For the first time in many years, I have not made it to Lib Dem Annual Conference, but I can hardly say that I'm missing it. My observation from afar, from reading the newspapers and following the TV coverage, is that the leadership has shown little leadership and that the Party has no clear political direction or message as we head towards the election. Meanwhile, the recession seems to have passed party activists by. The reality of the public finances has had no effect on curbing the appetite of the Party's social(ist) liberal wing for unaffordable and undeliverable policy commitments. ...
I have met so many people at Conference this year, and you've all been really nice. However, a chance encounter allowed me to publish this... Yes, this is Terry Pratchett. And yes, this is me. And yes, the photographer is the Party President, who made it possible. Richard Dawkins? Who's he, then?
Forever the bridesmaid and never the bride, it fell to Stephen Glenn to collect the award for the best non-Lib Dem Blog. At some point, it would be nice if Stephen won an award himself...
This week I have been at the UK Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth. Our UK leader Nick Clegg is in very good form. He has his main leader's speech tomorrow. But every day at conference he has been at meetings and rallies where he has shown real and persuasive strength. Our message from Liberal Democrats at this conference to the country is that "if you want things to be different - really different - choose the party that is different, the Liberal Democrats". Labour's time is up. They have let people down. Yet the Conservatives simply believe that it's their ...
Keynote speech on Equalities (Time to be confirmed) Leader's speech (Time to be confirmed)
Here's a ridiculous idea, as seen last Sunday at Barcelona Airport ... For €6, you can get your suitcase covered in a plastic covering as a "security measure." I was honestly flaggergated at the huge amount of cling film wasted by this product that claims to "protect baggage from mishandling, manipulation, rain, wear and tear, stains, and damage." At a time when supermarkets are now taking a very responsible approach in discouraging the over-use, throw-away attitude to plastic bags, this product is wasteful and irresponsible. As www.upgradetravelbetter.com said : "But how much protection is this, really? An airport security official ...
If you ever needed proof why the market does not self regulate and why rules, laws and governments are needed, take the cases reported today of companies ripping off the public sector (you know the public sector, the one always being slagged off by the private sector as being inefficient) by colluding of tenders for contracts. Yes, finally evidence has been produced to show that taxpayers are being ripped off be private companies who in some cases pay each other to put in inflated bids ! No doubt some libertarian will be along shortly to tell is that the market ...
The circumstances surrounding the death of Brandon Muir are deeply concerning and, following my request to the City Council's Policy & Resources Committee, a detailed further discussion took place yesterday between a cross-party group of councillors including myself with Jimmy Hawthorn, who conducted the Significant Case Review, and Peter Wilson, author of the independent review of the tragic circumstances. It is absolutely vital that the recommendations arising from these reports - and the recent HMIE report on child protection in the city - are implemented with speed. The Best Value Review Group on Child Protection that the Council has established ...
Penultimate day at conference, and the party has unveiled 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 would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy, or the RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant in the police or fire service. Privates and lance corporals would receive an increase of over £3,000, and higher NCOs an increase of around £1,000. It is a national disgrace that the most dangerous public service jobs we have are among the ...
Even as I post this, Liberal Democrats are gathering for the Glee Club in Bournemouth. There is a new Liberator songbook on sale there, with this introduction from Rutland's most celebrated peer... Bonkers Hall Rutland Tel: Rutland 7 Whether one thinks of the traditional Christmas carol 'Oakham All Ye Faithful' or the more recent song 'The Only Way is Uppingham', there is no doubt that Rutland is rightly called 'The Land of Song'. I was myself deeply involved in the Rutlandbeat movement of the 1960s, not least as owner of the legendary Cavern Club, which was housed in the cellars ...
We lost our son Toby, aged 16 months, to meningitis in 1993. All a long time ago, water under the bridge etc - you might say. One way of dealing with our grief, which we have always found helpful, is to be involved with the Meningitis Research Foundation. The charity is 20 years old this year. (When I was told that, I was then dumbfounded to realise that we have been members of the charity for all but four of its years.) Each year we put ourselves on the list to speak the media about the illness during Meningitis week ...
So right now I'm quite glad I *couldn't* make it to conference... reports coming back seem to show the leadership and rank-and-file at each other's throats, because the leadership seem to be making increasingly bizarre pronouncements. Or at least, that's what I'm picking up from Twitter and the few Lib Dem blogs that are active ...
Lee Green residents should have received a flyer through their door by now (I got mine today) but just a quick reminder that it's our Local Assembly on Monday at the New Testament Church of God, 370 Lee High Road from 7.30 - 9.30pm. On the agenda: Youth provision - an update on the summer scheme and Lee Green Youth Club Leegate - update on work so far and an opportunity to join in Manor Park - a proposal to improve the derelict building in the park Consultation on the ideas we've received for spending the 2009 £10,000 locality fund ...
I have just come from a packed fringe meeting where Andrew Neil and Mark Byford (the Deputy Director-General of the BBC) unveiled an astonishing new offering that will go live in November. It's called Democracy Live and it will bring together all the political resources into one space on the BBC website. We were shown a film of the development site, so I can't link to it yet. The home page had a video wall giving live feeds from the Commons, Lords, Select Committees, Scottish Parliament, Welsh and Irish Assemblies and the European Parliament. It plans to add the London ...
Nick Clegg had tea with Terry Pratchett this afternoon. Best known for the Discworld novels, Terry is also a campaigner for Alzheimers Awareness and was in Bournemouth to lobby for that cause.
There's an app for that
Many people have been saying that the party is wrong on scrapping the policy on free university fees . I think in the tough times Nick Clegg has made a wise and honest choice. I think for the first time in a long time I feel that we have a good chance of becoming the second party if not the party in the next election when we have a leader that prepared to be honest and say that we have to change with the times. . and we all know times are certianly changing..
During recent canvassing and campaigning so many people tell me how they vote Liberal Dem locally but not nationally as they do 'such good work'. I have a simple reply to this yes I agree liberal locally do such good work and imagine what they could do nationally if given the chance. Its 90 years since the liberal democrats were in power so i think next year its time for that change that everyone always talks about. Next year voting liberal is a chance to get our country out of the mess the last 90 years has given us.
A number of those present at the conference are not here because they are party members, but because they want to influence those of us who are. When I was wandering around the conference hall finding people to talk to, two of them met that category. The podcast below hears from Brian Berry, from the Federation of Master Builders; and Guy Aitchison, representing Power 2010.
Everyone is really worried and nervous about coming to uni for the first time. The BBC has a few hints about making friends during freshers. Some of the advice is a bit patronising but some of it is worthwhile (including not embarrasing yourself!). Just a note to the BBC though: Wes Streeter is not the President of NUS, that would be Wes Streeting!
Before reading the stories in some media like the Daily Express story of the pound being less than euro (at the time of writing its 1.10 or a tourist rate of 1.05) Its true that this could happen soon, but it is not true that it has happened at your highstreet bank. Of course behind the headline they do state that this is the price at airports around the UK. But airports are one of the most expensive ways of buying currency. Also the headlines that the Lib Dems are dropping their policy to abolishing tuition and top-up fees is ...
Have a look at this page on the Liberal Democrat website. It is to be hoped that Matthew Oakeshott's contribution to the manifesto debate today will also be put up on the party web-site. His cutting down to size of the Conservative Treasury team had 'em rolling in the aisles.
Tue 22nd
17:46
Britain needs to invest in our Digital Economy to remain a world leader in the 21st Century Knowledg...
Yesterday I chaired a fringe event at the Lib-Dem conference on the Digital Economy. Investing in the Digital Economy is vital to Warwick & Leamington where there are a significant number of Jobs, from global corporations such as IBM and Accenture to the computer games industry and high tech automotive research. There is a lot talk about cuts in expenditure, yet at the same time investment in infrastructure, skills and enterprise is vitally needed in areas of our economy. Whatever comes out of the current economic crisis it is clear that information technology will play a large part. Britain is ...
I have long said it, but since the topic of who, if anyone, Lib Dems might do a deal with after a General Election has once again raised its ugly head, I will say it again - doing a deal with a Labour party having been given a good kicking, but just not quite a big enough one to allow the Tories to take control on their own would be a resignation issue for me. It is not that I like the Tories, or Labour. I think the one is arrogant but incompetent, and I am not at all sure ...
Ryan's been warned to get extra bandwidth in, and here we go with the must-see session of conference: FE report, constitutional amendments and a special bonus of election regulation amendments too. (Most recent additions added to bottom of this post.) It's 5:30pm, and The Voice's reporting team is ready to go. But inexplicably, Conference is still spending time discussing the economy. Don't they know we've got constitutional amendments to discuss? Economy done with, the crowds flood out, the constitutional pedants roll up their sleeves. Ros Scott (Party President) moves the FE (Federal Executive) report. She explains the FE's work, including ...
Radio 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire show yesterday that was in Bournemouth at the Lib Dem conference featured an interesting and elongated exchange. I was at the show and participated briefly myself as I posted about here but there was a chap there called Mike Greene who made a point early on in the show about the Lib Dem's new so called "Mansion Tax". He pointed out that he just happened to own a house that was worth £1.5 million as it had increased in value over the last few years but that he was unemployed and under the Lib Dem's ...
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?
[IMG: dawkins] After copious bar lurking I finally managed to get to a fringe event: Richard Dawkins! I confess to being a little disappointed that all he did was read excerpts from his book, but then he wasn't being paid and he is on a book tour... so you can hardly blame him. I still remain depressed that it's necessary for him to keep pointing out that the evidence for Evolution puts it beyond doubt (not just reasonable doubt). Someone asked him whether he would support the teaching of critical thinking skills, reason and philosophy to school children. He replied ...
Yesterday's highlight here at conference was for me the vote on reaffirming the military covenant. LibDems here in Bournemouth backed proposals to boost the pay of Britain's lowest-earning troops by £6,000 per year, improve the condition of forces' housing, and ensure proper medical provision for all personnel. This follows a campaign I launched last month for a better deal for our armed forces. Amongst those who have already signed up to the campaign is a serviceman who wrote, "I am a serving soldier and I agree strongly that we should be paid the same as our other forces. I realise ...
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.
For a business that relies on an extremely diverse community of customers is this bar shooting itself in the foot a bit with this policy?
[IMG: Stuart Bonar supporting Vote Cruelty Free] Vote Cruelty Free is a coalition of organisations pushing for better animal welfare and protection. Like them, I want to see action to improve the welfare and protection of animals. The photo of me here was taken at the Liberal Democrat conference this week. Take a look at THIS story on their website - it publicises the support I'm giving them. Their spokesperson said, "It is fantastic that Stuart Bonar has shown he believes in animal protection issues as much as his potential future constituents in Plymouth Moor View; we are calling on ...
It was Jo Swinson's day at the awards, winning the award for the best use of social networking, as well as being the subject of award-winningly impassioned defence by James Graham. What impresses me is that a number of our MPs and councillors are willing to experiment with the new media in order to reach out and engage. In an era when 'safety first' is the watchword, and when small groups of obsessed anoraks feel the need to scrutinise everything that is said or written for possible contradiction, error or controversy, it is reassuring that there are some who are ...
More bullet points from the coal face of conference:Liberal Drinks last night was a huge amount of fun, and the beer was GOOOOOOOOOOOOD - please take note FCC (not Gareth and Jon who have already noticed the importance of Proper Beer, but all of you other buggers - yes, I'm looking at you Mr Ginandtonic Brack :P). Apropos of nothing, remind me later of the necessity to take my revenge on [IMG: [info - personal] ] po8crg for his evil last night, will you? Matt from politics.co.uk has been about and he's asked me to plug the new blog channel ...
What should have been the (free) bestseller event of the Bournemouth Liberal Democrat conference fringe this afternoon attracted just three dozen blessed souls instead of the three hundred the room could have accommodated, because someone forgot/failed to put the event into the conference directory. Whoops. The party's leader in the House of Lords, Tom McNally, ...
The families of patients who have been in residential or nursing homes or are being cared for elsewhere for long term illnesses such as Alzheimer's since before April 2003 have until 4th December 2009 to lodge claims with their local health board to recover the costs of continuing medical care, the Welsh Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson, Peter Black, has discovered. The deadline is tucked away on the Welsh Government website but there appears to have been no attempt by Ministers to publicise it or to encourage claims despite the fact that many families will have paid out tens of thousands ...
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 ...
The list of the contracts found to be rigged is available from the OfT website. Lewisham Hospital is not one of them but one Lewisham contract is, it's a contract for £1,327,000 for works at Sydenham High School. The OfT also says that "Councils are free to sue". And so Lewisham Council should do, you've been taken for ...
Here's my speech to a meeting organised by Demos and the Private Equity Foundation at the Lib Dem Bournemouth conference: Well - we are in the process of producing a youth policy paper for the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference next year. Youth policy is a well-travelled area: there isn't exactly a shortage of groups coming up with ideas, many of which are awfully similar to each other. It's a real challenge for a party to come up with a policy that is more than warmed-over "me too" comments, echoing what everyone else in the area of youth policy says. Everyone ...
Here's my speech to the Stonewall/DELGA fringe meeting at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth: When we talk about gay rights in a cold climate - a chill wind is blowing. And I suspect that the temperature is in danger of dropping sharply -in terms of what will happen to the funding both in terms of outreach, support and gay health LGBT organisations rely on three main sources of income: - government grants - private donations - corporate sponsorship I don't have to tell people in the room who are involving in local Government about the bleak funding future ahead of us. As ...
So, our conference is properly underway and for once you don't exactly have to dig deep for Liberal Democrat stories in the mainstream media. It is far from all good news though; credit where it is due, Vince Cable has been the star of the show so far, making a clear and convincing case why ...
Following much feedback from long-suffering St Albans commuters, I brought the issue of rail company performance and over high fares to the floor of the Liberal Democrat conference today by moving a motion on the reform of rail franchises. [IMG: Rail Conference speech] I was calling for longer terms for rail franchises – subject to stringent periodic review – to encourage rail operators to invest for the long-term but with much tougher conditions on passenger experience and quality of service. And following the disgraceful 8 percent increase in St Albans fares earlier this year, I was calling for rail fare ...
The Sage of Twickenham, Vince Cable, also addressed conference yesterday and it was as usual very good stuff. It's absolutely no reflection on Vince that following his speech I took to my sickbed for the rest of the day. You can see his speech here.
Tim Farron, the excellent MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, gave a terrific and passionate speech to the conference yesterday. Annoyingly, I can't actually find a video of it to put up, but you can read his speech here.
Tory Bear has this story about some of the questions on the civil service fast track testing process. Although (unlike Tory Bear) I agree with many of the comments made in the questions, the fact remains that they are overtly political. Policymaking is the job of politicians and not that of the civil service. I hope these political statements by the Civil Service begin to be questioned internally. We are likely to have a change of government at the next election and there will be some very nervous Civil Servants around when a new government begins to disagree with the ...
Tue 22nd
14:20
Don't you wish something had happened this year to take the attention away from our conference?
Well, our conferences always seem to be blurred by external events such as an economic crisis, resulting in rather poor Sod it, let's just go for the whole of the UK instead. coverage and low interest. However, this year, the conference has been rather unscathed, with the only other big story being about the Attorny General. The ...
[IMG: hijabheels] What is the most pressing issue affecting women today in Britain and the world over? If you attended Lib Dem Conference on Saturday, you would have been told that a leading candidate must be the way we are constantly bombarded with female images of unattainable beauty. Apparently, a cruel and insidious pressure is being applied to young girls by a cynical and manipulative fashion industry to look physically attractive - at least according to Jo Swinson's policy document, "Real Women." Following on from last week's TUC motion taking a stand against high heels, you might be forgiven for ...
The Liberal Democrat manifesto for the next General Election is likely to go through some tweaks between now and next May. It will need to be able to respond to the changing economic situation right up to that magic moment when Parliament is dissolved. Which leaves the Party with a dilemma. The Liberal Democrats are the only major party in which all policy is decided by Conference. Voting delegates are sent from local parties in proportion to their local membership, so it is the members who decide policy - not the Leader, not the MPs, and not the Federal Policy ...
My amendment on Real Women was accepted for debate on Saturday afternoon. I knew even before starting that it was a battle I was never likely to win, and so it proved. Speaker after speaker lined up to oppose me and the result was that the policy was passed without my amendment. This means that we now have policy on airbrushing of images which I think is essentially unworkable, but I can't say I'm too downhearted. It was good to have the debate and it would have been an amazingly dull session without my amendment being discussed. One point that ...
A comment below has reminded me about Tim Farron, who spoke to conference yesterday with some passion about agriculture. A reasonable clip of this was shown on the BBC conference programme late last night and he was very impressive. He demonstrated all that is best about our party and our MPs. He spoke with passion, force and he was coherent in arguing a very strong case for British 'fairtrade' for farmers. Very little difference between our two parties, is there, Dave? Not a chance!
So Baroness Scotland will pay a £5,000 fine for employing a housekeeper who did not have the right to work in the UK. To follow the canine tone of this posting, 'Dog bites dog'. When the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act came into force in February 2008, bringing in fixed penalty fines of up to ...
From today's Times: The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) today fined the construction industry £129.5 million after an investigation into bid-rigging between companies tendering for public sector building contracts. Last year we discovered that the biggest construction companies of the land had formed an unethical and unlawful cartel to squeeze more money out of public ...
After heavy metal yesterday, today Nick went hunting for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at a farm run by Dorset College here in Bournemouth. The farm is a training base for young people interested in a c areer in grounds maintenance, farming and horticulture. He did try offering one to Anne Treneman of the Times after her column yesterday. Perhaps wisely, she refused to play ball as the last person to eat one apparently cried.
Well what a day yesterday! I had the afternoon off from 2pm after a meeting was cancelled. I have neglected my garden this year, so decided to catch up with some weeding and mow the lawn, motivated I got stuck in. After about an hour I felt a sting to my right eye, so I went inside to rinse it. The bottom line, was I was in absolute agony and ended up in Llandudno Hospital. Within half an hour I had been seen by a senior nurse and a doctor, placed on anti biotic cream for my eye and tablets ...
Thanks to David Ottewell of the Manchester Evening News for pointing this one out. If you can't work out the swearword (why would you want to?), David has an unexpurgated version courtesy of Sky News on his blog here. [IMG: Share/Bookmark]
Not being at conference (and you can read conference coverage at www.wolverhamptonlibdems.org.uk) is a bit weird, previously I have always been in the 'Conference bubble' wondering what it is like on the outside - well its the other way round this week. From outside the bubble the only stories are Tuition Fees and Mansion Taxes - I am fairly sure it is a different story there.
Last week the BBC picked up on a blog post of mine about the failure of the Government to use existing legal powers to draw up rules for election imprints in the online world. The Government's response was, essentially, that it's not possible to come up with rules for such a fast-moving area. I think that's wrong - websites and email have been around for more than a decade, and whilst new services do comes along (most notably Twitter since the last general election) a set of rules which was updated once a Parliament would be able to cope. So ...
In a recent opinion poll Vince Cable was rated higher than George Osborne by Tory supporters. Here he shows that a politician can speak sense; that getting the economy right, treating people fairly and working for the environment can go together. Listen to the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor here. Here's Vince's speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference* about the economy
Well here is something I never thought I would say: Andrew Neil was actually quite good on the Daily Politics today. He seems to have that mystical gift that BBC interviewers have almost all lost in that he asks a question and listens to the answer. The contrast with the sneering turd that was Paxman last night was almost total. I haven't watched the Daily Politics for some time because of my antipathy for Neil but it was worthwhile today as I sit at home feeling wistful about missing conference for the first time in eight years. Firstly, it is ...
Sometimes we Liberal Democrats can be too honest for our own good. It would have made our lives a lot easier if we had concentrated on passing the fabulous policies on our agenda without looking at the financial context in which the next Government is going to have to operate. We're not like that, though - at the heart of the way we operate is openness and honesty and if we know that the Government cupboard is going to be bare, then it would be stupid of us not to take that into account. Rather than whisper in the dark, ...
Like a bird on The Wardman Wire.
Lib Dem conference yesterday passed a Liberal Youth policy to ban so called 'Mosquito Devices'. These are meant to only be audible to young people and are supposed to be annoying enough to move them away from certain areas. However they are completely indiscriminate and unfair to the vast majority of law abiding young people. It's great that we've made a committment to ban these devices.
I had to laugh last night when, at 6pm, BBC Parliament introduced the recorded coverage of the day's proceedings at Party Conference at Bournemouth with a warning about offensive language. In fact, there were 3 incidents of swearing that I heard - and two from Parliamentarians at that. In the debate on the MP Expenses scandal Paul Burstow's proposing speech contained the word that rhymed with twit not once but twice. Later on, in a characteristically passionate speech, MEP Chris Davies talked about how privileged and honoured he felt to be a public servant and how he'd do the job ...
Over the last few days I've been uploading the results from Lib Dem Voice's members' survey, completed by c.250 party members – you can catch up on the results published to date by clicking here. The survey was conducted in association with the Institute of Public Policy Research (ippr) in advance of today's lunchtime fringe, The end of politics as we know it?. Full details here: Liberal Democrats Conference: The end of politics as we know it? 22 September 2009 - 13.00-14.00 Dorchester One room, Marriott Highcliff Hotel How fundamentally have the political and economic crises changed the landscape in ...
One of the fringes I have attended at this year's Lib Dem Conference was the "Moats, Mortgages and Mayhem" event run by Liberal Vision. One of the panelists was former Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke and he had some very interesting things to say about reform of parliament. He suggested that there should be some sort of citizen's convention or jury which could take the reform decisions out of the hands of the political classes. However he did describe some of the reforms he would like to see. Amongst them he suggested that: Parliament could be physically moved ...
I am again in the conference hall after highlighting the need for a high speed rail link to the North East earlier by riding on a little train on the sea front today. Hopefully an mooted link will be a little quicker! Yesterday, I attended two important events. On very close to my heart was a fringe debate about the value of charities in society and the problem they are having in the current recession. A crucial service is offered by many of these groups and we must all try to ensure their services are valued. In addition, I attended ...
2 Big Stories Airlines to halve emissions by 2050 The Guardian reports: The British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh, will unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2050. In a bid to seize the initiative from environmental groups clamouring for higher taxes on the industry, the plan will be presented to world leaders at the United Nations forum on climate change in New York. Baronness Scotland Survives Says The Times: Gordon Brown has today spared his Attorney General the sack for employing an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper, but ...
It seems I might be a wee bit out on a limb here - a familiar position it has to be said; but this leopard (out on his limb you see) is not going to change his spots. It seems colleagues from around the Lib Dems, including folks from ALTER, and also land tax campaigners from outside the party seem to think the so called "Mansion Tax" announced at Conference the other day, in which residential properties worth more than a million pounds will attract a new half pence in the pound property tax, is "A Good Thing" or a ...
Credit where credit's due: the Evening Standard was one of the media outlets which ran pieces wrongly reporting the TUC as wanting to ban high heels. So I pinged an email of complaint over to them, pointing out that in fact the TUC only wanted to ban the wearing of high heels being made mandatory by some employers. I got this response: It's true that the context for the motion, proposed by the Society Chiropodists and Podiatrists, was employers who have dress codes that mandate high heels for women, but the short version of motion as passed was simply that ...
Rachel Sylvester in the Times, writes an interesting piece basically saying we should jump into bed with Labour or Conservatives. It has been said before, but I'll continue to disagree with it. If people want a Liberal Democrat Government, vote for a Liberal Democrat Government. If they don't then they don't. It may sound a bit too sanguine, but some correspondent shouldn't suddenly make us forget who we are. I particularly like her extremely misleading paragraph: Mr Clegg says he wants to replace Labour as the "dominant force of progressive politics". But politically he looks increasingly confused. One minute he ...
The CBI has released a report today that is not helpful at all in the debate surrounding tuition fees. The CBI believes that grants should be cut, fees increased and interest rates for students raised. This is a pathetic attack on students and universities. The CBI relies on graduates to fill places in industry and business yet it seems less keen on having to pay for the cost of these graduates. The NUS is completely right on this issue. This report is offensive to students and future students. Why can't the CBI join in the debate and come up with ...
Real ale and drinking in liberal measure was the order of the day last night in Bournemouth. Following on from the report to conference from the LOGOC with 3 years to go to the Olympiad (see picture) which also helped to line the stomach it was off the the Goat and Tricycle for a slightly less crowded bar, that Old Harry's on Sunday, for the Lib Dem Blogosphere and friends to met up away from the bustle. There was a rumour that Mick Fealty of best non-Lib Dem blog of the year Slugger O'Toole was going to appear, but a ...
Late last night (about 1am), I was made aware of a completely ridiculous and baseless accusation from Richard Carvath that I and/or Norman Owen have been involved in a blog-comment discussion over on the Swinton South Liberal Democrat site. Apparently this claim has been made to Richard Carvath by an "anonymous electronic communication". I would like to state here, for the public record, I am not the mysterious Roger Berry. I do not write anything using the name Roger Berry nor do I know who Roger Berry is. He may or may not be a real person, it may be ...
Tue 22nd
09:55
LDV members' survey: is electoral reform a hung Parliament 'deal-breaker'? And are Labour or Tories ...
A couple of weeks ago, Lib Dem Voice invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) 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 c.250 of you who completed it; we've been publishing the results on LDV over the last few days. You can catch up on the results of our exclusive LDV members' surveys by clicking here. Yesterday, we looked at how Lib Dem members would respond in the event of a hung ...
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 ...
Bournemouth 2009's big dust-up hurtles towards us on Tuesday morning - the debate on A Fresh Start For Britain: Choosing a Different, Better Future. And, as is ever the case when a paper taking the whole of our policy and priorities in the round comes up for debate, rather than taking in the big picture, everyone's focused on just one relatively tiny issue that barely appears in it: last year, tax cuts; this year, tuition fees. Just to confuse matters, when people address A Fresh Start For Britain, there are actually three separate publications they might mean - the motion ...
It was good to see Chris Rennard around yesterday. I wouldn't normally discuss people's body size but Chris looks spectacularly healthier for having shed a few stone. I'm sure that will cheer many Lib Dems and spread fear and trembling amongst the opposition!
I bumped into Jonathon Fryer yesterday and told him that he ought to do a piece on the fate of Edward MacMillan Scott and the Tory alliance in Europe. I'm sure reders will know all about the bunch of right wing odd balls the Tories have as friends in the Euro Parliament-climate change deniers, homophobes etc (mind you it is not difficult to see why some Tory activists feel at home there) This whole area of politics is going to become very important after the Irish referendum. If they vote 'yes' what does Cameron do? The Tories have so 'pissed ...
Well, the BOTYs ceremony, as we must now call it, went without too much controversy. Our compere for the evening, Stephen Tall, wearing a hat (indoors, dear boy?), a dazzlingly pink shirt and matching chest hair, kicked things off with an overview of Lib Dem blogging, leavened by a series of off-message but very funny jokes (note to self - check who writes Sarah Teather's jokes...). I'm in the midst of uploading the acceptance speeches, so I won't comment on the winners here. However, what surprised me was the number of unfamiliar faces. Hitherto, I had thought that I knew ...
I'm trying to work out which of these stories I care about the least: Gasp! Shock! Horror! Some Liberal Democrats may be talking to some people in the Labour Party! Oh no! The Lib Dem leader has made his traditional Conference-time 'I shall have the Party on its knees in front of me!' statement! Can anyone give me any reason why I should care about either one?
Mark Littlewood appeared on last night's Newsnight and Radio 4's The World Tonight, questioning whether the newly proposed "mansion tax" was a sensible policy for the LibDems.
Salford Labour have been falling over themselves to call the Lib Dems the 'Tory Rump' – cllr. Warmisham is a particularly avid fantasist in that regard. Meanwhile, Tory councillor Lindley has been accusing the Lib Dems of wishing to prop up Labour. I can't truly believe that the less self-deceiving members of wither party really ...
From the blog written by Ian Griffin, business editor of the Leicester Mercury: The thing about Mr Cable is that his monotone accountant-style delivery - which 12 months ago brought him a certain amount of ridicule - is exactly what's called for when making speeches about the economy these days. Those measured tones had the 200 senior business figures at the Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce President's Dinner at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Leicester capitivated.
I don't tend to talk about opinion polls much on this blog. They are of course, a snapshot of one moment in time and tend to distract from the issues that really matter, however I am going to make an exception just this once. My change of mind has nothing to do with a new poll showing the Liberal Democrats storming into government (I wish) but rather with one that reveals some interesting views amongst the electorate that reinforces my own instincts. In fact the polls have been remarkably steady over the last six months or so for all of ...
An opinion poll commissioned by BBC2's Daily Politics Show has found that Liberal Democrat activists want Nick Clegg to support the Labour Party in the event of a hung Parliament after the next general election. Nearly twice as many LibDem councillors would like the party to support Labour (31%), rather than the Tories (16%) in the event of a hung Parliament. It also found the vast majority of Liberal Democrat activists do not believe the recent expenses scandal will harm their electoral prospects. Some 78% of those surveyed said it would not damage their chances – compared with 12% who ...
Although I had hoped to get down to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, simple pressure of work has now made that impossible. I must admit to great disappointment. The last conference before the General Election was always likely to show a few fireworks, and indeed the conference has attracted more headlines than any other over the past three years. Some of these headlines show a significant change of course in terms of economic policy. Scepticism about the size of government expenditure has given way to concern and now it is clear that reducing government expenditure will need ...
Yesterday Gordon Wateridge was sentenced to two years in prison for sexual assaults carried out on teenage girls at the Haute de la Garenne children's home on Jersey. One thing struck me about this story: the name of the judge who sentenced him. It was Sir Christopher Pitchers. Back in the 1980s Chris Pitchers was our only local SDP activist. I remember his being rather disconcerted when, at the height of the row over the merger of the two parties, he arrived at a district by-election in the town to find that we had put up a Liberal candidate. We ...
Wales Home continues its coverage of Lib Dem Conference. Yesterday, the FSB's Russell Lawson wrote in praise of Lib Dem campaigning to scrap the Severn Bridge toll. It's astonishing that, in these increasingly tough economic times, the Government should be viewing these crossings simply as a cash cow for the Treasury. They seem oblivious to the impact on small business and motorists of hiking up charges just as the downturn is starting to bite. At least one party, the Welsh Liberal Democrats, seems to recognise this and is starting to turn the screw on a bridge too far. Today, they ...
It would be wrong of me to let the Lib Dem Conference pass without some comment on the kind of things that have been coming out of it since it started. After all, it's ending tomorrow! The first point of "excitement" to the media came when Nick Clegg downgraded the tuition fee policy to no more ...
The gloves are off and Eleanor Laing has started her re-election campaign knowing the fight will be between the local Liberal Democrats and Conservatives whenever Gordon calls the General Election. She has spoken out about the Liberal Democrat's proposed policy of taxing homeowners who live in houses valued over one million pounds. What a cheek!This is the same MP who despite her continuing
A Sikh police officer in Greater Manchester, PC Singh, has been 'deeply offended' by being told by his colleagues to remove his turban. He claims he was humiliated and is now claiming £200k in compensation and this humiliation was caused because he could not wear his turban for riot training. He was told to wear a helmet. Greater Manchester Police defend themselves by saying that this police officer was not forced to go through the riot training. However PC Singh also says he was barred from riding a bike because he would not remove his turban. It seems a little ...
Monday: The Greatest Show at Conference is clearly Mr Professor Richard Dawkins. Swoon! [IMG: Posted by Picasa] Yesterday he was introducing a VERY important amendment to our Civil Liberties paper, saying we very urgently need to reform the LIBEL laws so that Scientists can DISAGREE and more importantly WRITE about disagreeing based on EVIDENCE and not fear the SLAPP of a gagging order. Today he was reading from his new book, an exploration of all the wonderful evidence for the Fact of Evolution. I particularly enjoyed the [warning: facetious] March of the Penguins from Mount Ararat to the South Pole. ...
