28 Comments

• Millennim Dome 26th Mar '07 - 3:45pm

  Time for an ELEPHANT!

• Chris Keating 26th Mar '07 - 3:53pm

  I don’t think an elephant is quiet right… how about a nice kitten?

• Liam 26th Mar '07 - 5:37pm

  Ah this old question. I quite like the bird, it is distinctive and it is recognisibly “ours”. However it has barely changed in 20-or-so years and surely some kind of update is required?

  A branch from which the bird is flying? A more realistic bird design, dare I suggest a face? Something…dare I say again…”modern” ?

• Steve Cooke 26th Mar '07 - 5:53pm

  Perhaps we should just recolour it? green would be good.

• Jeremy Hargreaves 26th Mar '07 - 6:25pm

  Is there a reason for ditching the bird? Has anyone violently objected to it? Simply the fact that we’ve had it for a while doesn’t really seem to me to be a very good reason – in fact I think the opposite is true: the point of branding is to build up recognition over time, so chucking all that away doesn’t seem to me very wise! If we were deliberately trying to distance ourselves from the past (and there have been times in Lib Dem / Liberal history when that has seemed quite desirable…), but I don’t think that applies to us now. It does though explain why Dave has felt the need to replace the Thatcherite torch with a childish crayon squiggle, sorry, tree.

• Jonny Wright 26th Mar '07 - 8:15pm

  We are a caring and extremely cuddly cuddly party, but also tough, capable, and just a little bit wild.

  How about a baby polar bear?

• Meral Ece, chair, EMLD 26th Mar '07 - 10:03pm

  I’m for keeping it. When I canvass ethnic minorities who don’t always know the name of our candidate, I tell them ‘vote for the name next to the bird’ It works!
  If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

• Linda Jack 26th Mar '07 - 10:31pm

  well…………..the rose to some a symbol of love, to others a moribund plant covered with thorns and promising flowers that wilt and die……the oak, even more moribund, stuck in the mud, immovable and trapped in its own history……. the bird, beautiful, sings its own tune, can soar to the heights and is free……….hmmm, no contest really?!

• Duncan Borrowman 26th Mar '07 - 11:47pm

  I’ll vote for change when McDonalds ditch the golden arches or Rolls Royce ditch the RR symbol.

• Pink Dog 26th Mar '07 - 11:54pm

  Pink Dog anyone?

• Peter Bancroft 26th Mar '07 - 11:55pm

  I’ve been advocating a complete change of party brand for some years now, but the bird is the one thing that seems to me to really work.

• Tom Papworth 27th Mar '07 - 12:58pm

  This seems like a pretty one-sided poll. Do you just make this stuff up, Rob.

  “What spanner can I find to throw into the works today? Urmm… Ah! Bird!!”

  Seriously, though, I agree with Meral: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

• Tom Papworth 27th Mar '07 - 12:59pm

  Having said that, I think I might have just voted “Yes”. Oops! Buttermouse!

• Rob Fenwick 27th Mar '07 - 1:02pm

  Do you just make this stuff up, Rob

  No, it goes through an extensive process of working groups, focus groups, policy reviews and then finally conference approves the polls I run.

  How is running a poll which has given the bird a thumping endorsement throwing a spanner in the works? If you’ve got a better poll question for the future, please suggest it!

• Liam 27th Mar '07 - 1:53pm

  As the theme seems to be “keep the bird but modify it”, then maybe an extension of this poll should be “What improvements can be made to the existing bird emblem?”

• iainD 27th Mar '07 - 4:01pm

  We could have National versions of bof:
  Thistle in it’s beak for Scotland;
  Leek in it’s beak for Wales;
  Olive branch in it’s beak for the Alliance Party and a burst football in it’s beak for England!

• It's a two-horse race 27th Mar '07 - 6:05pm

  Keep the bird! But change it to brown – Mark Oaten once made this suggestion.

• It's a two-horse race 27th Mar '07 - 6:07pm

  You could, of course, have a man with a shotgun aiming at a dog…

• Angus J Huck 27th Mar '07 - 10:43pm

  A great idea for a Tory Party logo – Reginald Maudling accepting a bribe from John Poulson. Or how about Boothby in flagrante with a rent boy supplied by the Krays?

• Liam 28th Mar '07 - 6:50am

  IainD has a point (no, wait, bare with me) about the national versions. I’d accept the need for English, Scottish, and Welsh versions, after all that would reflect the federal nature of the party.

  I’d suggest a rose for England, though, IainD

• Paul 28th Mar '07 - 3:49pm

  We should use the old Tory freedom torch!

• Matthew 1st Apr '07 - 6:06pm

  I regularly shop with a Liby-bird canvas bag acquired at a Conference in Blackpool a couple of years ago… and in the past two years, three people have come up to me and said “I recognise that logo on your bag – are you a Liberal Democrat?”

  I confess the truth of course.

  It’s appropriate to keep the bird, as after the 2009 general election when we enter a coalition with the Conservatives, our birdy can perch in a branch of the tory green tree.

• Bird Watcher 7th Apr '07 - 10:30pm

  We should have a bird flying to the right with a very small left wing for Tory areas and a bird flying to the left with a very small right wing for Labour areas. In Nationalist areas we are probably going to be shot down in flames anyway. But perhaps tartan and dragon scale versions could be developed?

• Manc Boy 11th Apr '07 - 9:42am

  How about a rat

• Chris Paul 13th Apr '07 - 10:15pm

  Manc Boy – I didn’t send you here to say “How about a rat?” although the Chorlton Fibber is trying a rat on his this time round. Some nonsense about it being a Labour rat … but we all know that if you’ve got rats you get in a cat like my killer Tilley and you don’t get in a silly bird called Fibby. Fibby on a Fence makes quite a good combination though.

• Rob Fenwick 13th Apr '07 - 10:17pm

  Oh Chris, Chris, Chris – you’ve been hawking that pic all over the place for days now. It’s good Photoshop, congratulations, it’s just a lame gag which is why no-one, from any party, is laughing!

• Ryan Cullen 14th Apr '07 - 1:22pm

  Rob, it’s not even a good Photoshop.

• Rob Fenwick 14th Apr '07 - 2:57pm

  I was being generous