Oct 21

Coalition Spending Review

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Now this isn’t going to be one of those blog posts that’ll join the thousands comprehensively slating the spending review in every aspect. Tough decisions had to be made and they were. Did George Osborne get it completely right? No. But he was given the insanely difficult task of cleaning up the mess in which Labour left this country’s economy and that meant serious cuts that wouldn’t please everyone. Being part of the ‘squeezed middle’ myself, with a wife who works in education I will be immediately on the firing line for several of the cuts. Am I angry about this? No. However strong the cuts are they are many times better than our country becoming completely insolvent. That would have major consequences for everyone in the country, result in many more lob losses and set us back decades.

Banks

I believe that the first move George Osborne should have made is look at selling off the government stakes in the banks we, as taxpayers, had to bail out during the economic crisis. I’m well aware that there are many arguments surrounding return on investment that can be used against this idea but when you factor in the scale of the deficit interest payments we are facing, losing such a chunk of the deficit in one go would be a vastly beneficial move.

My second banking point relates to people are shouting about how the banks got us into this mess so they should get us out of it (quite a big Labour point this as they are trying desperately to shift their part of the blame). Definitely we need to place strong taxes and levies on the banks but we need to remember that if we squeeze the banks too hard they will simply move their operations abroad where governments are more lenient on them resulting is thousands upon thousands of job losses. I find bankers salaries and bonuses as offensive as anyone, but we have to be realistic about the impact of knee-jerk penalties.

Tuition Fees

Tuition fees are high enough already. The cap should not have been removed. The government is in danger of creating a new class system in higher education where only the richest people can afford to go to the best universities, or even go to university at all.

Many of the large universities are among the most inefficient, mis-managed businesses in the country and sufficient savings could be made via efficiency audits, and closer governmental regulation. Don’t make the students pay for the failings of institutions that have become complacent and sloppy due to lack of regulation.

Child Benefit

The child benefit threshold makes sense to me. When you’re earning well over forty thousand pounds you shouldn’t be receiving benefits taken, in part, from the taxes of those on much lower salaries. However what should have been done is make the threshold based on total household income, not the income of individual workers. We should not have a system in place where a single parent earning forty five thousand pounds loses their benefits but a family with two parents both earning forty thousand pounds each get to keep theirs.

Military

Trident renewal has been pushed back which is a massive liberal win. It will save billions over this parliament and hopefully allow the time required for those in power to realise it’s a cold war relic and should not be part of a modern military.

The other cuts in the military arguably do go a little too far. I’m a lover, not a fighter but I am behind the forces fighting for the freedom of the people of Afghanistan and the safety of those in Northern Ireland. I honestly doubt that we will ever have, as the tabloids keep claiming, aircraft carriers without any aircraft, but the losses are sizable. I say get rid of Trident and give those saving back to the rest of the military.

Science and the NHS

Both science and the NHS have has their funding ringfenced for the duration of this parliament, but will be subject to efficiency reviews. I think that’s the right decision. Although the budgets won’t rise in line with inflation they have got off lightly compared to many services. The NHS provides a great benefit to anyone living in this country and it is taken for granted by far too many. Investment in science is key to pushing our country forward – we have so many brilliant minds and institutions, we would be doing ourselves a disservice to allow this to slip.

Aug 23

Lib Dems: Not Just Electoral Reform

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The key agenda people know the Lib Dems for is electoral reform. We want to make the voting system fairer, give every person in the country a fairer say in how they are government and make sure that the people sat in the house of commons are the ones wanted by the majority of the country. That is not the case at the moment but will hopefully be so in time for the next general election.

But please do not be fooled into thinking that electoral reform is our one and only agenda. The fight for the end of Trident got a great boost when Lib Dem pressure helped the treasury decide to make the MoD pay the bill for Trident. The cost of Trident represents over half of the MoD’s annual budget and this decision will the be key catalyst for intensive scrutiny of the costs involved with Trident. Of course the MoD are arguing passionately against this decision claiming that the bill should be paid by the government as Trident is a matter of national security (prompting the question of what aspects of MoD work aren’t a matter of national security!) but so long as the decision sticks, we should finally get a true cost vs benefit analysis. The MoD will be much less inclined to vomit billions of their own budget on a largely pointless enterprise. I realise some may strongly disagree with that last point but I am strongly of the belief that with the size of nuclear stockpiles held by our key allies, there is literally no benefit to us having out own subs sat on the ocean floor.

David Cameron would happily take all the credit for the policies encompassed within his ‘Big Society’ drive but within that you’ll find many Lib Dem policies on educational reform, welfare and taxation. Zero tax on earnings up to 10k, the pupil premium to target support to more disadvantaged areas, pension reform… It’s all happening.

Also lets not forget the tempering of Tory policies going on the whole time. Do you think we’re going to allow any of their old fashioned right-wing “let’s help the rich get richer” policies without a fight? No chance.

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Jul 16

Why I’m a Liberal

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I’ve always voted in our elections. There are so many people around the world fighting for the right to a say in how they are governed that I never want to take our democracy for granted. I’ve also always voted Lib Dem.

Now I’ve not always been greatly interested in politics but the one thing I’ve always felt is that a true three party system would be extremely beneficial for Britain. For too long Labour and the Tories have rested easy, thinking that no other parties are worth worrying about, they just need to argue with each other and ignore everyone else. This attitude is both completely counterproductive for themselves and leads them to ignore the voice of an increasing proportion of the population. With a three party system, there would be no room for this complacency to develop – the simple knee-jerk reaction of Labour disagreeing with everything the Tories say and vice-versa wouldn’t work anymore. Other voices would be heard and rather than the childish squabbling we are used to, parliament could become a much more productive place.

Ok, so this might be a bit of an idealistic viewpoint and I’m well prepared for people to disagree with me on it but even just to calalyse a drop in the complacency and bickering of the two old parties, few can deny that a true three party system would bring some benefit.

To my mind the term ‘Clegg Fever’ was thrown around far too much in my opinion during the election. Belief in a strong leader who inspires confidence and gives hope of real change in our country shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘fever’, it was simply a widespread (and long overdue) gain of faith. We have the leadership and the policies to be taken seriously.

Of course the election didn’t bring about the results we were hoping for. The new found confidence in the Liberals didn’t translate into more seats in parliament yet there was not enough confidence in Labour or the Tories to give them a majority. What then happened was historic – after some intense negotiation, we ended up with five seats in the cabinet as part of the new coalition government. Some say we ‘sold out’, ‘did a deal with the devil’ and other comments that I won’t repeat on a public blog but I say we took the opportunity to put the Liberal voice right at the heart of the government, get policies heard and no longer sit on the sidelines.

The election proved beyond a doubt how strong the voices of the country are, and the influence we have over Westminster. Political apathy is down and change is happening. It’s an exciting time to get involved and that is exactly what I decided to do. So I joined the Liberal Democrats.

Sure we didn’t get all the policies we would have liked, but we got some key ideas such as political reform and fairer taxation. I would have loved to see Trident scrapped, proportional representation brought in without the need for a referendum and immediate plans to remove troops from Iraq (I’d love to say Afganistan too but they simply aren’t ready for that yet) but we have to remember that we are still a minority voice in the coalition. We got a very good deal given the relative numbers of seats held in parliament and these missing policies are exactly the reason why the Liberals need all the support they can get.

The creation of the coalition government only means we need to fight harder for these policies as we finally have a chance of making them happen. Our voices will be heard.

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Jul 15

Coalition Concerns

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Today Nick Clegg will be meeting with his party members to allow them to air their concerns regarding the progress of the coalition government. Also expected are some tough questions about the relationship between him and David Cameron. There has been a great deal of talk about how far Nick Clegg is hanging on to his Liberal principles and as such, to what degree he is, for lack of a better expression, bending over for the Tories.

What I would say in his defense is that he has a very difficult job in attempting to walk the tightrope of playing his part in a cohesive government whilst representing the interests of his party. We must remember that the Liberals do not have an equal share in the coalition so not every Liberal policy will get through parliament and our battles must be picked carefully.

Nick has already launched several initiatives virtually independently of David Cameron – most notably Your Freedom and Fairer Votes – and I honestly believe that he and his ministers are tempering the Tories. We’ve hardly fallen back into the dark days of Thatcher since the election.

Now if we could only get Trident ditched and troops out of Iraq…

Read more here

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Jul 05

Fairer Votes

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It’s official. Making good on the promise of a referendum on proportional representation the Liberal Democrats have launched their Fairer Votes campaign. This aims to have in place, before the next general election, a new voting system that genuinely makes every vote more important. If the referendum is successful then longer will there be complacent MPs sitting in non-marginal constituencies knowing they have to do very little in order to keep their seats. Truly every seat in the country will be contested fairly and the candidates with the highest overall support will be elected.

Honestly, who would not want this?

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Jun 06

The Coalition Government

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The election result came as no great shock to me I have to say. Labour were clearly directionless and drifting without a strong leader, and had plunged our financial system into what can only be described as chaos. The conservatives, despite what I may think of some of their more right-wing policies, had a strong leader and were offering a great deal of new thinking on the problems of Britain. And the Liberal Democrats again had a very strong leader and some brave new policies but were still suffering from long being third place in the polls and trying hard to overcome the ‘a vote for the Lib Dems is a wasted vote’ mentality that has been so popular.

So the votes were clear – the country wanted Labour out but weren’t a hundred percent sure they wanted the Conservatives in. If the Liberal Democrats chose to take a side then a majority government could be formed which would leave the country with solid leadership and give the Liberal Democrats an unprecedented level of power within the government. So they went for it. And I’m very glad they did.

Many have criticised Nick Clegg for ‘selling us out’ but look at the options he had in front of him; become a core part of the government with several Lib Dem cabinet ministers beside him and key policies being brought in, or walk away with his party and policies, with little power to bring the changes we voted for. To me it was a complete no-brainer of a decision and gives the next election a greatly levelled playing field. It can no longer be said that Britain simply has a two party governmental system.

The Liberals now have their strongest voice for decades and believe me, over the next five years, it shall be used!

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