OPINION

Nominations are now open for the Social Liberal Forum Council Elections, which will be held over the next couple of months. Full details can be found on the elections page of this website. Anyone who is a member of the Social Liberal Forum is eligible to stand and membership of the SLF is free to all members of the Liberal Democrats. Register as a member on our

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[caption id="attachment_427" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Liberal Democrat's campaigned explicitly against a VAT increase in the 2010 General Election."][/caption] A couple

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An interesting short film from the RSA about what really drives people and motivates them to do good jobs.  It turns out that what motivates us is less the prospect of profit and more chance to make a difference.  That finding challenges a lot of the preconceptions of both capitalists and socialists, although it has to be said that for menial tasks it turns out there is a profit motive.  So, we should be giving factory workers financial incentives (and should be taxing demerit goods) but shouldn

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Back in September I co-authored an article in the Guardian with Neal Lawson, Chair of Compass, about the need for a "coalition of progressive ideas" between Liberal Democat and Labour members.  In truth, Neal did most of the heavy lifting on this, but I had no trouble signing up to it.  In particular, I was keen on how we defined this so-called coalition:

Progressives in all these parties ar

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On Friday 7 May, without pausing for sleep, the Social Liberal Forum started lobbying for a Progressive Alliance - or, failing that, for a Grand Alliance of all parties. It was soon clear that that was what the vast majority of Liberal Democrat members and supporters would have liked. And what the majority of Lib Dem MPs would have preferred. So, naturally, many of us were disconcerted and disappointed by the outcome. How could we end up sleeping with the enemy? Should we blame Nick Clegg

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James Graham moved Amendment 3 at the Liberal Democrat Special Conference which reads:

Insert after line 23: "Conference calls for Liberal Democrats to work constructively in government to ensure that the the net income and wealth inequality gap is reduced significantly over the course of this parliament."

Conference, There is no question at all that Nick Clegg and his negotiating team wrung a string of key concessions out of the Conservatives in this agreeme

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The Social Liberal Forum made clear earlier this week that we favoured a progressive alliance between the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties as the basis for a government. We very much regret that due to the intransigence of some individuals within the Labour Party that opportunity was not taken. The alternative deal that our MPs had placed in front of them contained a series of important progressive policy commitments secured in the negotiations with the Tories. It was a hard-won deal for t

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Events are moving quickly. Gordon Brown's resignation and the opening of formal talks with the Labour Party have reignited the possibility of a progressive alliance. The fact that talks with the Conservatives have failed to come up with agreement at this stage suggests that this possibility has run its course. The Social Liberal Forum Executive respect Nick Clegg's commitment to talk to the party with the greatest mandate first and have suspended our judgement on what such negotiations might re

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