How does your income compare to everyone else?

By Mark Pack | 10th December 2011 - 10:54 am

Having written about income inequality in the UK earlier in the week, here is an international perspective: www.globalrichlist.com, which lets you put your own income into a global perspective. Ready your decimal places and tap away…

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The weekend debate: Lobbying

By Carl Quilliam | Published 10th December 2011 - 8:26 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

It has been a week of scandal surrounding the lobbying industry, with The Independent publishing a series of stories based around the claims of the lobbying firm Bell Pottinger to be able to influence government policy.

The consultants at Bell Pottinger made claims to undercover reporters that they had already influenced government policy and could do so again for a fee. The government initially responded by saying these claims were rubbish but later conceded that lobbying from companies did have some impact.

So who’s …

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Europe: what Liberal Democrats have been saying today

By Mark Pack | Published 9th December 2011 - 7:02 pm

Nick Clegg:

I have said for months that it would be best to avoid arcane debates about treaty change altogether and if we had to proceed down that road, it would be best to do so in a way that did not create divisions in Europe.

The demands Britain made for safeguards, on which the Coalition Government was united, were modest and reasonable. They were safeguards for the single market, not just the UK.

There were no demands of repatriation of powers from the EU to Britain and no demands for a unilateral carve-out of UK financial services.

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Posted in Europe / International, News | Tagged , , , , , | 42 Comments

The LDV Friday Five: 9 December 2011

By Helen Duffett | Published 9th December 2011 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

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Opinion: Lynne Featherstone’s defence of evidence-based translational medicine is welcome

By Prateek Buch | Published 9th December 2011 - 4:00 pm

[Declaration: for the last nine years I worked in an academic research laboratory, developing therapies for inherited disorders that cause blindness. During this time I worked with animal models to help our improve our understanding of disease mechanisms and to act as a test-bed for new therapies].

The sparsely-attended adjournment debate on Wednesday secured by Conservative MP David Amess, saw a rare thing – a genuine discussion based around the merits of peer-reviewed scientific research and a robust defence of an evidence-based approach to translational medicine from Lib Dem Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone. For a biology nerd interested in the …

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Opinion: One year on from Tuition Fees: why I’m still a Liberal Democrat

By Harry Matthews | Published 9th December 2011 - 12:51 pm

It’s one year on from the vote on Tuition Fees, so I thought I would lay out some reasons why I, as a student, am still a Liberal Democrat after our great ‘betrayal’.

Although our ministers are having to make tough choices, Liberal Democrats have won a major victory – having a tax cut for the low paid, rather than the very rich, as the Tories would have preferred. Raising the income tax threshold to £10,000 is a good way to correct the disaster Gordon Brown created when he scrapped the 10p tax band. Plus it is a tax cut …

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Paul Burstow MP writes… A Future-proof Health Service

By Paul Burstow MP | Published 9th December 2011 - 11:53 am

The Liberal Democrats have always recognised that if we want the best health service in the world, we must continue to innovate and invest.

That is why I want to highlight how new funding announced on Monday will ultimately support life-saving research and help to protect millions of vulnerable people living with long-term conditions at home.

I have long championed the benefits of telecare and telehealth (home-based alarm and monitoring devices), so I want to highlight the fact this high-tech equipment will now be accessible to another three million people over the next five years.

This week I met a care …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 6 Comments

PMQs: Penguin in the menage à trois

By Paul Walter | Published 9th December 2011 - 10:45 am

The first big subject at Prime Minister’s Questions this week was Europe. Tory MP Andrew Rosindell asked if David Cameron would show “bulldog spirit” at the forthcoming summit. Later, similar points came from various Tory Eurosceptic MPs, including the Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell. He is always heard with great respect, despite his long-winded, rather pompous and, in this case, halting mini-speeches which have barely inquisitive constructions stuck on the end of them.

Ed Miliband started on Europe as well, asking if Cameron would fulfil his promise that treaty change might give the opportunity to “repatriate powers”. The Prime …

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Opinion: Shareholders start to flex their muscle on high pay in banks

By Prateek Buch | Published 9th December 2011 - 8:50 am

The Association of British Insurers, whose members are significant shareholders in UK banks, has written of its concern over remuneration in the banking sector in the most stern terms. The ABI’s Director General Otto Thoresen has highlighted the

need for all banks to fundamentally restructure their remuneration practices.

This follows on from the independent High Pay Commission’s report into executive remuneration, which emphasised the need for shareholders to play an activist role in setting top pay – the letter appears to be a first step towards a large number …

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Opinion: What Cameron should be doing in Brussels

By Jonathan Fryer | Published 9th December 2011 - 7:50 am

[Ed:This article was written late last night, albeit before details of Prime Minister's veto emerged from Brussels emerged.]

When David Cameron arrived in Brussels last night for the pre-Summit dinner of EU leaders, he may have sensed a certain frisson in the room. He missed out on the earlier gathering of most EU Heads of Government, who are members of the EPP (Christian Democrat) Euro-parliamentary group and held their own important caucus. Until Cameron became Tory Leader, the British Conservatives were members of the EPP, but in a blatant ploy to get backing from Euro-sceptics among Tory backbenchers, he …

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Posted in Op-eds | 56 Comments
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New LDV members’ survey now live: your views on economy, pensions, strikes, drugs and life in government

By Stephen Tall | Published 9th December 2011 - 7:45 am

The new LDV members’ survey is now live. So if you are one of the c.1,300 registered members of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum — and any paid-up party member is welcome to join — then you now have the opportunity to make your views known.

Questions we’re asking this month include:

  • what you think of the Coalition’s deficit-reduction policies;
  • whether Lib Dems should commit to further post-2015 public spending cuts;
  • if you agree with Nick Clegg’s support for means-testing some universal benefits;
  • your views on public sector pension reform…
  • … and on the recent public sector strikes;
  • how

…

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Extra £11million funding for disadvantaged pupils is a “sham”, says Manchester Labour Party

By Nick Thornsby | Published 8th December 2011 - 4:54 pm

There’s rather bizarre news from Manchester, where the Council’s ruling Labour group has passed a motion declaring the pupil premium a “sham” and calling for the policy to be scrapped.

The pupil premium – which was a key Lib Dem policy at the last election – has meant a funding boost of almost £11million for Manchester’s schools this year (rising to £20million next year), with the money targeted specifically at pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

As Lib Dem councillor for Gorton North, Jackie Pearcey, says:

I know that in Gorton and Abbey Hey, this money is making a real difference to

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Opinion: Don’t believe everything you read in the papers…

By Adrian Trett | Published 8th December 2011 - 2:34 pm

I’ve learnt again this week that it’s not a good idea to believe everything you read in the papers. In this case, it was a story in the Sunday Telegraph suggesting that the Government were changing the wording of “Academy Funding Agreements” on the teaching of marriage. Thankfully, it turned out to be a non-story.

Academy Funding Agreements are the governing documents for academies and Free Schools and are agreed between the Secretary of State and the governing body of the Academy, and the story suggested there were “strict new rules” about marriage.

However, a bit of digging …

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Opinion: Under Occupation – The Catch 22 of the Welfare Reform Bill

By Terry Stacy | Published 8th December 2011 - 12:26 pm

Most of the measures in the Welfare Reform Bill are extremely sensible. Designed to streamline a byzantine system where fraud was far too easy and anomalies like benefit recipients living in million pound mansions too common (though not as common as the Daily Mail would have you believe!).

During the passage of the Bill, the Liberal Democrats have managed to curb some of the worst excesses of our coalition partners. For example, we got rid of the idea that people on Job Seekers Allowance for more than a year would lose 10% of their housing benefit. It is measures like this …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Independent View: MoD suppresses Lib Dem review and spending information on Trident ahead of Parliamentary decision

By Kate Hudson | Published 8th December 2011 - 9:28 am

Liberal Democrats can be rightly proud of their record on challenging like-for-like Trident replacement and keeping Britain’s nuclear weapons near the top of the political agenda – certainly during the last general election campaign. But now it looks as though their coalition partners are moving to stifle the gains they have made. Not only has the Defence Secretary announced the suppression of the Lib Dem-led Trident Alternatives Review. He is also making a mockery of the delayed Trident replacement decision – scheduled for 2016 – by committing to spend £6 billion before that decision date. This is hardly fair play …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

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Liberal Democrat Voice is an independent, collaborative website run by Liberal Democrat activists, where any individual inside or outside the party can express their views. Views expressed on this website are those of the individuals who express them and may not reflect those of the party.
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