Archive for Lynne Featherstone
Cable opposes “bonkers” Tory plans to cut workers’ rights
Via the FT: Vince Cable, business secretary, has vowed to resist “bonkers” proposals to allow bosses to fire underperforming staff at will, as coalition tensions flared over a Number 10-inspired report on cutting jobs red tape… Mr Cable reacted angrily to reports that Mr Cameron would back the proposal for no-fault dismissal, with one official [...]
Which of the five Lib Dem reshuffle options will Nick Clegg pick?
Five scenarios for your delectation: The Lib Dem night of the long beards The drastic, dramatic and painful option. Clegg says the Liberal Democrats need David Laws’s expertise and media savvy at the heart of economic decision making, restoring him to Chief Secretary to the Treasury and expressing tearful regret that Danny Alexander is off [...]
Queen’s Speech: the good and the worrying for the Lib Dems
From a Liberal Democrat perspective: Sensible that economic growth put first but good that constitutional reform in the three priorities with which the Queen started the speech: “Economic growth, justice and constitutional reform”. Banking reform going ahead – major Liberal Democrat demand now will become law. Ditto for Green Investment Bank (which has actually started [...]
MORE SHOCK NEWS: Bill that was going to be in Queen’s Speech will be in Queen’s Speech
Pick and mix your allocation of blame between some Tory right-wing MPs and some political journalists, between deliberate deceit and genuine confusion as you wish, but as the dust settles on yesterday’s political stories about the Queen’s Speech the news is remarkably dull: A Bill that was not going to be in the Queen’s Speech [...]
SHOCK NEWS: A bill that wasn’t going to be in the Queen’s Speech isn’t going to be in the Queen’s Speech
The plan wasn’t for an equal marriage Bill to be in this Queen’s Speech, so the news that there will not be an equal marriage Bill in the Queen’s Speech is hardly news – even if some on the Tory right (unenlightened wing)* are trying to turn this into a story about how the government [...]
Which Liberal Democrat MPs have the media pulling power?
A government reshuffle has long been penned in for 2012, the middle year of this Parliament. Half-way through Parliament, with the Olympics and many major pieces of legislation on the statute book, always made a natural reshuffle point. Add in the government’s recent difficulties, the Leveson Inquiry and today’s elections, and the political gossip is [...]
Two weeks, two major achievements for the Liberal Democrats in government
Last week the Green Investment Bank made its first loans, as Nick Clegg mentioned yesterday, and this week the Protection of Freedoms Bill received Royal Assent and became an Act, as Tom Brake wrote about on this site. The Protection of Freedoms Act includes the banning of rogue private wheel clampers, who are so unpopular [...]
This is how MPs should use their websites: Lynne Featherstone and Rock The House
Hornsey & Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone has put up a very good post on her website, about the Rock The House competition. In it she says: The excellent Rock the House competition has come round again, and four local bands have asked me to nominate them. I can only send one band through to the final though [...]
Lynne Featherstone’s view on reforming RIPA
I blogged yesterday about how flawed RIPA, the regulatory structure for official snooping on our communications, is. What’s the view of Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat minister in the Home Office, about all this? Well, this is what she posted up on her Facebook wall during the week: My view – support for any new [...]
Government snooping plans: why I’m not outraged, yet
Here’s the relevant part of the motion that was passed at the Liberal Democrat conference in Gateshead: a) ensuring that there shall be no interception of telephone calls, SMS messages, social media, internet or any other communications without named, specific and time-limited warrants; b) guaranteeing that any communications data kept by service providers in accordance [...]
