By
The Voice
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Published
9th February 2010 - 8:15 pm
Nick Clegg’s metaphors are on fire. At the weekend we filletted some of the great quotes from his Telegraph interview – and yesterday he came up with another … Speaking of Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s joint refusal to sign up to real political reform, Nick commented:
Listening to the two of them anyone would think they were powerless backbenchers rather than the leaders of the two parties in Parliament which have proved to be the real roadblocks to reform. It’s like a couple of cowboy builders coming back to your house to tell you how bad their workmanship is.”
The …
By
NewsHound
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Published
9th February 2010 - 4:20 pm
Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free site, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues Labour has got it wrong in proposing a referendum on the Alternative Vote: only the Single Transferable Vote will remedy the unfairness of the present system. Here’s an excerpt:
[The Alternative Vote] is very similar to first-past-the-post in two key respects. Because it is based on single constituencies – a virtue for its proponents, who say they prize the constituency link – the parties continue to select one candidate each, and the voters only have one choice for each party.
That means that in the majority
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By
Mark Pack
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Published
9th February 2010 - 2:50 pm
Cross-posted from the Power 2010 blog:
If all it took to sort out our political system was to produce a list of proposals we’d have the best political system, ever.
Over the last few years, there has been no shortage of wish lists, most of which have promptly disappeared never to be thought of again.
So I’ll readily admit to being a little sceptical of Power 2010 when it was launched intending to, yes, put together a list of proposals.
To its credit, though, Power 2010 has put together an imaginative approach: trawling widely for ideas, then getting a cross-section of the public …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
9th February 2010 - 1:50 pm
Last month I recounted the Home Office’s repeated failures to reply to my letters, including one to Sir Roger Singleton of the Independent Safeguarding Authority which was passed on to them and was about the ISA’s procedures:
[I am concerned by] Paragraph 5.6.1 of “Guidance Notes for Barring Decision Marking Process”, which states in part:
“even where a jury has found someone not guilty of having done something, you must always remember that, at most, this means is that the court did not find that someone did something “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the criminal standard of proof).”
My concern is simply
…
By
Mark Pack
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Published
9th February 2010 - 12:20 pm
Tony Benn’s lament that politics should be about issues, not personalities, is one echoed even by many who would struggle to find any issues on which they agree with him.
But it’s not a view I share. Why? Because the detailed policies of election manifestos or conference speeches frequently get swept aside in power by events. It’s not just the unexpected new event, it’s also the fallibility of forecasts which mean that decision making is often made from a very different perspective from that used to draw up pre-election policy promises.
Take the economy. It’s hard enough to know whether it is …
(With thanks to today’s Guardian).
The Tories were today forced to recall a consignment of hybrid policies following widespread complaints that their economic model failed when it encountered bumpy or slippery surfaces. The party is already facing criticism over the recent recall of many of its other policies, including marriage tax-breaks, which have been affected by the potentially dangerous acceleration towards an election.
The Tory leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne are due to give details of their latest recall today, and on most other days leading up to 6th May. “We’ve tried applying the brakes,” they admitted, “but the …
Posted in Humour, Op-eds
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Tagged featured
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Look at a Lib Dem election campaign, whether it’s a sitting MP or target seat challenger, and you’ll invariably find a hard working local campaigner, a local champion, and leaflets full of local stories.
That’s not at all what you see in Conservative literature. Across many seats the Tories have all but given up promoting their local campaigning credentials, or selling their candidate as the best person to be the MP. True, you’ll always find a few token stories, but the vast majority of material hitting doormats promotes Cameron, and Cameron alone.
Most of their firepower pushes the message that …
Welcome to this morning’s Daily View. I am sure I cannot be the only person to be cheered by waking to the news that the Conservatives believe that their no. 1 electoral weapon is George Osborne.
On this day 60 years ago, United States Senator Joe McCarthy launched his anti-communist crusade, with a speech accusing more than 200 staff in the State Department of being members of the Communist Party. On 9thFebruary 1979, England and Birmingham City forward Trevor Francis signed for Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest for £1 million, the first UK footballer to move for a seven figure sum.
Today is also the third anniversary of the death of actor Ian Richardson CBE, best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Conservative politician Francis Urquhart in the wonderful House of Cards trilogy.
Posted in Daily View
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Tagged afghanistan, anthony hook, chris huhne, david cameron, david davis, electoral reform, ewan hoyle, falklands, francis urquhart, george osborne, ian richardson, parliamentary privilege, simon weston
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By
Mark Pack
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Published
9th February 2010 - 8:20 am
I’ve commented on the fate of the 21 Conservative MPs who voted against reform of Parliamentary expenses (in brief: nearly all of them have since had to pay back money or had an expenses scandal come to light).
That was one of two key votes where Parliament had had the chance to clean up its act before media stories and public outcry forced it to do so. The other was about whether or not MPs’ expenses should be susceptible to Freedom of Information requests. There was an attempt to change the law to keep them secret, via a Bill introduced …
Posted in Opposition watch, Parliament
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Tagged bob neill, conservative party, david ruffley, james duddridge, john randall, john redwood, julian lewis, mps expenses, peter atkinson, simon burns
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By
Mark Pack
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Published
8th February 2010 - 11:18 pm
I wasn’t expecting that.
The Times has reported its latest opinion poll. It has reported the changes in party share of the vote.
And then Peter Riddell has said,
These shifts are within the margin of error
Why’s that impressive? Because nearly every opinion poll only shows changes within the margin of error (you’ve usually got to look over a wider pattern to see statistically significant changes), but that doesn’t stop newspapers writing up their stories as if the changes in support are significant and therefore ones we can be sure actually happened.
It’s as if the newspapers think, “Look, we know the poll doesn’t …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
8th February 2010 - 11:05 pm
The BBC reported over the weekend:
An influential group of MPs and peers has said the government’s approach to illegal file-sharing could breach the rights of internet users.
The Joint Select Committee on Human Rights said the government’s Digital Economy Bill needed clarification.
It said that technical measures – which include cutting off persistent pirates – were not “sufficiently specified”.
In addition, it said that it was concerned that the Bill could create “over-broad powers”.
You can read the full story here.
By
Mark Pack
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Published
8th February 2010 - 7:07 pm
A footnote to my post about the subsequent expenses revelations regarding the 21 Conservative MPs who voted down expenses reform in 2008, before the Daily Telegraph revelations forced everyone’s hand. Of the three Labour MPs now facing criminal charges, two also voted against reform (David Chaytor and Elliot Morley) whilst the third, Jim Devine, abstained on the vote. Well there you go.
By
Mark Pack
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Published
8th February 2010 - 12:20 pm
You may have been following some of my travails trying to get repairs made to some of those telephone, broadband, traffic light etc boxes which appear on many pavements.
Although my own local council (Islington) is very good at dealing with them either directly themselves or passing on to the relevant company and ensuring the work is done, other councils, including Haringey and Westminster, are far less so.
Haringey in theory also gets the job done if a member of the public reports a problem to them, but in practice I’ve often found problems of things going wrong or being forgotten.
Worst of …
As the Financial Times notes of the battle to win the Lib Dem / Tory marginal of Eastleigh:
The Hampshire railway town is 11th on Mr Cameron’s target list; the Liberal Democrats’ majority of a little more than 500 should be easily within reach.
But is it really?
… the Tories are by no means certain to win Eastleigh. Lib Dem strategists believe Chris Huhne, the sitting MP, will easily hold the seat – a view privately shared by some Conservatives. …
Eastleigh is the kind of seat that defies the traditional “swingometer”. Like many Lib Dem MPs, Mr Huhne has dug
…
Posted in News
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Tagged chris huhne, eastleigh
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Happy Monday morning, everyone. Let’s plunge straight in …
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
…
By
Mark Pack
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Published
8th February 2010 - 9:20 am
With new polling figures in, the general election prediction model we covered in November and December has churned out a new prediction for the next general election – and it’s a striking one:
New prediction: Conservative lead of 6% but Labour largest party with 299 seats (27 short of an overall majority)
December prediction: Conservative lead of 9% with 315 seats (11 short of an overall majority)
November prediction: Conservative lead of 10% with 322 seats (4 short of an overall majority)
The academic team who have compiled the prediction say,
The race remains too close to call under reasonable scenarios, either favorable to the government or the opposition. The election of a hung Parliament cannot be discarded at this point.
Background to prediction
In November Lib Dem Voice published the first of our exclusive general election predictions, based on the work of a group of academics who have analysed polling data (not just party support levels) in the run up to previous British elections:
After a bit of a hiatus, the new LDV members’ survey is now live. So if you are a registered member of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum – and any paid-up party member is welcome to join – then you now have the opportunity to make your views known on a range of issues in our February members’ survey. Topics we are asking your opinion on include:
- whether you think the end of the recession will benefit Labour;
- will the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war be a ‘whitewash’;
- John Terry’s sacking as England captain;
- what the Lib Dems …
Welcome to the 155th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (31st January – 6th February 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, usually courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.
Don’t forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.
As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:
Here’s how the Financial Times reports it:
A hung parliament might frighten the markets, but according to Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, the concerns are “completely and totally irrational”.
The Lib Dems point out that many of the world’s leading economies, including Germany and Italy, hold elections that almost always produce results where the leading party has to do deals with smaller parties. They add that some countries with single party governments, such as Greece, have some of the worst records in dealing with fiscal crises, while multiparty coalitions, such as the one in Sweden in the 1990s, conducted fierce
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By
Mark Pack
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Published
7th February 2010 - 5:50 pm
