Update: We’ve closed comments on this post as the Interview is now finished. See Nick’s Twitter stream for further responses to questions and this post for an account of how the event worked.
Video Feed
If you’ve got a question for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg then now’s your chance: on Monday July 13th (1200 GMT). he’ll be joining the Reuters UK team to take your questions live. And no subject is off limits.
You’ll be able to see the live videostream here and you can ask questions ahead of the event or respond during it by using Twitter (#askclegg) the 12 Seconds video service (nickclegg) or use this post’s comment form below. (We’ll also feature the highlights on the reuters uk news twitterstream.) Nick introduces the event below and, to kick off the discussion, asks a couple of questions of his own.
On Monday we can change the way we do politics. Every week I travel around the country to meet people in their local town halls and listen to their views. Anyone can come along and ask me (just about) anything and in return I get a pretty good picture of how people across the UK feel about politics and how they are being affected by the recession.
Next week I am going to do another of my public Q&A meetings, but this time it is going to be live and online so that you can ask me your questions from home, your work or wherever you happen to be online. There will be no script and no special invitations - just get in touch and ask a question on subjects that concern you.
The one thing that keeps coming up again and again is the state of our politics and how we can clean it up. Many people say they would like to see action taken against MPs who seriously abuse the system. But currently voters have no power to sack those MPs who have been found guilty of serious wrong-doing. I want to change this and make politicians more accountable and politics more transparent. I am keen to hear your ideas.
This has never been done before so, on Monday 13th July post your questions and let’s discuss how we can clean up politics and fix the British economy.
Nick Clegg
This is a great idea, and we should see more of this sort of thing.
2 reforms to the voting system could make our politics much more responsive, and give us much more power:
1) Why not introduce a system of Delegated Voting, whereby MPs' votes in the Commons depend directly on how many people voted for them (votes cast for other parties in that constituency could be distributed to the elected MPs of that party)? In this way, every vote would count directly in the Commons, for every MP and for every party. Votes would matter in safe seats and in marginal seats; Labour votes would count in Tory constituencies, and so would Tory ones, because it would stop being just about who got the seat, and start being about the votes. Why don't you propose such a system, so that in future we can affect politics with our votes even where our MP retains their seat?
2) More ambitiously, could we have continuous voting, where we could change our vote online when we wanted (maybe with a restriction on doing it too often), so that Parliament would gradually change as opinion in the country changed, and MPs and governments would always be at the mercy of the people? Truly unpopular and massively important decisions might not then go through, as they can now.
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173 comments so far
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Hi Nick,
Would you explain in brief detail, exactly how the Lib Dems would change the costitutional framework of the UK if we were elected tommorrow.
As an 18 year old, I find politicians in Westminster make all the decisions for me. From tuition fees to the management of the oyster card, all I am met with is sour faced liars, majoritively over the age of 30. I am a liberal democrat, but I am tired of not making a difference. I am tired of being pushed into the background. What can I do to help the liberal cause? and what can the liberal democrats do for me to give me a voice in today’s political landscape?
Can we afford to invest more in our railway network?
Dear Mr Clegg
In a recent BBC4 radio programme there was an interview about the banning of smoking in a car with child passengers (which some sensible countries have already done). The interviewee made a comment, the UK is one of the least progressive and least concerned on children’s safety! What are your views on this and what would the LibDems do to deal with this serious indictment?
Thank you
Dear Mr Clegg,
The public perception of young people across the UK is generally negative and secptical, which majotiy of the time comes from the way the media portrays the young people. Lots of newspapers + media use a method of naming and shaming young people who may have an asbo or have been in tourble with the police. There are many childrens charities and organisiations campaigning to stop this, but why can’t the government. My question to you is what is your stance about the public perception of the youth and what do you and your party aim (promise) to do to protect and improve the image of young people nationally?.
Thank you.
Banks etc. are being encouraged to lend. There should be a limit set on borrowers according to their incomes on how much they are allowed to borrow, so that they will not default on repayments. Had this been set in place in 2002, when Vince gave a warning that the situation ws becoming unsustainable, we would not be in quite such a mess today. The result - savers are now being penalised to pay for bankers’ failure to act sensibly.
Dear Nick,
The Lib Dems supported calls for a public inquiry into contaminated blood disaster which say almost 5,000 people infected with Hep C and/or HIV as a result of their NHS treatment.
As you know an Independent Public Inquiry has now been conducted by the Lord Archer of Sandwell but the Government are refusing to implement the Archer Report recommendations.
Will you use an opposition day debate to give MPs a chance to vote for the Archer Report to be implemented in full?
EDM 963 calling for implementation now has 210 signatures, half of which are from Labour backbenchers. 51 of your collegues have also signed it.
Please help,
Dan
Nick,
Given Nick Griffin’s recent attempts to claw the ‘image’ of the BNP away from extremism by claiming that he no longer wants an all-white Britain, does this make the job of exposing the BNP’s vicious and hateful agenda harder? And how can we combat it and prove they are a racist, facist party in the face of the fact that Nick Griffin is a very clever politician trying hard to drag his party into the mainstream.
In answer to Chris Kavanagh’s ‘best’ comment.
Continuous voting? Have you thought about the consequences of that? An unstable government that changes and varies inline with what the media is saying at the time. How are we to compete in the global world, or to have consistent effective policies when the government varies as much as the publics whims?
I asked this question at a local meeting on climate change last week: The main cause of climate change is the increase in world population- set to rise by 50% to 9 billion by 2050. This is a political hot potato - but even if ALL present day proposals are put in place, this will become unsustainable. How could we get developing nations to persuade their people that a 2 child family, leading to a slow but steady decline, is the only answer?
(Short of war, famine, natural disaster)
Thank you Nick, and good luck with your session today.
Hi Nick,
I am currently an unemployed postgraduate and am finding it hard to get a job because I am over qualified and under experienced. I have submitted many applications at different levels and have been refused on the grounds that I have not enough relevant experience. Basically, I’m in the typical Catch-22 that affects most students, and perhaps more predominantly, postgraduates. I do not come from a rich family and therefore cannot afford to do an internship in London or anywhere else for that matter. What are your plans for helping to boost the employability and options for the many people in my situation now that newlt graduated students will constitute a significant portion of the unemployed?
The Fuel Poverty Advisory Group has announced that about 4 million households in England are defined as being in fuel poverty - 50% of these are pensioner households and 80% are defined as being vulnerable. Rising unemployment and high fuel prices mean that this problem is only going to continue unless the government tackles the it head on.
What would the Liberal Democrats do about the problem of fuel poverty?
Nick,
How would you respond to the fact that rising university tuition fees, along with increasing living costs, are making university too expensive for more and more young people? What approach would you see as appropriate to rectify this problem?
As one of many of voters in the UK concerned about the secret family courts and the powers of social services offices to remove children without proof of harm, I am very interested to know what policy the Liberal party have in securing the right to birth family life in the UK. The Labour party have no interest in the very foundation of life for us all and are intent on segregation and working to their own ideals.
To put the birth family to the fore and bring back stability in the UK I am in no doubt that the following points need urgent consideration.
1/ Open up the family courts to scrutiny.
2/ Remove the ‘hieratic’ powers of the social services as those powers are being abused on a daily basis.
3/ Re-structure the social services departments to support the birth family in times of crisis, seperation, divorce, homelessness, financial crisis,illness and disability. This can be funded by the transferring the vast sums paid to foster carers, private children’s homes etc to birth family support and care.
4/ In cases where there is serious harm to a child there should be emergency respite to qualified foster parents (in abuse), police investigation and proof. And in these cases the child to have they right to a alternative permanant loving family and knowledge of their birth family roots. The child should not be taken out of the UK but remain resident of the UK.
5/ The complaints system via the county halls should be re-structered to accommodate all family complaints where there is family court proceedings as in the family courts it should be the right for all family members to attend the family court.
Finally it is not rocket science to protect innocent and vulnable birth families and at the same time protect all children but it seems beyond the expertise of the Labour Party.
The future of the UK can only be secured by working on its foundations especially given the rising crime, most of this can be contributed directly to the breakdown of family life.
Dear Nick,
I’m concerned about the lack of progress in reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. I want reductions to be achieved that are sustainable, fair and affordable.
UK credibility at the Copenhagen negotiations in December could be seriously undermined by a lack of real progress.
What should the UK be doing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions?
Fiona
Nick
Is it now time for an immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan?
i wrote yesterday a question for it to be cut out it was a valid question and am dissapointed to see its not going to be asked,on asylum asking along the lines of secretary of state v tekkle and how come the goverment can disregard a high court ruling when the PUBLIC have to abide such things, when so many people are waiting on the outcome,with the permission to work and put money back in to the country that has given them refuge,the legacy backlog is degrading to say the least,maybe this subject is too much of a hot potatoe ,goverment has for so long been a law unto itself when setting a different set for the rest of us
The minorities that you spend so much time on are not going to get you elected. Whilst I admire your stance on the expenses issue and the Afghan war and while these may be emotional issues for people, right now who is going to look after the interests for example, of my 35 year daughter who is a cancer sister, her self-employed husband and their one year old son. They are typical middle class graduates who are trying to live a decent honest life - including church on Sundays - and don’t want to vote Tory. But all they hear from LibDems is concern for minorities. They are ignored. Yet, these are the ONLY people who will increase the LibDem vots because there are millions of them, and they vote.
Dear Nick,
My primary concern is about the state of the NHS in general, but more specifically, the Mental Healthcare System (which ceased to exist as the ‘Mental Health Commission’ on 31 March 2009 to be replaced by the all-encompassing ‘Care Quality Commission’):
When will the national healthcare postcode lottery come to an end? The NHS services are simply not comparable between South East London and Henley.
How is it possible that, as many, insufficiently in-depth, Healthcare Commission reports have shown, such a high number of mentally ill patients are still treated in such dismal conditions (i.e. mixed mental health wards) where they often sustain, not just serious physical harm, but also undergo verbal abuse? I personally know of several incidents of predatory sexual behaviour, rape even, taking place on these wards…
When will the NHS, as championed by Tony Blair’s favourite medical practioner, Lord Darzi, stop investing such huge amounts into expensive PR campaigns / rebranding excercises (i.e. out-of-touch drink-driving ads or the nondescript ‘Care Quality Commission’) and, instead, invest the taxpayer’s money where it can really save people’s lives? Shouldn’t they be more aptly called the mental ‘illness’, not ‘health’, wards?
What would the Lib Dems change about Mental Healthcare if elected?
How can it be that the goverment are allowed to disregard a high court ruling or judgement just because it dont suit themselves, THE PUBLIC have to follow rules on these matters and the the goverment not following the rules it gives out the wrong message to the rest of it regardless of what subject its on
Permission to work for Legacy cases?
December 12, 2008 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
An interesting judgment has just come out in which the High Court has held to be unlawful the policy of a blanket denial of right to work for those caught in the Legacy backlog. It is called Tekle v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] EWHC 3064 (Admin).
This does not mean that those in the Legacy will be granted the right to work. It means that the Home Office have to go away and re-think their policy. It would be open to them to maintain a selective ban on employment in certain cases or even perhaps to maintain a blanket ban, if they put forward better justification and some evidence. They have approximately three months to comply, otherwise there will be further legal action.
Given appalling and very damaging recent Home Office tardiness over Metock and Baiai, it would not be at all surprising if the three month deadline slipped. The Home Office are not good losers. - Free Movement