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 …
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 …
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:
By
Mark Pack
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Published
7th February 2010 - 5:50 pm
By
Mark Pack
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Published
7th February 2010 - 10:20 am
As I wrote previously about the voting down in the summer of 2008 of plans to reform MPs’ expenses:
The bulk of the blame for blocking the reforms must lie with the Labour Party as 146 of their MPs voted to block the reforms but given David Cameron’s strident recent comments, it’s striking to see that seven of his frontbenchers, and 21 MPs in total, voted to block reform when they had the chance. This was enough to see the measure defeated.
A year and a half on from those 21 voting against changing the expense rules, what do we now …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
7th February 2010 - 9:00 am
It’s Sunday. It’s 9am on the date when, in 1974, Ted Heath called a snap election and, in 1812, Charles Dickens was born.
What better way to celebrate than to watch a YouTube clip about letterboxes? But first the blogs and the news.
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:
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
2 Big Stories
You probably know the news from the UK. So here’s the news from Ethiopia, followed by that letterbox movie.
Punch-up at registration office as two people claim to the opposition coalition’s candidate
Posted in Daily View
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Tagged ethiopia
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By
Mark Pack
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Published
6th February 2010 - 7:06 pm
The appointment of Tess Culnane, an ex-National Front candidate, to work for the BNP GLA member Richard Barnbrook has been well covered elsewhere.
But one detail intrigues me. As I understand it, Tess Culnane’s job is one that comes with a salary. So does that mean she’ll now start paying off some of the tens of thousands of pounds she owes to two Liberal Democrat members the Liberal Democrats?
The debt comes from her loss of a libel action taken against Lewisham Liberal Democrats Mark Morris (who now works at City Hall too) and Vijay Naidu. As a result of losing the case …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
6th February 2010 - 6:50 pm
Stockport’s Mayor, Colin MacAlister has switched to the Liberal Democrats from Labour (via Independent), whilst the Conservative deputy leader also recently switched to Independent.
That’s not the only bad news for the Conservatives though. In Aberconwy the local Conservative president (and councillor) Dennis Tew has also quit the party, switching to Plaid. Meanwhile in Southend, Jason Luty’s switch to Independent removes the Conservative Party’s overall majority on the council.
Perhaps surprisingly, Labour has also picked up two councillors recently – John McNamee from the SNP and Arshad Hussain from the Conservatives.
By
Mark Pack
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Published
6th February 2010 - 5:43 pm
Start with this pair of sentences:
Policing isn’t about communicating with people. It’s about communicating with people.
That would be a pretty daft instant contradiction, wouldn’t it?
But wait. Let’s say “PR” instead of “communicating”. Because PR = boo! bad! nothing to do with communicating!
Policing isn’t about PR. It’s about communicating with people.
Doesn’t quite work, does it? So let’s throw in something about the nasty internet:
Policing isn’t about PR and fancy websites. It’s about communicating with people.
Ah, that’s better. Second sentence is still a bit contradictory though. So let’s add in something about cutting crime. Cutting crime and communicating aren’t contradictory of course, …
Posted in News
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Tagged taxpayers alliance
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By
Mark Pack
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Published
6th February 2010 - 4:20 pm
Four blogs have recently joined Ryan’s Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
Good luck to all the new bloggers, and …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
6th February 2010 - 2:20 pm
So says Norman Lamb, who has campaigned for corruption charges to be brought against BAE since 2001, in response to the news that BAE admits guilt over corrupt arms deals … firm pays out £300m:
By
Mark Pack
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Published
6th February 2010 - 1:12 pm
Conservative candidate for Edmonton, Andrew Charalambous, has run into trouble with the law after tethering a large advertising helium balloon to the grounds of his office and also placing advertising hordings outside it (see photo in the Enfield Independent’s story).
Such actions normally require planning permission and although there is a special exemption for the period of an election campaign, that exemption has not yet come in to play for the general election. Despite this, Andrew Charalambous has been unapologetic, defending to the media his use balloons and posters as a matter of freedom of speech.
However, seeing how countries which …
By
Mark Pack
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Published
5th February 2010 - 10:29 pm
It’s a toughly contested field. But I think we have a clear winner in the “most improbable excuse for expenses claims” stakes.
Step forward David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend West.
He previously took to hiding in a hairdressers to avoid answering questions about his expense claims, he was one of the MPs who voted to block expense reform in the summer of 2008 and now he’s come out with this:
…
By
Mark Pack
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Published
5th February 2010 - 11:50 am
Yesterday’s political poser was:
The Swedish election of 1956 saw a political first. What was it?
The answer? This was the first election to feature a televised debate. Forget Kennedy, Nixon and 1960: it was the Swedes in 1956 who led the way.
Congratulations to Bernard Salmon for being first with the answer.
(By the way, the 1948 US Presidential election had a set of pre and post surveys to gauge why people voted the way they did, which is why Oranjepan’s and Toby were both wrong.)
I’ll search further in the recesses of history next time to try to fox you all…
