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Social Liberal Forum on the Lab-Lib talks

Events are moving quickly. Gordon Brown’s resignation and the opening of formal talks with the Labour Party have reignited the possibility of a progressive alliance.

The fact that talks with the Conservatives have failed to come up with agreement at this stage suggests that this possibility has run its course.

The Social Liberal Forum Executive respect Nick Clegg’s commitment to talk to the party with the greatest mandate first and have suspended our judgement on what such negotiations might result in.

But the party has always been clear that this by no means was to offer them a blank cheque or even that a deal would necesarily result from these talks.

It is now apparent that David Cameron is not prepared to deliver a genuinely proportional voting system, nor offer a progressive agenda that Liberal Democrat members and voters rallied behind the party to secure. With Gordon Brown gone, so has the key barrier to a better alternative.

With this in mind, we strongly endorse the opening of talks with Labour. A progressive coalition, possibly involving the Green Party, Alliance Party, SDLP, Plaid Cymru and the SNP would command a majority mandate from the public. 52% of the public voted for either the Liberal Democrats or Labour, almost 56% if the votes of all progressive parties in Parliament are combined.

There is a progressive majority of opinion in this country and despite the deficiencies of our broken political system, our government should ideally reflect that.

Nonetheless we are realistic that such an alliance would be precarious. For it to work, legislation for fixed term parliaments, increased caps on election spending and caps on party donations must be prioritised. Extending fiscal autonomy to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales would be crucial.

All progressive parties, including Labour, are committed to some form of electoral reform, but a commitment to a referendum on a proportional voting system must remain a deal breaker. To ensure a real change to our broken political system, Nick Clegg must be prepared to walk away and allow a Conservative minority government to go ahead if Labour refuse to allow the British people a say in how they elect their parliament. Needless to say, we also feel that the ‘red lines‘ spelt out by the Social Liberal Forum Executive this weekend still apply.

As with our statement over the weekend, which garnered the support of more than 30 parliamentary candidates, local party chairs and party members, please email us on admin@socialliberal.net to let us know if you agree with the sentiment of this statement, including what position, if any, you hold within the party. We really do value your input.

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From social liberal forum

Fabians fail the Fairness Test

I’ve been itching to get my paws on the latest Left Foot Forward report on the Lib Dem proposal to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. “Think Again, Nick!” (pdf) purports to show that, far from being the most redistributive policy on offer in this general election, it is in fact deeply regressive and a hallmark of the Lib Dems’ rightward shift.

I’ve been reading the headlines on both Left Foot Forward and Next Left over the weekend, thinking, “They’re not going to take the personal allowance proposal in isolation are they? Surely, this analysis must purport to show how, contrary to all the evidence I’ve seen, equalising capital gains, equalising tax relief on pensions, closing various other loopholes and introducing a mansions tax will actually have a minimal impact on the incomes of the wealthiest on society? That’s got to be some pretty bloody impressive research.”

How wrong I was continue reading… »

Why is Jenni Russell praising Cameron Come Lately?

Jenni Russell has written an article attacking ContactPoint, the much maligned national children’s database that the government are still insisting on trotting out. The only problem is, she has written it as a piece of Tory hagiography.

We might be able to let her off the title – Another invasion of liberty. And only the Tories are alert – as a bit of subbing hyperbole. I’ve written enough articles for newspapers over the years to know this happens. But she can’t blame the sub for the final paragraph:

Labour will not reverse this; only the Tories might. They promise to review CAF database, ditch ContactPoint for a small, targeted database, and invest in strengthening people’s relationships instead. It’s depressing that Labour supporters who believe in liberties, privacy and humanity should find themselves having to cheer the Tories on this issue.

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Defending Jo Swinson against the Telegraph’s misogyny

Yesterday I returned from my recent self-imposed hiatus from blogging (however temporarily) to write about the Daily Telegraph’s recent ‘exposé’ on Jo Swinson MP.

Very briefly, on Thursday, the Telegraph published a carefully worded article about cosmetics and dusters ‘appearing on’ receipts despite acknowledging that items on her receipts which had actually been claimed for tended to be marked by an asterisk. The cosmetics were not, they have no evidence to suggest that they might have been claimed for anyway, and Jo Swinson herself completely denies that she did.
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The Davies Agenda (sic)

[Note: the latest Carnival on Modern Liberty is by Cabalamat]

David Davies MP has modelled himself as a staunch opponent of political correctness, but the truth is that he – like most people obsessed with the horrors of PC – is all for it really. He just has different political priorities, as his recent outburst shows.

Sadly, I suspect that Davies is rather more representative of his party than David Davis MP, as the fairly lamentable Tory showing at the Convention on Modern Liberty a fortnight ago made plain. Any party which has a Shadow Home Secretary who can utter the phrase “fewer rights and more wrongs” without cracking up can be fairly described as being “confused” (if one were feeling so generous).
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Carnival on Modern Liberty

The latest Carnival on ML is hosted by Jonathan Calder at Liberal England. Next week’s Carnival will be at Amused Cynicism. You can submit nominations via this page.

Carnival of Modern Liberty

Welcome to the sixth Carnival on Modern Liberty. We’re back at Liberal Conspiracy, in eager anticipation of the Convention on Modern Liberty which will be taking place today (as if you didn’t know…).

My thanks to Our Kingdom, Lib Dem Voice, Yorksher Gob and Wardman Wire for keeping it going over the past few weeks.
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Responding to the Convention backlash

The backlash to the Convention on Modern Liberty, as exemplified by David Semple yesterday, seems not about anything the Convention is trying to achieve but because it is being supported by the Countryside Alliance and there are too many Tories (and even a UKIP!) on the panels.

Let’s start with the Countryside Alliance. The CA is about a lot more than fox hunting, and in recent years, played a pivotal role in ensuring the success of the Sustainable Communities Act. The infamous John Jackson, the former chair, is a man I have got to know quite well. Far from being a tweed-jacketed toff, Jackson is a progressive, a solicitor and perhaps one of the best constitutional experts I know. Just read his columns on OurKingdom or his masterful chapter about the rule of law in Unlocking Democracy: 20 Years of Charter 88.

But since we’re on the subject of fox hunting, it has to be said that you can find no better example of Labour’s skewed sense of priorities.
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Social Liberal Forum launches

A group of Libdem party activists, including myself, have launched the Social Liberal Forum. The SLF wants to help contribute to debate in the party about how the mainstream social liberal traditions and values of the party should be applied to the huge challenges facing British society and the world.

We believe the Liberal Democrats must continue “to be the party that guarantees strong public services and tackles inequality in a way that the Tories would never contemplate.”
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The first Carnival on Modern Liberty

Welcome to the first edition of the Carnival on Modern Liberty. This has been an interesting week to begin this carnival. We’ve had the rise and fall of the government’s latest attempt to exempt MPs’ expenses from the Freedom of Information Act, the inauguration of President Barack Obama and the launch of the Guardian’s new Liberty Central. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves…

Winning the Right to Know

Is freedom of information a civil liberties issue? We could debate that for hours, but as (my, ahem, boss) Peter Facey says in Yes, Democracy Works (Comment is Free):

…a significant swath of the establishment fears and distrusts the public, treating us as compliant subjects rather than citizens. We are regarded as a problem to be controlled and managed and our fundamental rights and freedoms are paid lip service but considered ultimately to be an inconvenience. The impulse which has lead us to a national identity database, identity cards, the DNA database, photographers being detained for taking pictures in the street, parents being spied on to check if they live in the appropriate school catchment area, the drive to marginalise trial by duty and hold inquests in secret and suspending/habeas corpus, is the same impulse that assumes the public is neither entitled nor interested in knowing how MPs spend their expenses.

The plan to exempt MPs’ expenses from the Freedom on Information Act caused an uproar. The Campaign for Freedom of Information, Unlock Democracy and mySociety moved swiftly.
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