Archive for evan harris
Newsletter 11 is out: Liberal Democrat conference preview
You can now read the latest edition of my email newsletter about the Liberal Democrats here, a special Birmingham Lib Dem conference preview. It features The Three Doctors: Owen, Harris and Who. The next will be a post-Nick Clegg conference speech edition, with the full text of his speech and post-speech analysis. If you would [...]
The Health and Social Care Bill: what next for the Liberal Democrats?
Cross-posted from the MHP Communications blog: The plan for the party’s autumn conference was straight-forward: talk up the party’s achievements in getting the Health and Social Care Bill changed, have a question & answer session to let people discuss but not disrupt the revised legislation and move on to talk about other issues. That plan [...]
NHS reforms will be altered significantly and in a Lib Dem direction – Paul Burstow
The NHS Bill will be substantially changed – that was the message from Liberal Democrat MP and Health Minister Paul Burstow at Lewisham Liberal Democrats on Friday night. It won’t just be changed, he said, it will be changed in a distinctively Liberal Democrat direction. At the heart of the likely changes is the role [...]
Overwhelming public support to end sexism in Royal succession
Last month Nick Clegg took up the issue which Lynne Featherstone and Evan Harris had previously been pushing, namely changing the rules of Royal succession so that men and women are treated equally, rather than men being given preference over women. One of YouGov’s post-Royal Wedding questions was about Royal primogeniture and found overwhelming backing [...]
The Yes2AV campaign has persuaded me to change my mind
I’ve long been sceptical about the scope for online fundraising in British politics. That’s partly because I’ve seen a sequence of American political consultants come to the UK, say they know much better than Brits, promise lots and then raise not very much – across the political spectrum. I’ve also seen a sequence of people [...]
In other news… Croatian justice, the monarchy, death penalty impeded and elections news
More good news on the increasing reach of international justice: “Two Croatian military leaders have been convicted of atrocities against Serbs during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s” (BBC) Both Lynne Featherstone and Evan Harris have previously pushed for the rules of royal succession to be changed to remove the precedence given to [...]
Libel Reform Bill published
Earlier today, the government published its draft Libel Reform Bill. It’s an issue that Liberal Democrats, along with many others, have been campaigning on for a few years now and one on which Lib Dem minister at the Ministry of Justice Tom McNally has said his reputation should be judged on. So it is good [...]
The party strategy debate: rolling highlights
Note: If you’re catching up with this post after it was published, read it from the bottom up. Final result – both amendment and motion passed overwhelmingly. The overall tenor of the debate was more good natured than might have been expected – people did not take the opportunity to express any unhappiness in strident [...]
