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New Poll Shows Yes Campaign Failing to Persuade Voters, Press Release, April 2011
“AV Referendum: Nick Clegg is Failing Vote Reformers, says Lord Owen”, published Daily Telegraph, April 2011
…Dear Sir Gus
I am writing to you as Cabinet Secretary regarding my concern about constitutional implications surrounding the Health and Social Care Bill. I am well aware that it is acceptable for a Secretary of State, once a Bill has received its Second Reading in the House of Commons, to take certain steps in relation to Bills that are before Parliament. I have consulted the Clerks in Parliament and …
Published on the Thursday, 31 March 2011
Download Paper here, in full including references.
Prior to the 2010 General Election David Cameron, who was to become the new Prime Minister in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, had brilliantly defused the NHS as an issue which traditionally had won votes for Labour and lost votes for the Conservatives.
…THURSDAY 31 MARCH 2011
Lord Owen (Crossbench)
The NHS is dear to us all, and the care and health professions have made a difference to pretty well every family in this country. However, the 353 pages of the Health and Social Care Bill are a massive reform, and we should not underrate the basic fatal flaws in this legislation, although of course there is much that we can all recommend …
CentreForum debate to mark the 30th anniversary of the formation of the SDP, Monday, 22 March 2011
A Message from David Owen
I wish I could have been with you to hear and contribute to the debate but I am in Germany.
I genuinely believe that all of us who were in the SDP can in our individual ways justly claim to be its heirs. No one political party, member …
Published in the Independent Sunday, 13 March 2011
The referendum on AV has, unsurprisingly, generated very limited enthusiasm. People know they are being used as part of a fix between politicians unwilling to trust voters and let them have a free choice between proportional representation as well as AV and the status quo. Fixes happen in Parliament, but they have no place in the referendum.
…My Lords, the circumstances in which this Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition came into existence need to be recalled. It was against a very serious financial crisis, a large structural fiscal deficit and a feeling in the country that, as a result of the negotiations, we had to have a Government which would, first, carry conviction in international markets-their first challenge, which …
