General Press Comments

[Barclay A.A. Stanley]

You may use this to discuss whatever pet issues you may want to bring up. Do well enough, and it could become a national issue worthy of its own press cycle.

[Owain Jones]

Today I have accepted nomination to run for deputy leadership of the labour party

It is clear to me that Labour has lost its way and it is now time to rebuild our party from the bottom up. Its clear change is desperately needed. As we stand, the party is not in a fit state, we have come out of the last election victorious but bruised and in a vunerable posistion in many regions and we failed to address many of core concerns of our voters and addressed the challenges facing Britain.

I believe that I am the best candidate running for the job, because I am not constrained or stained by being in government. We need a genuine and honest debate about the future of the party and government. If elected I not serve as deputy prime minister but instead act to represent the grassroots in government.

[Charles Trevorrow]

I'm enormously proud to announce that I will be standing to become Leader of the Liberal Democrats. Our politics is broken. Labour have not provided the solution and reform that after years of corrupt Tory rule, Britain needed. People are crying out for change, and we've got to get our act together and prove we can win that change. The establishment parties are on their last legs. Labour limp on with reduced majorities and an intellectual bankruptcy comparable only to the Tories, who have turned to the typical insular elitist policies that they feel comfortable with. Neither of the main parties have an offer for Britain - we do, and I want to smash the political establishment and follow in Charlie's footsteps.

[Clarice Ashbridge]

It's something of an achievement for two Cabinet ministers to write an editorial, talk about Europe without addressing this government's manic depressive approach to the single currency. For all their talk of a different way forward with Europe, they sure seem to want to avoid one of our paramount issues with the EU. Are they for the Euro, or against it? Do they want a referendum on the Euro, or do they not? The lack of answers for these questions have caused speculation for the months and years since Labour's drubbing at the last Euro elections, and it is this indecision and delay that has caused uncertainty, both in this country and with our friends in Europe. Real leadership is taking a stance: and Labour seems incapable of doing it.

The position of the current leader of the Conservatives and both candidates for the leadership are clear: the Euro would be bad for Britain, and we will oppose it if it comes to a vote in Parliament. However, there is growing numbers within the party who are coming around to the position a number of us hold, and demanding that any decision on the Euro is not taken by politicians in Westminster, but by the British people. This issue is one that will change the future of our nation fundamentally, and we cannot risk the incompetents in government making that decision for us.

[Charles Trevorrow]

It has been fantastic to use my first days as Liberal Democrat leader not in some stuffy office in Whitehall, but out and about in the country. On our Breakthrough Tour, we've travelled to three of the safest seats in the country. Bootle, on Merseyside, the safest Labour seat; Huntington, in Cambridgeshire, the safest Tory seat; Banff and Buchan, the most nationalist seat. You know what the common theme in all of these places is, though? However diverse they are, however different, however distinct, the people we spoke to and want to reach out to are really open to our ideals. There have never been more liberal MPs in living memory, and we are using that to make sure that our message is heard in all corners of Britain.

In Bootle, we found voters who had never had a politician knock on their door before, totally taken for granted due to our ridiculous voting system. In Huntingdon, we had people totally put off by the far-right anti-Europeanism of the new Conservatives, who knew they were failing as an opposition. In Fraserburgh, a fishing town that felt a lot like home to me despite being the other side of Britain, we found people who shared our values and disillusionment, and just needed to know our offer for Britain was there. There are no off-limits areas for the Liberal Democrats any more, we are on the up, and I cannot wait to get back to Parliament re-invigorated and hold this corrupt system to account.

[Andy Edwards]

Now that Conservatives are starting to crawl over each other on how mean we should be to ethnic minorities and to immigrants, it's time that we pulled back the curtain.

"Immigrants are a drain on our public services" is the message that people have heard as your party has tried to cut those public services as much as they are able. "Immigrants bring down wages and make it harder to get jobs," cries the party which benefits when they can enact policies that benefit the owners of businesses rather than those that work in it. The Conservatives bow at the altar of a system that requires the existence of an "other" too blame for problems they've either caused or would be more than happy to just not fix. And having ethnic minorities or immigrants as an "other" is easy for Conservatives.

When Conservatives blame immigrants, it's stayed as a truism. There's no evidence. There's not even argument. The Conservative attitude towards immigrants- whether you're a hard-liner who wants to deport them or a smart-sounding one that just wants "limits," is just plain wrong.

[Sir Jack Anderson]

I have been rather dismayed by the Conservative leadership election. I know there are many talented Conservative Members of Parliament who could present serious policies – many I may disagree with, naturally – and a serious vision that would effectively hold the government to account and present an alternative agenda for government.

That isn’t what we got.

On one hand, we have Mrs. Beauvais-Becker who produced some rather alarming rhetoric on immigration that just isn’t acceptable within a fair and free country as Britain. I will say no more on that, because I fear she enjoys the attention.

On the other, William Croft, who has promised a rather pie in the sky vision that isn’t feasible – not a serious document for Britain by any means. He’ll stay in the European Union... but seemingly end free movement and wrest an independent trade policy.

This isn’t possible, if we’re frank. But if it were, Mr. Croft has displayed multiple times he doesn’t have the right temperament to sensibly negotiate with Britain’s allies, or with anyone really, as we’ve seen from his childish antics in the previous weeks which has not been becoming of a great or serious statesman who will be able to cooperate and compromise in a way that gives Britain the best deals and outcomes.

It is very sad and disappointing that Britain’s once great party of government that gave us Churchill and Disraeli has now put its hands up and said to the British people that William Croft is their best offering to the British public.

[Will Frost]

The Labour Party is offering the British people two paths to choose from, but of which result in the same thing: our country being weaker, personal freedom being eroded, and the power of the state expanding at the expense of British innovation. On one hand you have a Tony Blair apologist, promising more of the same and absolutely meaningless commitments on accountability. On the other you have a radical socialist, desperate to take Britain back into the 1970s. The sad reality is that this is genuinely the best Labour has to offer; either reverting back to when Britain was at its weakest, or another 5 years of New Labour sleaze and corruption.

Our country needs a new direction, a total break from the past 5 years and a recommitment to free enterprise and economic opportunity. New Labour may have made sense when they were repackaging Conservative policies and selling them as their own, but their sell by date has passed and their Government's value expired. It's time for a change, and neither Labour leadership candidate is capable of offering it.

[Charles Trenython]

I was concerned to hear that a potential leader of the Conservative Party today, William Croft, said on Newsnight that he doesn't think our partners in the EU are worth working with on defence, saying that he didn't 'think our strongest areas of possible integration are not on matters of defence' and says that we don't 'share commonalities' on the areas of defence. I'd like to ask Mr Croft would he have said that during the dark days of World War II, where European countries rallied together in defence against the Nazi German regime. We get the best out of each other as countries when we work together. We should be sharing intelligence, developing the defence capabilities of our allies and pooling the best academics and researchers to provide the best technology available to the armed forces.

To me, it is very dangerous to dismiss our European partners as real allies when it comes to collective defence. William Croft seems to want a Britain where we don't work to promote peace across Europe and the wider world. If I was a Conservative Party member, I would be very worried. From one former soldier to another, I say this: reconsider your stance on this, Mr Croft, because I see it as reckless, misguided and most of all dangerous.

[Astrid Goldman]

I have been a teacher, and a Head, and an Ofsted Inspector. I can tell you now that a school needn't be fee-paying to achieve good quality teaching and learning, excellent leadership, or good outcomes for children. Every child in every school can have that.

William Croft said he wants to restore Assisted Places and pump money from state schools into the private sector. Assisted Places was scrapped because of what it was, fundamentally; an expensive plaster over a more serious problem; Tory defunding of state schools. Under assisted places a tiny amount of children "escaped" state schools, which is easier and less hassle than improving state schools but at a colossal waste of the taxpayer's money. Two thirds of the families benefitting from AP could afford it anyway, let's not pretend most of these kids were living on our local council estates, and the public schools charged extortionate amounts for it.

Huge sums of money moving from people's taxes to private schools, for negligible, if any, impact on national outcomes. Sounds like a waste of the taxpayer's money to me. Good riddance.