Category Archives: Liberal Democrats

Ed Davey’s SpAd: cut fuel allowance, maternity pay and bus passes

3:57pm Mon April 16th

Ed Davey’s special advisor has called for the coalition to slash Winter Fuel Allowance, maternity pay and free bus passes. Writing for ConservativeHome on 7 March — just three weeks before being hired as Davey’s special adviser – Chris Nicholson (pictured with Davey standing for election in Streatham) urges his Tory pals to be bolder in their spending cuts:

“let me outline a couple of areas where spending should be cut – areas which many Conservatives might find difficult but which should be tackled nevertheless.”

Nicholson argues that Winter Fuel Allowance should be stripped back and taken away from those aged 60-65. He also calls for free bus travel and TV licences to be “strictly means-tested” and taken from about 50% of pensioners.

Then the former director of CentreForum turns his attentions to the evils of, erm, maternity pay. He’s looking for maternity pay to be capped at a maximum £800 per week — a move which would force many women to save before they could have children.

Doubtless Nicholson will feel at home alongside the Tory ministers in DECC.

Danny Alexander gives budget VAT boost to his own constituency

11:30am Mon April 16th

4 comments

While pasties and pensioners took a hammering on 21 March, Danny Alexander handed himself a budget bribe — in the form of VAT relief for ski lifts in his Highlands constituency. This is the second year in a row that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has benefited from changes in the Finance Bill.

Buried away on page 74 of the Budget is the Treasury’s plan for cable-based transport systems, which will cut costs for the dozens of ski lifts in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.

“The Government will introduce a 5 per cent reduced rate of VAT for passenger transportation in cable-based transport systems carrying fewer than ten people.”

The tax break is clearly aimed specifically at ski lifts; cable vehicles which carry more than ten passengers are already exempt from paying VAT.

In last year’s budget, the Tories in charge felt they should “give Alexander something” to keep him quiet; so they managed to rescue the state subsidy for the Cairngorm Mountain Railway.

But with YouGov now predicting Beaker will lose his seat, it might take more than cut-price ski lift tickets to keep him in line until 2015.

Simon Hughes’ desperate bid to airbrush his support for Health Bill

3:01pm Tue April 10th

2 comments

An email from Simon Hughes is hilarious in its blatant hypocrisy, with the London MP attempting to paint himself as principled opponent of aspects of the Health Bill – despite his steadfast support for it throughout its passage through parliament.

Challenged by the leader of Southwark Council to explain his position on Andrew Lansley’s reforms, Hughes took a month to respond, finally sending a confused reply six days after the legislation had received royal assent:

HYPOCRISY 1: Hughes writes that “When introduced [the Bill] there was an unacceptable emphasis given to the role of the private sector” — so why did he vote for it at every stage?
HYPOCRISY 2: In March, Hughes called for the Bill’s risk register to be published, saying that the Liberal Democrats’ reputation as supporters of freedom of information was at risk. But in the email seen by Scrapbook, he says “governments are entitled to resist requests for information provided they follow the law”.
HYPOCRISY 3: Hughes writes: “It is the results that count, not the noise or visibility of the process by which you achieve the result.” This is coming from the man who said Lansley should resign just to deflect attention away from his own support for the Bill.

Hughes has a history of saying one thing and then voting very differently — he was even caught lying about abstaining on crucial housing votes.

And he has repeatedly tried to justify his support for the Bill by saying the NHS was a Liberal idea in the first place, writing that he is a “a political son of William Beveridge”.

Beveridge would be rolling in his grave if he knew Hughes was calling him Dad.

Brian Paddick publishes personal details along with accounts

1:25pm Thu April 5th

7 comments

Nobody expected the accounts and tax returns of the Liberal Democrat’s mayoral candidate to be of particular interest, but in what looks like a serious cock-up Brian Paddick seems to have published an unredacted scan- complete with personal information like, erm, his National Insurance Number and home address.

Looks like someone made a big oopsie.

More: when Iain Dale had his identity stolen »

Disgraced former Lib Dem council leader to stand as independent

11:11am Thu April 5th

1 comment

Warren Bradley, the former leader of Liverpool City Council, will be standing for the council’s local elections next month as an independent- despite having been convicted of perjury.

Bradley initially quit as leader of the Lib Dem group last April, in the wake of allegations of electoral fraud, having forged his own son’s signature on a nomination form. Bradley was fined £1,000, and reportedly blamed the whole thing on his estranged wife.

Under Bradley’s leadership Liverpool Lib Dems suffered a devastating defeat, losing control of the council to Labour in 2010. Many in the party blamed Bradley.

Mr Bradley will probably find his nomination forms this year subject to more than the usual scrutiny.

U-turn after Tories promised to “reverse rise of surveillance state”

8:36am Mon April 2nd

7 comments

With sweeping powers to monitor internet usage of every person in Britain, the government stands accused of planning similar spying tools to those used by China and Iran. But just months before the election, the Tories were boasting that they would “reverse the rise of the surveillance state”.

The plans to snoop on website, email and social media communications in real time – and without a legal warrant – stand in stark contrast to promises from the Tories’ shadow justice team announced their “agenda for fewer central databases”:

“The Shadow Justice Secretary said the paper is a response to an ever increasing intrusive Government which relies on expensive databases and the reduction of civil liberties.”

As if that weren’t clear enough, the Coalition Agreement states:

“We will implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion.”

As if Cameron’s (libertarian) right-wing backbenchers weren’t frustrated with him already.

Brian Paddick: “It’d be ridiculous for me to know the cost of my policies”

9:09pm Fri March 30th

6 comments

With the Ken/Boris dichotomy of the London Mayoral race so far, the Lib Dems have ample room to complain that they aren’t getting enough coverage- but on the back of their candidate’s latest performance, that might be a blessing in disguise.

Firstly, in an interview with BBC London, he couldn’t tell the interviewer how much his transport policies would cost. Then today, on LBC 97.3 he defended not knowing the cost, protesting that “it’s not reasonable for me to know that.”

The exchange is rather startling:

Interviewer: “Hang on, it’s not reasonable for you to know the costings of your policy? Are you honestly saying that?”
[Five second pause]
Interviewer: “You must have to know the costings, Brian, of your policies if you’re going to be mayor of London?”
Paddick: “Er, that’s…absolutely…erm…ridiculous.”

listen to ‘’Know How Much My Policies Cost? That’s Ridiculous’ Says Paddick’ on Audioboo

That sound you hear is any hopes of Paddick outdoing the measly 9.8% he polled in 2008 slipping away.

Flip-flopping Vince Cable fails to vote for his own legislation

5:10pm Tue March 20th

2 comments

Business Secretary Vince Cable refused to vote on his department’s own legislation yesterday, mysteriously going AWOL when MPs were called to a division to slash employee’s rights.

The threshold for unfair dismisal claims was extended, meaning those unfairly sacked will no longer have redress if they have been employed for less than two years.

The proposal was originally put forward in October by David Cameron’s bonkers guru, Steve Hilton, with Vince slamming the plans as:

“unnecessary, based on no evidence and unlikely to improve labour market flexibility”

On 23 November he went on to claim that:

“We want to safeguard workers’ rights, while deregulating to reduce the onerous and unnecessary demands on businesses.”

Having made his view clear, Cable had the opportunity to stand up for what he believed in — by voting against the “Unfair Dismissal and Statement of Reasons for Dismissal (Variation of Qualifying Period) Order”. But despite voting on Employment Tribunals at 3:59pm, the business secretary failed to participate in the whipped vote just ten minutes earlier.

Rather than resign, Cable simply slinks off and hopes none of us will notice.

We’re sorry Vince, it’s time for us to let you go.

Category Archives: Liberal Democrats

Follow us on Twitter