Over the last few days, we've showcased what we've achieved in Coalition and we've demonstrated that we can make the tough decisions required in Government. But crucially, that we do so in a way that is fairer than the Conservatives would if they were governing by themselves. And whether you were voting in the main hall or catching updates at home, there has been a fundamental shift in how our party is perceived. We're finally starting to get recognition for the decision we, as a party, took by going into Government. Especially at a time when the economy had suffered ...
Watch more videos on iai.tv An enlightening and good-natured discussion chaired by Isabel Hilton. The participants are consultant psychiatrist Sir Simon Wessely, clinical psychologist Richard Bentall and sociologist Steve Fuller. The first two are particularly good. More from Richard Bentall in an earlier video on this blog.
By Eilidh Macfarlane Today marks one year until the Scottish independence referendum. Michael Moore and Nick Clegg have made speeches in Glasgow where they have set out their arguments for why Scotland should remain part of the UK. Better Together and Yes Scotland will also be campaigning across the country today and this weekend, drawing attention [...]
The conclusion of a - how shall I put it? - remarkable article by Lembit Opik on Huffington Post: So, this is the central question for Brent Central: if the local party agrees with me it's time to move on from Clegg and the 'Orange Book' - and if they concur that their best hope of holding Brent Central is a 'left leaning truly liberal' agenda and a 'grass roots campaign,' they now have the chance to select someone who feels the same.
Tonight there was a huge turnout at the public meeting to discuss the plans to build 100 houses at Upper Chapel. The meeting was organised by Cornwall Council's strategic planning committee - which will take the final decision on October 24th in Truro. Both Adam Paynter and myself asked for it because of our concern that local voices would not be heard at a meeting in Truro. I didn't count the attendance but would estimate it at over 100. About 22 people spoke and every one objected to the development proposal. I think there is little doubt in the minds ...
Conference speech after conference speech, policy motion after policy motion, Liberal Democrats agree that we're doing good work in government. Why wouldn't we? We've raised taxes to support hard working people across the UK – over 100,000 people in Wales no longer pay any income tax at all thanks to the work of Liberal Democrats...
At the LibDem Conference in Glasgow this week, Ben Jones, Chair of the Party's Europe Working Group successfully proposed a motion on the EU. Here is his text, first published in a blog piece for the European Movement (UK) euroblog: The UK's future is in a prosperous, sustainable and secure European Union. Next year marks [...]
The 1970s were a strange, strange decade. Elements of the intelligence services had convinced themselves that Harold Wilson was a KGB plant - hadn't he taken over on the sudden and convenient death of Hugh Gaitskell? - and retired soldiers drilled private armies to be ready when civil order broke down. Now Pride's Purge has suggested the decade may have been stranger still: After the 1974 election, negotiations began between the incumbent Prime Minister Edward Heath's Conservative Party and Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals to form a coalition government together. In 1974, Cyril Smith was one of the leading lights of the ...
University lecturer and former Cambridgeshire County Councillor, Belinda Brooks-Gordon has spoken out about the need for early intervention to protect the victims of domestic violence. Belinda, who lectures in Forensic Psychology at London's Birbeck College, told the Liberal Democrat's autumn conference in Glasgow that work should be carried out in the community to offer better protection. She was speaking in favour of a motion which recognised the need for investment in domestic and sexual violence services so that trained professionals can work with victims 'on the ground'. Belinda has carried out scientific studies into how to deal with sexual and ...
Cllr Tim Bick As Cambridge City Council is braced for continued reductions in government grant, its leader has issued a warning to councillors and the public that the Council will need to look very different as a result. According to the City Council's Mid-Year Financial Review, it will get just under £100,000 less than expected in grant next year, but more seriously around £1 million less the following year. Similar reductions of 13 per cent annually are forecast until the government grant hits zero in 2020. Its saving target is now £6.3 million over the next four years, some 30 ...
It's a long time - far too long - since Liberal England had a blogroll. As a first step to putting that right I have added My Favourite Blogs XI to using Blogger's bloglist feature. As the name suggests, this is an eclectic selection of some of my favourite blogs - 11 seems about the right number whether you are a cricket fan or not. My intention is to reserve it for blogs that are updated reasonably regularly, so I shall review it from time to time. Remember the way clubs had to apply for re-election to the old Fourth ...
I will write more on the detail of Michael Moore's speech tomorrow, but I just wanted to share one passage exactly one year out from the independence referendum. His speech was bold, gutsy and passionate. I really felt like he'd stepped up a gear in taking the fight to Alex Salmond and the nationalists. As you read this, you might want to take a wild guess as to who the activist might be... Back in the summer of 2011, just after the SNP won its outright majority at Holyrood, I brought a group of Scottish activists together. I wanted to ...
The eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed that I won blog post of the year at the Botties for this post. I did not react well, which is one of the reasons why it has taken me this long to blog about it. I am very flattered, and honoured, but I am NOT good at taking a compliment, and some of the consequences of winning an award were a bit triggery* for me, and I might have gone off on one in a semi-public fashion on one of the Lib Dem email lists and upset lots of people. This ...
The highways agency has just started a consultation on the proposed changes to the A14. Part of the consultation is a road show and will be coming to Bar Hill on the 1st and 2nd of October from 11am to 8pm. Whatever changes are made this is clearly going to have a massive impact on the village with significant changes to the existing A14 junction and will be discussed at tomorrows Parish Council meeting. I'm sure the Council will have a number of questions they want answers to, and I'm equally sure that individual Councillors will be asking their own. ...
'How on earth in austerity Britain can we afford Clegg's £600m giveaway,' asked the Daily Mail's front page headline this morning, as if this was a bizarre luxury, a peculiar whim by the coalition's junior partners. There are a number of ways of addressing this, but it does imply just how strange the idea of prevention and investment to prevent is to the English soul. Never mind that the Finnish approach to care and youth justice frontloads its spending into the early years to cut spending in later years - the reverse of our pattern in the UK. Never mind ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg speaking at Lib Dem conference. Photo courtesy of Alex Folkes/Fishnik.com (07984 644 138 or alexfolkes@gmail.com)] Here is what I told The Guardian about Nick Clegg's Glasgow conference speech, one which got the warmest buzz from departing conference reps that I have encountered for a long time: This was a much easier speech for Nick Clegg to give than he expected a few days ago. The votes on high-profile issues such as tax policy and Trident all went the leadership's way, and in good natured debates too. The speech's main message was of course already given away in ...
For Lib Dems it has been a tough few years. That pretty much goes without saying. After the failure of Lords reform I became very disillusioned with the Lib Dems direction, and about the only thing that has kept me in is my own damn stubbornness in the face of the hate being flung at the party by the left. "If Labourites hate us that much, we must be doing something right" might not be correct but it sure feels right. This conference has had moments that reminded me that the Lib Dems are the party for me. Tim Farron's ...
[IMG: image] Nick Clegg's speech today was very good. If there is anyone occasionally reading this, he,she or it will perhaps be able to judge that, in my terms, "very good" is high praise. At last year's conference I was decidedly cheesed off with a series of leadership misjudgments and skulked in the back row of the hall, remaining seated during the ovation to Nick's speech. This year, while not exactly jumping up and down like an American high school baseball cheerleader, I felt comfortable with the speech. It was a good one with some strong passages. I particularly liked ...
This was Nick's sixth speech to a Lib Dem autumn conference, and was his most relaxed and assured performance to date. As with the best of his Letters from the Leader, it worked because he took us behind the scenes of government – such as "shell-shocked civil servant promising me we'd get on with things shortly - but first he had to get us some desks". The list of achievements in government was despatched pretty quickly: tax-cuts for the low-paid, the Pupil Premium, new apprenticeships social care reforms, railway investment, same-sex marriage, and so on. Past speeches have sometimes included ...
[IMG: Beer] I find myself reflecting on Chief Whip Alistair Charmichael's quip suggesting that the real business of Conference is done, carousing late into the night, in the bars and hotels of Glasgow. In the mean time I have been standing on the town hall steps, speaking with constituents and pondering how such an aspiring egalitarian Party concentrates power and decision making into two exclusive weeks each year that leave the majority of the Party disempowered and without any voice. During the other 50 weeks of the year we have a plethora of committees, sub-committees, special interest groups, local, federal ...
Wed 18th
16:40
The best part of Nick Clegg's speech: in defence of internationalism and liberal interventionism
I enjoyed Nick Clegg's speech to conference, which set out a clear path to Liberal Democrats remaining a party of government. I thought his passionate defence of internationalism and liberal interventionism, drawing on his (Spanish) wife's family history in pre-democratic ... Continue reading →
I am pretty sure that everyone can remember where they were at on 7 May 2010. I, for one, was being staggered as I caught up with the results overnight that the Liberal Democrats had polled a staggering six million votes, the highest number of votes since the days of the Alliance. I was running at more or less 24% of the national vote and winning seats such as Redcar, Burnley and Bradford East and coming oh so close in seats such as Ashfield, Swansea West, Derby North. At the same time as that was happening, Nick Clegg came to ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg at party conference. Photo (c) Liberal Democrats, some rights reserved. The grumpy look on a senior politician's face as their party leader speaks. The off-the-cuff comment to a stranger in a lift. Sometimes it's the little things that give an insight into the real political mood, cutting through the layers of soundbites, press officers and newspaper columnists that often swaddle politics like a tight-fitting familiar coat. In Glasgow, such a moment came in a few seconds just before the end of the economy debate. When a senior party figure is up on the podium, defending a ...
Wed 18th
15:35
Clegg: Free School Meals boost attainment, improve health and ensure every child has a fair chance
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg used his speech to Liberal Democrat conference to announce that all pupils at infant schools in England are to get free school lunches from September 2014, with equivalent funding for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. [IMG: Nick Clegg and school dinners (Dave Radcliffe)] In addition, disadvantaged students at sixth form colleges and further education colleges in England will also be eligible for free school meals also from next September. Money is also being provided for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but as education is a devolved issue, it will be up to those running schools ...
The launch of FutureLearn earlier on today brought to mind a passage from J.G. Farrell's Booker Prize winning novel "The Siege of Krishnapur". For several nights the Collector had stayed up until dawn reading his military manuals by the light of an oil-lamp in his study to instruct himself in the art of military mining... what an advantage that knowledge can be stored in books! The knowledge lies there like hermetically sealed provisions waiting for the day when you may need a meal. Surely what the Collector was doing as he pored over his military manuals, was proving the superiority ...
[IMG: nick clegg by paul walter] Nick's just mounted the platform in Glasgow – here's what he's expected to say over the next 40 minutes or so... Three years ago - nearly three and a half - I walked into the Cabinet Office for my first day as Deputy Prime Minister. Picture it: history in the making as a Liberal Democrat leader entered, finally, into the corridors of power, preparing to unshackle Britain after years of Labour and Conservative rule. Only to arrive and find an empty room and one shell-shocked civil servant promising me we'd get on with things ...
Nick Clegg has announced that all children aged 5-7 will now be eligible for free school meals going forward. This has been done in exchange for allowing the Tories to pass the marriage tax allowance. I've seen criticisms of this ... Continue reading →
We are delighted that Botanic Gardens, Hesketh Park and Lord Street Gardens will be proudly flying their Green Flag Awards again for 2013. The Flags are awarded by the Keep Britain Tidy Campaign as the mark of quality for green spaces. Residents now have the chance to help make one of our Southport Parks the nation's favourite by taking part in the People Choice Award - an online vote that will allow people to chose which of 1,448 Green Flag Sites should be named park of the year. Cllr Nigel Ashton said "It is great news that Botanic Gardens has ...
This morning I went to a fantastic event at Kingsley Village organised by Cornwall Council and other public sector organisations in Cornwall. More than 700 people were due to attend and there was even a 50 person waiting list. It was organised by the council's procurement team who deserve big thanks. The point of the event was to encourage Cornwall's businesses, charities and voluntary sector organisations to do more business with us. Cornwall Council (and the others) have a vast purchasing budget for goods and services. We want to do as much of this business as possible with local firms ...
[IMG: OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA] The Scottish Liberal Democrats have today announced that Fifer Susan Leslie has been selected as their candidate for the Dunfermline parliamentary by-election. The selection was formally announced by Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore MP in his speech to Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow. Susan Leslie is a university lecturer who was elected as a councillor in 2007. Speaking after the announcement, Councillor Susan Leslie said: Willie Rennie and Jim Tolson got things done for local people and stood up for the area. That's what Dunfermline will get if they elect me as ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Labour as the party of civil liberties? We won't be fooled that easily Good stuff from @RichardMorrisUK > Labour as the party of civil liberties? We won't be fooled that easily http://bit.ly/19dM07n Lib Dem conference – Nick Clegg's speech and debate on the David Miranda case: Politics live blog | Politics | theguardian.com Excerpts from Clegg #ldconf speech: suggests more conversational, comfortable style than usual http://bit.ly/1524njE (h/t @andrewsparrow) Why I loathe leaders' speeches. PS: It's nothing personal, Nick | Stephen Tall Why I loathe leaders' speeches. PS: It's nothing personal, Nick http://bit.ly/17IZMkp ...
Wed 18th
13:08
The Independent View: Will competition and choice open up the banking sector for the better?
[IMG: Credits Cards] In light of the launch of this week's Current Account Switching Scheme, the Liberal Democrat conference was well timed to ask at a fringe meeting: "Will competition and choice open up the banking sector?" In short, the scheme guarantees that anyone who wishes to move their current bank account to another institution will be able to do so hassle-free in seven working days. No burden is placed on the customer and it is all underpinned by a seven-day guarantee. This is real progress from the previous 30-day process and importantly the lack of a guarantee that often ...
Excuse me I've been away on holiday , on the island of Mallorca, a favorite of mine' arriving home at the weekend was a rude shock given the drop in temperature. Catching up on local media things were pretty much the same as they had been two weeks earlier, three million pounds is even less likely to be repaid following the Transeuropa debacle , and still officers, politicians have yet to resign or even say sorry. Sunday I thought I would go for a cycle, not wishing to be tough on Margate my journey on the bicycle did seem to ...
I have learned a few things in my life and behind Take Me Out photos the most popular thing people want to read on this blog is about my dating endeavours. Well I like to give the public what it wants. The only downside is I rarely have much to write about, if only I had more dates and interactions with women this blog would be so popular. Oh well. Anyway I have dating news so sit down with a coffee or a cup of tea and a biscuit and get ready for the latest installment of my private life. ...
Steve Webb MP, Liberal Democrat Minister, DWP Dear Steve, Whilst I was in Glasgow I heard you and Nick both defend the so called 'bedroom tax'. I agreed totally with your arguments about the principle of this. Why should the ... Continue reading →
In an earlier post I've argued that it would be far more sensible to develop methods of harnessing our island's abundant wave power rather than dump future generations with the problem of disposing of dangerous nuclear waste. Happily, wave power is not being entirely ignored. A company called MeyGen is to launch a project involving six underwater turbines in the Pentland Firth, where, apparently, the tides are particularly vigorous. Sadly, British entrepreneurship is curiously absent from the project: MeyGem is jointly owned by the US investment bank Morgan Stanley, the French energy company GDF Suez S A and the Australian ...
[IMG: image] I've taken a particular interest, at conference, in surveillance and human rights. The Open Rights group and Big Brother Watch organised a fascinating fringe meeting. Alan Travis from the Guardian and Julian Huppert MP spoke, as well as Emma Carr and Jim Killock from the two organisations above. This morning I spoke at the emergency debate on Schedule 7. I have three takeaways (as they say nowadays!) from all this: 1. It is remarkable that people in the UK are not more worked up about the whole Tempora/Prism scenario. In the States they are much more exercised. My ...
Tune into the BBC's Daily Politics today, Wednesday, a 12.45, and you'll be able to watch this film. I try and sum up the Lib Dem year in 5 minutes from an imitation Call Clegg studio. Onesies, Eastleigh, the economy, Sarah Teather, Syria and more...
Stephen Tall reviews the Lib Dem year – it's ups and its down – for the BBC's Daily Politics, recalling some of the questions on Nick's weekly LBC radio phone-in, Call Clegg...
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Having done a post on small countries, here's one on a huge city. 37 million people live in the massive Tokyo-Yokohoma conglomeration. That's a quarter of the population of Japan or 0.52% of all the world's 7.1 billion people. It makes it larger than Canada, over a hundred over countries and in fact the majority [...]
[IMG: 20130918-102432.jpg] I spoke this morning in the debate on reforming the 2000 Terrorism Act, made notorious by the David Miranda case. The debate included an excellent and moving speech by Maajid Nawaz, who has himself been detained under these powers. It also included a welcome contribution from Home Office minister Jeremy Browne: Post by Mark Pack.
Wed 18th
10:25Danny Alexander: "Difficult decisions lie ahead: people can trust the Liberal Democrats to make them...
[IMG: Danny Alexander by Paul Walter] Speaking at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in Glasgow on Tuesday, Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander highlighted four key points: 1) the economy is improving, and in no small measure that's down to the Lib Dems' commitment to provide strong government within a coalition government; 2) that Labour "derailed the economy" once and will do so again, given the chance; 3) that the Tories' obsession with hire-and-fire and anti-Europeanism put the recovery at risk; 4) that Lib Dems are making a real difference – taking the low-paid out of income ...
David Boyle shows us all how to be a gracious winner (a lesson I could probably do with learning) (tags: ) posted The Blood is The Life 17-09-2013 http://t.co/KYdjVnISy9 on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) On the banality of systemic evil http://t.co/kyqo0n2kpD (tags: (from twitter) ) Brutal but brilliant analysis by Peter Kellner > Voters turn against pygmy politics http://t.co/qyTSTjTeEb (tags: (from twitter) ) Holy Shit, I'm #9 in list of top #ldconf twitter influencers! http://t.co/sZ7Lldu56t I'm not even THERE! I feel the hand of Count Packula... (tags: (from twitter) ldconf ) @abjtal http://t.co/9dVf6uyt1S ...
[IMG: Classics Unwrapped] How does music affect your life? When I was back in the UK last month the BBC asked me to come into the studio to talk about my favorite piece of classical music and its affect on my life. In this interview for Jamie MacDougall's 'Classics Unwrapped' program I talk about the power of music, family, work and moving to California. The interview is being broadcast this evening HERE at approximately 8.15pm UK time and if you miss it you can listen again HERE for 7 days after that. On another note I'll be contacting all my ...
Last night I attended a very productive meeting of Harris Academy Parent Council at the school's new Lawton Road base, the school's home during the rebuild programme at Perth Road. It was reported that pupils and staff have settled in well at Lawton Road and there was a very useful update on this and other matters from the two new school captains. We had an extensive discussion about the on-going school transport issues and also relative to school crossing patrollers (SCPs). I continue to raise with the City Council issues regarding the bus arrangements and was in correspondence this week ...
Conference closes exactly one year away from the Scottish independence Referendum. To mark the occasion, Secretary of State for Scotland will develop the themes of identity he's been talking about recently. He'll say: I am a Borderer and a Scot. I'm proud of those things. But as a twenty first century Scot, I have another layer to my identity. I am British and I'm proud of that, too. So are most Scots. The vast majority of people I speak to - friends, constituents, people in communities the length and breadth of Scotland – are at ease with their identities. Glaswegians, ...
YIKES. So, as of noon, I found out that I'm moving to Newark on Sunday and I start my new job on Monday. Keep in mind that I finish my old job in Seattle on Friday (OMGSOMUCHTOGETDONE). I'm kind of a mess right now: I have a plane ticket for Sunday, I have already booked to have my car shipped to New Jersey, I have a plan for the cat. I do not have a place to live (correction: several lovely friends in NYC have offered me places, but I'd really like to try and be in NJ, to make ...
1. This is a brilliant policy in general. It will improve the learning for millions of children. To quote the authors of the report on which the policy has been founded Dimbleby and Vincent wrote: "Academically, the benefits were clear. Students in the pilot areas were on average two months ahead of their peers elsewhere. Between 3% and 5% more children reached the target levels in maths and English at key stage 1. Across both pilot areas, 4% more children achieved the expected levels in English at key stage 2. This is a bigger improvement than the 3.6% boost that ...
Sir Graham Bright has today publicly supported comments attributed to Northamptonshire Chief Constable Adrian Lee that tax payers shouldn't have to pick up the bill for people's drunkenness. Sir Graham said: "I welcome the Chief Constable's idea and want to come out and support it in principle. "If someone chooses to go out and get drunk and block up our police stations and NHS services then they should pay for it. The rest of the community shouldn't have to pick up the tab. "Clearly there are instances where alcohol abuse is part of a wider pattern of addiction and mental ...
This last photograph of this short series of West End historical photographs is of Perth Road. Although "Perth Road" is absolutely correct, residents of this section of the north side of Dundee's Perth Road preferred to have their mail addressed to Windsor Terrace. Residents of the block in 1895 included David Dewar, the superintendent of police, James Walker, Professor of Chemistry and University College, George Haggart, a solicitor, and John B. Hay, a builder. In 1905, three were still there: Haggart had been replaced by Henry William Rennie, a merchant. Mrs James Burdon [sic], a spirit merchant in 1895, has ...
The Welsh Labour government should use the money which will come to Wales as a result of yeserday's school meals announcement in England to fund a similar scheme. As a result of Nick Clegg's announcement yesterday of free school meals for every child in infant schools in England, Wales is set to receive around £30m under the Barnett Formula. The Liberal Democrats understand the financial strain families across the UK are under and we are doing all we can to help people in difficult times. The Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling on the money that will come from the Treasury, ...
As we gear up for the last day of Conference and Nick Clegg's speech, I have started to get back into the routine of reading the Welsh media. The impact of the Conference is difficult to gauge and in any case will fade as Labour and the Tories get underway with their annual shindig. Still this assessment in the Western Mail from David Williamson is generous and interesting: The activists who have stuck with the Liberal Democrats through this difficult chapter in their history are battle-hardened, tightly knit, and they will almost certainly live to see their party enjoy higher ...
The Lib Dems failed to hold their seat in Woking in the most emphatic way - coming fourth behind UKIP. Vote UK reports the result as follows: Con = 1,057 Lab = 833 UKIP = 255 Lib Dem = 252 Four more to follow on Thursday...
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats: Also on YouTube.
