

Times: “The increasingly confident and powerful Mr Clegg”

By NewsHound | Wed 4th December 2013 - 4:45 pm

Anyone who watched Prime Minister’s Question Time or listens to Call Clegg regularly will know that Nick Clegg is often in relaxed, confident mood these days. He answers questions with ease and authenticity.

Writing in today’s Times, Alice Thomson writes about the “increasingly confident and powerful Mr Clegg” in a way that makes you think she doesn’t really like it.

But the bizarre paradox is that the more scandals they have overcome and the worse the Lib Dems do in the polls, the more confident their high command has become.

She doesn’t really take into account that national polls don’t really mean that …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 29 Comments
Caron Lindsay

An engagement is announced…..

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 2:59 pm

From today’s Times (£):

Ed and Russell Times cropped

Mr E T Fordham, of course, is  better known to us all as Ed, vice-chair of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats who, along with many others from that organisation, took pride of place in our Equal Marriage Roll of Honour.

We knew of his and Russell’s happy news already, of course, because Julian Huppert had told the world about it during the Commons’ final passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill and been told off by the Speaker. The exchange is recorded forever …

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NewsHound

LibLink… Willie Rennie: Scots are great, independence will not help us to be greater.

By NewsHound | Fri 19th July 2013 - 10:25 am

Willie Rennie has been writing in the Times about the Scottish independence referendum. One of the charges that gets levelled at anyone opposed to independence is that we think that Scotland is too poor, too wee or too stupid to go it alone. Except nobody on the pro-union campaign actually thinks that. The SNP use it as something to bash the opposition with but it’s a straw man and a flimsy one at that.

I have never heard any spokesman for Better Together say “Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid” but I have heard people on the doorsteps

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Stephen Tall

Andy Murray, Virginia Wade and my experience of a small dose of Everyday Sexism

By Stephen Tall | Mon 8th July 2013 - 8:55 am

So last night I tweeted this:

In response to this Times front page:

andy murray

It got a fair few retweets, including from Graham Linehan (@Glinner) and Danny Baker (@Prodnose), and my timeline started to get busy. Responses fell into two camps.

First, Pedants (and I mean this affectionately here), who pointed out it isn’t just Virginia Wade who’s been written …

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NewsHound

Ashdown says package offered to Afghan interpreter doesn’t “fulfill our debt of honour”

By NewsHound | Wed 5th June 2013 - 12:59 pm

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that the Government had changed its mind and would allow Afghan intepreters to settle in this country. This is something that Paddy Ashdown and Nick Clegg had argued for vociferously.

However, as details of the scheme have emerged, they have been dismissed as insufficient by various people, including Paddy Ashdown as the Times (£) reports:

Senior politicians have accused the Government of mistaken priorities in their handling of safeguards for British Army interpreters when UK forces leave Afghanistan.

Only those interpreters who were still in British service on December 19, 2012, will be offered 

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Caron Lindsay

“Lib Dems give Mansion Tax threat over terror bill” says Times

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th May 2013 - 11:28 am

Today’s Times carries a story (£), with not very much substance to it, that the Liberal Democrats have threatened to team up with Labour to vote on the Mansion Tax if the Conservatives team up with Labour to force through the Communications Data Bill so loved by Theresa May and which has been rejected by Nick Clegg on 3 occasions now. The first was when he refused to let it in last year’s Queen’s Speech as a full bill, ensuring it received detailed scrutiny by a parliamentary committee. The second was when the Parliamentary Committee rejected the measure out of …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 20 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown say that Afghan interpreters should have the right to live in the UK

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 1st May 2013 - 1:30 pm

Almost exactly four years ago, Nick Clegg, as an opposition party leader, led a debate in Parliament in which the Labour Government was defeated on its plans to restrict the rights of Gurkhas to settle in the UK. David Cameron was keen to get himself into the photos with Joanna Lumley at the time.

Four years on, and Clegg and Cameron have opposing views on whether Afghan interpreters who helped our soldiers in that country should be allowed to settle here. Today’s Times (£) reports that the Prime Minister, along with Theresa May and Philip Hammond are against allowing …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Times: ‘Cameron is told to drop snooping on web users’

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd April 2013 - 8:05 am

Today’s Times front page is dominated by the news that nine cyber-security experts and academics have issued a stark warning to David Cameron to halt ‘sweeping plans to hand the security services the power to snoop on emails, website visits and social media sites’: “they remain as naive and technically dangerous as when they were floated by the last government,” they warn.

times web snooping

The paper notes the opposition both of Nick Clegg — who highlighted his disagreement with the draft Bill last December — and of Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert, who points out: “Where we lead, other countries would follow, snooping on their citizens’ legal activities. … The case for these proposals is massively out-weighed by the cost and the harm to privacy, here and overseas.”

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NewsHound

Thatcher museum to be housed in former Liberal Democrat HQ?

By NewsHound | Mon 15th April 2013 - 12:55 pm

Way back in 1981, when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, the SDP was formed and took up residence at 4 Cowley Street, just round the corner from the Houses of Parliament. That building became the home of the Liberal Democrats after the 1988 merger between the Liberals and Social Democrats.

Today’s Times carries a report which suggests that our former headquarters could house the proposed museum to Margaret Thatcher. However, if you read the article in full, it amounts to little more than a bit of gentle stirring by Conor Burns, the Conservative MP who is a strong proponent of the …

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Caron Lindsay

LibLink…Paddy Ashdown: If you’re opposed to drones, then think again

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th February 2013 - 1:56 pm

In Liberal Democrat circles, when Barack Obama is discussed, it’s generally agreed that he’s doing a grand job except for the not insignificant matter of the extra-judicial killings and the use of unmanned drone attacks.

Paddy Ashdown has expressed a different view writing in today’s Times describing drones as the most “democratic” weapon ever invented.

As a lifelong peace-loving hippy, you’d expect that I would have been the first to head Paddy’s advice:

 war is a revolting practice and cannot be discussed without using revolting words. So the squeamish and those morally offended by all violence should look away now.

I didn’t, though. Partly …

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Caron Lindsay

LibLink… Paddy Ashdown: It’s not a fight against “us”, it’s Islam vs Islam

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 23rd January 2013 - 6:55 pm

Mali rebel - License Some rights reserved by MagharebiaIn an article in today’s Times, Paddy Ashdown concedes that David Cameron is probably right that the so-called War on Terror (a term Paddy dislikes) will go on for another decade. Paddy argues that we need to recognise that the way western countries have been operating doesn’t work. What is needed now is to recognise that the fight is between different factions of Islam. It should be our job to help out moderate governments where we can.

He outlined why the “invasions, main battle armies and occupation” of

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Posted in Europe / International and LibLink | Also tagged , , , and | 5 Comments
The Voice

LibLink… Nick Clegg: Labour need to tell us what they would cut

By The Voice | Wed 2nd January 2013 - 2:41 pm

Nick Clegg has issued a challenge to Labour in today’s Times. Rather than, he says, oppose every single cut the Coalition has made, Labour should be saying what they would cut to pay for their policy priorities. If Labour want benefits to rise at the rate of inflation, then they need to spell out exactly how they would pay for it.

Firstly, he talks about what the Coalition has achieved for economic growth, and how it has been pragmatic on cutting the deficit, changing its plans as the global economic circumstances changed:

Here in the UK we have now paid off around

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , and | 90 Comments
Caron Lindsay

172 Liberal Democrats write to the Times to oppose secret courts

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st November 2012 - 11:30 am

As the Justice and Security Bill is debated in the House of Lords for the second day this week, 172 Liberal Democrats have written to the Times to express opposition to the proposals for secret courts and their letter has been published today (£). Although only five names are given in the paper, the full list of 172 who signed before the letter was sent and more who signed subsequently is published on the Lib Dems against secret courts website.

What’s interesting about the list is that it contains such a broad range of

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Caron Lindsay

Another idea Ed Miliband is supporting that Liberal Democrats have heard – and done – before

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd October 2012 - 6:55 pm

In Saturday’s Times (£), Ed Miliband talked about helping poorer households with their fuel bills. His “unprecedented scheme” where the party will mobilise communities to buy electricity at lower prices than individuals could manage.

The scheme will be run by iChoosr, which will negotiate on consumers’ behalf with big power companies. The more people who sign up, the harder the bargain they will be able to drive. It will be tried out in three areas, starting next month, with the aim of securing cheaper bills by the New Year. Volunteers will leaflet the pilot areas with an emphasis on reaching

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg: in politics you’ve got to get your hands dirty

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 3rd September 2012 - 9:08 pm

Jo Swinson MP has today emailed party members to draw their attention to an interview Nick Clegg gave to The Times over the weekend. I’m not sure that many Liberal Democrat Voice readers will have a subscription to the heart of the Murdoch Empire, but, never fear, Liberal Democrat Voice will do its best to give you the general jist.

Asked about his decision to go into Government with the Tories, Nick was clear that he was in the business of getting things done:

I marvel at some people who think it’s better to have completely clean but entirely useless hands. What’s

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The Voice

Liberal Democrats reject Steve Hilton’s £25 billion welfare cuts call

By The Voice | Wed 16th May 2012 - 6:47 pm

David Cameron’s adviser Steve Hilton heads off for a sabbatical in California, where he will be learning more about governance.

However, he is  reported in several newspapers to have left a wee parting present, a paper calling for a further £25 billion cut in welfare spending. He wants to see people, particularly single parents, encouraged into full time rather than part time work. No mention is made of how the resulting child care costs would be met, of course. Maybe he hadn’t thought of that.

The Times (£) reported that these plans had not been shared with the Liberal Democrats but, …

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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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Helen Duffett

Comeback Clegg – the Times’ reasons to be cheerful about the Lib Dems

By Helen Duffett | Tue 17th January 2012 - 4:49 pm

There’s a great article in today’s Times praising the Liberal Democrats and fancying the party’s prospects between now and 2015.

Rachel Sylvester writes that although the received wisdom says coalition government has ruined the Lib Dems’ chances, it’s too early to write them off:

The Liberal Democrats could end up doing a lot better than most people currently think.

She cites encouraging signs in the polls:

A huge number of people still have no idea how they are going to vote and although only 12 per cent say that they would support Mr Clegg’s party if there were an election

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Caron Lindsay

Times: Lib Dems are right to maintain identity and policies in Government

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st December 2011 - 8:55 am

The Times published a leader on Monday praising Nick Clegg for publicly challenging David Cameron and the Conservatives on certain matters of policy.

Nick’s robust statements on the subject of a tax break for married couples were welcomed by the paper as it also highlighted other Liberal Democrat successes.

The principle of a State that provides for its citizens but does not coerce them in matters of conscience and judgment is a precious liberal inheritance. Mr Clegg should emphasise it. He should also reflect on the importance of the role that his party performs in government. He and his colleagues rightly took the

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Opinion: Liberal Democrats didn’t just avoid Murdoch, we tried to cut him down to size

By James Percival | Tue 12th July 2011 - 1:53 pm

In my last post for Lib Dem Voice, I pointed out that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems had never courted Murdoch and his cronies.

Actually, that was just the half of it.

We didn’t just avoid him. We have tried, in different ways over a number of years, to cut the media mogul down to size and clamp down on the sort of abhorrent media practices that have been exposed of late.

As far back as 1994, the year before Tony Blair chose to fly to Oz to lick Rupert Murdoch’s boots, we were calling for the OFT …

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Chris White

Chris White writes: thoughts on the letter to the Times

By Chris White | Wed 16th February 2011 - 1:25 pm

Last week saw much excitement when 90 leading Liberal Democrat councillors wrote to the Times criticising the leadership of Eric Pickles. I was not one of them.

In 2009 I thought long and hard about the circumstances in which such letters are appropriate and as a result offer 6 tests:

  1. Is the objective clear?
  2. Is the objective likely to be more achievable as a result of the letter?
  3. Does it avoid attacking our own side?
  4. Is the timing appropriate?
  5. Is the medium appropriate?
  6. Does it avoid looking elitist and self-regarding?

The letter to the Guardian from members of the Federal Policy Committee during the Autumn Conference …

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

The Times’ advice to voters in Oldham: “They should vote Lib Dem.”

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th January 2011 - 9:10 pm

Well, here’s a bit of a turn-up… While the Lib Dems’ erstwhile friends, the Guardian and Independent, take delight in stilettoing the party, The Times has come out in support of the Lib Dems’ Elwyn Watkins in next week’s Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election.

No link, I’m afraid — blame the paper’s paywall — but here’s an excerpt the final line of which I imagine will find its way onto a few Lib Dem leaflets over the next seven days:

A Labour victory in Oldham might lead the party, quite wrongly, to think itself on the right course when, in fact,

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged and | 43 Comments
Stephen Tall

Why a part of me is cheering on Rupert Murdoch

By Stephen Tall | Fri 5th November 2010 - 11:57 am

At face value, the figures released by News International this week showing that The Times and Sunday Times had registered some 105,000 customer sales since its paywall was erected in July sounded like good news. As analysts attempted to decipher the company’s ‘fuzzy numbers‘, doubts began to creep in.

Understanding those paywall figures

The reality appears to be that roughly 50,000 individual users have subscribed to gain access to the newspapers’ content, whether online or through the iPad app or the Kindle edition. The other c.50,000 customer sales are for single-use or pay-as-you-go access to the website, and will …

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Mark Pack

Is the problem that people don’t want to pay for news or don’t want to pay for newspapers?

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th August 2010 - 5:50 pm

Each round of newspaper circulation figures makes grim reading for anyone trying to balance the books at a newspaper. Month after month circulation is dropping away across the board. The usual explanation is that newspapers are suffering because so much free news is now available online, and there is certainly a large degree of truth in that.

However, there are two important caveats to that. First, the massive lack of trust in journalists, who are regularly rated one of the least trusted professions in the UK. As I wrote last year on this topic,

Isn’t a major reason that people increasingly turn

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Stephen Tall

Paywall vs ‘Freemium’: why Parris, Finkelstein et al may rue Rupe’s decision

By Stephen Tall | Tue 27th July 2010 - 3:20 pm

Will The Times’s paywall work? It’s the question that’s been asked ever since Rupert Murdoch’s News International announced its intention to place The Times and The Sunday Times websites behind a paywall, blocking any user not prepared to pay a subscription for access.

Last week saw publication of early unofficial statistics which were extrapolated at length in The Guardian and suggest The Times’s website now attracts somewhere between 84,800 and 195,700 daily unique users – compared with c.1.2 million daily unique users pre-paywall.

It’s stating the obvious to point out that’s a huge drop: after all, the point of the exercise is to make money from the few, not be free to the masses. So far, it’s understood there are 15,000 paying users – though whether that figure includes those who signed up for cheap one-month trial offers is not certain – in addition to 12,500 iPad users.

Assuming The Times can retain all those paying customers (which is a big assumption), it’s estimated the paywall could attract revenues of £1-2m a year. I’ve not yet seen, though, a reliable figure showing what the cost in lost advertising revenue associated with a fall in online circulation will total – which make it difficult as yet to work out if News International will generate an immediate net profit from the paywall. That, after all, would be Mr Murdoch’s ultimate response to the naysayers.

What I don’t understand is why News International decided to go all out for the paywall at The Times without at least first testing the market by adopting a ‘freemium’ model, making basic content available free, but charging for premium content.

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Mark Pack

A polite round of applause directed towards The Times

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th February 2010 - 11:18 pm

I wasn’t expecting that.

The Times has reported its latest opinion poll. It has reported the changes in party share of the vote.

And then Peter Riddell has said,

These shifts are within the margin of error

Why’s that impressive? Because nearly every opinion poll only shows changes within the margin of error (you’ve usually got to look over a wider pattern to see statistically significant changes), but that doesn’t stop newspapers writing up their stories as if the changes in support are significant and therefore ones we can be sure actually happened.

It’s as if the newspapers think, “Look, we know the poll doesn’t …

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

LibLink … Nick Clegg: The Liberal Democrats are not for sale

By Stephen Tall | Mon 4th January 2010 - 11:50 pm

Over at The Times, Nick Clegg has penned an article setting out, perhaps in the clearest detail yet, exactly how the Lib Dems will respond in the event of a ‘hung Parliament’. He begins by noting the heat-without-light debate that the new year has brought:

Much of what we have heard so far is unsurprising: absurd pledges on spending, vitriolic attacks on cuts. But one development is new: both the old parties now claim to be almost identical to the Liberal Democrats. David Cameron and Gordon Brown are ostentatiously flirting with Liberal Democrat voters, clumsily trying to woo them —

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Stephen Tall

Times backs Jeremy Browne’s expenses appeal

By Stephen Tall | Fri 18th December 2009 - 11:15 am

As LDV reported yesterday, Lib Dem MP for ultra-marginal Taunton is appealing against Sir Thomas Legg’s request for repayment of almost £18,000 in expenses which Sir Thomas says were against the rules.

Today’s Times carries a leader column backing Jeremy’s appeal – here’s an excerpt:

Take Jeremy Browne, the Liberal Democrat and the first MP to confirm that he would appeal. Upon entering Parliament, Mr Browne removed equity from a London home that he owned before he was elected and used it to buy a property in his constituency. He then claimed against his allowance for the (now larger)

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Stephen Tall

Times: Tories “give up” on Cheadle with Lib Dems digging in for victory

By Stephen Tall | Mon 7th December 2009 - 10:15 am

Mark Hunter, Lib Dem MP for the  Cheshire seat of Cheadle since 2005, could be forgiven for smiling like his county’s proverbial cat this morning.

Today’s Times reports that the Tories are scaling back their expectations of election victory in the light of a slew of polls showing the party’s support dipping:

The Conservatives are digging in for a six-week election campaign and are quietly withdrawing resources from some “landslide” seats to maximise David Cameron’s chances of winning a workable majority.

The well-sourced article highlights just one example of a constituency where the Tories are giving up the fight:

Cheadle, currently held by

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Posted in General Election and News | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
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