Tag Archives: vince cable

Lucy Parsons

The Independent View: Road to recovery

By Lucy Parsons | Thu 15th October 2009 - 11:45 am

At a Reform event this week, Vince Cable gave his response to our new report on infrastructure. On the key points there is much we agree on. Infrastructure is critical for economic growth, and with a £175 billion government budget deficit, greater private finance is urgently needed to fund infrastructure investments. Government has a role to play in infrastructure, but bureaucratic, interventionist policies will be a barrier to productivity.

The report finds that the UK is in the infrastructure slow lane, ranked 34th in the world on the quality of its infrastructure in a recent competitiveness study. Road to recovery suggests that politicians of all parties have been blinded by the “green heat of technology”, moving towards a more interventionist approach in infrastructure markets.

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Millennium Elephant

Millennium’s Credit Crunch Diary… September: Party Games

By Millennium Elephant | Wed 14th October 2009 - 5:30 pm

Well, the recession is nearly over just in time for the economy to become the BATTLEFIELD for the forthcoming General Election. So we’ve had the Party Conference season now, and we’ve seen the three large Westminster Parties draw up their battle-lines.

What is INTERESTING is how each of the three has a very different DIAGNOSIS of the cause of the credit crunch, and that very much decides what their POLICIES are going to be.

So, if I might rather dramatically summarise, what the three economic spokespersons had to say (presented in the order that they said it) was:

Mr …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Vince’s 5-point spending cuts plan

By Stephen Tall | Wed 14th October 2009 - 11:50 am

In today’s Guardian, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable asnwers five questions that outline the party’s approach to implementing the spending cuts which will be necessary in the next few years while protecting frontline public services. Here are the filletted highlights:

On restoring professional autonomy …

One key step to getting the NHS and education working better is to motivate those who work there. Top-down, command-and-control management has done great damage. Staff have much to contribute but are currently treated as a cost rather than as a resource.

On cutting bureaucracy …

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Stephen Tall

Vince attacks Gordon’s public debt “car boot sale”

By Stephen Tall | Tue 13th October 2009 - 10:15 am

Yesterday, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable tabled an innocuous sounding emergency question in the Commons: “To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the proposed sale of Government assets announced today.”

But that’s not the Vince soundbite which has featured in virtually every headline in today’s newspapers reporting on Labour’s decision to sell up to £16 billion of assets to help fund the national debt. Here’s Vince’s statement in full:

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Stephen Tall

Vince Cable, the free redical, and his “primitive five-grade relationship metric”

By Stephen Tall | Mon 12th October 2009 - 9:35 pm

Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable’s hotly-anticipated autobiography Free Radical is published next month – you can pre-order a copy from Amazon here – and is currently being serialised in the Mail.

Excerpts published so far deal principally with Vince’s childhood growing up in York, ranging from the personal (his mother’s breakdown) to his occasional delinquency (terrorising neighbourhood cats and dogs with an air rifle) to his mixed emotions when his parents died (“I felt a vague sense of sadness and guilt that there was nothing more: no tears.”).

There’s also an intriguing diversion into Vince’s initiation into early …

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Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 12 October 2009

By Stephen Tall | Mon 12th October 2009 - 9:45 am

2 Big Stories

MPs’ expenses row re-ignites as MPs question findings of independent inquiry

In case you thought the row had blown itself out, here comes the sequel:

Gordon Brown has urged MPs to repay expenses claimed up to five years ago if asked to do so following an audit ordered after the furore. There are reports that some MPs plan to defy calls to repay money and may challenge the request in the courts.

The PM is among hundreds of MPs expected to be asked to repay sums following a review of all claims by former civil servant Sir Thomas Legg. …

The BBC understands he has set retrospective limits for some items and annual limits on what he believes they should have claimed. These are £1,000 a year for gardening, and £2,000 a year for cleaning. It is believed to have angered some MPs who say they will not repay the money.

Saturday’s Telegraph reported the following snippet:

Last night, the Lib Dems, who are confident that they avoided the worst excesses, stepped up pressure on the Conservatives

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Stephen Tall

LDV post-conference members’ survey (3): what you thought of the Lib Dem conference

By Stephen Tall | Sun 11th October 2009 - 4:30 pm

Over the last week, Lib Dem Voice has invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200+ of you who completed it; we’ve been publishing the results on LDV over the past few days. You can catch up on the results of all our exclusive LDV members’ surveys by clicking here.

First up, we asked how many of you had actually …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Duncan Hames MP

Campaigning with Nick and Vince in Chippenham

By Duncan Hames MP | Sun 11th October 2009 - 10:45 am

Have you ever wondered what senior MPs like Nick Clegg and Vince Cable do while the other parties have their conferences? Well, I can tell you: they don’t sit at home watching them on the television, instead they take the chance to get out of Westminster and visit our teams in key constituencies around the country. Today it was our turn, when they both came to the Chippenham constituency here in Wiltshire.

Parliamentary candidates, like me, are always delighted to get a visit from well known Lib Dem MPs. It opens doors in the constituency, interests the local media, and provides a chance to say thank you to some of the team.

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Bill le Breton

Opinion: If you go down to the woods today…

By Bill le Breton | Sat 10th October 2009 - 6:20 pm

At the end of the thread to my last offering there was an invitation from Mark Wright to comment on whether I still thought our conference was a disaster. Yes, I do Mark; I know it was; day by day I grow more and more certain.

My case was never based on poll performance (especially during the conference season) and Sunday’s new ComRes poll with its CON 40% (+2), LAB 28% (+5), LDEM 19% (-4) figures should remind us why. No, for me the evaluation was always to do with lost opportunities. May I try to explain my reasoning?

Back in the …

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The Voice

The LDV Saturday caption competition – Vince ‘n’ Paddy

By The Voice | Sat 10th October 2009 - 8:45 am

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader …

vince paddy

Here are veteran Lib Dem stars Vince Cable and Paddy Ashdown – but what do you imagine they might be thinking / saying?

Image: Alex Folkes/Fishnik Photography

Posted in Caption Comp | Also tagged | 13 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV post-conference members’ survey (2): ‘savage’ cuts, tuition fees, ‘mansion tax’ and the leadership

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th October 2009 - 6:35 pm

Over the weekend, Lib Dem Voice invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200+ of you who completed it; we’re publishing the results on LDV over the next few days. You can catch up on the results of all our exclusive LDV members’ surveys by clicking here.

First up, LDV asked: In a media interview before the party conference, Nick Clegg spoke of the need for the Lib Dems to be “quite bold, or even savage, on current spending”. Do you agree with Nick’s assessment?

Here’s what you told us:

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Stephen Tall

Vince – Osborne’s policies are “Lib Dem Lite”

By Stephen Tall | Tue 6th October 2009 - 7:10 pm

Today saw the Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne deliver his conference speech to the party faithful in Manchester, including setting out a number of spending cuts:

>> Public sector pay freeze in 2011 – except frontline military or people on less than £18,000
>> Keep 50p top tax rate for now
>> End Child Trust Funds for all but the poorest families
>> No tax credits for families earning over £50,000.

His Lib Dem opposite number Vince Cable is distinctly underwhelmed:

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Stephen Tall

LDV post-conference members’ survey (1): Nick Clegg approval ratings

By Stephen Tall | Tue 6th October 2009 - 4:45 pm

Over the weekend, Lib Dem Voice invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the 200+ of you who completed it; we’re publishing the results on LDV over the next few days. You can catch up on the results of our exclusive LDV members’ surveys by clicking here.

First up, LDV asked: What is your view of Nick Clegg’s performance as Lib Dem leader?

Here’s what you told us (with September’s pre-conference figures in brackets):

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , and | 2 Comments
The Voice

Daily View 2×2: 30 September 2009

By The Voice | Wed 30th September 2009 - 9:05 am

Two big stories

Gordon’s speech to conference

It almost passed unnoticed in the blogosphere, but it seems Gordon Brown made some sort of speech yesterday.

As the Daily Express put it:

Brushing off reports he is a “dead man walking,” a deluded Brown gushed: “It’s our Britain that works best.”

Though Labour activists might prefer The Guardian’s take:

In a determined 59-minute speech to the party’s autumn conference in Brighton, the prime minister said the Conservatives had faced the “economic call of the century” and had called it wrong.

Polanski arrested

Roman Polanski had sex with a 13 year old girl 32 years ago, so is …

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged | 9 Comments
Iain Roberts

Bournemouth was a hit, no shambolic disaster

By Iain Roberts | Tue 29th September 2009 - 11:04 am

“What’s the name of your leader?” a constituent asked me the day after the Lib Dem conference closed. Luckily, it was a question I could answer with some confidence.  “Nick Clegg”.  “Oh yes, that’s right.  Saw him on the news last night.  Good speech.”

That seemed  a perfectly reasonable, and probably typical, comment from someone with no particular interest in politics who’ll still most likely be casting their vote in the General Election; not to mention the sort of person every political party is looking to engage with.

So how does that fit with William Le Breton’s claim that Bournemouth was …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 30 Comments
Mark Pack

Tax on £1m houses: 69% in favour

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th September 2009 - 8:56 pm

We don’t usually do individual polls on The Voice, relying instead on Stephen’s monthly round-ups. But we do make exceptions when there’s something particularly striking or interesting about them and one of the recent YouGov questions falls into this category.

With the usual caveats about it a poll that is carried out in the middle of one party’s conference and that policy proposals can look different once they’ve been subject to constructive debate frequent attack from other parties, here it is:

The Liberal Democrats have proposed a new tax on the most expensive houses. Householders would pay an annual tax of …

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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Vince Cable: I stirred up a hornets’ nest, but my Mansion Tax is fair

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 2:25 pm

The debate has raged now for a week, ever since Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announced his wish that the Lib Dems adopt the so-called ‘mansion tax’, a levy of 0.5% on households living in homes worth more than £1m. (You can vote on the issue over at LDV’s current poll). Was he right, or was he wrong?

Well, Vince has heard both sides of the argument now – including from his Lib Dem shadow cabinet colleagues – and has come out fighting in favour of his ‘mansion tax’, using his regular column in the Daily Mail to make his points. First of all, he points out, no tax is ever popular, but it’s going to be necessary:

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 15 Comments
Stephen Tall

Clegg and Cable resign from PoliticsHome panel in protest at Ashcroft takeover

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th September 2009 - 5:17 pm

A minor media spat broke out this week, following the announcement that Lord (Michael) Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman who bankrolls the party’s target seats while refusing to say if he pays tax in this country, has bought a majority stake in the political news and commentary aggregator site, PoliticsHome.

This triggered the resignation of the site’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Rawnsley, who issued a public statement arguing that:

It was essential for users of the site that they could feel absolute confidence in the political independence of PoliticsHome. I do not believe that can be compatible with being under the ownership

…

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Stephen Tall

YouTube ‘cos we want to: bumper conference catch-up special edition

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 6:40 pm

Welcome to this very special bumper conference edition of our occasional LDV feature, YouTube ‘cos we want to, featuring some of the most memorable moments from the past week. For those Lib Dems who’ve been isolated inside the ‘Bournemouth bubble’, missing out on all the media coverage I hope this selection of clips gives you a sense of what you missed while you were, erm, there.

From Nick’s leader’s speech to Vince’s dust-up with Paxman on Newsnight, Chris Davies’s rant to the Huhne ‘n’ Pickles show on Radio 4 – it’s all collected here for your viewing/listening pleasure. Enjoy …

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Posted in Conference and YouTube | Also tagged , , , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

The promise and the peril of not being a one-man band

By Mark Pack | Thu 24th September 2009 - 2:20 pm

Ever since the Liberal Democrats were founded, we’ve had the sight of the national media only being interested at most in one figure – the party’s leader – yet also running regular reports about how the party is a one-man band. Cause and effect anyone?

With the rise of Vince Cable to public prominence – and popularity – the party now faces a different challenge: how best to turn the team of Clegg and Cable into votes for the party.

The idea of running tickets in election campaigns is nothing new – Mayor and Deputy Mayor, President and Vice President, and so …

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Stephen Tall

Leadership v. Activists – a personal reflection on Bournemouth ’09 #ldconf

By Stephen Tall | Wed 23rd September 2009 - 10:55 am

I’m not, by any means, a party conference veteran – Bournemouth ’09 was in fact only my fourth. But it has been distinctive for one thing in particular: it’s been the first year when the media coverage of conference has genuinely reflected what folk (at least those I’ve met) have been talking about at conference.

In previous years, we have been continually told that Lib Dem delegates were chattering about the fate of our leaders – when actually we were quite contentedly chewing the fat of meaty policy issues. This year, there has, as ever at a Lib Dem conference, been plenty of meaty policy debate, but there’s also been more than a little discussion, and not a little grumbling, about the style of the party leadership, both Nick and Vince. And it seems to me – as I blogged here yesterday – that these grumblings are fair.

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Helen Duffett

The most influential Liberal Democrats: 25-1

By Helen Duffett | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 5:12 pm

Today’s Daily Telegraph completes the paper’s list of the top 50 most influential Liberal Democrats, counting down from 25 to 1.

The list includes new entries by Richard Allan, Lord Oakeshott, Party President Baroness Scott and new Chief Executive Chris Fox.

In the top two spots, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg have swapped places, with Vince this year’s number one.

What do you think of the list? Is anyone missing? Were there any surprises in the list for you?

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Voxpops (including @katygordon)

By Alex Foster | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 4:30 pm

We asked delegates if their constituency was ready for the General election; if Nick Clegg was right on tuition fees; how a mansion tax would go down in their area; and how they were campaigning online.

Answering our questions were Tom Holvey and Chris Wiggin, from York, Katy Gordon for Glasgow North, Alan Bullion from Tunbridge Wells / Sevenoaks and Brendan D’Cruz from St Albans.

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Stephen Tall

So, what do we make of #ldconf so far, then?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 3:53 pm

I’ve just come from speaking at the ippr fringe event, The end of politics as we know it?, alongside Ming Campbell, Shirley Williams and Charles Clarke.

In my introductory remarks, I looked at the two big crises of the last 12 months – the economic crisis of recession, and the political crisis of MPs’ expenses scandals – and their impact on the Lib Dems, with special reference to this week’s conference. I approached the topic as (I hope) a constructively critical friend; harsh but fair was the reaction I was (I guess) looking for. Here’s more or less what I said – see if you think I got the balance right …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference round-up: the last 24 hours

By Mark Pack | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 9:31 am

Here are the three main lines promoted by the party from conference to the media in the last 24 hours:

  • Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference unveils plans to increase the pay of Britain’s lowest-earning troops by £6,000, improve the condition of forces’ housing, and ensure proper medical provision for all personnel. The proposals, which would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy or RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level firefighter, would be funded within the MoD’s existing budget.
  • Liberal Democrat Conference has demanded an independent, public inquiry into allegations of British Government complicity in

…

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Vince’s speech

By Alex Foster | Mon 21st September 2009 - 6:00 pm

There are now many ways of getting your brain around Vince Cable’s keynote speech. Read it on the party website. Hear our podcast below. See what ePolitix thinks – or the Guardian, for that matter.

vince-speech

There was much that was really important that jumped out at me from the speech – here are my favourite bits:

We should not be taken in by the hysterical nonsense about the country being bankrupt. It isn’t.

The Tories are currently getting a free rein to slash budgets. Tories like …

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Posted in Conference and Podcasts | Also tagged , , , and | 17 Comments
Danny Alexander MP

The Tories are not a progressive party

By Danny Alexander MP | Fri 18th September 2009 - 8:56 pm

It’s little wonder Eric Pickles is trying to persuade Liberal Democrats to vote for him; we’ve been winning council seats off the Conservatives in his constituency and he’s obviously rattled.

The Tory Chairman says liberal democracy is “part of the Conservative family”, but I’m certain I’m no part of his family. His flawed view of history is matched only by his arrogance in assuming that he’s got the General Election in the bag and can now order people to vote for him.

Let’s remember, the Conservatives are the party that opposed social welfare in 1909 and the creation of the NHS forty …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Tony Vickers

New book: The Case for a New People’s Budget

By Tony Vickers | Fri 18th September 2009 - 6:25 am

To many of us, notably Vince Cable, it has for long been blindingly obvious that the property boom would end – and end in pain for millions around the world.

The scale of the crash may have surprised even most who expected something like it at this time, as borrowing against unsecured ‘bubble’ land values was bound to lead to massive default.

However the Lib Dems’ campaign group on land value taxation (LVT) which I chair, ALTER, believes that the ‘Credit Crunch’ can be turned into a major opportunity for the Party, if it can press home its renewed conviction …

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

Saint Vince, the canonisation continues …

By Stephen Tall | Wed 16th September 2009 - 8:15 pm

Yesterday saw the launch of Vince Cable’s and the Lib Dems’ plans for tackling the fiscal crisis, widely praised by commentators (though perhaps less so in Wales).

Today it’s not just the Guardian which is singing Vince’s praises, the Economist’s Bagehot is also writing In praise of Vince:

The real winner of today’s fiscal tussle, however, was Vince Cable.

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Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 14 September 2009

By Stephen Tall | Mon 14th September 2009 - 9:32 am

2 Big Stories

Guardian: ‘executive pay keeps rising’

Today’s Guardian reports:

Executives at Britain’s top companies saw their basic salaries leap 10% last year, despite the onset of the worst global recession in decades, in which their companies lost almost a third of their value amid a record decline in the FTSE.

The Guardian’s annual survey of boardroom pay reveals that the full- and part-time directors of the FTSE 100, the premier league of British business, shared between them more than £1bn.

Bonus payouts were lower, but the basic salary hikes were more than three times the 3.1% average pay rise for ordinary workers in the private sector. The big rise in directors’ basic pay – more than double the rate of inflation last year – came as many of their companies were imposing pay freezes on staff and starting huge redundancy programmes to slash costs.

The paper quotes Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable:

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    "why can’t social care and NHS spending be treated as ‘investment’’. Of course, that won't wash”. Vince is technically right. Of course, there is a...
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