Scottish politics used to be predictable: Labour was the largest party, the SNP was bitter about it, the Tories were resented for existing and the Liberal Democrats were a voice of reason. But the results of the Holyrood election and last week’s Glasgow East by-election remind us that times have changed. Political parties are having to reposition themselves and adapt to the new dynamics. It’s a dangerous game, with the future of our country at stake.

For the SNP, the plan is clear. Pick fights with London, luxuriate in Labour’s decline, and hope for a Tory government at Westminster. Salmond’s conservative Nationalists and Cameron’s nationalist Conservatives combine to threaten the future of our country. We need a political party to take them on and show them up. With Labour in terminal decline, that is the role for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. We can do that by campaigning for a Parliament with more powers, particularly on tax, so that Scotland is strengthened within the UK.

Poll after poll suggests that Scots want a more powerful Parliament, but not full independence. Politicians must look beyond short-term tactics and work to deliver the long-term constitutional changes that the Scottish people really want. The Calman Commission was intended as a forum in which parties could work together on a blueprint for a strengthened Scottish Parliament.

I am clear about the kind of settlement that Calman should reach. As a member of my party’s Steel Commission I have long advocated radical reform so that more powers – especially on tax – are devolved to Holyrood. Those powers would enable the Scottish Parliament to raise or cut spending in accordance with Scotland’s needs. Such a package may be Gordon Brown’s last chance. If he survives a bloodbath at the autumn Labour Party Conference - and it’s a big if - he should commit to a fundamental re-write of the Scotland Act. If he dithers, and everything suggests he will, Labour will be holed below the waterline before they even choose a new Scottish leader. I suspect that will prove to be Labour’s tragic fate.

Later this month I hope to be elected as the new Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. If I am, you can be sure that my party will argue forcefully for these reforms as the basis of Calman’s conclusions. A blueprint for a strengthened Scottish Parliament would force Alex Salmond on to the defensive. More important than that, it would meet the public’s demand for a more mature and stable settlement at Holyrood. In this respect, and in all others, I believe that the Liberal Democrats must be the leading voice of reason in Scotland’s future.

* Tavish Scott is the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, and Parliamentary Shadow Secretary for Finance & Sustainable Growth.

Editor’s note: Liberal Democrat Voice is, as with all internal party elections, remaining neutral in its editorial line, and seeking to ensure balanced coverage. All three candidates have written about why about why they wish to lead the Scottish Lib Dems: Mike Rumbles’ article was published here on 4th July; and Ross Finnie’s here on 1st August. Supporters of the candidates are encouraged to submit their views to Lib Dem Voice either as an article - find out how here - or comments; but the editor will seek to ensure fair representation for all candidates.

I want to be Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats because I believe I have the ability to drive the Party forward by making Liberal Democrat values and policies relevant to the people of Scotland.

At present I believe our message has become blurred and lacks a distinctive Liberal Democrat edge. We lack a political narrative that brings clarity and cohesion to our political projection.

I want us to concentrate on three themes:-

We must become regarded as the Party that stands up for individual freedom - not only human rights and civil liberties but also freedom from poor education, poor health, poverty and deprivation.

We must be leaders in developing sustainable communities – promoting economic development to provide job opportunities whilst protecting the environment for the next generation

We must be champions of a fairer society – bearing down on intolerance, discrimination, health inequalities, deprivation, a fear of crime and manifest injustice.

I want new policies to be developed and existing policies to be refined to deliver on these themes and for each policy to be outcome based and required to meet a relevance test to the individual citizen

That is a brief summary of my Leadership campaign positioning.

* Ross Finnie is the Liberal Democrat MSP for the West of Scotland, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, and Vice-Convener of the Scottish Parliament Health and Sport Committee.

Editor’s note: Liberal Democrat Voice is, as with all internal party elections, remaining neutral in its editorial line, and seeking to ensure balanced coverage. All three candidates have been offered a slot to write about why they wish to lead the Scottish Lib Dems: Mike Rumbles’ article was published here in July. Supporters of the candidates are encouraged to submit their views to Lib Dem Voice either as an article - find out how here - or comments; but the editor will seek to ensure fair representation for all candidates.

The news in today’s Telegraph that the Labour party’s membership is now at its lowest in a hundred years is a stark wake-up call for the governing party (and doubtless will in the well-worn cliché of tired journalistic prose “add to the pressure on the Prime Minister”). From 400,000 at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity to just 177,000 today – that’s some drop.

But let’s put to one side the tribal nonsense for a moment – not least because what’s happening to Labour is reflected more widely.

One of the (perhaps fortunately) ignored stories of the last leadership election was the realisation of how far the Lib Dems’ membership has dipped in the last decade. When the post-merger party was formed, in 1988, the Lib Dems had just over 80,000 members, reaching a high of over 100,000 by 1994. We were hit hard by the Blair effect - by 1999, membership was down by one-fifth, at almost 83,000 – and it has kept falling ever since: 72,000 by 2006, and just 64,000 today. (Figures available here).

It’s harder to trace the fall in Tory membership, as they don’t publish figures. From newspaper reports it seems the party’s membership was c.400,000 in 1997, the most miserable year in the party’s electoral history – since when it has fallen by more than one-quarter: to 325,000 under William Hague, to 290,000 under David Cameron. Indeed, though great play was made of the boost Mr Cameron gave party membership, Tory membership is reportedly lower today than it was when he was first elected leader. So much for his ‘Blair effect’.

But to personalise this is beside the point – the picture is a general one and applies to all three mainstream political parties: the days of mass party membership is over. Those who are members of political parties, and certainly active members, are becoming peculiar oddities in society.

There are many reasons why this is the case. It’s not simply the decline in respect for the political classes. More important, I’d argue, is the emasculation of local decision-making, creating an unbridgeable gulf between what local people see can be achieved in their neighbourhoods. Mixed in with this of course is the decline in party democracy - and the feeling that party membership is no more than a badge - though this applies far less to the Lib Dems than Labour and the Tories: at least our party conferences, however unrepresentative they may be of the wider membership, still make policy decisions.

This matters greatly for the parties themselves, as they become more and more financially dependent on fewer and fewer people – which is precisely why it matters also for wider society. It’s interesting to contrast the British experience with what’s happening in the US, and the trail-blazing success of Barack Obama in harnessing the power of the internet to create a mass online movement, largely eschewing special interests.

Is it that political parties in the UK are just too dull to achieve what Senator Obama has? Or is it that the British public is just too damn cynical?

There’s an interesting report in yesterday’s Cumbrian News and Star reporting on the seemingly likely break-up of the Conservative / Lib Dem alliance that has run the County Council for the last seven years. This follows the sacking by the Conservative council leader of his Liberal Democrat deputy, Joan Stocker, following a significant audit failure in the Council’s finance department:

It emerged on Friday that millions of pounds of spending had been wrongly categorised in the 2007-8 accounts. Although no cash has gone missing, the errors have ruined any chance the council had of improving its rating as one of the worst-performing local authorities in England.
The council’s leader, Conservative Tim Stoddard, moved quickly today to lay the blame at Mrs Stocker’s door. Councillors received an email saying it was the second year running that errors had been found in the accounts. The statement added: “Throughout this whole period, the deputy leader has had responsibility for the council’s budget and its performance.
“A repeat error of this significance must be addressed. As a consequence, the leader has decided to relieve the deputy leader of all her cabinet responsibilities, including the budget portfolio, with immediate effect. This includes all areas of responsibility included within the deputy leader’s remit.” …
Mrs Stocker told the News & Star today: “I am disappointed. It seems as if I have been made a scapegoat. The council’s performance has improved but the one thing I can’t control has gone wrong. I think ‘scapegoat’ is a fair word.” Mrs Stocker is a councillor for Windermere. She has been leader of the Liberal Democrat group and deputy leader of the council since 2005.

I know no more than is in the newspaper reports, and there is doubtless more to this story than meets the eye - perhaps some of our Cumbrian readers can shed further light and add local colour. But it’s an interesting microcosm of a wider dilemma for politicians: what exactly are they to be held responsible and accountable for?

Most would argue that politicians are there to provide local leadership and set out broad strategy; and that it would be unwise to get too closely involved in the minutiae of council business. This applies more so, perhaps, in local than national politics, as councillors are not expected to be working full-time for the council (compare with cabinet ministers).

In the case above it seems quite unfair for a councillor to be held responsible for an accounting error, especially one which does not directly or materially impact on local residents. But where do we draw the line? If a department, whether in a council or in government, continues to fail to execute its duties when should the elected representative fall on their sword (or if necessary be pushed)?

The only fair criteria seem to me to be along the following lines:
1. Could the elected representative have reasonably been expected to be able to prevent or halt the mistake from occurring?
2. Did s/he take all reasonable actions to correct the error once it was discovered?
3. Did s/he put in place all reasonable measures to ensure the mistake never again occurs?

If the answers to those questions are No / Yes /Yes it seems only fair that they remain in post. But, as with most things, there are shades of grey; and decisions involving individuals, especially in politics, are rarely clear-cut.

It’s silly season, so the temptation to dismiss the current media frenzy over Gordon Brown is a reasonable one. The faint sound of a barrel being scraped can be heard when MPs like Gordon Prentice – a long-term foe of Mr Brown – are given the platform to keep the wheels of the bandwagon rolling (to mix my metaphors). Yet it’s evident, even to outsiders, that the Prime Minister is in serious, serious trouble.

When your deputy as party leader can argue that the country has “not yet seen the best of the Prime Minister” – and that is regarded as a supportive statement – you know the plates are shifting in front of your eyes. More significant than Harriet Harman’s double-edged compliment – which made even RAB Butler’s damn-with-faint-praise taunt that Anthony Eden was “the best prime Minister we’ve got” (later repeated by Steve Norris of John Major) seem almost warm – was today’s slating of Mr Brown by one of his most loyal media lieutenants, Jackie Ashley, in today’s Guardian:

Only one thing is clear. It’s over for Gordon. His family aside, I may be the last person in the country to admire and like him. However much mockery it calls down - deep breath - this is a decent, uncorrupt, highly intelligent and serious man with good values, inspired by public service. I’d hoped he also had enough of an instinct for leadership to make him a successful prime minister. I was wrong.

The only argument being made by Labour supporters for sticking with Mr Brown appears to be that (1) there is no obvious alternative, and (2) their leadership rules are so messy any contest will drag on for months to the country’s increasing annoyance. There are few warm words. However grateful Labour members are for Gordon Brown’s role as chancellor, who among them believes he is up to the job of premier? None I’ve talked to.

As for the obstacles, they are real enough. They are also of Labour’s own making. There is no obvious alternative partly because Messrs Blair and Brown, separately and together, have dominated cabinet government for so long; and partly because Messrs Brown and Straw strong-armed the parliamentary Labour party into rubber-stamping Mr Brown’s rise to the leadership unopposed.

But the obstacles are only as formidable as the Labour party wants them to be. For sure they are a useful excuse, but that’s all they are. The Labour party’s destiny is in its own hands: they can sit on them or they can grasp the nettle (final mixed metaphor). Mr Brown is a spent political force. That’s sad for the Labour party, and a personal tragedy for a man who waited so long for a job for which he was so unsuited. But it’s time to move on.

This week saw the first anniversary of the One Wales Government, the coalition deal that put Plaid Cymru into government in Wales in alliance with Labour. To mark that occasion the Welsh Liberal Democrats staged a debate on the record of that Government, highlighting the many unfulfilled promises and the problems facing the two parties in delivering an uncosted wish-list.

A few ministers over the last few weeks have sought to deflect criticism by responding to several attacks by saying that ‘you have to be in government to change things’. However, what is clear and what has been demonstrated in the ‘One Wales’ celebrations, and over the last year, is that it is no good Plaid Cymru and Labour being in government if they cannot deliver on their own targets and agenda.

In education, the foundation phase for the under-sevens has been underfunded to the extent that planned pupil teacher ratios cannot be afforded, and roll-out has been extended by an extra year. The Government has missed its own target on school buildings. It stated that all school buildings would be fit for purpose by 2010, and that target was reiterated by Education Minister, Jane Hutt, in the present Government despite knowing she cannot deliver it. An increase of around 1.5 per cent in funding for further education means that many colleges are not able to deliver the Government’s skills agenda. There is also a £61 million funding gap in higher education, and despite a personal commitment by the First Minister to try to close that gap, action has still not been taken.

In local government, we have a below inflation increase in funding, which is hitting schools and social services. We have seen a failure to help pensioners pay their Council Tax this year as promised, and a failure to deliver on a Welsh language daily newspaper, as set out in ‘One Wales’. Post offices are being closed, and yet there is no movement on bringing the post office development fund forward, even though some Labour Members have called for it. There have been delays in finalising the local transport services grant, which has further strained councils’ ability to fund essential services. The Government has also failed to meet its own targets on child poverty and fuel poverty, and it continues not to meet those targets.

The Government talks about providing 6,500 affordable homes, but there has been no significant progress in delivering those homes. There is no indication that the number of new homes being built is greater than in previous years, and the over-reliance on planning gain has now been hit by the credit crunch, removing an important plank in delivering that policy. There is no means of measuring achievement on that policy, and when you take into account sales and demolitions, the likelihood is that we have fewer affordable homes now than we did a year ago. Repossessions are up by 75 per cent, and local councils are under pressure to deal with that, and yet we have no extra money for homelessness facilities and support.

Wales is at the bottom of the GVA league table for regions and nations of the UK . Our GVA is now 78.1 per cent of the UK average, down from 85.4 per cent in 1989. The ‘One Wales’ anniversary celebrations that we are now in the middle of have two features: We have Plaid and Labour claiming all the credit for themselves, with Islwyn MP, Don Touhig playing Banquo at the feast; and we have been treated to a long list of inputs and questionable half-outcomes, but little actual achievements.

Welsh Liberal Democrats have been in government, and we have made hard decisions. However, when we did so, we put together a programme that could be paid for and was deliverable. That is the major failing of this present Government. We are not asking Labour and Plaid Cymru to spend money on our uncosted promises, we are asking them to deliver on their uncosted promises. The people of Wales should expect nothing less.

These promises were made by Labour and Plaid Cymru, and there is nothing unreasonable in expecting them to deliver on them. Yet we still have Plaid Cymru and Labour making excuses. They say that Government is hard, that the UK Government has short-changed them, and that they have to make hard decisions. That is true, but you also need to go into Government with both eyes open, and cut your cloth accordingly. The biggest failure of this Government is not just that it has missed key targets, but that it has made promises that it cannot afford, and cannot deliver on.

* Councillor Peter Black AM blogs here.

The close-of-poll predictions last night proved to be pretty accurate: David Davis easily won in yesterday’s Haltemprice and Howden by-election, with a solid 72% of the vote. The turnout was 34%, and the Greens pipped the English Democrats to second place by 44 votes, both polling 7%. No other candidates retained their deposits.

• David Michael Davis - Conservative Party 17,113, 72%
• Shan Oakes - Green Party 1,758, 7%
• Joanne Robinson - English Democrats 1,714, 7%
• Tess Culnane - National Front Britain for the British 544, 2%
• Gemma Dawn Garrett - Miss Great Britain Party 521, 2%
• Jill Saward - Independent 492, 2%
• Mad Cow-Girl - The Official Monster Raving Loony Party 412, 2%
• Walter Edward Sweeney - Independent 238, 1%
There were another 18 candidates who stood, who between them, polled 1,119 votes.
Turnout 23,911 (34.03%)

Two questions to ponder this morning:

1. Does the result justify David Davis’s decision to quit Parliament to trigger a by-election?

Well, yes and no. His overwhelming vote is certainly a commanding personal mandate which will afford him a good deal of satisfaction. But does it prove anything? Those who voted for him will have done so for a variety of reasons: yes, agreement with his opposition to 42 days detention without trial; but also personal admiration for Mr Davis, and/or admiration for his courageous stance; respect for him as a constituency MP; support for him as the Tory party candidate. And doubtless many others, too. In short, this cannot be taken as a referendum on 42 days, or the other civil liberties issues Mr Davis raised – there were just too many other considerations at stake.

And yet, and yet… 34% of people chose to cast their vote yesterday, the vast majority of them for Mr Davis. Though turnout was lower than the 40% threshold I suggested yesterday would be desirable for Mr Davis – 34% is less than half the 2005 general election turnout: proportionately that’s one of the worst by-election turnouts in a Tory-held seat in living memory – given the lack of credible opposition he was facing it would be churlish to deny that a significant number of folk chose to have their say. And, despite the Westminster village’s disdain (as well as the barely suppressed antagonism of ConservativeHome to Mr Davis) Mr Davis’s campaign has certainly kept the issue in the headlines more than would have been the case had he not resigned in such an explosive way.

2. Did the Lib Dems do the right thing by agreeing not to contest the seat?

I shall not rehearse the arguments again: they have been debated on these pages ad nauseum and I don’t find myself having changed my view since I wrote here:

Had Nick … refused to give the Lib Dems’ tacit backing it’s unlikely Mr Davis would have resigned; and I’m not sure that would have been any more to the Lib Dems’ advantage. If Mr Davis had called Nick’s bluff, and resigned anyway, the prospect would be far worse for the party: pilloried by many we would prefer to call our friends, and facing an almost certain defeat in the process.

What has certainly disappointed me, though, is the party’s near-silence ever since. I can only guess that Nick Clegg’s decision not to stand a candidate was sufficiently controversial at the top of the party that he didn’t feel able to pursue the campaigning logic of his decision.

Having stood down in what was once one of our top targets, surely the party should have tried to get some positive messages across? Perhaps there was literature distributed, a website set up, for the benefit of the voters in Haltemprice and Howden explaining the party’s decision, and setting out clearly the Lib Dem stance on civil liberties – which is a good deal more liberal, consistent and united than that offered by Mr Davis’s party – but if we did I missed it.

There are those who have argued on this site (I’m thinking especially of David Morton’s intelligent, insightful comments) that the party ceded the campaign by not putting up a candidate. But we didn’t need a candidate to be able to campaign on an issue that is at the very heart of what liberalism and this party is about. Instead we chose to sit on our hands, and keep quiet: which is either because it was thought strategically wise (which I doubt), or because the party leadership could not agree what should be done.

Whatever you thought of Nick Clegg’s original decision, once it was made it was up to the party to make the best of it. Looking back it’s hard to argue that we made anything of it at all. And that is a true shame.

The decision by the Lib Dem leadership to allow David Davis to resign in the comfortable knowledge that no Liberal Democrat would oppose him was a strange one. Without Lib Dem acquiescence, the by-election almost certainly would not have taken place. As it is, it seems unlikely to me to do much to fracture the Tories’ current revival, and it may allow the party’s opponents to gain valuable ground, and not just in Haltemprice and Howden.

Who, then, might do well enough in the by-election to gain ground while the Liberal Democrat by-election machine twiddles its thumbs? Could someone from the ranks of the Independent candidates gain votes on the ‘42 days’ issue? Ealing vicarage rape victim Jill Saward has attracted some publicity for her stand. Or the horrible National Front (neither the BNP nor UKIP are standing) might do well by attracting immigrant-haters who disagree with Davis’s stand. Or perhaps no-one will seriously trouble him, since The Sun failed to stump up the money for Kelvin Mackenzie to take Davis on.

However, my own view is that the Green Party is best placed to use the Haltemprice and Howden by-election to gain ground. They have far better civil liberties credentials than David Davis. He is pro-death penalty, pro-28 day detention, against the Human Rights Act, and supported the Government ban on demonstrations within a mile of Parliament. Giving the Greens a free run against him in this by-election has allowed them the opportunity to test their potential in a race where they can present themselves as the only left-leaning opposition to the Tories.

And the Greens are becoming better organised at first-past-the-post politics. They managed 22% and a close third behind Labour and the Tories in Brighton Pavillion at the last election. And at local government level in Norwich, where the Lib Dems ran City Hall as recently as 2006, they are now the official opposition to Labour. All of the Green gains have been deliberately targeted at Lib Dem expense, and all in what should have been a strong Liberal Democrat Parliamentary prospect at the next election. The Greens are no doubt campaigning hard in Haltemprice and Howden, reinforced by clever campaigners from Norwich, Brighton and elsewhere.

And while much comment about the Henley by-election has centred on Labour’s dreadful fifth place, hardly anyone seemed to notice that the Green Party came third. Their vote share, with a strong Liberal Democrat campaign, was less than 4%, but it will be interesting to see how much the Greens can improve this share with no Liberal Democrat effort at all.

Their immediate task has been a difficult one, given the short notice of this by-election – less than a month from Davis’s resignation to polling day. They may not have had the time to make a very significant impact in a seat they have never contested before. So a Green win on Thursday is very unlikely. Even on a very low turnout, with Green student campaigners just starting their long vacation. Even roundly attacking Davis’s record on the very liberties he claims to be upholding. And even with the Tories divided over Davis’s stance, but complacently assuming he will win easily anyway.

In such circumstances however, a good second place does not seem outrageously improbable, and may attract national media attention. It may act as a catalyst for further progress. Liberal Democrats leaders may come to regret giving them the opportunity.

* Terry Gilbert is a former Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate, and has been a Lib Dem member since 1983.

Tony Blair won his first election in 1997 on the back of his refrain, “education, education, education”, and in the run up to a likely 2010 general election the party leaders have already begun positioning themselves as offering radical proposals for education.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron have both voiced their support for seeing the introduction of Swedish-style ‘free schools’, where state funding, as is already standard, follows individual pupils; but in the case of free schools it also follows pupils into independent schools. Both Cameron and Clegg have made it clear that these schools would not involve academic selection (indicating a return to grammar schools) or be able to charge a top up fees (indicating the introduction of school vouchers). Both leaders are right to do so. Taking either or both those options would see an end to the meritocratic basis on which education is provided: state funding in education should go to all, regardless of ability, and shouldn’t be used to help the rich gain superior education.

On a similar theme, both leaders should also make it clear that they will not allow other barriers of entry to pupils, such as religion for example, and they shouldn’t become places for specific NGOs to promote their own agendas. Free schools need to be inclusive once pupils are in them.

Both Clegg and Cameron are right to support free schools: they offer a great chance to increase civil society, to provide better education in Britain, a greater level of plurality, and parents and children having increased choice and control in their education.

By declaring that the Conservatives will not allow firms to make a profit from the fee school system, however, Cameron is failing to fully utilise the opportunities free schools could offer, and which can only be accessed by allowing profit-making into the system. This might be the tokenistic suspicion of any institution making profit from state money; a refusal to take that idea to a public he fears won’t accept it; or that he’d rather see free schools be the sole domain of NGOs - which reveals a scary amount of paternalism. Whichever is the case, Clegg should not make the same mistake. Read more »

The announcement earlier this year of a Spanish Cabinet that is majority women should cause everyone involved in British politics to stop and wonder why we’re doing so badly.

We know that the under-representation of women in politics is a bad thing - and that this applies to the Liberal Democrats as much as anyone else, even if we do have a good heritage of standing up on issues of inequality.

But how many more women do we really need to stand for us if we’re going to get a more equal party?

It turns out that the answer is at least 100 - and that we need to identify them, persuade them to stand and get them selected in the next three years.

Working on the assumption that we want to have over 30% of our representatives as women and that we double our MPs over the next two general elections then we need the following.

Around 25 women are needed to replace MPs who will stand down at the next two elections (assuming that at each election roughly one in five MPs continues to stand down). This assumes that every MP who stands down is replaced by a woman - which is the only way we’ll make rapid headway. While in practice this will be impossible to achieve, we need to aim this high if we’re going to make significant headway.

We will need to make sure that as many as possible of the 63 seats we aim to gain are gained by women. Only 10 of these don’t currently have a PPC. But many of these 63 seats will reselect after the next election, and in many of those we won’t have an incumbent PPC. Realistically this probably means another 30 women PPCs in the most winnable seats in the election after next.

Then there are the other elected levels of the party. To increase or maintain gender balance if we are aiming to double our representation we will require:

• 6 more MEPs
• At least 15 more MSPs
• 3 more Welsh Assembly Members
• Several more Mayors
• Over 2,000 councillors

Just to make this more difficult we know that the biggest factor in success for candidates is early selection. If we assume that there is a May 2010 election this realistically means that most of these candidates have to be elected by late 2011.

Excluding the council candidates this means that we need to recruit, motivate, train and get selected around 100 women in the next two and a half years for the most senior positions alone. Add in councillors and we need well over a thousand new women candidates.

Centrally, run by Cowley Street, this is impossible. But if every Liberal Democrat Voice reader made it their mission over the next two years to find one woman candidate each it would be easy.

So to encourage us all to do this I’ve set up a pledge on pledge bank - where I have pledged to find and get a woman selected in a winnable seat in the next two years - but only if 50 other people pledge to do the same:
http://www.pledgebank.com/womenlibdemmps

Today David Cameron joined David Davis on the campaign trail in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election in support of Mr Davis’s candidature. Perhaps he did so through slightly gritted teeth – the former Tory shadow home secretary’s resignation put in the spotlight Tory divisions on 42 days just at the point when pressure was piling on Gordon Brown following his ‘non-deal’ with the DUP to secure a wafer-thin Commons victory. But, whatever his private feelings, Mr Cameron did it.

Doubtless he joined him for many reasons – to avoid repeated stories of Tory splits, and because he recognised how popular Mr Davis’s move was with a significant part of the population. But there’s no doubt that uppermost in Tory strategists’ minds right now – especially in the wake of the Henley by-election – is that Mr Davis is the ultimate Lib Dem ‘lovebomb’. A maverick, yes, but a Tory maverick; a principled guy prepared to stand up to this bossy, interfering, liberty-loathing Government, and to stand up for individual rights. Why would Mr Cameron not wish to embrace him?

Which brings us to the bigger question for Lib Dems: how should we respond? I’ve no wish to re-hash the arguments that raged here on Lib Dem Voice and around the blogs about whether Nick Clegg was right to agree not to stand a Lib Dem candidate against Mr Davis. On balance, I think he made the right call. But, whatever your view, that’s a done deal.

What I’m more interested in now is how the party will make the best of its decision? How do we associate the Lib Dem cause with Mr Davis’s thinking on civil liberties, while emphasising that Mr Davis is by no means representative of Conservative views in the shadow cabinet? When will Nick be sharing a platform with David Davis? When will the party launch its Lib Dems for DD website? (I’m only half in jest). Why haven’t we tried to adopt him as one of our own – on civil liberties, I mean – the better to show up how disunited and un-libertarian the real Conservative party is?

The decision Nick took to give Mr Davis a free run was a brave one: he knew it would be controversial, knew it would be unpopular with some members. But he took what he felt to be the right decision. That is, after all, why we elect leaders. However, the strategy seems to have stopped there. There appears to have been no thought given – or at least not which has resulted in a public plan – to what should happen during Mr Davis’s campaign itself. And that seems to me to be a real wasted opportunity.

There’s just a week now ‘til polling day. Isn’t it about time the Lib Dems made up our minds what we’re doing?

Just days after his May 1st victory, looking out from his 8th floor office across the skyline of our great capital city, Boris Johnson repeated to me his early days mantra - yes, I was elected as a Conservative, but I am now mayor of the whole of London and will govern for the whole of London. Don’t believe what my opponents said, was his message, I’m no rabid right-winger.

Assessing his progress two months on, that clearly remains his desired positioning. It’s significant that his first gaffe - the sacking of deputy chief of staff, James McGrath, over ill-judged (but not in my view overtly racist) remarks - demonstrated acute sensitivity to maintaining his ‘inclusive’ stance, as well as a notable ruthlessness of which we may see more.

The well-planned media grid for the first 100 days is working, providing a steady stream of photo opportunities and easy announcements. No difficult yet defining decisions, no obvious changes of direction compared to the previous mayor. Meanwhile the media are being kept very firmly at arms length, with the weekly City Hall press conference abandoned.

Behind the scenes, however, the picture is less rosy. Johnson has botched the process of appointing his advisers. Despite promising an end to cronyism and sofa government, there’s no sense of a coherent new team with a new agenda. Indeed, no mention at all of the promised cabinet.

He can’t find an environment adviser. His key planning adviser, Westminster Council Tory, Simon Milton, was stymied by (ultimate irony of ironies) Mrs Thatcher’s ‘Widdicombe’ rules. At times Boris himself doesn’t appear to know what he has delegated to whom. And whichever adviser left him to go on the Today programme without the key Olympics funding memorandum desires a right rollicking or worse.

Another sign that the practical reality of government is more complicated than campaign rhetoric is his so-called Forensic Audit Panel. It was billed as a root and branch investigation into waste, inefficiency and worse. In fact he has rounded up a collection of mates from Tory councils, a sympathetic (indeed card-carrying) journalist and some supporters from business. They said they were especially looking at use of consultants, then promptly gave a contract for £50,000 to the firm of one of the panel members without a competitive tender nor a clear output-based specification. Just the sort of thing I’d have blasted the previous mayor for doing.

Two months in, we don’t have a clearer picture of what Boris Johnson really stands for nor how London will be different and better at the end of his four year mayoralty. For now, careful news planning should carry him safely through the honeymoon period. But he will need to articulate a coherent vision and develop an enthusiasm for the process of government if he is to be a successful and admired mayor of the greatest city in the world.

* Mike Tuffrey AM leads the Liberal Democrat Group at City Hall. Elected to the GLA in 2002, he was previously a Lambeth councillor and an elected member of the GLC.

Writing in today’s Guardian, Nick Clegg said:

[Henley] showed us that the evaporation of New Labour’s support in southern England - so carefully put together in the 1990s by Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell - is now complete.

So what hope is there left for progressive voters in Britain? Has Cameron’s aversion to spelling out what he would do if he was handed the keys to No 10 done the trick? By avoiding any controversy, any meaningful policy choices, has he done enough to lull progressives into thinking that maybe it won’t be so bad after all to have a Conservative back in Downing Street?

I sincerely hope not because I do not believe that the Conservative party can deliver the changes needed to make Britain the fairer, more socially mobile society that progressives of all parties want. But equally we must understand that the New Labour model of social progress has failed. Instead, we must turn to a different model of how we deliver social justice: the liberal model…

For those who swung to New Labour in the 1990s because they wanted a fairer Britain the Liberal Democrats now offer the most vibrant progressive home. If they stick with an exhausted Labour party and its failed ideas or succumb to the Conservatives’ siren promises, we will wake up in 2010 to a government that will not deliver a fairer Britain. And that would be a tragedy for the millions still waiting for a better life.

You can read the full piece here.

On the whole, Lib Dems can probably be broadly satisfied with our current performance. The latest poll I’ve seen (from ComRes in the Independent) puts us on 18% - so, despite a significant Tory revival, we have not been squeezed.

One might reasonably argue that we should have done better out of Labour’s current demise, but my suspicion is that things will tighten as the general election comes closer, and Nick Clegg - who impresses me more and more - gets the greater media attention he deserves.

But that’s a pretty passive approach. How could the party be more proactive in improving it’s position in the polls and in the forthcoming elections?

First and foremost we need to identify the problem. With opinion polls, the devil is always in the detail. Those who know me well know that I have a number of bees in my bonnet, the largest of which is that I constantly harp on about Propensity to Vote (PTV). The latest ComRes poll shows a somewhat unlikely 74% of Conservatives saying that they are ‘absolutely certain’ to vote, as opposed to 58% of Labour supporters, and 50% of Liberal Democrat supporters.

Now you don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work this one out, do you? If 60% of our supporters felt ‘absolutely certain’ about voting we would pass our share at the last general election; and if we had the same PTV as the Tories, we would be the second party! Yes, there are ‘Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics’, but any experienced campaigner can feel this on the doorstep.

For me, then, our greatest task over the next two years is motivating our supporters to vote. How?

My suggestion is a NATIONAL Survey. Every year, we ask residents in our local council areas their opinions on local issues. Let’s organise a national survey of supporters, where we go out on the doorstep with a questionnaire from Nick asking, face-to-face, known probable supporters what the key issues are for them. Let’s target to ask AT LEAST 100,000 to make it one of the biggest ever national surveys of a political party’s supporters. This is an exercise that every constituency association could join.

The results of such a survey would give us the policy priorities of our potential supporters, as well as valuable information in the run up to a general election, and allow our parliamentary team to feel confident in putting forward Lib Dem policies. If we want to motivate more of the 50% of our supporters who currently plan to stay at home on polling day to come out, we need to understand their views and opinions; their priorities.

You can put my constituency down for £500, Nick.

* Martin Land is a Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrat activist.

Last week’s Liberal Democrat News carried the following article from Martin Narey:

The UK is the fifth richest nation on Earth, yet it has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the industrialised world. Labour has made some commendable progress in reducing the truly shocking level of child poverty they inherited in 1997.

But even after allowing for the implementation of Budget measures for which investment has been found, they find themselves a million adrift from their ambition to halve child poverty by 2010.

Poverty can have a profound impact on a child, on his or her family, and the rest of society. It often sets in motion a deepening spiral of social exclusion, contributing to problems in education, employment, mental and physical health and social interaction. But what should really make child poverty alarm us all is the disturbing fact that a child born into deprivation seems now more likely to inherit his or her parents’ disadvantage than at any time in our recent past. Read more »

It would appear that the ‘local’ credentials of the candidates proved to be something of a talking-point in the recent Henley by-election.

Certainly, in Crewe & Nantwich it was a constant theme in the election literature. The Conservatives went so far as to claim that their man was “the only local candidate” - despite the fact that he lived further from the constituency than his Lib Dem rival, and that one of the ‘fringe’ candidates had lived all his life in Crewe! But, as a rather more experienced campaigner put it to me – with a shrug of his shoulders – there is no legal definition of the term ‘local’.

Now I can fully understand that ‘being local’ is a plus. As an agent I have enthusiastically produced Focus newsletters complete with maps highlighting the fact that our candidates live in the ward, with a great big X to mark the spot, and a sometimes vaguely-directed arrow to indicate that the Labour/ Tory rival lives “somewhere, out there, far away”. And when our candidate doesn’t live in the ward, well I’ve emphasised their other virtues.

But I have never felt the need to claim a local residency where one doesn’t exist, nor do I see the need or purpose to elevate ‘localness’ into the prime – and it sometimes seems the only – necessary qualification for elected office. I was closely linked to the Crewe & Nantwich campaign, and totally comfortable with the fact that our candidate lived in a neighbouring constituency, served on a neighbouring local authority, and had a realistic – but not necessarily detailed - knowledge of our local issues. And I viewed with a mixture of dismay and anger Tory attempts to portray her – “a councillor from the West Midlands” – as though she was a stranger from distant Worcestershire or Warwickshire!

But there is a deeper issue. Yes, campaigning to preserve the Snodbury Minor post office may be important, and the petition to reinstate the bus service to Flagfold, or to have traffic calming on the B5678. But for goodness sake we are electing a member to what is still supposed to be the ‘Mother of Parliaments’.

A quick flick through a daily paper today produced the following current issues:

* significant increase in cocaine smuggling into Britain via Venezuala;
* an IPCC report on the failure of police to protect a woman subsequently killed by a murderer released on licence;
* personal savings hit a 50-year low;
* reductions in some key NHS services (eg, elderly and mental health care) to focus on target-driven areas;
* cancer appointments being cancelled at random because of computer system glitches;
* families of service personnel killed in Nimrod accident seek to sue;
* gun crime – evidence of under-reporting;
* crisis in childhood diabetes services;
* dispute over West Shetland gasfield development.

It crosses my mind that I would quite like an MP who can think intelligently about issues like this, and perhaps make a telling contribution to decision-making. Is it not possible that such abilities might be more important attributes than ‘local’ credentials?

I am not suggesting that our election literature should be transformed into detailed manifestos of every conceivable matter of public policy. I can accept that “Lib Dems speak out on West Shetland gasfield issue” probably wouldn’t be a huge vote-winner in Henley. But I cannot help feeling that a positive account of Mr Kearney’s experience in the charitable sector, or of Mrs Shenton’s track record in issues of pensions protection, would have been more persuasive than this seeming obsession with the golden calf of ‘localness’.

* Gwyn Griffiths has been a Liberal and Liberal Democrat Borough Councillor for the Delamere Ward of Crewe since 1983. He has never lived in the ward.

“A bit disappointed” probably sums up the reaction of most Lib Dems on hearing the result from Henley. But it’s a response that deserves some cool, detached analysis – because the underlying message from Henley is more complex than either Lib Dems who throw up in their hands in despair, or Tories who bray in triumph, are currently admitting.

Reasons to be disappointed:

Well, they’re fairly obvious:

1. The party put in a big effort, fought a vigorous campaign, and had an excellent candidate in Stephen Kearney. We wanted to win – though, realistically, a 15% swing against the Tories in the current climate was always a tall order – and didn’t.

2. What we certainly wanted to do was close the gap on the Tories. In the end, though our vote increased, the gap widened, albeit marginally.

3. With the Labour vote collapsing, we would have hoped to pick up a majority of those disgruntled with the government. But it was the BNP, Tories and Lib Dems (in that order) who shared the spoils, with the rest spread among the minor parties.

There are some who will stop there – you’ll find them on the Lib Dem blogs, you’ll certainly find them on the Tory blogs – and conclude Henley was nothing but a disappointment for the Lib Dems. They’re wrong to do so, and miss the bigger, more complex, picture.

The other side of the coin:

First off, the Lib Dems are caught in a curious Catch-22 campaigning bind. As one of the biggest reasons the public say they won’t vote Lib Dem is because they don’t believe we can win, the party tends to hype its chances (hence the leaflet bar-charts and ‘Winning Here’ slogan). Oftentimes, this pays off, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: eg, the spectacular Dunfermline by-election victory two years ago. Inevitably, if we don’t win the result can end up looking that much more disappointing.

Secondly, we judged how we might do at Henley against our performance in the 2006 Bromley by-election, when there was an astonishing 14% swing away from the Tories to the Lib Dems. But the political weather has changed a lot since then. Two years ago, the Tories and Labour were more or less tied in the polls in the mid-30s%. That’s not now the situation. Nor is Tory campaigning marked by the complacency they used once to exhibit (and on which, to some extent, our success was based).

Which leads on to my third point. If current opinion polls are to be believed, the Tories’ popularity is in the mid-40s% and the Lib Dems in the high-teens to 20%: that represents a swing from the Lib Dems to the Tories since the general election of some 8%. Yet in Henley, the Lib Dems more than held their own, even increasing our vote share to the highest the party has seen since the heady days of the Alliance in 1983. That is no small achievement, given the public clearly no longer feels a need to punish the Tories. Would we have liked to do better? Of course. But the real question is: should we have reasonably expected to do better?

And, fourthly, the Tories will claim this as a triumph; that’s hyperbole borne of relief that they withstood the pressures of the Lib Dems’ campaign. For sure the Tories did well, increasing their vote by 3% (though their vote-share was still lower than in 1992). But this was no return to two-party politics. In the 1974-79 Parliament, the Tory vote went up by over 11% in by-elections in Tory-held seats. That in Henley Labour’s vote collapse was split pretty evenly between the BNP, Tories and Lib Dems tells its own story of our increasingly fragmented party political system.

So, yes, of course we should look at what we might have done better in Henley. But a fair analysis needs to recognise, too, that we sometimes set ourselves the task of clearing a bar that is just too high. Anything other than outright victory, or a significant swing, is seen by some Lib Dems as failure. That’s just not always going to be realistic. In parts of the country, we know we will be on the defensive against the Tories at the next general election, trying to hold on to Lib Dem seats. (Though that doesn’t rule out some surprise victories either). And it’s clear that Labour’s massive unpopularity presents us with a significant opportunity to make gains.

We need to campaign with a belief we can win tempered by a realistic appraisal of what is possible. That might not be the easiest message to sell to the party; but it’s the way to avoid disappointment and achieve definable results.

Sometimes I get criticism from Lib Dem activists over the way I operate my site, Politicalbetting.com, and the usual complaint is that I am not operating it in the interests of the party.

Well, I don’t run it to further the Lib Dems or any other faction. It’s moved to its position as the UK’s most-read political website (four times the page down-loads of Iain Dale) because it seeks to provide a dispassionate information service and discussion platform for those who like forecasting and betting on political outcomes.

Occasionally party campaigners have found it useful to quote the site, and during the Leicester South by-election in 2004 its forecasts of a possible Lib Dem victory featured strongly in much of the party’s by-election literature.

On Henley I have not predicted a Lib Dem victory, but have revealed my own betting which was to risk £40 to win £1,000 on the party succeeding. My thinking was that in a fierce contest with the Tories the party always seems to do well, and there can be no better example than Bromley two years ago. So a bet based on a 5% chance of success looked great value and I recommended it to others. Based on current information I think that any price up to about a 12.5% probability looks good and worth a punt.

The other big bet on Henley, and where I’ve risked a lot of money, is that Labour will lose its deposit. That means its general election share of 14.5% of the vote will fall below 5%. Sounds a lot, but Brown’s party has a long history of being squeezed very badly in fierce CON-LD contests.

At Christchurch in 1993 it dropped to 2.7%, Newbury in the same year saw a drop to 2%, while in the re-run of Winchester in 1997 Labour came in with just 1.7% of the vote. Those were at a time, remember, when the party was soaring in the national polls.

Now, against a background of the rapid collapse of Labour’s national poll shares, I think that my money is safe even though I’ve bet at prices as tight as 1/3.

I’m convinced that one of the big stories on the morning of Brown’s first anniversary at Number 10 will be a lost deposit in Henley.

* Mike Smithson founded and edits PoliticalBetting.com, the UK’s leading political discussion blog. He was a founder member of the Liberal Democrats, stood for Parliament at the 1992 General Election, and has served as both a county and borough councillor. This is the fourth in a regular series of monthly articles from Mike.

One year on, and Gordon Brown and the Labour party are in a mess. The PM’s popularity – and self-confidence – plummeted after he bottled out of calling a general election last October, since when Labour’s ratings have drifted downwards: they have been above 29% in only one poll out of 15 conducted in the last two months.

Some will say this is inevitable, that what is happening to Labour after Tony Blair is not so different to what happened to the Tories after Margaret Thatcher’s demise: as political giants depart the stage their shadows continue to dominate the stage. Both Blair and Thatcher shook up their parties, turned them inside out, so small wonder their successors should struggle to make sense of what they’ve been bequeathed. Yet Major won an election and his premiership endured for seven years. It’s hard to see Gordon pulling off the same trick.

Not even matching up to the standards of John Major: can there be a more cruel political epitaph?

So if Labour’s current woes are not inevitable, the question should be asked: what could Gordon have done differently? To which there is one over-riding, blunt answer: have a clue what he wanted to achieve as Prime Minister.

It’s hard to recall now, but one of the reasons Gordon’s entry to Number 10 was greeted with such enthusiasm was that most political observers assumed he had a radical vision for what he wanted to achieve when he was in power. We reckoned he’d have a packed legislative programme which reversed elements of Blair’s more controversial measures (eg, scrap ID cards, withdraw from Iraq) and introduced radical initiatives which Blair had flunked (eg, elected House of Lords, even proportional representation).

Instead of which, Gordon wore a suit when meeting President Bush, persuaded Tory Quentin Davies to defect, and did a U-turn on super-casinos. Brave New World, it wasn’t. Those of us who thought Gordon was fizzing with new ideas are now left wondering: why exactly did he want to be Prime Minister so much?

There are still some who put it about that Gordon’s failures are to do with ‘image’, that it’s because he looks uncomfortable perching on a GMTV sofa that the public hasn’t warmed to him. Nonsense: it’s because he’s so desperately trying to appear comfortable that we view him with suspicion. Leaders shouldn’t be so blatantly eager to please; they should be comfortable in their own skins, confident in themselves.

It is not that the public is pre-programmed to warm to smooth politicos like Blair and Cameron; what we want from our politicians is authenticity, for them to be themselves, and to be seen clearly to be doing what they believe in (regardless of whether we agree). Most of us are scratching our heads wondering what it is that Gordon Brown actually does believe.

It’s not that we weren’t warned. After all, he voted for the Iraq war – but was careful to leave the impression with those credulous enough to want to be fooled that it’s not something he would have done as Prime Minister. Do any of us really imagine that he really regarded 42 days as a crucial piece of legislation, fundamental to the UK’s security? Of course not. It was simply some neat tactics to show himself as strong on terror, and to put the Tories in a bit of a fix. Gordon portrayed it as a symbol of all his government believes in: he was probably right.

No vision, no beliefs, no policies. One year on, most of us are a bit wiser. But not Gordon.

After months of parliamentary wrangling, the Lisbon Treaty was approved by the UK Parliament this week. This is despite Irish voters voting no by a margin of 53% to 47%. Ireland was the only country in Europe to have a referendum, despite a vigorous campaign here in Britain, which included a private referendum in ten Labour and Liberal Democrat-held constituencies - though not, suspiciously, in Ken Clarke’s constituency despite him voting for the Lisbon Treaty - and is still ongoing thanks to Stuart Wheeler. The fact that it was defeated by such a wide margin, and on such a high turnout (53%) has been a cause celebre for all the European nay-sayers, most significantly David Cameron. Yet, for pro-Europeans, it has left us down in the mouth.

However, this should not be our only reaction.

I believe the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty should be a time to start afresh, however painful it may be. Europe brings democracy to former Soviet-bloc countries, yet the EU institutions are undemocratic, and more importantly have a reputation for being so.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very in favour of EU membership. It is, in and of itself, a good thing. But it certainly could be more democratic. Firstly, we need a new treaty. This treaty could be the once-in-a-generation review of EU institutions that the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to be, and ground breaking where Lisbon wasn’t. We could have Commissioners who are drawn from the European Parliament. This would mean the largest group in the Parliament either leading a minority or coalition Commission, because proportional representation and the very wide electorate makes a single-grouping majority in the Parliament nigh on impossible. Having the Commission drawn from MEPs would give them a democratic legitimacy that Commissioners lack at the moment, and more importantly give their decisions a democratic mandate. Instead of having the President of the Council elected, why not have the President of the Commission elected for two terms of the European Parliament?

So where would the Commissioners who serve currently go? Mrs Thatcher once said that Jacques Delors wanted “the European Parliament to be the democratic decision making body, he wanted the Commission to be the executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate”. And that is, approximately, what I would like to see.

Let us think about it. Those who are currently employed as Commissioners understandably would be rather dismayed to see their jobs go. The expansion of the EU is meaning problems for the size of the Commission, and the current Council system is inefficient. Therefore, why not have a European Nation States Assembly, made up of appointees from nation states? It would be permanent and would retain a veto over certain controversial issues, such as defence, foreign policy, the economy and extension of powers, and votes in the Assembly would be based upon QMV). (I would also allow our Parliament to decide who our appointee was – I would have liked to see the late Robin Cook or Ming Campbell representing us in Europe, personally).

Finally, to reassure quite a few people, there should be a more effective check on the directives, regulations, etc. that originate from Europe. If a national Parliament challenges an EU decision, this must be subject to review, and discussions should be held to rectify the situation, rather than the optional review that was proposed in the Lisbon Treaty. I think the powers that the EU holds are about right, yet if it is the will of the Parliamentary majority, then it must be reviewed – not abandoned, mind you – but reviewed, so we can all come to a better conclusion.

I don’t claim to be an expert on European institutions, but I am passionately in favour of Europe, I think it is vital to our future success as a country and to global success in the next few decades, and I am not afraid to discuss, as we pro-Europeans often can be. And I believe greater democracy is a first step to persuading all European peoples that Europe is a good thing.

* Thomas Hemsley is a Liberal Democrat member.