On Sunday Jenny Willott wrote an article on LDV explaining the reasons behing Lib Dem MPs voting to reject the Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill. However, I’m afraid that, as someone who has been campaigning on this for several months, I am not satisfied with her explanation and think that there are several

It’s a great shame that so many Liberal Democrats have reacted to the political downfall of Chris Huhne by bashing his successor. Ed Davey is an immensely capable minister and will do a wonderful job in his new position. Sadly, some have chosen this news to complain because a woman wasn’t promoted instead of a

Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said in response to the Downing Street suggestion in today’s Times newspaper that 'Andrew Lansley should be taken out and shot': “David Cameron must make an urgent statement and clarify whether these remarks come from a rogue source, or reflect his own and majority opinion in 10 Downing Street.

Perhaps Stealers Wheel had it right… so it’s time to speak my mind, isn’t it? I have been following the debate on internal party democracy with first interest, then frustration, and now a degree of numbing disbelief, as the Parliamentary Parties have taken significant flak from a cross-section of Party members and activists. And yet,

Secretary of State for Education, Conservative Michael Gove, has downgraded the value of nearly all 14-16 vocational qualifications at a stroke.  I felt angry when I heard this.  However, it did little to reduce my respect for Mr Gove; I had very little anyway after ‘free’ schools, and his arrogant disregard of the role of

In the free and fluid exchange of opinions and ideas is there some basis of measurement that makes one man's more valuable than another's? Heading to CPAC this week I am looking forward to speaking with, and listening to, some of the best minds in the conservative movement. As the United States heads into the heart of the 2012 election cycle with a somewhat flawed Republican candidate (r...

Only three days into the job and Ed Davey’s first political challenge has arisen – a demand from the unreconstructed Tory back benches for a halt to onshore wind farm development. The Tories are taking aim at the subsidies onshore wind farm receive to enable them to compete with fossil fuel, claiming that they’re unaffordable

There have been some high profile (if not high level) Blairite defections to the Tories. While there are some similarities between the Blair legacy and our coalition partners, the defectees seem to have overlooked or discarded one idea – joining the Liberal Democrats. As Jonathan Powell says in his book, The New Machiavelli, and as

This February marks the final United Nations (UN) Preparatory Committee session before the deciding negotiations in July 2012 for a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). As this critical moment approaches, we need to call on our Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to support the strongest possible Treaty. The historic decision made

Paddy Ashdown has an opinion piece on Afghanistan in The Times today (£) in which he says: We have repeatedly deluded ourselves about “successes” that never existed and thus took so long recognising that a victor’s peace was beyond our reach that we wasted the best opportunities for a negotiated one. We failed to understand