For me, the main danger here is in seeming to endorse libertarianism – which is just a trendy way of maintaining privilge for the few, and thereby anti-liberal … If libertarians share some liberal goals, well, so do some socialists and tories.

Is this liberalism?

Sam Bowman? Who?

Ahead of Malala Yousafzai, who, whilst still a schoolgirl herself, was threatened with murder, yet persevered in her campaign for the public education of girls and women? She deserves a knighthood. her family deserves a knighthood.

Ahead of Naomi Long, an elected politician, unbowed in the face of death threats targeted at her for her party upholding the most basic tenet of a liberal democracy that the rights of a minority population should not be trampled over to placate the loudest and foulest voices in a majority population. She deserves a knighthood. Her party deserves a knighthood.

Sam Bowman. Err … who?

I still have little clue who this Sam Bowman is. His win could, I suppose be due to an indifferent choice to start with. It did not help to have the Hacked Off group described as with Hugh Grant; I wonder what Hacked Off campaign without Hugh Grantwould have scored.

manipulated by the winner’s friends (even Tom Papworth of this parish? https://twitter.com/TomPapworth/status/286460538261762049)

spun by the winner to make it sound like a “well-deserved honour” (http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/miscellaneous/congratulations-to-sam-bowman)

spun by Lib Dem opponents to make fun of us (fortunately no links like this, unless you count http://digitalpolitico.net/2013/01/14/asis-sam-bowman-joins-mark-littlewood-as-a-liberal-voice-of-the-year/)

Some complain that the winner hasn’t suffered enough in comparison to other nominees. Surely, they don’t mean to suggest that, to borrow a meme, you’re only Liberal if you’ve got bruises?

Others suggest that, to ensure a more ‘palatable’ result, that voting should be restricted to the members of the forum – as if they hold a monopoly on Liberal thought or are representative of the readers or commenters of the website.

Those who mutter that the winner had the audacity to publicise his nomination and the poll, surely they are familiar with the Lib Dem adage that ‘where one works, one wins’?

I look forward to next year’s poll, if only to see if people have learned any lessons and used this election poll to ‘build towards the next’.

Funnily enough I did see that before posting my comment. I thought the first sentence sounded as though it implied he was against any regulation of the financial sector, but looking further on that didn’t seem to be the case. In any case, the article didn’t seem to be expressing opposition to bailouts as such, but discussing flaws in the way regulation works.

If you’re looking for a candidate who believes what Lib Dems believe pretty much all the time I think you may have missed the point of the Liberal Voice poll.

Actually, I missed the bit after the parentheses. Mea culpa. But narrowing it down to the views specifically mentioned in the article I would question the one you selectively ‘snipped’ out – “opposition to bank bailouts”. But admittedly without knowing what form that opposition takes I can’t really express disagreement with it.

looking through this thread I’ve yet to see anyone disagree with Sam Bowman’s views on the issues (eg, pro-immigration, pro-drugs law reform, pro-equal marriage) he was nominated for.

No doubt AndrewR is right, but as you asked, at the start of his second article on the Adam Smith Institute website comes this view:
“Virtually everything the government spends money on needs to be cut.”

But maybe you expect all Lib Dems to agree with that these days…