Well. Quite extraordinary. In the space of a week I have gone from totally horrified at the prospect of the coalition government, through gradually more confident that the decision has been taken for the right reasons (and in the context of the mother of cleft sticks), to proud with knobs on of the way that ...
After the stress of the election, I was hoping for a relaxing Sunday. But it was not to be. Earlier this week, the Liberal Democrats decided to call a special conference so members could have their say about the coalition deal. I felt it was important to go as it feels like we are seeing history in British politics being made. So myself and three members car shared and went to the NEC in Birmingham. We had about 60 delegates speaking to a conference of over 2,000 delegates. Of those three were unhappy with the coalition agreement. We passed a ...
Today I attended the special conference of Liberal Democrat members at the NEC. It was organised a few days ago when the coalition with the Tories was being negotiated. Under the Lib Dem Constitution any coalition has to be approved by strong majorities of 2 out of 3 of the parliamentary party, the federal executive and a meeting of conference representatives (of which I am one) of the membership. As the first two of these had approved the coalition, with just one vote against, the membership conference was unnecessary. However given the momentus events of the past week, the party ...
Well, all over bar the shouting - actually, no shouting whatsoever. Today's special conference, while spawning arguably one of the best conference speeches ever, delivered by Simon Hughes, proved to be more of a triumphalist rally rather than a serious examination of the potential pitfalls of sleeping with the enemy. The nine amendments to the motion, all of which I supported, I hope will go some way towards dealing with some of the concerns of the activists. However, the very genuine concerns about our MPs abstaining on the issue of top up fees, were not dealt with satisfactorily either by ...
Yesterday in Edinburgh about 300 joined the March to Take Back Parliament and get a fairer voting system. We were wanting fairer votes. The march is one of the shortest I have ever gone on, starting outside City Chambers and going straight by the shortest route to the Assembly Buildings. Yes I know we Lib Dems are in coalition with the Conservatives in Westminster who are offering a referendum on Alternative Vote, which they are more than likely to campaign largely against once the referendum is called. As my sign (above says) "I want fair votes. AV isn't it" because ...
Today's Special Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham was a positive and affirming experience. I have seen estimates of 2,000 members present for over four hours of high quality debate. This was no rally. Many members had doubts, some expressed them and one or two spoke against. But the mood was positive and supportive and the vote at the end overwhelming. I tweeted throughout as did many others. These can be read by searching the hashtag #ldconf. However, what puzzled me and many others was why the Conference was held behind closed doors. This was a mature and considered debate. It ...
Just a quick reflection on our new political landscape. It seems to me that the public have moved on from swallowing wholesale lies foisted upon them by politicians and well orchestrated media campaigns particularly that of Murdoch's journalists. Despite most of the British press backing David Cameron, using it's influence, to persuade us that nothing else would save us but an overwhelming conservative majority in the house of commons, its clear the public weren't buying it. Nick Clegg took the high moral ground standing firmly on a platform of reality and consensus announcing before the election that he would be ...
A great piece in today's Sunday Times (links to follow as am on Blackberry) about "Top football clubs flee to tax havens". I've blogged before the disgustingly obscene wages that todays footballers get paid in the top flight. However, thanks to The Sunday Times we now discover that almost three quarters of the football clubs in the Premiership league are based in offshore tax havens. Direct from the Sunday Times: "An examination of filings at Companies House by a chartered accountant found that 14 Premier League clubs, 5 championship clubs, 2 Scottish clubs and Hartlepool, a league one club, are ...
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the decision to exclude the media from today's Liberal Democrat special conference in Birmingham has resulted in some calling it "secret" or "closed". So it's worth briefly noting for the record that the organisers expected (and, those I spoke to, even wanted) the event to be covered by twitterers and bloggers.
If our Parliamentary party and Federal Executive hadn't supported the coalition deal overwhelmingly we would have needed a special conference of members to make the final decision. Being Liberal Democrats we had one anyway! It was never going to change the agreement but it did give the opportunity for 2000 people to debate and discuss in some depth what had been agreed and what might happen in
To no great surprise, David Cameron has announced an immediate audit of the 'crazy' spending of Labour's last years in power. Politically, this no doubt makes great sense – "look what those idiots got up to" is perfect scene-setting for the blood-letting that will follow. But what worries me is what sort of a narrative ...
This afternoon's Time Team was fascinating - a dig at Hopton Castle, near Clun, in Shropshire. The Parliamentarian garrison of Hopton was massacred when it fell after a Royalist siege during the Civil War. The massacre became notorious, at least in Parliamentarian propaganda. 17th Century Life and Times explains: At Hopton castle in 1644 after repeated attacks the parliamentarian garrison of about 30 men finally surrendered. The prisoners where herded into the castle cellar, striped naked, beaten then taken to the moat where they were summarily executed by the by now drunken royalists. For years after the parliamentarians would offer ...
May the 16th is Akshaya Tritiya day one of the most auspicious days for Hindus to marry. It certainly has been auspicious for the wedding industry in Mumbai where there have been 50 000 weddings alone today! On the subject of "love in"s Lib Dem activists have backed the new Coalition deal "overwhelmingly" according the the BBC. This goes some way to filling the expected cracks facing the party exemplified by Charles Kennedy's interview with the Observer this morning.CK was critical of the direction of travel. It is very early days and there is still a need to sell this ...
Here is the Conservative-LibDem coalition programme. I'm getting quite a few emails on Gypsy & Traveller education, so correspondents may find it reassuring to see the statement in the programme under 'Spending Review', that "We will fund a significant premium for disadvantaged pupils from outside the schools budget by reductions in spending elsewhere" Since many research studies show that Gypsy & Traveller children are the most deprived of all ethnic minority children, this commitment is very good news. Tomorrow afternoon an announcement will be made on the division of responsibilities among junior ministers at the DCSF, and there are reasons ...
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by our parliamentary spokesperson David Watts. May I start by thanking everyone for their feedback and good wishes after the general election. A few people have asked what I will be doing now, and there's more of that below. I'm needless to say delighted to see Liberal Democrats in government, something I have dreamed of since I joined the party in the 1980's. I've been at the Special Conference today where the Lib-Dems overwhelmingly backed the position taken by the Parliamentary party. It's quite scary to think ...
The atmosphere of the conference was fascinating - most definitely not triumphalist, but sober and determined. There was a general view that we are heading for a period of unpopularity, but that we are doing the right thing in constructing a government. Having paid attention to about 70% of the speeches, I am still of the view there was no earthly reason to have the deliberations in secret. There was a general air of surprise at just how much the negotiating team had gained in policy commitment from the Tories, but combined with a strong undertow of distrust of many ...
.. I have decided to stand for the Leadership of the Lib Dem Group on Liverpool City Council. Nominations closed earlier today and our group meeting, at which we all vote, is tomorrow. I'm not a great fan of promoting internal party election contests in the media, but given that I have now had a call from the Echo I guess the news has been passed on by someone.
I attended the Special Lib Dem conference in Birmingham's NEC today which was called to allow voting reps within the party to vote on the recently negotiated coalition deal with the Conservatives. The conference was structured around the main motion and also 9 amendments which had been drafted prior to the conference, mostly requiring the party to reaffirm its longer term commitments to certain policies and principles. There seemed to be a mixed feeling to the event near the start. There were of course a lot of positive vibes. We are now a party of government and rubbing shoulders with ...
Today I spoke at one of the Citizenship Ceremonies in Liverpool. There were two guest speakers this time so I was a sort of double act with the deputy Lord Lieutenant and his wife. I felt very underdressed as his uniform includes a sword and boots with spurs on them. He also had some impressive looking medals. The ceremony was again a brilliant event. There were 14 new adult citizens plus some children. A really happy day for them and their families. Lots of smiling and picture taking. I don't use a written speech for these as I like to ...
There's just something about Monaco. The sheer beauty and romance of the place. The fact that I wouldn't be able to afford so much as a bottle of water there does not diminish the thrill I experience as I watch the cars stream through St Devote, or Casino Square, or tackle the tight Loew's hairpin. You can always guarantee that this race is going to have some drama and/or controversy. Today there was an abundance of both. Before the race had even started Duncan got really grumpy about Martin Brundle's gridwalk, suggesting it had passed its sellby date. I don't ...
I think today was quite a cathartic moment for me and I have finally managed to get my thoughts more or less together thanks to some wonderful speeches on both sides of the debate. but first some more general thoughts. Hats off to our conference committee. To put on a conference of this size and complexity in such a short space of time very well done! The conference itself was good. The atmosphere was positive, good humoured and fraternal. The debate was passionate with good interventions from all sides especially from my friend Cllr Nader Fekri, Andrew Stunnell MP, and ...
In The Observer today, former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has highlighted his unease at the Lib-Con coalition government, and explains he would have preferred to explore the possibilities of an alliance with Labour: ... [last week's events] drive a strategic coach and horses through the long-nurtured "realignment of the centre-left" to which leaders in the Liberal tradition, this one included, have all subscribed since the Jo Grimond era. It is hardly surprising that, for some of us at least, our political compass currently feels confused. And that really encapsulates the reasons why I felt personally unable to vote for ...
I know many residents would have had a leaflet during the election with scary stories about what a hung parliament will mean. It was rubbish. We have not had a multi party coalition government since the second world war. We can never be sure how it will work in the modern world (apart from the fact it works in every other country). I really detest these 'scare messages' from leaflets and the dodgy media sources, like the Daily Mail. Election campaigns should be about the promotion and debate of ideas. The news Media should be about reporting fact. We have ...
The Liberal Democrats' historic special conference, to endorse the coalition government deal, had an added twist for me, as it was held in Birmingham (well, at the National Exhibition Centre on the outskirts of the city, to be precise). Although I was born a Mancunian and have long been a Londoner by adoption, I cut my ...
The news from Birmingham is that the Special Conference has voted to endorse the Liberal Conservative coalition agreement, and has amended the motion to do so to ensure that the Liberal Democrats are... reminded that Labour were really ghastly and unhelpful still a political party not in favour of encouraging inequality except when it comes to subsidising well off students reminded of a policy motion passed 3 months ago still in favour of Human Rights particularly for people staying in B&Bs of which Chris Grayling disapproves and still think the electoral system is just horrid. I think we can all ...
Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance, has published a statement on behalf of the Alliance cautiously welcoming the new coalition government, for very similar reasons to those I outlined in a couple of posts in the past few days. Do have a read of the Sean's statement, it is really a rather good endorsement I'd say. But the main reason for posting a blog post about it is that I wanted to highlight one particular bit. For all those in the Lib Dems in particular... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other ...
I am convinced by the coalition and our reason for entering it ? No. Am I convinced that some of our MPs didn't get stars in their eyes ? No. Do I think electors have been lied to ? Yes As a councillor elected as a Lib Dem, do I think it would further damage people's trust in my area if I resigned as a Lib Dem having been elected as one ? Yes. People are sick at the moment of voting for people who say one thing, then do another. "Vote Lib Dem to get ..." they were told. ...
So after our Parliamentary Party and our Federal Executive agreed to a coalition government with the Conservative Party, our conference representative have given their backing to Nick Clegg.We all know it is not ideal, with so many differences between the two parties, but coalition never is. Coalition is about give and take and personally I don't think there was any other choice. Two reasons
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Thirsk and Malton Parliamentary Candidate Howard Keal appeals for help in his fight to win the delayed election in the seat, taking place on May 27: Just under 25 years since Liberal Democrat Elizabeth Shields took Ryedale in a by-election we have the opportunity to snatch the new constituency it includes from the Tories. It's now called Thirsk and Malton and I need your help to achieve a sensational result - over the next few days we have everything to play for and all bets in this racing area are off! This is a battle between the Liberal Democrats and ...
To High Elms, for the rededication of the memorial to my uncle Eric Fox Pitt Lubbock, killed March 11, 1917. Lyulph had organised the event and said a few words of introduction, followed by the Rector of St Giles Church, Farnborough, the Rev Matthew Hughes, who spoke about Eric and blessed the memorial. I then spoke briefly. Uncle Eric was my grandmother's favourite child, the one she loved with such intensity that she remained in deep mourning from the day he was shot down, for the remaining 30 years of her life. But he lit up the lives of everyone ...
James Graham moved Amendment 3 at the Liberal Democrat Special Conference which reads: Insert after line 23: "Conference calls for Liberal Democrats to work constructively in government to ensure that the the net income and wealth inequality gap is reduced significantly over the course of this parliament." Conference, There is no question at all that Nick Clegg and his negotiating team wrung a string of key concessions out of the Conservatives in this agreement. Cuts in services is a deep concern, but let us be frank. The difference between all three major parties' spending plans was not all that great. ...
OK. I admit it. I got my knickers in a twist last week over the 55% dissolution clause in the Con/LibDem agreement. I shot from the hip. I peaked too soon. I was wrong. I totally misunderstood the clause. I read the agreement and when I saw the 55% clause I thought it referred to a "no confidence" vote. It doesn't. It refers to the dissolution of parliament. In my mind, and recently in British history, the two mean the same (wrongly). A government gets a "no confidence" vote passed against it and then it goes to the monarch and ...
Sun 16th
18:02
Dep Prime Minister Nick Clegg (that sounds gd!) stopped on way out of conf to ask me about our #chel...
Dep Prime Minister Nick Clegg (that sounds gd!) stopped on way out of conf to ask me about our #chelmsford campaign. Was gr8 to catch up with other mates too
A year ago, our friend and West End stalwart, Sheila Roy, passed away. This afternoon, around 25 of us met on Magdalen Green to welcome the bench that has been provided by Friends of Magdalen Green and Sheila's many friends. The bench reminds us of the huge contribution Sheila made to the life of the West End. She will live on in our hearts.
I am pleased at a commitment from Scottish Water and Dundee City Council that a large damaged section of grass on Magdalen Green will be restored, with the work starting this coming week. A significant area of the Green, towards its western end, was subject to drainage works by Scottish Water to improve the drains serving the Richmond Terrace area - some months ago. Scottish Water has advised me, "Our contractor has been able to confirm that they have received a quotation from Dundee City Council for the reinstatement works at Magdalen Green. This has now been authorised and we ...
I've been following today's special conference via the Liberal Democrat Voice team on Twitter. It's a bit like watching it through a venetian blind. It is very frustrating indeed that what seems to be a marvellous example of the Liberal Democrat party at its best and its most united, has been kept from the gaze of the media and live coverage. There appears to have been a free exchange of views. Simon Hughes, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg got standing ovations, as did the motion in support of the deal, which was passed overwhelmingly. There were over one thousands representatives ...
Sun 16th
17:20
+++ Lib Dem special conference overwhelmingly approves Lib Dem / Conservative coalition agreement
Just minutes ago, the Lib Dems' special conference in Birmingham – convened by the party to give members the chance to give their views on the decision to enter into a government with the Conservatives – overwhelmingly approved the coalition agreement. Estimates in the hall, where about 1,500 Lib Dem members debated the coalition, suggested that about 50 conference representatives voted against the motion endorsing the agreement: the rest of the hundreds eligible to vote were all in favour. Here's some of what Lib Dem Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, had to say immediately after the vote: It ...
What a blazing start by England in this 20/20 final! It's not often we can cheer about spanking the Australians, but this is an awesome way to kick off a final, especially after the Aussies' incredible comeback against Pakistan yesterday. Cracking stuff, and of course if it does go pear-shaped we traditionalists can always go on to claim that it's not proper cricket, and that our side is really the South African B-team. Anyway; forget 20-overs a side, floodlights, and pyjamas; this is how England v Australia matches should be improved. Everything is better with added zombies, especially flying zombie ...
Officially opened this afternoon, the play equipment at Kensington Meadow has already been a big hit with all ages! See Susan Traill from the Friends of Kensington Meadows getting to grips with the climbing equipment here! A huge well done has to go to the Friends of Kensington Meadows and the PlayPathfinder team at the Council, and to all the people who were involved in this scheme. Cllr David Dixon said, "I am so pleased that after 18 months of planning and discussions, this scheme is finally open. Today has shown what a big hit it is with well over ...
I'm not at the historic special one day Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham, altough I would dearly love to be. There's no way my health would have stood up to going and I'm missing my friends so much. One of the reasons I love Twitter so much, though, is that I can follow the proceedings - and that's the actual proceedings, not the inaccurate poison pen portrait some journalist writes the next day - as they happen. You can see all that happened as it happened here at #ldconf. From Twitter I heard that the hero of us leftie types, ...
Sun 16th
16:23At the special Lib Dem conf in Birmingham to discuss what we can achieve in Government. A great deal...
At the special Lib Dem conf in Birmingham to discuss what we can achieve in Government. A great deal of consensus amongst party members.
Next week I expect the Government to announce a major reorganisation of One North East, Government Office North East and the Homes and Communities Agency. I understand that significant numbers of staff employed by these organisations are to lose their jobs, perhaps following the merger of their responsibilities.
Sure us Lib Dems have, sadly, had to concede our immigration policy for the Coalition. But that doesn't mean we give that policy up (despite what some ill-informed people think). We will continue to fight elections on that policy until such time it is democratically voted out at conference (and knowing us Lib Dems, that'll be when hell freezes over). But I am concerned about a paragraph from Ed Miliband's leadership bid speech: "Britain's diversity is an enormous strength: economically, culturally, socially and we should never cease saying it and we should say it more often. But the truth is ...
In a recent, tongue-in-cheek post, I suggested that the UK now has its first Whig government for over a hundred years. We know that the Conservative-led coalition government is committed to repealing a lot of legislation that removed or undermined civil liberties. That in itself is Whiggish. What else might we expect from a Whig administration? The Liberal party and then its successor, the Liberal Democrats, have always been keen on constitutional reform. This was borne out of a desire to limit government and institute a series of checks and balances that would allow power to be distributed and not ...
Yesterday I was luckly enough to get to go along to the Fabian Societies next left conference, the first post election conference and one that was looking at the themes of "what went wrong" and "where do we go from here?" Two highly important issues from the Labour party in light of the election campaign that, although ... Read more
Please, don't less this be the future for a Britain now signed up to less liberal immigration policies. From a story about how an anti-immigration backlash plays out in Japan: Families have been broken apart as parents of children born in Japan have been detained and deported. People who seemed to qualify for a special ...
There is a current spate of thefts of metal...particularly lead, copper, alloys ( car wheels, alloy bicycles, farm gates etc are all vulnerable). Rural churches are going to be particularly vulnerable as this spate continues........These crimes are not victimless, and are having a huge impact on local communities, with criminals often targeting schools and places of worship in order to steal lead from
The Youth workers at the community centre in Odins Road are organising a clean upFed up with the mess around our community? Why not come and help us clean it up on...SATURDAY 29TH MAY @ 1:30pm AT ODD DOWN COMMUNITY CENTREFollowed by a Community BBQ
Last night several senior Lib Dems tried to explain to me this strange proposal about 55% of the Commons being needed to bring down the government. I think the argument went that it only needed 50% plus 1 to bring down the government, but would need 55% to dissolve parliament. Or it may have been the oher way round. I can see that dissolving parliament and bringing down a government are clean different things. Fixed term parliaments was a chartist demand - indeed they wanted annual ones. But the current abiity of a Prime Minister to call a general election ...
Due to the speedy nature of the calling of this conference, the unknown knowledge of how good mobile broadband will be in the hall, and if there is enough space to sit with a laptop, the team will be covering the conference via twitter. The last 20 tweets should be below, to view them all visit Twitter If you want to follow Lib Dem Voice on Twitter, please click @libdemvoice.
A video that combines Lady Gaga music, workers rights protests, San Francisco and flash mobs? It's practically made for me! Watch this, it is absolutely awesome. And if you're planning on attending San Francisco gay pride this summer, take note of the end. If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist
Two new polls out in today's papers: ComRes, S.Indy/S.Mirror ... CON 38%, LAB 34%, LIB DEM 21% ICM in the S.Telegraph ... CON 38%, LAB 33%, LIB DEM 21% Polls at this stage of the parliamentary cycle (apparently a full 5 years before the next election) are a little academic. Still, let's give them their moment. From a Lib Dem perspective, I'm moderately encouraged: our support is down, unsurprisingly, but it has not evaporated overnight. It's at least arguable that our support might be lower still if Nick Clegg hadn't struck a deal with the Conservatives: parties which have under-performed ...
[IMG: http://www.wikio.co.uk] [IMG: Labourfail] So I'm continuing to look at the coalition agreement and the bit on Civil Liberties is surprisingly good... In a nutshell, the coalition aims to wind back on some of the authoritarian and intrusive measures Labour had introduced. A lot of this is very Liberal Democrat inspired (the clue is in the name, you know). Although I'm sure the Tories were shirting round the edges, I think the Lib Dem influence has helped them to go down the right path [IMG: :)] These include: A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill. [need to watch this one - ...
Over at The Guardian's Comment is Free website, former Liberal party leader Lord (David) Steel offers his reasons for supporting the coalition government of Lib Dems and Conservatives: We have successfully injected parts of the Lib Dem manifesto into the government programme and outlawed parts of the Tory manifesto, most notably bringing tax reductions to the poor rather than the rich and allowing the electorate itself to improve the voting system in future elections. ... Nick Clegg had only one other option as leader - to sit in opposition, watch a minority Tory government struggling with declining sterling and share ...
There is a very strong utopian streak in me, that leaves me fascinated with ideologies such as Communism, Mormonism and Fascism. Before you all start clicking the exit button, relax. My fascination goes no further than philosophical interest, for one thing plants my feet firmly in liberalism; individual liberty. Whilst I might pine for a world of sunny, happy people I know (with evidence from history to back me up) such a world can not exist. So I look for the next best thing; a world within which people can be whoever they wish to be as long as their ...
Alas, I won't be at the special conference today in Birmingham which has been called to give grassroots the opportunity to speak on and vote for or against the coalition arrangement. I had planned to go. Train times, a determination not to drive there, and the demands of business back home meant I took the decision last night not to attend.I would dearly have loved to be there but I need to use
Yet more cyber attack problems. Here is a look inside my comments editing page. Download file Mmmm - when I click on the link I get the page with full functionality. I do hope that's only me! I had already deleted hundreds of these nonsense comments this morning. The interesting thing about them is that they do not give any message, do not attempt to sell anything and do not contain any links to other sites. Their sole purpose is to overload and crash the site. They are of course running on an automated programme, but the quetion is, was ...
A couple of days ago I gave a Labour-supporting friend of mine my defence of 'The Coalition' – you know, all that stuff about moderating the Tories, having Lib Dems in government, pushing forward cherished policies and the simple fact that there was no other deal in town. My head still tells me that all ...
Just a day before polls opened the Daily Telegraph splashed with the sensational headline, Senior Liberal Democrat arrested over 'sabotage': A senior Liberal Democrat campaigner has been arrested for allegedly trying to sabotage the Conservatives' campaign in a key marginal seat in Thursday's general election. The official understood to have failed to present himself at a police station in the south east of England. He is closely involved in the battle in Eastbourne against the Tories, where the Liberal Democrats held a 775 majority [untrue: it was a Conseavtive seat - Ed.] at the last election. Compare that smear-without-substance with ...
Regular readers will know that one of the really large and most annoying bees in my bonnet at the moment is the awful Digital Economy Act. I've written about it on many occasions for example here, here and here. This Bill really got up the nose of Labour MP for Falkirk, Eric Joyce to the extent that this ultra loyalist actually for the first time disobeyed his whip and voted against it when it was forced through Parliament in an unholy Labour/Tory stitch up just before the Election. Good to the promise he made at the time, he's now in ...
I can't make it to the special Lib Dem conference in Birmingham today because we have a family event, but I'm following it with interest. I have already expressed my support for the amendment from some members of the party which states: "Conference calls for Liberal Democrats to work constructively in government to ensure that the net income and wealth inequality gap is reduced significantly over the course of this parliament." I place myself firmly within the Social Liberal wing of the party, and this amendment is designed to support Nick Clegg in any further negotiations, not to undermine them. ...
My first Special Conference in almost fifteen years – the last one was an NUS one in Derby about tuition fees and free education in 1996 – and what promises to be an interesting afternoon. Still haven't written my king-promised post about the coalition thanks to all the meetings the last week has spawned getting ...
We had a meeting yesterday of Lib Dem members, councillors and activists, about the coalition the party has gone in to with the Conservative Party. It was interesting, but brought up some issues that really do make me wonder why some people ever joined the Liberal Democrats. There were obviously a number of people, including me, whose views were very polarised on this issue. I was far from being the only one feeling a sense of disgust at the way our parliamentary party has acted. But I was appalled at the way some in our party will resort to personal ...
I came across this on twitter, it is a Flickr group set up by the Guardian for people to send messages to the new government through creative expressions and use of pictures. some of these messages will be positive and some will be negative but it should be very interesting to see. They did a similar one ... Read more
After the excitement of Cleggmania and the eventual disappointment of the election result, polling evidence suggests the Lib Dem vote was a good deal softer than the Conservative and Labour votes. Overall turnout for the election, although higher than in 2005, was a few percent lower than predicted, and it seems likely that a big chunk of that were people who said they'd vote Lib Dem and then didn't make it down to the polling station. Though disappointing, it's hardly surprising. The 29% that Labour got can reasonably be described as their core vote – barely higher than they achieved ...
We had an extremely busy day at LDV yesterday with a lot of opinion articles scheduled from a wide spectrum of writers. In all that, there's a good chance we might lose sight of our early morning post proposing a Tweetup / Liberal Drinks meeting at the end of the special conference on Sunday. Full details are here: http://ldv.org.uk/19520 To keep our discussion tidy, comments on this post are closed. Please comment on the first blog post from this morning.
As the finishing touches are put to the coalition deal and the Laws-Osborne team begins to tackle public spending, what is becoming apparent is the Lib Dems will lose some members and voters who may never return. Yet common sense must prevail, we are less than a week into a coalition Government and whilst there will be numerous concessions (nuclear power, the return of legal fox hunting and abstaining on tuition fees will disappoint the core vote), many are already turning their backs on the party now that it has secured the influence that it long campaigned for. Indeed, it ...
Wales Home speculated earlier this week that having tendered his resignation, Alun Cairns would be standing down from the Assembly and would be replaced by the number two on the list, Chris Smart. Politics Cymru have more details as to why exactly every single Tory AM is dreading that prospect and are doing everything they can to keep Alun Cairns in the Assembly, no matter what the Committee on Standards in Public Life may say about joint mandates. Of course Alun Cairns has submitted his resignation to the Tory Party and not to the proper authorities whilst the body that ...
As I predicted this is was the closest election since February 1974 and like then it produced what the media like to call a 'hung parliament.' (Personally I prefer the less emotive local government term 'No Overall Control'). The arithmetic (Con 306, Lab 258, Lib Dem 57, others 28) meant there were only two truly viable options, a Conservative minority government (as with Labour in 1974 and with the SNP in Scotland today), or a Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition with an agreed programme, and the potential to run a full term. Any arrangement with historic political enemies can be difficult ...
One of the themes of my General Election campaign here in Darlington - a campaign, by the way, which produced an increase in our vote from 7,000 to 10,000 (23.4%), against the general trend elsewhere - was that voting Conservative and getting a Conservative Government would lead to the withdrawal of our promised £57m Building Schools for the Future money for the rebuilding or renovation of
I am heading off to the Lib Dem special conference in Birmingham soon where the coalition deal will be debated and voted upon. It is an exciting time for the party and it will be fascinating to see how it all goes. Charles Kennedy has come out against the agreement in today's Observer and I got a phone call from Stephen Nolan's show on 5 Live last night as the story was breaking to ask me to go on air and comment. I said that it was understandable that Charles and some others feel uneasy about this deal but that ...
A special Conference this afternoon in the huge Birmingham National Exhibition Centre will givve Liberal Democrat members the opportunity to have their say on the new coalition agreement. My understanding is that work on the detailed policy agreement is still on-going and that what has been published so far is a headline document. That is because there was insufficient time to complete the deal before Gordon Brown went to the Palace to tender his resignation. Nevertheless, contrary to assertions by some leading opposition politicians such as Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood, the deal we have signed contains many important Liberal Democrat ...
Sun 16th
08:20Labour's first PM gained power after a no confidence vote with no dissolution of parliament
Labour politicians and activists have spent the last few days merrily confusing motions of no confidence and dissolution, as I discussed on Thursday. Many have stuck to the easily disproven claim that the coalition government proposes a 55% threshold for a vote of no confidence. It doesn't: a vote of no confidence requires 50%+1 MP now and will continue to do so. The other line of attack has been to suggest that 50% of MPs can currently vote to dissolve parliament. Those who've taken the trouble to check their facts at least don't claim that MPs can actually vote to ...
Last week I inflicted Shannon upon you. Since then Chelsea have won the double and the Liberal Democrats have entered government, so I am Glad after all. This is a nine-minute version of the Traffic instrumental from the video of their 1972 concert in Santa Monica. if you want it to last longer, it segues into Freedom Rider which has featured here before. There is also a slightly politer version from the 1994 DVD The Last Great Traffic Jam. And Winwood and Clapton play this in their concerts, with Clapton taking the saxophone part on his guitar.
Getting ready to go to Birmingham this morning, for the Liberal Democrats' special conference to discuss the coalition agreement with the Conservatives. The agenda has just one item, a motion on the agreement. Nine amendments have been accepted for debate, including one from my former local party in Harlow, where I used to live. They coverthe lack of will of the Labour Party to take part in a coalition the fact that the Liberal Democrats remain an independent party free to develop its own policy the need for the new government to ensure the gap between rich and poor is ...
Going off to the Liberal Democrat special conference in Birmingham today. This is the opportunity for Liberal Democrats in the wider party circle to give their views on the new coalition - and I am sure that they will be vocal and heartfelt. No doubt that some party members are upset - but the vast majority - just as the Parliamentary Party and the Federal Executive - will hear the facts and the offers from the negotiations - and I believe will arrive at the same conclusion as we all did. The vote in the Parliamentary Party (PP) and the ...
Those of us at Birmingham today will face a bit of a cultural shock. Getting close to our MPs (at least the ministerial variety) will be rather harder than before. In crowded public places they will be moving with a more or less discrete police screen. Given that a lot of our strength as a party has come from good informal discussions at conferences and suchlike this has implications for the future. Even getting photographed with a senior figure for FOCUS usage will be a bit more of a hassle, I expect. Cultural Shock in general is something we all ...
I appologies for the poor quality I haven't had time to edit them but I hope you enjoy them anyway!
News is filtering out tonight that the recently deceased Labour government may have, Pavarotti like, not been exactly careful with their financial commitments, particularly in the run up to the inevitable election. This has been described as a "scorched earth" policy, where ministers and civil servants have committed to unbudgeted expenditure, signed contracts that are now difficult to get out of without considerable cost and so on. And there is general astonishment and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
After five days on tenterhooks, an involuntary smile surreptitiously curled around my lips late on Tuesday when I discovered that Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg would become the UK's deputy prime minister — marking the first time in 65 years the party has participated in the British government. It was even more uplifting to scan the list of policies achieved in the initial coalition agreement. To name but a few that caught my eye, there was the commitment to take low income earners out of tax, a referendum on PR and other reforms, a raft of green measures, a determination ...
This week, we saw a real British revolution: the handover of power from a Labour government to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat adminstration, this country's first coalition government since World War II. But another transition took place this week, that may prove to be every bit as important. The baby boomers' generation, embodied by the outgoing Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown (born 1951) and the party's deputy leader, Harriett Harman (born 1950), were sent packing. In their place came Conservative prime minister, David Cameron (born 1966) and Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg (born 1967). They are both representatives of what ...
Now that the dust is settling on the new politics my eyes have been truly opened to the sneering tribal quasi-religiosity of Labour diehards. They act as if they're of a superior sect full of entitlement. They simply don't GET the modern world. That being said we now need to act very carefully to divorce ...
Regular readers will know that I went to the hustings meeting for the Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency. There was a question about how each of the candidates would support faith schools and the Green candidate did not like the state supporting faith schools. To me it is obvious that it is the other way round and faith schools support the state. The cost of some of the bills for the school is partly paid by the school's parish. On the other hand state schools foot the full bill. There is the same level of education but less cost to the ...
