Nick Clegg is promising that Britain will be more Liberal by 2015, when the next General Election will be held.

And he rightly boasts about a number of achievements already since the Coalition was formed such as the scrapping of ID cards, rolling back the DNA database etc and indeed if the legislative programme promised and agreed by the coalition does get through Parliament then indeed we will be a more Liberal nation.

Of course it will take longer to truly roll back much of the illiberalism of the past 30 or more years, and in fact perhaps the harder part will not be the changing of laws and new acts of parliament, but the changing of hearts and minds throughout our towns and communities.

Running tangent with more oppressive, restrictive legislation and Government of the past we have seen the growth of illiberal attitudes, a reduction of tolerance in society and a growing narrow mindedness to other attitudes or beliefs. A developed response from people increasingly withdrawn from society behind increasingly closed doors and minds to the outside world, their community, society.

I dearly hope the changes now being wrought at the top of the political pile start an avalanche of change in society, that will inevitably roll back the illiberalism of the past 30 years. But more than that a change that fundamentally develops more liberal views across the spectrum of our society and truly leads to the rebirth of liberal Britain. 

Not right, Not left, just liberal - the freedom to be different, the power to be free, the hope to be safe.

Nick Clegg yesterday confirmed to Parliament a package of political reforms aimed at cleaning up politics, restoring some confidence and trust in politics and making our Parliament more representative of the great British public. (”gawd bless em”)

From a die hard Liberal perspective there has to be an element of dissapointment that the long awaited reform of the voting system, that will be put to a referendum, will be the Alternative Vote system (AV).

However, when the initial dissapointment wears off I have to accept that it will at least be better than what we currently have. It will mean that all votes count. It will mean that the duly elected MP is more representative of their constituencies wishes and it will lead to a more representative House of Commons.

Having said that AV of course is not truly proportional representation and it does not fully deliver fair votes - and we must not pretend that it does. But it is a start. And so far as I am concerned that is the key.

If this was the final chapter in the long campaign for fair votes then this proposal would be unacceptable. BUT it does signal the start of positive, albeit, stepping stone reform. So far as I am concerned this is the beginning of the end for unfair votes and unrepresentative parliaments in this great land and that can only be good.

As we gradually get use to the new politics and this strange coalition government it is easy to greet most announcements or policy initiatives with dissapointment as the inevitable compromises take their toll. As a liberal I can’t help searching every announcement for clues as to the party political source and identifying the compromised elements, and I am sure Conservatives are doing the same.

And this novel idea of compromising is playing havoc with the media, left/right-blinkered students of politics and even the politicians themselves.

Just look at the supposed furore over the announcement of a referendum on the introduction of AV . “The Prime Minister will vote No” screamed the BBC News website. “The Prime Minister will enforce that the Conservatives will vote for the referendum”, screamed other media. There has been so much written already about onservatives who will vote “NO” because they are against PR and Lib Dems who will vote “YES” because they support PR and Labour MPs who………..well don’t really know , except they accuse Lib Dems of betrayal - a common charge this days.

Yet AV is not proportional representation and everyone knows that. But everyone also knows that once the fair votes cat has been let out of the bag there is only one way it will go. Conservatives and Labour  MP’s opposed to PR know that and that is why they will try and stop this now.

The art of political decision making in the great corridors of power has suddenly slowed down to take account of coalition partners demands/concerns. Whilst that means compromise it also means (hopefully) better decision making. But it does mean that we don’t always get what we want, when we want it - but it will come. And anyway how long have we waited?

Liberals of the world unite ! 

A MESSAGE FROM NICK CLEGG 

We’ve already scrapped ID cards. Now I’d like to ask you - which other laws do you want to scrap?

Your Freedom

The Liberal Democrats have always stood up for civil liberties, scrapping unnecessary laws and reducing the burden of regulation on businesses and charities.

In our manifesto, we proposed a Freedom Bill to roll back Labour’s attacks on British civil liberties. In government, we are doing just that.

Yesterday I launched Your Freedom, a national dialogue on how to create a more open, inclusive society. Anyone can make suggestions about which laws we need to scrap and where we can cut red tape. You can also rate and comment on other people’s suggestions. The best ideas will be put into practice – because this is a listening government.

This is the open government we have long campaigned for. So tell us about every time you’ve felt snooped on by the state, or had to fill in the same form three times. Help us put Liberal Democrat values into practice in Government.

I know people are talking about this up and down the country – so please do have your say and pass this message on to anyone who has ideas for Your Freedom.

The Coalition Policy Agreement has now been published and I am delighted to discover that it is full of Liberal Democrat policies.

Obviously by virtue of the fact that we (like the Conservatives) have had to compromise, there are policy issues that we are unable to put into practice at this time. Nevertheless it is a real chance to put into action the ideas that we have campaigned for over the last few weeks and in some cases for decades!

If this agreement holds, and I hope it does, then our two leaders will have changed politics for good and found a new way of governing, replacing the yah boo, confrontational politics with a more consensual approach, accentuating the common ground, the positives.It will of course remain a tremendous challenge for the coalition partners and in fact all political parties, it will be very interesting to see how Labour reacts for instance.

Below is a summary of the key headline policies so far as our key manifesto pledges were concerned. You can read the full coalition document here. 

A Fair Start for Children

·         Introduce a Pupil Premium to give all children a fair start.

Fairer taxes and Economic Reform

• A substantial increase in the personal allowance from April 2011 with a longer term policy objective of further increasing the personal allowance to £10,000, making further real terms steps each year towards this objective
• Reform of the banking system, ensuring a flow of lending to businesses and a Banking Levy. An independent commission on separating retail and investment banking.
• Capital Gains Tax reform

Fair Politics

• Fixed-term parliaments and a referendum on electoral reform for the House of Commons.
• A power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP was found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing.
• A wholly or mainly elected House of Lords on the basis of proportional representation.
• Giving Parliament control of its own agenda so that all bills are properly debated.
• Enacting the Calman Commission proposals and a referendum on further Welsh devolution.
• A statutory register of lobbyists.
• A limit on political donations and reform of party funding in order to remove big money from politics.
• Radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups.

A fair and sustainable future

• Establish a smart electricity grid and the roll-out of smart meters.
• Establish feed-in tariff systems in electricity
• A huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.
• The creation of a green investment bank.
• The provision of home energy improvement paid for by the savings from lower energy bills.
• Retention of energy performance certificates when HIPs are scrapped.
• Measures to encourage marine energy.
• The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient CCS to meet the emissions performance standard.
• Establish a high-speed rail network.
• Cancel the third runway at Heathrow and refuse additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
• Replace the Air Passenger Duty with a ‘per plane’ duty.
• The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits.
• Make the import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence.
• Promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitats and restore biodiversity.
• Reduce central government carbon emissions by 10 per cent within 12 months.
• Increase the target for energy from renewable sources.

Pensions

• Restoration of the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011 with a “triple guarantee” that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5%.
• Phase out the default retirement age and end the rules requiring compulsory annuitisation at 75.
• Implement the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman’s recommendation to make fair and transparent payments to Equitable Life policyholders.

Civil Liberties

• Scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database.
• Outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
• Extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
• Adopt the Scottish approach to stopping retention of innocent people’s DNA on the DNA database.
• Defend trial by jury.
• Restore rights to non-violent protest.
• A review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
• Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
• Further regulation of CCTV.
• Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
• A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
• End the detention of children for immigration purposes.

THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT MANIFESTO

This is a manifesto you can trust. We have stripped our priorities back to the essential, fundamental changes that Britain needs to make it fair:

• Fair taxes that put money back in your pocket
• A fair chance for every child
• A fair future, creating jobs by making Britain greener
• And a fair deal by cleaning up politics

These are deliverable, practical plans to make your life better, and they are right there on the front cover of our manifesto.  Instead of rhetoric and razzmatazz, we are saying what we will do and how we will pay for it.

Elections should be a competition of ideas, not marketing budgets. They may have the bigger budgets but we have the bigger ideas.And you can trust us to deliver because unlike the other parties, we have spelt out, line by line in the manifesto how every single policy is paid for, and how we will reduce the deficit.

We have set out £15bn of details spending cuts and just £5bn a year of new spending, meaning £10bn for the deficit every year. We are the first party to put detailed spending plans into a manifesto.

Four key pledges

1. Fair taxes: We will ensure no-one pays income tax on the first £10,000 they earn. Most taxpayers will get a tax cut of £700 a year.  We’ll pay for it by closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the rich, a new tax on mansions worth over £2m, a crack down on tax avoidance and higher aviation duty.
2. A fair start for all our children: We will get every child the individual attention they need by cutting class sizes.  We will spend an extra £2.5bn on schools, targeted at children who need the most help. The average primary school could cut class sizes to 20. An average secondary school could see classes of just 16.
3. A fair future: a rebalanced, green economy: We will break up the banks and rebalance the economy away from unsustainable financial speculation. We will be honest about where savings must be made in government spending to balance the books and protect our children’s future. And we will create new jobs with a £3.1bn green stimulus and job creation plan in our first year in office, fully funded by cut backs elsewhere.
4. A fair deal from politicians: We will introduce a fair voting system. We will ensure corrupt MPs can be sacked by their constituents and stop non-doms from donating to parties or sitting in Parliament. We will take power from Westminster and give it to communities, with local power over police and the NHS, and introduce a freedom bill to protect and restore civil liberties.

We also have the following commitments:

• Protect front line NHS services. We will help the NHS work better with the money it has and protect front line services by re-investing the savings we find back into healthcare
• Recruit 3,000 more police officers to keep our streets safe and scrapping ID cards
• Scrap student tuition fees to reduce the burden of student debt immediately and eliminate fee debt altogether over 6 years
• A pay rise for our brave service men and women together with cut backs of bureaucrats and top brass officers in the Ministry of Defence
• Uprate the basic state pension in line with earnings immediately so that pensioners do not fall further behind when the economy starts to grow again

YOU CAN READ NICK CLEGGS MANIFESTO LAUNCH SPEECH HERE

YOU CAN READ OR DOWNLOAD A COPY OF OUR MANIFESTO HERE: libdem_manifesto_2010.pdf

ALTERNATIVELY YOU CAN VIEW OUR MANIFESTO IN FULL OR SECTIONS ON OUR WEBSITE HERE 

I received a nice letter from HM Government/Identity & passport agency yesterday.

The letter and accompanying leaflet was extolling the virtues of the Governments Identity card scheme which is currently being piloted in Manchester and London. 

Of course they do make it clear its voluntary and they do eventually mention that they would like you to part with £30 for the privilege.

Of course they don’t mention the fact that the marketing campaign across Manchester and London is estimated at costing £1.3 million of taxpayers money.

Money that could pay for 50 more Police officers (on basic starter pay) at a time when Greater Manchester Police is facing budgetary constraints.

As someone that doesn’t even have a current passport never mind an ID card, I am surprised I can exist. Certainly when you read the promotional letter you could be forgiven for thinking that your life would be so much easier (albeit £30 poorer) if you only had one of these precious cards. 

At a time when public sector spending is supposed to be being cut back I find it absolutely scandalous to find the Government is spending £1.3m on a pet project that will not stop terrorism, will not improve public services and is not necessary.