Author Archives: Alix Mortimer

Who are Vote for a Change?

By Alix Mortimer | Published 20th April 2010 - 5:57 pm

UPDATE: the data extracted from Vote for a Change and used in this post was extracted around 1.30 this afternoon. Since then, the site’s data has been changed. Please see comments for further details.

Ever hear of Vote for a Change? Vaguely?

Another of the plague-on-all-your-houses, real-reform-now campaigns which have been springing up all over the internet over the past year, right? Yes, that’s what I assumed too.

Their aim, they say, is to advise people on how to vote tactically in each constituency to bring about a hung parliament. This is what they say about how they made their choices:

We began by

…

Posted in News | 21 Comments

Why blog?

By Alix Mortimer | Published 19th December 2009 - 9:20 am

Welcome to the final part of our “Introduction to blogging” guide for Liberal Democrat bloggers or would-be bloggers. It’s been appearing each Saturday in the run-up to Christmas, with all the posts available via this page. The series will then be revised and collated into an e-book, so please do post up your comments as the series progresses. Today we’re finishing where we started, with reasons to blog. Alix Mortimer is at the keyboard…

Why blog?

The whys and wherefores of political blogging generate a lot of heat. Amble around the internet a little, and you’ll find denunciations of blogging as a …

Posted in Blogging guide | Tagged blogging, daniel hannan, featured, jo christie-smith | 2 Comments

Is that what I think it is?

By Alix Mortimer | Published 20th September 2009 - 10:00 pm

There was I, all set to wind down from the keyboard, when this inspirational news descends from politicshome:

The Independent says that Nick Clegg plans a new tax on homes worth over £1m in order to fund raising the basic starting-point for income tax.

It’s a wealth tax! A redistribution of taxation burden on to static capital accumulations and away from economically productive activity! Has anyone told Jock?

Woohoo! If the party adopts this, I’ll even overlook all that airbrushing nonsense…

Posted in News | Tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, nick clegg | 22 Comments

Sweetly misguided he may be, but…

By Alix Mortimer | Published 20th September 2009 - 3:29 pm

…top marks for Sunder Katwala of the Fabians for this, reported by James Graham:

When Cameron claims you can’t put a cigarette paper between the Tories and LDs, it makes you wonder what he’s smoking.

Meanwhile, twittery excitement is growing about this afternoon’s debate on civil libs. Richard Dawkins is speaking to his amendment in about half an hour:

@bengoldacre #ldconf there’s also dawkins doing amendment on libel in civil liberties session at 4pm, main hall, we’re going thru his speech now

But never mind the mere intellectual giants and dishy sci-geeks of our age. What could possibly be …

Posted in News | Tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, helen duffett | Leave a comment

Commentislinked@LDV – bumper edition

By Alix Mortimer | Published 20th September 2009 - 1:49 pm

I am agog to hear the podcast of last night’s LDV fringe event (hint), but in the meantime, some snippets of news from the jumping-up-and-down-on-the-sidelines school of conference reporting.

First, David Howarth is plugging away the civil liberties message in the Guardian:

…I am still profoundly unconvinced by the Tories’ conversion to the cause of freedom.

First, Tory proposals have a tendency to smack of too little, too late. For instance, its surveillance proposals looked oddly similar to those to be found in the freedom bill. Scrapping ID cards? Getting rid of the ContactPoint database? Reining in councils’ investigatory powers? It’s

…

Posted in News | Tagged david howarth, floella benjamin, james graham, paul waugh | 1 Comment

Conference: Day 2

By Alix Mortimer | Published 20th September 2009 - 10:24 am

The agenda

Reports from the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Diversity and Equality Group this morning, then a Scotland/Wales double-act in the form of the policy mortion on the Future of Devolution (short version: more of it please!). There’s a presenttation from Kingston’s Lib Dem group (go Mary!), speeches from Norman Lamb and Ed Davey and a policy motion on the paper “Thriving in a Globalised World – A Strategy for Britain”.

And that’s just before lunch.

Posted in News | Tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, ed davey, nick clegg, norman lamb, tavish scott | 1 Comment

Conference: First pictures

By Alix Mortimer | Published 19th September 2009 - 10:05 am

It’s that time of year again, folks. Doesn’t it come round quickly? And each year more glorious than the last. Yes it’s:

INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

Arrr. This should make for some interesting speeches from the platform at Bournemouth.

Mark and Alex have already started reporting direct from the Lib Dem Cupboard this morning, which is as luxurious as ever:

cupboard2

I, meanwhile, can’t be in Bournemouth, so I will be your host on the home front, scanning the papers for coverage (with a telescope. Arrr), stealing gossip and …

Posted in News | Tagged bournemouth 2009 conference | 6 Comments

PMQs: when will Brown admit he’s wrong?

By Alix Mortimer | Published 24th June 2009 - 12:16 pm

Do my ears deceive me or has Gordon Brown just answered a question?

Cameron skewered Brown with a statement from last week he claimed had been incorrect. He quoted figures to the House – something Brown has mocked him for not doing – which showed unequivocally that capital investment will fall from next year, 2009/10, up to the Olympics year in 2011/12. Brown’s response, of itself, is reasonable – actually 2008/09 expenditure was atypical, due to bringing forward recession investment. He quotes similarly clear figures that show the 2011/12 figure will return to the 2007/08 level.

Posted in News | 5 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 24 June 2009

By Alix Mortimer | Published 24th June 2009 - 10:27 am

2 big stories

As any fule kno, the chair of the Iraq enquiry Sir John Chilcot has ruled that as a default all evidence should be given to the enquiry in public. He has also indicated that he will be calling Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to give evidence. From the Guardian:

The move to open up his hearings, which came on the eve of a Commons debate tomorrow on the inquiry, shows that a wholesale change of the terms has been carried out since the inquiry was established by the prime minister last week. The decision to summon Brown and Blair for public hearings was disclosed by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, who met Chilcot today on privy council terms. Chilcott held a separate meeting with David Cameron on the same terms.

Posted in Daily View | Tagged economy, gordon brown, iain dale, iraq, nick clegg, sir john chilcot, tony blair, vince cable | Leave a comment

Tory claims for astrology CD

By Alix Mortimer | Published 23rd June 2009 - 10:26 pm

This is one of those moments that sets one’s outer liberal at war with one’s inner Richard Dawkins. Bosworth Conservative MP David Tredinnick’s expenses reveal he spent £210 on astrology software from, it appears, “Crucial Astro Tools” and £300 on tuition from the same company to learn to use it.

The Voice has come by the text of an email he sent to a constituent explaining the claim:

Thank you for your email about my claim for consultancy services from Crucial Astro Tools. As you may be aware I have a longstanding interest in Parliament

…

Posted in News | Tagged david tredinnick | 42 Comments

PMQs: banking system

By Alix Mortimer | Published 17th June 2009 - 12:21 pm

Cameron and Brown follow their usual pattern of scuffling over cuts today. Cameron claims Brown plans real terms cuts from 2011, Brown claims real-terms rises in investment until 2012 an’ anyway the Tories plan to make cuts straightaway. Heads I win, tails you lose. It’s getting unbearable, listening to Brown. “We are the party of the many”. Ugh.

Cameron makes a rare slip, however, when he suggests that the reason Brown is so distrusted is not actually the recession – “there’s a recession all over Europe”. I have never in all my parliamentary viewing heard such baying

…

Posted in News | 4 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 17 June 2009

By Alix Mortimer | Published 17th June 2009 - 10:55 am

2 big stories

No prizes for guessing it’s Iran above the fold again today. After ruling out a votes recount, the ruling forces had this to say, which is of some interest to anyone who gets their political news online:

Following a crackdown on the foreign press, the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force, warned online media of similar treatment over their coverage of the country’s election crisis.

In its first statement since the crisis broke out, the guards – an elite force answering to the supreme leader – said Iranian websites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension”

…

Posted in Daily View | Tagged blogging, iran, nick clegg, nightjack, trident | 1 Comment

PMQs: social housing and repossession

By Alix Mortimer | Published 10th June 2009 - 12:23 pm

Cameron and Brown wrangle over the various parliamentary reform proposals. Cameron uses the election of two BNP MEPs to support his contention that a proportional system lets in extremists, and accuses Brown of only becoming interested in reform when he faces losing the next election. Brown looks somewhat less like a punchbag this week – that Monday night meeting of the parliamentary Labour party must have pepped him up a bit. In fact, his righteousness waxes so great that he proclaims Cameron “doesn’t deserve” to be Prime Minister.

Clegg asks about repossession rates, which he says the government is failing …

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron, gordon brown, housing, nick clegg | 4 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 10 June 2009

By Alix Mortimer | Published 10th June 2009 - 9:30 am

2 big stories

This is, I think, the first time I have compiled the Daily View (Wednesdays being Mortimer days) when the headlines in every paper haven’t been dominated by expenses. Hooray, real news!

The big news at Westminster is that Gordon Brown is doing his usual thing of arriving at a political moment (in this case electoral reform) several weeks late and trailing faux consultation in his wake.

From the BBC:

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the prime minister’s statement will not endorse a change of voting system nor any particular system but it will call for a debate on whether

…

Posted in Daily View | Tagged bnp, electoral reform, gordon brown, ipcc, vince cable | 1 Comment

We would be “suicidal” to do a deal with Labour

By Alix Mortimer | Published 4th June 2009 - 10:10 am

So say “senior party strategists” to the Guardian today:

Nick Clegg would resist overtures from a new prime minister as strongly as he would the current one, senior Liberal Democrat figures have told the Guardian.

The Lib Dem leader believes Labour is finished regardless of who leads the party, and as one close aide put it: “The sort of discussions they [Labour] need to have can’t take place in government – they need to go into the wilderness to reflect where they stand.” The view damages the hopes of some on the centre-left who believe a change

…

Posted in News | Tagged gordon brown, labour party, nick clegg, PMQs | 17 Comments

Author Archives: Alix Mortimer

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