Opinion: Nonsense on stilts from Darling
Alistair Darling gave an interview to the Times on Wednesday which has attracted remarkably little comment. While the great distraction – the parliamentary allowance scandal - continues, attention...
View ArticleOpinion: Pay close attention to an independent voice on UK economic policy
Departing Monetary Policy Committee David Blanchflower has given an interview in which he warns of false dawns and expresses serious reservations about the economic predictions emanating from the...
View ArticleOpinion: Take care with the economic medicine you prescribe
If cuts in public spending are savage and premature, then the consequences for our economic health could be even worse than the harm done to public services. I’m sure you have all heard talk of: green...
View ArticleOpinion: Cast-iron Conservatism – brittle promises obtained from a flexible...
On 26th September 2007 David Cameron gave what he called a cast-iron guarantee. The guarantee appeared in a piece published under his name in Mr Murdoch’s Sun. Liberal Democrats, who set some store by...
View ArticleBBC economics: a little simplistic when it mixes the economic and political
Stephanie Flanders, the BBC’s economics editor, can be listed amongst those who have some influence on the public discussion of economic policy making in the UK. So her ‘Stephanomics‘ – which is part...
View ArticleOpinion: The Avoidance of Embarrassment Principle
There is one principle that Labour politicians seem willing to test to destruction in the English courts. It is the avoidance of embarrassment principle. The Foreign Secretary has not only tried to...
View ArticleOpinion: Who can trust Cameron?
In June 2006 Professor John Curtice, commenting on opinion polls and shifts in the UK political environment said: “It looks as though we may have entered a new political era”. Andrew Grice, The...
View ArticleOpinion: Opportunities abound and our opponents have rarely been so uncertain...
Alistair Darling’s pre-budget and pre-election speech was well done. Good knock about in which he steered clear of presenting a budget. David Cameron’s response not only rivalled Darling’s in terms of...
View ArticleOpinon: Wolf at the door – and about time too!
In his piece entitled “Back to the Future”. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times hits most nails on the head. He also sets a challenge for those who want to do more than occupy the green benches to the...
View ArticleOpinion: Osborne and Cameron – proving they are unfit to govern
George Osborne and David Cameron are given to policy stunts which they should know by now will come back to haunt them. I’ve written about it before on Lib Dem Voice. And this time they really have...
View ArticleOpinion: It’s all very well agreeing now Gordon, but after 13 years how can...
I think Nick is right – we need change” Gordon Brown to Andrew Marr (18th April 2010) Gordon Brown keeps agreeing with Nick Clegg but he doesn’t seem to understand where this agreement is leading. It...
View ArticleOpinion: Fair taxes – radical and challenging Liberal Democrat plans
Stuart Adam and Mike Brewer of the Institute of Fiscal Studies argue, in their April ‘observations’ piece on Liberal Democrat tax cutting policies, that it is meaningless to make the claim that the...
View ArticleOpinion: Baleful – keeping our heads despite the ‘debate tsunami’
The fact that Tim Bale, an academic from Sussex University and author of The Conservative Party; From Thatcher to Cameron, is represented in the FT as attempting to answer a silly question about the...
View ArticleOpinion: A Diminished Clarke – a picture of electoral calculation and...
What Ken Clarke has been sent out to do (FT.com – requires registration) – and has been willing to do – diminishes him. It can hardly diminish his party. Ken Clarke is a fervent European but he has...
View ArticleOpinion: The British electorate did not speak with one voice – but we must
The British electorate has spoken! On Thursday, and (given the numbers of postal votes cast in the 2010 General Election) for many days before, the British electorate ‘spoke’. But it didn’t speak with...
View ArticleOpinion: With Liverpool in my mind
A mistaken diagnosis that leads to mistaken and damaging policies: an invitation to Liberal Democrats to reflect on coalition policy before they meet in Liverpool in September. The coalition government...
View ArticleOpinion: pots and kettles – names and games and a journey towards political...
Michael Collins, a lecturer in twentieth century British history at UCL, has predicted at Open Democracy–Tuition fees just the beginning of Lib Dem troubles that the “SDP contingent” in the Liberal...
View ArticleOpinion: Is the Chancellor ready to listen to the best economic brains in the...
Having just left one party conference, where I was able to deliver my message on the shortcomings of the Coalition Government’s strategy to revive the UK economy and to promote my alternative take on...
View ArticleOpinion: Intelligent quantitative easing is best hope to stop the bleeding...
At our party Conference in Birmingham I described accelerated fiscal consolidation as pure poison: “Poison for the party, poison for the Coalition and, most important, poison for the country.” I know...
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