Vince Cable looks back on the tuition fees debacle

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Vince Cable spoke to Times Higher Education this week after taking up an honorary professorship at the University of Nottingham.

Asked about the Coalition decision to increase tuition fees, he said:

"It was politically very traumatic, but it was actually good policy. One of my colleagues, I think, came up with the phrase that we got 8 out of 10 for the policy but 2 out of 10 for the politics.

"The problem was that we made this pledge about not increasing student tuition fees – it was disastrous, it was not deliverable. ... 

"We got hammered for it – loss of trust, all those things. But it wasn’t deliverable in the financial climate of the coalition. 

"My job was to try to make the best of a bad job and produce a system which was genuinely progressive. It is. Nobody pays fees; they pay a form of graduate tax when they leave, depending on their income. 

"The universities as a consequence are now quite well funded, unlike most other bits of what you could broadly call the public sector."

You can see the heart of the Liberal Democrats' problem in the photo above - and I don't mean Nick Clegg.

We pledged to vote against any increase in tuition fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative,

As was pointed out (I think by Polly McKenzie) in the debate I posted the other day, this took it for granted that we would not be in government after the 2010 general election.

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Eric Avebury, the Liberal Democrat peer and Liberal victor in the famous Orpington by-election, has died. Lib Dem Voice has an interview about his life that he gave to his son John and Seth Thevoz last year.

Emran Mian says we should not harangue Google for paying so little tax in Britain but globalise taxation.

"At Petworth we can walk through the realised dreams of the landlords: a glorious country estate that projects the power, prestige, even the seeming naturalness, of the aristocracy. The history of our more humble ancestors ... are smoothed over, buried, obscured." Mark Hailwood goes for a walk in the country.

Nicholas Whyte has been to the Royal College of Physicians' exhibition on John Dee - "scholar, courtier, magician".

"John Perry was heard crying out for assistance in the garden. When help arrived, he was found alone but in a state of some agitation. He claimed that, while working in the garden, he had been unaccountably set upon by two men dressed in white, who had assaulted him with their swords." Alwyn Turner examines what sounds very like a 17th-century UFO abduction.

Historic England presents nine breweries of architectural distinction.

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A fascinating panel debate on the British General Election of 2015

To mark the publication of The British General Election of 2015, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) hosted a panel debate on the election and its consequences at the Mile End Institute on Tuesday.

Professor Philip Cowley from QMUL, one of the authors of the book, was joined by:

• Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, QMUL (chair)
• Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard columnist and chair of Bright Blue 
• Lord (Spencer) Livermore, Director of Labour's 2015 election campaign 
• Polly Mackenzie, former special advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister

The Liberal Democrats featured more prominently that you might expect and there were telling observations about all the parties.

This video is well worth your time.

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Mark Pack and David Howarth have published a second edition of their 'The 20% Strategy: Building a core vote for the Liberal Democrats'.

Michael Oakeshott is an important 20th-century British Conservative thinker. Aurelian Craiutu reviews his notebooks.

Richard Gooding looks at the trashing of John McCain, which helped George W. Bush win the Republican nomination in 2000.

Like Ray Gosling and Alan Moore, Jeremy Seabrook is a product of working-class Northampton. Here he writes of growing up gay in the town in the years after World War II.

"Robert Mitchum considers The Night of the Hunter one of his most impressive roles. Gentle, subtle and seductive, but deranged and psychotic, Mitchum’s character is one of the scariest villains in film history." Cinephilia & Beyond on the only film directed by Charles Laughton.

"It was while working on Time Out’s annual pub guide in 2000 that I heard the tale of the Camden castles. A reviewer claimed that there were once four Camden pubs with castle in their name – the Edinboro, Windsor, Dublin and Pembroke – and these had originally been built for navvies digging Regent’s Canal." Peter Watts gently explodes a myth.

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How Nick Clegg was nearly toppled in 2014

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The new Liberator is out, which means a limited amount of copy from it is available on the magazine's website.

From there you can download a PDF of an article by Seth Thévoz - "A Very Nearly Successful Coup."

It tells the story of the attempt to topple Nick Clegg as Liberal Democrat leader and argues that it came far nearer to succeeding that was generally realised at the time:

What destroyed the coup was when the second wave of MPs got ‘the wobbles’. A disciplined media grid had set out a detailed timetable of MPs who would go public in waves of two or three at a time, staggered with other parliamentarians, to build a sense of momentum. 

On day one, a members’-led open letter calling on Clegg to resign was released as per the plan. (This was never a petition as claimed – it was an open letter which envisioned 20 signatures. It accidentally secured over 400.) 

On day two, the first two MPs went ‘over the top’, publicly calling for Clegg’s resignation, and were joined by a third MP who wasn’t scheduled to declare until several days later, jumping the gun.

Then on day three, we were badly let down by one MP. The response of his colleagues was “If he’s not going, I’m out” – which spread like a chain reaction among MPs and peers. The activists roped in to do the MPs’ dirty work were left holding the baby.

The moral is clear. If you want to know what is going on in the Liberal Democrats you should subscribe to Liberator.

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Big Brother in a Northamptonshire park

I came across this notice in a park in sunny Rothwell this morning. How long have the authorities felt themselves free to use such totalitarian imagery?

When I was a child I acquired the idea that not having to have an identity card was part of our reward for winning the war. As a teenager it seemed almost a moral duty to read Nineteen Eight-Four to learn about the sort of society Britain Was Not Like.

Today we have lost this instinct for defining ourselves by contrasting Britain with tyrannies. The Soviet Union has gone, while drawing parallels with Nazi Germany makes the cool kids laugh at you. Godwin's law and all that.

Note too the subject matter of this notice. Have a million Focus leaflets demanding that councils do something about minor nuisances brought us to this? Must Liberals and Liberal Democrats bear a share of the blame?

Whatever the reason, we have won the victory over ourselves. We love Big Brother

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Shirley Williams retires from the Lords 62 years after fighting her first parliamentary election

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From BBC News:

Baroness Williams has delivered her final speech to the House of Lords before retiring from the chamber. 

In her speech she talked of the UK's "special genius" for "great public sector imagination" and international leadership. 

The former education secretary said she hoped the UK would continue to play that leadership role by staying within the European Union.

You can watch a video of the speech below.

Above you can see a photo of her in 1954 when, as Shirley Catlin, she fought and lost a by-election in the Harwich constituency for Labour.

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Major upgrade of Market Harborough station to be announced

"Multi-million pound plans to upgrade a railway station to improve journey times from Leicester to London are to be unveiled on Monday," said the Leicester Mercury last week.

I can't find any announcement of these plans on the Network Rail or East Midlands trains website yet, but according to the Mercury:

The details will be outlined to Harborough District Council representatives at a closed meeting on Monday. 

The improvements, which are under wraps until after the meeting, will also include building longer platforms at Market Harborough station and building a lift to improve access for people with disabilities to the southbound platform. 

Work could start on the scheme next year.

Monday's meeting comes after the Government agreed to spend £3 million on the new lift two years ago.

The report also quotes an old friend of mine who knows about such things:

Rail users group spokesman Steve Jones said: "We have known the key elements of the scheme for some time. 

"But it is good that at last plans have been drawn up so we shall be able to see what is being proposed." 

He said: " There are two possible schemes. The big expensive one which could include building a new station beside the existing one and another smaller scheme which includes the key improvements on a pared down scale." 

Mr Jones said to straighten the bend through the station would require new tracks being laid through the existing car park. 

He added: "That would require new longer platforms to be built and the car park moved to the other side of the track."

These improvements have been in the air for a very long time. Forty years ago the new buildings on platform 1 were built at an angle to the line to allow for its later straightening. But if the scheme is really radical, they may be demolished as part of it.

The Mercury quotes a Network Rail spokesman as saying a public exhibition of the proposals for the station will be held in the town's market hall on 27 February.

Let us leave the last word to Phil Knowles, a Liberal Democrat councillor in whose ward the stations stands:

"At long last the plans to bring Harborough station into the 21st century are to be unveiled. 

"I would urge people to attend the public exhibition on February 27."

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In a thoughtful post, Mark Mills reminds us that there can be pessimistic liberals as well as optimistic ones.

Matthew d'Ancona puts his finger on Labour's problem: "It is New Labour, or what remains of it, that needs to admit its faults, dismantle itself and rebuild from scratch."

"By the Victorian era, however, the formality of cat funerals had increased substantially. Bereaved pet owners commissioned undertakers to build elaborate cat caskets. Clergymen performed cat burial services. And stone masons chiseled cat names on cat headstones." Mimi Matthews on a forgotten corner of social history.

London was once powered by a vast underground hydraulic system, explains Andy Emmerson.

Tess Reidy shows us what happens to night clubs after they close down.

Adam Covell explores the landscape of M.R. James' A Warning to the Curious.

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Rochdale Liberal Democrats question Simon Danczuk's expenses

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From Rochdale Online:

Rochdale Lib Dems have officially complained to Parliamentary Watchdog IPSA and Greater Manchester Police about the expenses claims of Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk.  

They have alleged a 'misuse of public funds' and called for a full investigation into Mr Danczuk claiming thousands of pounds under the Parliamentary living allowance scheme. 

Mr Danczuk claimed for four 'dependants', despite not seeing his two eldest children for years. 

Lib Dems have claimed this is an abuse of the system and asked Greater Manchester Police to investigate.

The website has the full text of the complaint.

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Liberal Democrats to leave Great George Street

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That's what Guido Fawkes reveals in the Sun today:

You have to feel for the Lib Dems. Wiped out at the ballot box in May and now they are being evicted. 

Aides are preparing to leave their HQ at Great George Street after Westminster, one of England’s most Tory councils, gave the go-ahead for plans to turn it into flats. It’s the Tories telling the Lib Dems to pack their bags all over again.

It won't be the council who have given us notice, of course, but the owners of the block. You can read about their plans for this building on New London Development.

Since Liberal Democrat News ceased publication I have not had much reason to visit party headquarters, but Great George Street never appealed to me the way that Cowley Street did. Maybe it was the arms dealers upstairs.

Where will we turn up next? Maybe it's time to reread the call from Simon McGrath for party HQ to be moved out of London.

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Where is the Liberal Democrat equivalent of the Beckett Report?

Margaret Beckett's report on what she believes to be the reasons for its defeat in last year's general election has been published by the Labour Party. BBC News has a summary.

There is an article about it on Liberal Democrat Voice, which gives in passing a dispiriting glimpse of the tactics we used to hold on to Sheffield Hallam.

It also has a noteworthy comment from Liberator's Mark Smulian:

At least Labour has published its report. I understand the equivalent Lib Dem one was released only to Federal Executive members on paper, which they were obliged to return at the end of their meeting, and has otherwise remained secret.

Let's hope the Lib Dem equivalent of the Beckett Report will be published soon.

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When the Jorvik Centre was a hole in the ground

This evening York Mix posted 12 vintage films of the city.

One caught my eye straight away, because it comes from August 1979 and so falls during my time as a student in the city.

Watching it today does confirm one memory of mine - and I don't mean the gruesomely distorted sound, which reminds me of film shows at primary school.

No, that memory is of a time before the Jorvik Centre opened. In my student days there was a large archaeological dig on the site. You can see it on the film from 2:27.

As I recall, there was no charge for going round and you were given a Viking oyster shell when you left.

The latest news from the Jorvik Centre is rather grim. It was badly affected by the recent floods and the government has rejected a plea for extra funds to allow a swift reopening.

A report in the Yorkshire Post quotes the former North Yorkshire councillor and Liberal Democrat peer Angie Harris:

"When I visited the Jorvik Viking Centre in York last week it was a scene of utter devastation. 

"It's a world renowned tourist attraction and educational centre, provided by the excellent York Archaeological Trust, of which I am a member, and which depends largely on its funding from the viking centre. The Trust could be destroyed by this enormous loss of revenue."

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Are you sure about this? Ed.

Gareth Epps reports that Liberal Democrat Conference has lost a day.

"Contemporary advocates of No-Platforming have so far failed to provide any convincing, rigorous definition of ‘harm’ to justify their practice." Monica Richter argues that only the most noxious of speakers should be banned from university campuses.

Robbie Simpson has been to Tbilisi to visit our liberal colleagues, the Republican Party of Georgia.

"Imagine if Neil Young needed Simon Cowell’s approval in order to get the label backing necessary to become a known musician." POWERevolution thinks many millenials are uncool and think it knows why.

Cal Flyn writes on afforestation and clearance in the Flow Country in the far North of Scotland.

Teenagerdom was a result of jobs and trades requiring training and education, which cast UK society into a bit of uncertainty. Hence the title; the first generation where this phase of ambiguity – no longer a child, yet not quite an adult – existed." Kyle Turner has been watching Absolute Beginners - an unsuccessful Eighties film about the Fifties with a Bowie theme song.

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The Liberal Democrats and all-women shortlists

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I remember at a conference a few years ago attending a session on the future of the profession. The panel turned out to consist of four middle-aged men in suits,

Rather to my surprise, the wrongness of this hit me with the sort of force that hearing racist language did when I was a teenager.

Yes, I have had my consciousnesses raised.

Because of this I wrote some a couple of year ago that I am now attracted to the idea of all-women shortlists.

But I see two problems with the proposals to be discussed at the Liberal Democrat spring conference in York. You can find them in a blog post by Mark Pack.

The first is practical: would the proposals make a difference if they were implemented?

In 2010 we had women candidates fighting a raft of promising seats but failed to gain them. In 2015 we had them fighting seats vacated by sitting Lib Dem MPs and didn't win those either.

Do we have a clear enough idea of the seats we can realistically hope to gain, and therefore should place women candidates, in 2020?

The second problem I see lies in the proposal that we should "support diverse candidates with extra training and mentoring".

I suspect that what such candidates need is not training and mentoring so much as practical help with things like funding and child care.

No doubt we could all benefit from training and mentoring, but to single out diverse candidates as being in particular need of them risks reinforcing stereotypes rather than overcoming them.

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"When he became leader of the Opposition, Corbyn was an unknown, even to his own side. Really, he was not of the Labour Party at all. He’s hardly followed the Labour whip, he disagreed with large amounts of what the party did when last in government, and he’s spent most of his time surrounded by a small coterie of like-minded outsiders." Jay Elwes on the takeover of Labour by a strange tribe.

Gordon Lishman writes writes about an economics motion the Social Liberal Forum will be submitting to the Liberal Democrat Conference.

You will find a good podcast about Labour's troubles on Political Betting.

"It almost seems as if the Chancellor doesn’t feel that improving house prices is possible. His range of policies set out in the Budget and Spending Review this year all point to him focussing on using public funds to ‘help’ people buy homes rather than improving market conditions. And, unsurprisingly, the problem is most acute in London." Joe Sarling explains how public funds are inflating the bubble in the capital's property prices.

Jim Holt reviews a new book on Sir Thomas Browne.

Footprints of London visits Churchill’s secret wartime facility at the former Down Street Underground station,

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Paddy Ashdown and Labour MP send joint letter on Syria

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Paddy Ashdown and Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, have written a joint letter to David Cameron calling on him to involve the RAF in getting aid to the starving inhabitants of the of Madaya in Syria.

The letter begins:

The images and stories from besieged Madaya in Syria are truly shocking. 

According to reports, in the past month alone 31 civilians have died in Madaya as a result of starvation or attempted escape, while the UN estimates that 400,000 remain besieged across the country. 

We find it astonishing that so little has been done by the international community to break these sieges when life-saving medical and food aid are often only minutes away,

And they conclude:

We urge you to push the UN, in particular the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to be far bolder in its aid delivery and stop asking unnecessary permission from the Syrian government. 

In the case that the UN continues to be denied access to these besieged areas by the Assad regime, the UK should strongly consider airdropping aid to those communities at risk of starvation. In some of these areas, the RAF is already flying anti-ISIS missions, and if necessary this is something we should press our European partners to support. 

Like the airdrops by the US in 2014 to the Yazidis in Iraq, and the leadership shown by the last Conservative Government to save lives with similar action in Northern Iraq, there are immediate steps we can take to stop more vulnerable people dying needlessly of hunger. We cannot sit by and watch this happen.

Read the full letter.

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Nick Clegg has lost an empire and not yet found a role

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Dean Atcheson famously said that Britain had lost an empire and not yet found a role. The same problem seems to be afflicting Nick Clegg.

Earlier this week the Telegraph reported:

Nick Clegg has the worst voting record in the House of Commons, according to new parliamentary analysis looking at MP turnout since the general election. 

The former deputy prime minister has failed to cast a vote in almost 90 per cent of all divisions called in the Commons since May 7.

The case for the defence, as made by "Mr Clegg's spokesman, runs

"Nick Clegg has taken part every time he felt it was possible that his vote could make a difference to the outcome, such as the crucial vote on military action in Syria. 

"Otherwise, he has devoted his time to serving his constituents in Sheffield Hallam and to issues that he cares deeply about, including social mobility, drugs reform and Britain's place in Europe. 

"The first six months after a general election are untypical and Nick expects his voting record to improve in the months ahead."

A spirited attempt, but can you imagine what the local Liberal Democrats would be saying about a Conservative or Labour MP with such a voting record?

Last year's general election results must have been a terrible shock to Nick, but then it was to many other people Lib Dems who have had to get on with their jobs since.

Nick needs to find his mojo and find it soon. He should not be providing easy ammunition for the likes of Peter Bone. He is better than that.

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Mike Storey to visit Church Stretton and Bishop's Castle

A good write up for the Liberal Democrat peer in the Shropshire Star:

Lord Mike Storey is the Lib Dem spokesman on education in the House of Lords and will be visiting two south Shropshire towns whose leisure centres both receive funding via schools, and face a shortfall of tens of thousands of pounds due to cuts. 

Lord Storey, who was a headteacher and also leader of Liverpool City Council, is expected to visit Church Stretton on January 22, where the future of the town’s swimming pool is being reviewed. 

He will then visit Norbury Primary School, near Bishop’s Castle area, and the SpArC Centre in Bishop’s Castle, which is also threatened by cuts.

The report also quotes Charlotte Barnes, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Bishop's Castle:

"Our leisure centres contribute to the well-being of our residents, they help to keep people healthy and happy. 

"They must save the care budgets a fortune and of course they are one of the few places to offer young people activities in our more isolated areas."

The scale of the cuts being inflicted on council spending represents an area of vulnerability for the Tories. David Cameron, for one, has not grasped what George Osborne is doing to local services.

I hope the Lib Dems will take up this issue in the way that Mike Storey and Charlotte Barnes are in Shropshire. Such a campaign will mean more to our traditional voters than a call for further tax cuts.

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Remembering Brian Niblett

I was very sorry to learn of the death of Brian Niblett from the excellent obituary on Liberal Democrat Voice.

My chief memory of Brian is of an afternoon I spent driving around rural Leicestershire with him and his wife.

I was helping them find some of the more obscure addresses of Liberal Democrat members so they could deliver Brian's campaign literature as he strove to be first on our East Midlands list for the 1999 Euro elections.

As Lib Dem Voice says, he was the early frontrunner in that contest. But he was to be overtaken by a smooth young Eurocrat called Nick Clegg.

If Nick had not been first on the East Midlands list he would not have got into the European parliament. That, in turn, would have made it much harder for him to inherit Sheffield Hallam from Richard Allan.

On such things do the history of political parties turn.

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