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We’re very grateful to the caller who phoned on Saturday to inform us about Alan Beith’s impending milestone and celebratory ball.

Apart from that only one other person has phoned the podcast hotline 020 7617 7221 and left us a message.

I know that it’s a pranking LDV staffer, even though it sounds like an elderly confused gentleman - if I had thought it was actually an elderly confused gentleman, I’d have drawn a veil over it.

I’m making it public for one reason - to demonstrate the sound quality that can be achieved if you use a land line phone in a quiet room. I believe the dropouts and slight problems with quality we had concerning Alan Beith were more to do with phoning on a mobile in a slightly dodgy signal area (like the conference centre)

Although we have not had many takers for the Podcast Hotline 020 7617 7221, it is a service I intend to leave available, and publicise further over the summer. I’m hoping we can get regular guest spots from Lib Dems and their friends - from amongst our corps of councillors, from our parliamentary party, and from the ordinary member in the street. Our stats show that hundreds of people have heard the recordings made during conference, and I believe there is a demand out there for a sort of Lib Dem Radio, served through Lib Dem Voice.

As always, we are happy to hear your views. In particular, could we find a more friendly name for the service than Podcast Hotline?

 

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Conference Committee is very keen to hear from delegates what they thought about Liverpool as a conference venue. How was the arena? Were your hotels OK? How would you feel about holding an autumn conference there?

My view is that it’s pretty good already and will all be a lot better when the hotels onsite are completed, and the long walk is reduced. I’d definitely be happy to go back to Liverpool for an autumn conference.

The podcast has views from some conference goers - some of them slightly biassed in favour of Liverpool.

But the thread is open to you… what do you think?

 

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After a lengthy pause for a train journey home, a chance to edit the tapes very slightly, and the time taken to upload the file, Lib Dem Voice is very pleased to present a full recording of the proceedings on Saturday evening - including as an added bonus, a quick webinar from Lib Dem blogging expert Mary Reid.

Congratulations to winners Lynne Featherstone, Alix Mortimer, Jo Christie Smith and Betsan Powys.

A full list of all websites mentioned in the report will follow below very shortly is below Read more »

 

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Many thanks to the A Capella Glee Club, the handful of conference delegates who hadn’t had enough singing at the actual Glee Club by 1am and continued for a further two hours into the early hours of the morning, long after the staff had cleared away the chairs and shooed us out.   I always feel it’s not really Glee Club unless you’ve actually injured your vocal folds.

Here is the A Capella Glee Club (all 5ish of us) performing Glee Club classic “Losing Deposits”

 

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Hooray! Someone has phoned the Podcast Hotline 020 7617 7221.

Alright, so it’s a blatant plug for an event later in the year, but I have no objection to testing the technology this way.

EDIT: the event is now on FlockTogether.

 

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LibDemVoice kicks off our conference coverage with an interview with Colin Eldridge, Liverpool councillor and PPC for Liverpool Wavertree.

Last week, Lynne Featherstone launched a new battle against the establishment when she wrote to the equality watchdog following the birth of Viscount Severn, son of the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

As LibDemVoice’s army of monarchists will be well aware, when the Hon James Windsor was born, he knocked his elder sister Lady Louise back to 9th in line to the throne, just as a generation before, his uncle Prince Andrew took his elder sister Princess Anne’s place in the line of succession.

This change in the line of succession is the first to happen since the Equalities Commission was formed so Lib Dem Equalities Spokesperson Lynne Featherstone has written to them for a ruling, citing the step as a possible breach of sexual discrimination law through the recent enforcement of common law practice of male preference primogeniture in designating successors to the throne.

“This would appear to be a clear example of sexual discrimination gainst Lady Louise and an example of sexual discrimination taking place n a public institution,” she said.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour last week, she defended her actions against claims of frivolity:

To me, this is a glaring example right at the heart of British life that needs to be changed. There is an undisclosed war on women out there, and I’m fighting to free us.

The Woman’s Hour segment is still available as one of the BBC’s many podcasts. You can also find out more on Lynne’s own blog.

Alex Foster is not a constitutional expert and has only checked his Royal Family facts on Wikipedia. E&OE

The Guardian interviewed Nick Clegg down a dodgy quality digital line for one of their regular podcasts.  An excerpt appeared at in Thursday’s “Newsdesk” broadcast and the full interview is also available separately here.

Clegg makes clear he wants to use PMQs to test the PM on the issues that matter to real families and confesses that Vince Cable was a hard act to follow.

 

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Ming Campbell very kindly invited me and all the other local party chairs to a reception this evening, plied us with booze and nibbles, and gave us an opportunity to mingle and share best practice. Whilst many of us were at conference anyway, some chairs chose to come down specially for the reception.

The news of the WATO phonecalls was one of the hot topics. BBC Radio 4’s World At One had researchers phoning around many local party people like chairs to ask what they thought of the leader. They got Stephen Tall by email in August, and the survey continued.

I took along my trusty voice recorder - not as exciting as Stephen and Richard’s video camera - and asked a few of my contemporaries what they thought. You can hear what they said here.

 

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The latest Lib Dem Voice Podcast is an account of the Grosvenor Square to Trafalgar Square march, including a group interview with Chris Huhne, Simon Hughes, Ed Davey and Jo Swinson.

If you want to skip my guff, and jump straight to the interview it’s at 4:51 in.

This is my first serious attempt at Podcasting - so please be vicious in your criticism, and tell me bluntly what’s hot and what’s not!

You can find out more about the Lib Dem Green Tax Switch at www.greentaxswitch.com

Subscribe to Podcasts with iTunes

 

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In our final two Podcasts, Alex Foster speaks to Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat shadow Home Affairs spokesperson about his week in Brighton, and to Jeremy Hargreaves of the Federal Conference Committee, to hear about moves to make conference more accessible to the disabled.

It’s worth drawing out here the efforts the conference committee is going to to improve facilities for the disabled. Highlights include:

• All fringe venues wheelchair accessible
• One (adjustable) lectern for all speakers
• Sign language interpretation for 100% of debates and speeches
• A new fund to enable wheelchair users to attend conference

Finally, you can see highlights of each day’s debates on BBC Parliament: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

 

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Alex Foster gets the interview he’s been angling after all week. Well, nearly.

A little bird tells libdemvoice.org that net guru Tim Ireland is making a viral marketing campaign for the Lib Dems. It’s a short piece to attack the Tories and it should be crossing your web-browser in the next few days. Can hardly wait.

 

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Alex speaks to two well-placed councillors on green issues and the challenges the party faces. Carol O’Gorman, leader of North Wilts District Council and Steve Comer, the Deputy Leader of Bristol City.

Why is it that every council has a “Council Government and Democracy” page?

 

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Paul Buchanon, our deputy leader on Somerset County Council was very keen to talk of his council’s achievements in getting a green fleet up and running fuelled by grain grown within the County.

 

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This podcast is an example of the snowball approach to gaining support.  Alex pursuaded Chris Davies to speak into his recorder, and only moments later when the MEP’s phone rang, he snared Lembit Opik to continue with the interview.

 

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Alex Foster took the opportunity of eight minutes alone in a quiet corridor with Iain Dale to check his linguistic skills - and received an interesting proposition.

 

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Alex Foster, that’s who!

Catch Alex’s Podcast with Nick Robinson, recorded only minutes after Kennedy’s speech, below.

 

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Charles Kennedy got a standing ovation at the start of his speech, and another at the end. But he was denied the special treat Lib Dem activists bestow upon their leader - a round of applause every 15 seconds. Still, the reception was warm, affectionate even.

He reminded us of his success - 1 million new Lib Dem voters between 2001 and 2005. He urged us to uphold the principles of social liberalism, and to limit the role of markets in our public service policies. He called for the House of Lords to be renamed and elected using Proportional Representation. He called for a Welsh Parliament, and north of the border he urged us to help the next First Minister of Scotland be a Liberal Democrat First Minister. He ended by pleading with us to be the party of Europe.

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