[The Alternative Vote] is very similar to first-past-the-post in two key respects. Because it is based on single constituencies – a virtue for its proponents, who say they prize the constituency link – the parties continue to select one candidate each, and the voters only have one choice for each party.

That means that in the majority of parliamentary seats, the important decision about who should be the MP will continue to be taken in party caucuses rather than at the public ballot box. Although most MPs will have to reach beyond their tribal base to get the second preferences of other parties – an important discipline on unpleasant characters and behaviour – the choice for the voter remains very limited.

Compare AV in this respect with the Liberal Democrats’ preferred option, the single transferable vote (STV), which is the system used in the Republic of Ireland, Scottish local government and in most Northern Irish elections. Each multi-member constituency has three to five members of parliament, so that each party has the incentive to put up two or more candidates. The voter therefore has the choice not only of party, but also of person.

Such a system is clearly the most liberal: it gives the maximum opportunity to the voter to express their preferences, and reserves the minimum power to the party machines. It is perfectly adapted for the world of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Unlike AV, voters can stick with their party and vote for a “clean” MP or for an MP who shares their particular enthusiasms. With AV and first-past-the-post, voters have to change party to punish an individual MP. …

Conservative opposition to electoral reform gives the lie to David Cameron’s pretence that he wants real change, and Labour’s half-hearted commitment to the alternative vote is just a deathbed conversion from a party facing a historic defeat at the ballot box. Not only does AV fail to give voters the power they should have, but it also fails to remedy the unfairness of the present system.

You can read Chris’s article in full here.

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 together to discuss face-to-face their merits in order to create a list of ideas which is then opened up to the public’s vote for winnowing down to a final list.

The selection of proposals up for vote are an intriguing cross-section of the different hobby horses ridden by different groups : English votes on English laws is right there next to proportional representation, directly elected Mayors listed alongside holding a referendum on the Euro.

That gives the process a real strength – and gives an extra incentive to vote, as most people will find not only ideas they like but also at least one idea that they don’t.

The way to ensure it doesn’t get through? Why to take part and vote for other proposals that you do like of course.

In my case, the proposal I don’t like is the allowing a “None of the above” option on the ballot paper.

This can come in two flavours: one where “none of the above” can actually win an election, with no-one getting elected, and one where it can’t.

If it can win, it means we’ll end up with some people living in seats without elected representatives.

That not only gives power to the unelected instead (governing won’t stop; it’ll just be done more by unelected people), it means people who voted otherwise get their representation stripped away from them.

One person shouldn’t be able to vote to deny another person having an elected representative.

So perhaps then “None of the above” works best where the votes for it are tallied, but someone gets elected anyway?

But that turns it into a superficial process: let people express their view and then ignore it.

Having officially declared “None of the above” totals may make people pause and think for a moment or two about the importance of raising turnout, but it’s not as if anyone is short of information on that score already.

So “None of the above” is not for me. If you don’t agree – then go and vote for it, and if you do agree - go and vote for other options.

[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 this. When a jury acquits it may do so for all sorts of reasons. One may be that it thinks someone was probably guilty, but not “beyond a reasonable doubt”. But another is that it has decided that there is no credible evidence at all for the case.

Imagine the situation where you have been framed for a criminal act, but the truth comes out in court, the jury is completely convinced that you are innocent and you are acquitted. Can you really, hand on heart, say that in such circumstances you would be quite happy for someone to say that all your acquittal means is that “at most all the court has done is decide you didn’t do it beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Wouldn’t you feel that use of “at most” greatly underplays how you have in fact been fully acquitted, without any doubts?

Sometimes people are wrongly charged and fully, without doubt, acquitted. It is a shame that your guidance is so reluctant to admit that.

Fair dos, the ISA spotted my post, is taking up the correspondence issue with the Home Office and (most importantly) sent me the following response from Sir Roger. It sounds promising about the ISA’s future attitudes towards innocence meaning innocence:

Can I firstly personally apologise for the delay in replying to your email. I am conscious that the ‘why and wherefores’ of the reasons for the delay will be of no interest to you suffice to say that as soon as I became aware of your concerns I have replied.

I think you raise a very valid point and thank you for doing so. The thinking behind our approach to court findings is to ensure where appropriate we consider ‘acquittals’ that may in fact have occurred when (for example) a vulnerable witness finds themselves unable or unwilling to give evidence in court. This is not an unusual occurrence for victims of the types of abuse that the ISA deals with and we think it right that in such cases we should at least consider the evidence available to the prosecution.

Equally, I cannot imagine circumstances where the ISA would take a different view to the court in the circumstances you describe. The court in such circumstance has been unequivocal on their finding of innocence.

In addition, I am sure you are aware that if we are ever considering barring a person then (by law) we have to share with them all the information on which we rely in order that they can make comment.

A decision to treat an acquittal differently (to that of the court) would only be taken in very limited circumstances and always only after the case had been reviewed internally and at a senior level.

I take the point entirely about the wording in our caseworker guidance. We are currently reviewing sections of the guidance and I will ensure that your comments are ‘fed into’ that process.

I am grateful for you taking the time to contact me and am pleased that our decision to publicise our guidance notes is also helping us to ‘fine tune’ them.

There’s no doubt that the big issues around the ISA’s existence and method of operation are beyond the reach of an individual letter from A.N.Other member of the public, but as regular readers will know this is by no means the first time when a missive targeting an important matter of specific detail looks to have hit the mark.

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 growing or shrinking in the first half of this year, let alone what its size and growth rate will be in the middle of the next Parliament. So while a party’s general election manifesto should have sums that add up and give a sense of economic policy, the details on page 12 of exactly what is planned to be done will almost certainly be swept away by reality being far less predictable than required for that level of policy detail to really mean much beyond the first few months in power.

Immediate post-election budget plans certainly do matter – and any party deserves criticism if they try to get through an election without say much on that score. But beyond that?

The details of what Alistair Darling, George Osborne or Vince Cable say they would do two years in to the next Parliament may sound good but it’s principles which will be the surer guide to what ends up happening. Their principles and personalities are what will generate new policy as events unfurl and predictions turn into inaccuracies.

That is nothing new. It’s related to a point, in fact, which Charles Kennedy often made. The issues on which he, William Hague and Tony Blair campaigned in 2001 turned out to have very little relation to the major issues that dominated politics in 2001-5. Tuition fees and Iraq most notably were major issues in the Parliament but almost completely absent from the preceding election.

Understanding Tony Blair’s personality – and the moralistic sense of duty fuelled by his religious beliefs, as evidenced over Kosovo – would have been a far surer guide to Labour’s subsequent foreign policy than the details which happened to be highlighted on page 39 of the 2001 Labour manifesto about Labour and the UN. (“We support a more modern and representative Security Council, with more effective peace-keeping” since you ask).

Tony Blair’s religious beliefs take us in to uncomfortable political territory. Few criticised him (or Alistair Campbell) for so determinedly keeping his religious views out of political discussion – and indeed many preferred it that way. But understanding how he saw intervention in Kosovo and Iraq as being a moral imperative, regardless of how others say their morality leads to very different views, matters far more than the incidental detail of one policy paper or another.

Recognising the importance of personalities and beliefs shouldn’t mean open season on anything a politician has done in the past – but understanding the person, their personality and the judgements it will produce, is a surer guide to whether or not you’ll get the policies you want over the full Parliamentary cycle than the putative decisions laid out in a policy paper as if the future will be predictable and unsurprising.

The Tories were today forced to recall a consignment of hybrid policies following widespread complaints that their economic model failed when it encountered bumpy or slippery surfaces. The party is already facing criticism over the recent recall of many of its other policies, including marriage tax-breaks, which have been affected by the potentially dangerous acceleration towards an election.

The Tory leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne are due to give details of their latest recall today, and on most other days leading up to 6th May. “We’ve tried applying the brakes,” they admitted, “but the end product was a disastrous U-turn.

The party is battling to save its economic reputation, where it faces mounting criticism of its handling of the crisis by the Tory grassroots and Daily Telegraph.

Analysts accused the Tories, which waited weeks to discuss the model’s defect after the first complaints were reported in the media, of being in a state of denial. “The problem is,” explained one, “that the party never road-tested its economic model. Cameron and Osborne just hoped nobody would ask any tough questions. The problems date back years, and no-one has seriously addressed them. They just hoped better marketing would con the public.”

He added: “The real worry must be their loss of market share, especially with competitors like Nick Clegg and Vince Cable proving more robust and reliable, knowing when to brake and when to accelerate. Put it this way: who would you trust? The Tory party whose economic model isn’t road-worthy and has to be recalled at the first sign of trouble. Or the Lib Dems whose steering has proved so accurate?”

That’s not at all what you see in Conservative literature. Across many seats the Tories have all but given up promoting their local campaigning credentials, or selling their candidate as the best person to be the MP. True, you’ll always find a few token stories, but the vast majority of material hitting doormats promotes Cameron, and Cameron alone.

Most of their firepower pushes the message that we need a Conservative MP in the constituency to ensure Brown is kicked out. Your vote could be the one that propels Cameron into Number 10. David Cameron needs you! Yes, YOU!

Have the Tories accepted they can’t compete with the Lib Dems on the basis of how good the local MP or candidate is, how hard he or she works for local people and how strongly they campaign?

Perhaps. The changes in election expenses rules also encourage parties (especially wealthier ones) to put out material that doesn’t mention the local candidate. It then counts towards the generous national expense limit in the long campaign, not the lower local expense limit.

But it does seem to me – from what I’ve heard about seats across the country and polling evidence of how people view their own MP – that it isn’t just down to election expenses; that Lib Dem MPs and target seat candidates do tend to work harder and be more engaged with their communities than those of other parties (though, of course, there are exceptions on all sides).

I suspect it’s down to a combination of the culture within the party and the reality that the Lib Dems don’t have many safe seats.

Will the Conservative approach work? If people simply vote for the party leader they want to run country, it should do. The idea that, whichever constituency you live in and whatever the local politics, we really just want someone who’ll troop obediently through the voting lobby to get our preferred party leader into power, has been accepted for over fifty years.

But that assumption is increasingly being challenged. If it were true, Chris Huhne should already be conceding defeat in Eastleigh, but as Stephen Tall reported yesterday, the reality on the ground is very different.

Will the “vote Tory to get rid of Labour” message work in all those Lib Dem/Tory marginals? My hunch is it won’t be enough.

It’s partly because the old orthodoxy appears to be wrong. When they have a good, hard working MP connecting with local communities and doing an excellent job, a large proportion of people will vote for her, whatever they might think of her party leader and who might or might not find themselves in 10 Downing Street.

It’s also partly because Nick & Vince are well enough respected that the prospect of a hung parliament with Liberal Democrat influence will be a plus to a significant proportion of people (though that might change if the other parties succeed in their quest to make it sound really scary, and successfully portray Brown and Cameron as incapable of leading a minority or coalition government).

This year sees the Tories’ first real chance to win a General Election since 1992 and all the evidence so far is it’s going to be tight. It’s an excellent opportunity to test the hypothesis. When it comes to the crunch, in the privacy of the pulling booth, will people vote for the local champion, or will they plump for the lobby fodder? Roll on polling day.

On this day 60 years ago, United States Senator Joe McCarthy launched his anti-communist crusade, with a speech accusing more than 200 staff in the State Department of being members of the Communist Party.  On 9^thFebruary 1979, England and Birmingham City forward Trevor Francis signed for Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest for £1 million, the first UK footballer to move for a seven figure sum.

Today is also the third anniversary of the death of actor Ian Richardson CBE, best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Conservative politician Francis Urquhart in the wonderful House of Cards trilogy.

2 must-read blog posts

Lib Dems must embrace the Alternative Vote while they can

Ewan Hoyle explains why he believes that  not only is AV a better deal than STV, it’s the only deal likely to be offered:

So STV is far from perfect, but what of AV, the electoral system that is actually on offer? Firstly, I should explain that the polls you see in the media on voting intention aren’t opinion polls. They are likely behaviour polls. Every election carried out under FPTP* does not encourage the public to vote honestly for the candidate they favour. AV would grant us the right to vote for the party whose policies we genuinely support without fear of “letting the wrong one in”. I for one will support honestrepresentation whenever it is offered to me and I ask all Lib Dem MPs to do the same.

Some Explanation of Parliamentary Privilege and MPs’ Prosecutions

A very detailed and helpful discussion of parliamentary privilege and its possible use by errant MPs, from one of our favourite barristers, Anthony Hook.

The privilege issue is not about the facts of the case as such and is not a defence.  The point is justiciability:  is the subject matter something the court is legally entitled to adjudicate upon?  Does the court have jurisdiction to declare criminal an act committed in a sovereign Parliament?

2 big stories

MPs to vote on electoral reform

Today will see MPs vote on whether they would like to see a referendum on electing their future colleagues and successors by Alternative Vote.

The Independent reports that Gordon Brown is braced for a Labour rebellion today against AV, but that the Prime Minister looks likely to win a comfortable majority in favour of holding a referendum on electoral reform, after securing the support of the Liberal Democrats.

The Guardian carries Chris Huhne’s accusation of hypocrisy against the Conservatives, over their opposition to electoral reform. The Tories use AV for their own internal party elections, and without it they would have elected David Davis as party leader, rather than David Cameron.

Service deaths in Afghanistan now exceed those in the Falklands

The number of service personnel killed in Afghanistan has now reached 256, exceeding the number killed during the 1982 Falklands War. The conflict in the South Atlantic lasted for just 74 days, and also claimed the lives of more than 600 Argentine military personnel and three civilians from the islands.

At the Telegraph, Falklands veteran Simon Weston relates why he believes that the only similarity between the battle he was involved in 28 years ago and the one raging in Afghanistan today is the number of those who have now died in each.

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 by former Conservative whip David Maclean. As with the other vote, the bulk of the blame for the outcome rests with Labour MPs, but given David Cameron’s very strident and personal rhetoric, it’s worth taking a look at quite what his own party’s record is beyond just David Maclean’s role.

This time there were 19 Conservative MPs who supported keeping their expense claims secret (18 who voted plus 1 teller).

And what’s been the fate of those 19?

Not done some of their careers any harm as 7 out of 19 are now Conservative frontbenchers, including four whips:

• Peter Atkinson (Conservative Whip)
• Simon Burns (Conservative Whip)
• James Duddridge (Conservative Whip)
• Julian Lewis (Shadow Defence Minister)
• Bob Neill (Shadow Local Government Minister)
• John Randall (Conservative Assistant Chief Whip)
• David Ruffley (Shadow Home Affairs Minister)

By the way, praise should be given where it’s due and whilst I’m not normally a fan of John Redwood, he along with James Clappison, Philip Hollobone, John Maples and Richard Shepherd, should be congratulated for having joined Liberal Democrat MPs and a handful of Labour rebels in voting to have freedom of information rules apply to MPs’ expenses in that vote.

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 really say for sure that party X is up, but frankly it’d be pretty tedious to say there’s no news from the poll we’ve just paid good money for, so let’s just gloss over that and all pretend we are sure party X is up”.

Some of the better journalist (take a bow, Julian Glover at The Guardian) often give a wider context to a poll which helps highlight what is really going on.

But I’m impressed that The Times has actually gone as far as making this point explicitly.

Ironically, for all the media’s love of US politics at other times, this is one respect in which we’ve not copied US habits and should have: the US media are generally much better at making clear that, for example, a small lead is actually a statistical dead heat.

But perhaps the UK is starting to catch up. And I suspect The Times will do rather well in my next monthly round-up of how newspapers are doing at reporting their own polls.

If you’re not familiar with statistical significant think of tossing a coin ten times. Suppose first time you get four heads and the next time you get six heads. Does that mean someone has switched the coin in between each set of ten? Of course not. It’s just chance. But if you got o heads the first time and 10 heads the second time, that’s looking more like there was a switch. It’s the same with opinion polls. Because they poll a sample of the population, a change between two polls may be down to chance. It’s only if the change is big enough we can be pretty sure it means something has actually changed.

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.

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 the lot has been Westminster Council, who not only sent me off on wild goose chases claiming that a box is TfL’s responsibility (when it isn’t) and then that it’s BT’s (when it isn’t) but also in both cases left it to me to contact BT and TfL. All round Westminster so far don’t seem too bothered that staff give out wrong, and at times flatly contradictory, information and nor does Westminster Council seem to feel it has any responsibility for ensuring such utility boxes are kept in good repair. Instead they view it as a matter for the utility company and me.

Which is where Clause 81 of the New Roads and Streets Act 1991 comes in useful. In short, the law says that firms who plonk boxes on our pavements have to look after them, and if they don’t the local authority responsible for the pavements can take legal action. The local authority also has the power to carry out work itself if the company doesn’t.

Westminster so far seem curiously unaware of this legal power, so in case anyone else has run into trouble with other councils unwilling to make use of the power the law gives them – or is unaware of it – you can find the relevant clause to quote at them here.

The Hampshire railway town is 11th on Mr Cameron’s target list; the Liberal Democrats’ majority of a little more than 500 should be easily within reach.

But is it really?

… the Tories are by no means certain to win Eastleigh. Lib Dem strategists believe Chris Huhne, the sitting MP, will easily hold the seat – a view privately shared by some Conservatives. …

Eastleigh is the kind of seat that defies the traditional “swingometer”. Like many Lib Dem MPs, Mr Huhne has dug in, building a reputation in the national media and as a local campaigner. He says he has dealt with 13,000 pieces of casework since the last election. “I might not always be able to help, but people know I’ve tried,” he says. The party has a ruthless local organisation and almost complete control of the local council – a factor often underestimated by the national media.

Mr Huhne argues that the absence of a strong local Conservative councillor base in his constituency seriously reduces their ability to campaign on the ground. “There is only so much you can do with an air war,” he says, referring to national media campaigns.

I’m on the record as saying I will eat my hat – and it’s a very nice hat – if Chris doesn’t retain Eastleigh. The FT mentions Chris’s strong campaigning record, and the Lib Dems’ sustained record of success on the council (one of the few Lib Dem groups to continue to make gains even when running the council). Add to that the first-time incumbency bounce Chris should achieve – not least thanks to those 13,000 pieces of casework – and it would be a brave person who bet against the chances of the two-time leadership challenger.

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:

• Blah blah who would you do a deal with blah blah blah.. on Steph Asley’s Dib Lemming blog.

Really, really, REALLY tired of every time a Lib Dem has any airtime, the only thing the interviewer keeps asking is what the party would do in the event of a hung parliament.

• Why don’t the Conservatives trust local democracy? on Nich Starling’s Norfolk Blogger.

Why should an MP for Surrey East be allowed to make planning decisions about things in Norwich?

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 Lib Dem Stories

Lib Dems reveal £63bn PFI bill for the NHS

Figures released by the Lib Dems have revealed that the NHS is facing a £63bn bill for PFI hospitals which are only worth £11bn. The figures also reveal that:

· The first payments for hospital PFIs began in 1999 and the NHS still owes £58bn on 106 PFI contracts over the next three decades
· The NHS will have to pay back £7.3bn in PFI payments over the next Parliament alone (2010-2015)
· The most expensive PFI contract was for Wythenshawe Hospital where the NHS will pay back 16 times the original capital value

Lib Dem shadow health secretary, Norman Lamb, had this to say:

“These figures reveal the disastrous reality of Labour’s stewardship of the NHS. We’re entering into one of the most difficult financial periods in the NHS’s history and this Government’s legacy will be a mountain of debt.

“Despite the enormous amounts of money we owe for these hospitals, many of them will never end up in public ownership. Hospitals all over the country are mortgaged to the hilt and there are serious concerns that these repayments will lead to cuts in vital services. We need a new approach to public services in this country. By setting up an infrastructure bank the Liberal Democrats will ensure that key projects get access to the funding they need to revitalise our economy.

“The Liberal Democrats will change the way the NHS works so that money goes further and patients come first.”

Kirsty to probe ‘abusive’ Lib Dem Welsh AM claim

From Wales Online:

WELSH Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams yesterday pledged to uncover the facts behind allegations Montgomeryshire AM Mick Bates verbally abused staff at the University Hospital of Wales. She said that Mr Bates had no memory of such an incident and was continuing to suffer problems from a severe head injury he sustained when he fell over in the street.

Ms Williams, speaking on the last day of her party’s spring conference in Swansea, said: “We don’t know the facts – we need to get to the bottom of this. My understanding is that Mick was knocked unconscious and suffered a severe head injury – which he’s continuing to have problems with.” …

The former science teacher plans to stand down from the Assembly at next year’s elections but the outcome of the investigation is likely to determine whether he can remain chairman of the sustainability committee. It is understood he met early with his Welsh party leader yesterday before leaving the Swansea conference. He was unavailable for comment last night.

Update: Paramedic claims Lib Dem AM Mick Bates assaulted him (BBC News)

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:

Their predictive model works on a three-month lagged structure; i.e. their model uses current information and says “if a General Election were held in three months time, here’s what the result would be.” That is because according to their work, looking at previous general elections, the situation in terms of figures such as leader ratings and government satisfaction three months out from polling day has provided a reliable guide to what then happens on polling day….

The forecasters explain: “These forecasts are based on the Ipsos MORI polling data gathered mid-October (16-18). The key variables from which our votes and seats forecasts are derived are the average approval rate of the government and PM (27.5) and the approval rate of the leader of the opposition (49.0) measured three months before an hypothetical election.”

But with the most likely election date being May next year, there is yet time for those ratings to change before we get to three months out from the election and the point at which the prediction gets ‘frozen’.

Further details of how the prediction is calculated are in my November post.

Thanks to Richard Nadeau and colleagues for providing the predictions.

- whether you think the end of the recession will benefit Labour;
- will the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war be a ‘whitewash’;
- John Terry’s sacking as England captain;
- what the Lib Dems should do in the event of a hung parliament;
- whether you think the Lib Dems should include a manifesto commitment to an in/out Euro referendum; and
- what you think of Nick Clegg’s leadership and the performance of prominent Lib Dems and the shadow cabinet.

It should take no longer than 5-10 minutes to fill in. All registered members of the Forum should by now have been emailed with a link to take you to the survey. If you haven’t been yet, or if you are signing up to the Forum now, please drop Ryan Cullen a line at

We’ll publish the results within the next week or so. You can access the results from our previous LDV members surveys by clicking here.

Don’t forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

1. Election Results 4th February 2010 on John Hemming’s Web Log.
Two losses to Labour, two gains from the Tories.

2. THE WORKING CLASS CAN KISS MY A***, I’VE GOT A LABOUR SEAT AT LAST on Wit and Wisdom.
Not a fan of Austin Mitchell: “a selfish, small-minded ’socialist’ of the old school”. And on Mark Oaten: “the image of the good LD activist”.

3. Vince predicts gains in North on Birkdale Focus.
Vince speaks

4. Standing Down and Defection on Stephen Glenn’s Linlithgow Journal.
Lib Dem PPC Fred Mackintosh’s hopes in Edinburgh South grow; while the SNP lose one of their own to Labour.

5. Iain Dale: Churlish or Rattled? on Simon Wilson’s blog.
You mean we have to choose?

6. Vince tells of Tory abuse on Birkdale Focus.
A reminder that the Tories were more united in support of the Iraq war than Labour.

7. By-election news: Where we mess up, we lose by John Bridges on Lib Dem Voice.
Some bad local election news in a “dreary February week”.

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. As is now traditional we’re using the LibDig bookmarking website for party members to select some of the posts from the seven days in question which you’ve most ‘dug’. But, remember, if you want to highlight a Lib Dem blog article published in the past seven days – your own, or someone else’s – using the steam-powered method of e-mail all you have to do is drop a line to (providing the web-link and author, and any tagline comment you care to have published).

8. Will libertarian bloggers ever grow up? on Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England.
“A call for libertarian bloggers to grapple with the Big Issues – education, foreign policy, social services – and drop their alcohol/gambling/smoking “get out of my room Mom!” obsessions.” (Submitted by stephenftall via LibDig).

9. Tories Twitter Rules for Twits on Andrew Reeves’ Running blog.
“Andrew Reeves highlighting how the Tories are trying to implement a command and control structure regarding social media for their parliamentary candidates. Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?” (Submitted by MarkThompson via LibDig).

10. Conservatives Caught Lying About Crime on Andreas Christodoulou’s blog.
“In other news, water caught flowing downhill and cows have been caught eating grass. You can catch Chris Grayling on BBC iPlayer talking about this, by which I mean squirming out of the fact that he’s blatantly just been lying through his teeth.” (Submitted by a.christodoulou via LibDig).

11. Southport Conservative Civil War-the story so far on Birkdale Focus.
“Sit back, grab a hot chocolate and follow the story…” (Submitted by mark.pack via LibDig).

12. By-Election In Owlsmoor Includes Mark Reckons on the Bracknell Blog.
Very good luck to Mark Thompson in is by-election on 25th February.

And that’s it for another week. Happy blogging ‘n’ reading. And join us next week as the Golden Dozen enters its fourth year.

Featured? Add this to your blog post!

<a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-golden-dozen-155-17859.html"><img src="http://www.libdemvoice.org/images/golden-dozen.png" width="200" height="57" alt="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" title="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" /></a>

A hung parliament might frighten the markets, but according to Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, the concerns are “completely and totally irrational”.

The Lib Dems point out that many of the world’s leading economies, including Germany and Italy, hold elections that almost always produce results where the leading party has to do deals with smaller parties. They add that some countries with single party governments, such as Greece, have some of the worst records in dealing with fiscal crises, while multiparty coalitions, such as the one in Sweden in the 1990s, conducted fierce fiscal controls.

The paper quotes Vince saying, “Our own approach to fiscal policy is at least as robust as that of any other party.” It also notes the Lib Dem deputy leader’s advice that having a broad political consensus will be vital for any government trying to push through the inevitable painful cuts of the next few years.

The FT makes a fair point of its own, mind. The uncertainty the markets fear is not that the Lib Dems if allowed into government will let control of public spending rip; rather “the possibility that a minority government would be forced to hold another election within months”.

True enough. Of course, there’s an easy solution: proportional representation combined with fixed-term parliaments would be more likely to allow the formation of a stable coalition which commanded majority support and able to govern for up to four years. Now if only there were a party proposing such a policy …

If you want a picture to appear next to your comments you need to do two things.

1. Visit Gravatar.com, create an account and upload a picture.
2. Post a comment, ensuring that your email address that you’ve used on Gravatar is the same one that you’ve put in the comment field.

Feel free to post test comments below.

Nick Clegg answers the top 10 questions posed by Reddit.com users as voted by users of the site. (You can see all of the questions posed to him here).

(Also available on YouTube here).

BBC reports Tory shadow home secretary Chris Grayling gets into trouble for using misleading crime statistics. Sara Bedford covered the story for LDV here).

And, finally, Boris Johnson does the hokey-cokey … seems he always wants to go one better than his party leader, who preferred to stick to the cokey:

(Also available on YouTube here).