Today’s he’s in the headlines for an interview in The House magazione with Paul Waugh and Sam MacRory in which he likens Lib Dem MPs to ‘cockroaches’ (hard to get rid of) and ‘nutters’ (because of how hard they work and campaign). He’s also pointed out the obvious: that however buoyed we all are by the win in Easleigh, we face an uphill task as a party:

The party is in a critical state. We may well be cockroach-ish, but we shouldn’t take that for granted. One day someone will stand on us if we are not careful. We shouldn’t assume our survival is guaranteed. Nick’s a good leader, a very, very popular leader within the party and nobody else has had to withstand the kind of pressure that he has and the scrutiny, and whoever was in that position would have to be dealing with all that and I think he’s dealt with it brilliantly.

The language is colourful: that’s Tim for you. He could give dull, measured interviews that are risk-free. But it’s not his way. And I don’t think many activists would want him to be anything other than himself. It is precisely because Tim is un-spun, a straight-talker who takes his role as ‘honest broker’ between the party’s membership and its leadership seriously, that he’s popular. Whether that schtick is one that would work as well as leader is a question he’ll need to think hard about, assuming he one day wants to be leader (and I think he does).

Anyway the interview is a terrific one, well worth reading in full: here’s the link. He talks about Eastleigh, the Rennard allegations, tactical voting, the party’s lack of women MPs — and the Tories:

What David Cameron has not understood, what William Hague got so wrong, is that saying things that the man in the pub tends to chime with doesn’t win you an election. Because those people when they’ve sobered up realise it sounds ridiculous. The other thing is UKIP prove that their vote is not just about Europe at all. It’s a general discontented, broadly right wing but not exclusively, protest vote. So Cameron is fighting the wrong issues.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

“If I’m going to be sort of self-critical, there was this reduction in capital spending when we came into the Coalition Government. I think we comforted ourselves at the time that it was actually no more than what [former Chancellor] Alistair Darling spelt out anyway, so in a sense everybody was predicting a significant drop off in capital investment. But I think we’ve all realised that you actually need, in order to foster a recovery, to try and mobilise as much public and private capital into infrastructure as possible. … Wherever we can we’ve got to mobilise more capital investment … The economic evidence is overwhelming. It helps create jobs now – people go onto construction sites. It raises the productive capacity of the economy in the longer run.”

Five points are worth making here:

1) Nick’s right.

I agree with Nick’ self-criticism of the Coalition. But it’s important to note two things. First, there’s a difference between capital spending (fixed-term spending on infrastructure, such as railways) and revenue spending (ongoing financial commitments, like pensions). Nick’s admission relates specifically to the former. Indeed, the vast majority of the Coalition’s deficit reduction has come from cutting investment, rather than from slashing current spending — as this graph clearly shows.

2) He’s also right Labour would have done the same.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), and a trenchant critic of the Coalition’s deficit reduction strategy:

Of course, not all this is the government’s fault. The previous government also planned to slash investment spending.

3) But why?

Why did politicians of all stripes go down this route? Two reasons, I think:

First, it’s the ‘easy’ option. Cutting capital spending doesn’t provoke public anger in the same way cutting front-line services does: people don’t miss what they haven’t got. None of the parties identified anything near the scale of revenue cuts needed at the last election (as I reported here in April 2010):

No party has set out how it will tackle the deficit in full: the Lib Dems have gone furthest in being open and honest with voters, identifying over 25% of measures needed, ahead of either the Tories (17%) or Labour (13%).

And secondly…

4) Economists’ views have changed on this

A crucial component of deciding whether cutting capital expenditure could be justified is the ‘fiscal multiplier’: ie, how much the economy shrinks as a result of cutting the deficit.

The Coalition banked on the multiplier being neutral-to-low. They found some comfort in the views of most mainstream economists, including the OBR, Bank of England and NIESR, which reckoned the multiplier was approximately 0.5 which meant the impact of the Coalition’s deficit reduction would be “significant, but not disastrous” (to quote Jonathan Portes).

But then just last October the IMF revised its view. A lot. It now estimated the ‘fiscal multiplier’ to lie in the range 0.9 to 1.7. Portes again:

The IMF have now definitively sided with those who think that tightening fiscal policy quickly and sharply had a very large and negative impact.

5) You have to spend the money well

As I wrote in October:

Quite simply, investment is the easiest tap to turn off if you’re a politician looking to reduce the flow of spending in a hurry. All parties looked too eagerly for a quick fix to the deficit believing the economy was on the mend anyway. Moreover, both Tories and the Lib Dems in particular took the view — not unreasonably in some cases, including the flawed Building Schools for the Future programme — that too much was being spent on prestige capital projects for too little gain.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

“State aide cuts to the heart of the big debate which is rippling though our country at the moment which is about our future within the European Union. I have to say that this whole issue of raising again in a fundamental way British membership and the terms of membership is a massive disruption and deeply unhelpful in my job. I have to spend my time talking to business people, British and international, trying to have the confidence to invest here and create employment and the recent uncertainly is just deeply uncomfortable for the country. I think the warning shot across the bows yesterday from the United States was actually quite helpful as well as very timely.

“The core of the debate, at least on the economics side about the British membership, is the role of the single market and it’s worth remembering why that’s important here to the UK. First of all it is the part of the European project that the British, more than anybody else, helped to create and shape. It is extraordinarily historically important because if we look back at the history books and the interwar period, whenever there has been a financial crisis there have been 3 phases: the collapse of the banks, the financial runs of the kind we had in 1989, all was followed by a deep recession all was followed by nationalism and protectionism, and it’s the single market rules that prevent that historical precedent from being repeated again…”

It’s a powerful argument — the more so as Vince is, within Lib Dem ranks at any rate, one of the more Eurosceptic politicians.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

Sir Cyril Smith became the latest public figure to be accused of abuse today after residents at a boys’ hostel described how he made youngsters strip, fondled them and smacked their bare bottoms for punishment.

Two former residents of Cambridge House hostel in Rochdale have gone on the record for the first time to tell PoliticsHome.com how former Liberal MP Smith treated them as teenagers in the 1960s.

Barry Fitton, who was 15 at the time, said that the former Rochdale MP punished him by bending him over his knee and hitting his backside with his bare hand. Afterwards, Smith told him to lie on a bed and stroked his buttocks. On another occasion, Smith subjected the teenager to a ‘medical’ that involved him feeling his thighs and testicles. Another former resident, Eddie Shorrock, who was 17 at the time, described how Smith, who founded the hostel and had keys to its premises, also gave him a ‘medical’ whenever he took time off work. He was made to strip and display his genitals.

Rumours about Smith’s conduct circulated for years but until now, all of his accusers have remained anonymous. Current Rochdale MP Simon Danzcuk is set to highlight PoliticsHome’s new evidence during a debate on child protection in the House of Commons today, with calls for a fresh inquiry into the claims. Several of the boys at the hostel later made formal complaints to the police but no action was taken. Police files intended for the Crown Prosecution Service seemingly went missing in the 1970s. Smith, who was in his mid thirties at the time of the alleged incidents, died in 2010.

You can read the article in full here.

Three big things I’ve got wrong since I’ve starting blogging and commenting – ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie confesses to a trio of big errors on the NHS, higher-rate tax and equalities: “One of the many reasons I don’t want to be an MP is that I think this sort of ability to think openly and reflectively is probably impossible when you are standing for office.”

David Walsh: ‘It was obvious to me Lance Armstrong was doping’ – A fascinating look in the Press Gazette at how one journalist’s gut suspicions played out… not that I’m a huge fan of ‘this smells funny’ assertion-journalism, but I recognise you need some counterbalance to ‘fans with typewriters’-journalism.

It’s drugs politics, not drugs policy, that needs an inquiry – Simon Jenkins’ annual article on the need to liberalise our failing drugs laws, ‘the greatest failure of modern statecraft’.

Tory realism on Europe will not survive Cameron’s leadership – The New Statesman’s Rafael Behr’s prophesy: ‘David Cameron will be remembered by history as, among other things, the last leader of the Conservative party to support British membership of the European Union.’

Labour’s lost voters – Peter Kellner in Prospect speaks the truth politicians and party supporters prefer to duck: ‘overall, the range of opinions held by Labour, Tory and Lib Dem voters is far more similar than the parties, and their media cheerleaders, generally acknowledge.’

Immigration and business: A harder road – The Economist looks at how the Tories’ obsession with capping the numbers of skilled migrants threatens the UK’s global economic standing: ‘A poorly constructed migration target is putting Britain’s long-term economic health at risk.’

Clear Visions – The House’s Sam Macrory and Paul Waugh interview the cerebral and generally liberal Tory higher education minister, David Willetts: ‘he sometimes seems more at home in Vince Cable’s company than some of his own party.’

Liberal Hero of the Week #18: Theresa May & Michael Moore – find out why I reckoned the Home Secretary and Scottish Secretary deserved CentreForum’s accolade this week.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

We asked: Would you support or oppose David Laws making a return to government at the next reshuffle?

• Yes – to a cabinet post 58%
• Yes – but only to a non-cabinet post in government 14%
• No – he should not return to the government at the next reshuffle 21%
• Don’t know / No opinion 7%

In total, then, 72% of Lib Dem members in our sample wanted to see David Laws return to a ministerial post in the Coalition government, with most wanting to see him return to the cabinet 18 months after he was forced to resign. However, a significant minority, 21%, opposed his return, at least at the ‘next’ reshuffle (as it then was). You can read a sample of the comments received from members below.

Nick Clegg was asked directly about a return for David Laws in Paul Waugh’s excellent interview for The House magazine — here’s how he replied:

Speaking of possible ministerial reshuffles, would he bring back David Laws at non-cabinet level if needed? “I’m not wildly hierarchical and David certainly isn’t. It’s one of the many things that I like so much about David, he’s a sort of an unusual combination of being a politician but actually quite a modest character, which you don’t find very often in politics. David is not after status. What I would like to see David do is to be close to the centre of power in one shape or form with, ideally, quite a broad view of government policy, because I think he’s got an ability to see the connections between policies – which is quite unusual.”

So though David may not have returned officially to the heart of government in Friday’s reshuffle, we can be pretty sure unofficially he’ll be there or thereabouts regardless.

Those are Nick’s thoughts; here are some of our party members’:

Running the country well is more important than some pretty trivial personal tomfoolery. If he’s the right person for the job, give him the job.

David Laws is an exceptionally capable individual that should be central to our government and its achievements.

No objection to him being in government per se, I’d just rather we kept some of our best people available to be Lib Dems rather than government spokespeople.

A very gifted man, but his ethics and integrity were found to be incompatible with his position.

He does not represent the kind of liberalism I generally support, but he is probably our most intelligent and competent MP and deserves a place at the Cabinet table.

Good man, but I’d like someone less right-wing in the cabinet.

There is no doubt that David is immensely talented and would make a valuable contribution to government. But I would prefer that he remains outside of the government, supporting the Lib Dems in government and looking to the future and the 2015 election.

He is valuable and, writing as an older gay person, I know the fear that some folk have of being “out” – I had this once. He has been punished enough.

His resignation shouldn’t have happened, but I see why he did it. Bring him back.

But much as I would love to see David back in the Cabinet, can we PLEASE have a woman LD Cabinet minister first!!!

We can’t afford to waste talent like his although I’m sure he is playing a major role behind he scenes

David Laws is a clever man who behaved stupidly. He’s paid the price. He’d be an asset in Government – provided he’s not turned Tory-Lite.

Should not return to government until he has been re-elected as an MP.

He’s a talented man but his re-appointment would play badly when the public still regards most politicians as corrupt.

He’s the brightest and the best MP we have. Bring him back!

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

The UK has no equivalent, but (as PoliticsHome’s Paul Waugh notes) the Parliamentary Press Gallery lunches are the nearest equivalent. And today was Nick Clegg’s turn to convey a serious message… whilst landing a jab or two. So, who was in Nick’s sights? Step forward Labour’s troubled leader Ed Miliband, and one-time rival Chris Huhne.

Here’s how Paul relates it:

Nick Clegg didn’t disappoint. Like all his predecessors, he managed to give us hacks what we want: a news story and some excellent gags.

The best feature of making gentle jokes at colleagues’ expense is that you can of course hide more than a grain of truth in the humour.

He had a neat joke about Ed Miliband and Ryan Giggs: “One’s a fading left winger who’s upset his brother. The other’s a footballer.”

But it was the DPM’s line about Chris Huhne – “Whatever people say about Chris Huhne, I don’t know any politician better at getting his point across” – that was a classic.

Clegg admitted that it was a bit of “belated revenge” for Huhne’s own coining of the phrase ‘Calamity Clegg’. That was way back in 2007, so this certainly was a dish best served ice cold.

Then again, it must also underline just how safe Huhne is that the DPM can afford to make such a joke. The odds on Huhne being charged by the cops are lengthening by the day.

Clegg was also keen to ram home his claim that it’s not progressive to maintain a record deficit, something he described as “a form of intergenerational theft”. His line about Plan B standing for “bankruptcy” was a strong hit back at Ed Balls.

But it wasn’t all jokes, as the Guardian relates:

Clegg said he believed his party would eventually reap the electoral benefit of the tough decisions taken over the past year, but admitted he did not like some of the measures he has had to implement in government as part of the drive to eliminate the deficit by 2015. “There are things we are having to do which we would rather not,” he said. “I don’t relish having to make these very big cuts and savings.”

Nick’s biggest regret? Not surprising: tuition fees, and in particular the Coalition’s inability to sell a higher education package that will cost all graduates less in repayments than the current system of fees introduced by the last Labour government (and if you don’t want to take my word for it, click here).

As Paul Waugh notes Nick lamenting:

“Have we failed to get across the message that they are a kind of time-limited graduate tax? Yes. Bluntly, we clealry haven’t got that message across. We have failed to explain [it]“

At the height of the row over tuition fees, the Lib Dem leader calling them a graduate tax would have been a bit of a story. (Indeed Cable was barred by the Treasury from using the t-word).

Clegg’s lament certainly reflects the view of many in his party that the Coalition should have sold their policy as a graduate tax to win more support.

Which is a punchline that won’t raise many laughs in the Lib Dems.

Yet at the heart of the Yes campaign in last week’s AV referendum seems to have been a big mistake: trying to run a grassroots campaign to win a national contest.

Grassroots campaigns can pick off parts of a country. Grassroots campaigns can win when there is no national opponent (cf the campaign against the government’s forestry proposals last year – a very effective use of grassroots mobilisation, but not up against a direct opposing campaign). Grassroots campaigns can also raise the funds that fuel national media and advertising campaigns (cf Barack Obama and his mamoth TV advertising spending for the 2008 Presidential contest).

But where a grassroots campaign is up against a national media and advertising campaign against it, grassroots are not enough.

In its own terms, the Yes campaign’s grassroots efforts were very impressive: dominating local media coverage for the much of the campaign with local events and stunts; huge numbers of volunteers brought into the campaign; impressive online donation figures and levels of web traffic that easily beat the No campaign.

There were, inevitably, some mistakes too – especially  in the very small number of different leaflets available which meant that even where there were people willing to regularly deliver an area it was extremely hard to do more than a couple of deliveries – and frequently the idea was that one leaflet would make a difference. (Just as doing only the one leaflet so often results in someone winning a Parliamentary election. Oh, hang on…)

But even without any of those mistakes none of that would have amounted to nearly enough in the face of a national politician speaking out in the national media. The headline polls moved when David Cameron started speaking out as Tory voters shifted heavily to the No camp in response. The No campaign may have run an extremely intensive online get out the vote campaign, but by then it didn’t really matter.

The combination of David Cameron and the Daily Mail is not a sure-fire election winner by any means (see May 2010 for a start), but the answer does not rest with street stalls and tweets in a national contest.

Of course you cannot magic ideal supporters out of thin air, but in the end it mattered far more that so many Labour MPs, peers and councillors did not follow Ed Miliband’s lead, that no Conservative MPs came out unequivocally for a Yes vote and that only the usual suspects amongst media outlets backed a Yes vote (and many of them half-heartedly).

There are many things political parties and campaigners can learn from the grassroots and online efforts of both sides (as Paul Waugh has pointed out) but the most important is a reminder of the limitations of both.

Today it is Andrew Reeves, who blogs at http://andrewrunning.blogspot.com.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
In 1984 Ken Clarke gave me an award at a thank you party for delivering leaflets for him. In front of the 200+ people there he also asked me if I wanted to join the party – and in front of them all I said no! I was pleased he’d won but said that the more I had got to know the party I realised why I couldn’t. He was somewhat embarrassed!

2. When did you start blogging?
Tuesday 15 May 2007.

3. Why did you start blogging?
I worked for Lynne Featherstone from just after the 2005 general election until the end of 2006, before becoming one of the two London Campaigns Officers. I was amazed Lynne found time to write her own blog posts so this was my initial inspiration. I also signed up to run the Great North Run in 2007 and so wanted to use it for a training diary.

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
I cheated here, I asked some friends for their five words – here is a selection: friendly, personal, prolific, timely, political, caring, liberal, sharp, punchy, researched, readable, passionate and straight-talking.

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
I’m a social liberal democrat.

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
I enjoyed writing this, not because I was suspended from Twitter, because to be honest that was a nightmare, but thanks to the support shown by the online community, inside and outside the Liberal Democrats:
Andrew Reeves is still suspended on Twitter – but the support is awesome

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I love reading Caron’s writing, because unlike my shoot from the hip and rant style, Caron is more methodical and this shows in her writing. In this post Caron highlights the hypocricy of the Labour party while still maintaining decorum – perfect:
Labour didn’t love NHS Direct

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
I don’t particularly bother with YouTube, but this was my favourite ever:

9. Which bloggers, writers or thinkers inspire you?
Sara Bedford, Mark Pack and Caron Lindsay are the main three I read. I also read Paul Waugh and Olly Grender‘s pieces. Lynne Featherstone continues to inspire me, now a minister, a little more than before. Jeff Breslin (SNP Tactical Voting as was) is one of my favourite non-Lib Dem writers.

10. Give us a surprising fact about yourself:
I was a DJ in a gay pub (Admiral Duncan) and club (L’amour then Club 69) in Nottingham before leaving my home town in 1987/8.

You can see all our posts featuring Liberal Democrat bloggers here.

But no, her complaint was that, as Paul Waugh reported, the government is spending money buying artworks that will then be displayed in public buildings and visible to visitors rather than giving money to arts organisations.

Yup, the complaint was that rather than directly supporting artists by buying their work, the government should be giving money to organisations. Not complaints about the sort of art being purchased, who it is being bought from or on what terms; just complaints about buying art rather than giving grants to organisations.

Support for individuals bad, support for organisations good. Rather a touch of the New Labour love of the client state there – get people dependent on organisations, make organisations dependent on public funding and bingo, you’ve got a coalition to support your view of what the state should do.

With an impressive cast of contributors, including Peter Riddell, Carolyn Quinn and Michael White, the book has plenty of insider information, presented usually in the style of lively anecdotal chats. This is not a tedious career advice book nor a studious academic tone but rather something that gives a flavour of what it is like to be a political journalist and how to get there.

MP Adam Holloway’s contribution is the one that turns sour on political journalism, explaining how he became so disillusioned with coverage of himself that he not only ceased writing a column for the local newspaper but also stopped sending out local news releases.

The chatty style makes the book an easy read to dip in and out of, but does come at the cost of some questions being glossed over. In particular, there is a steady supply of anecdotes about how journalists managed to make the news, such as by prompting a thought in an MP, but beyond the banter there isn’t any consideration of the more serious ethical issue of how often a journalist should be making, rather than reporting, the news. For people considering entering the profession, a more direct discussion of ethics would not have gone amiss.

That many of the contributors have had long and successful careers means necessarily that they cut their teeth before the internet age upended journalism, but contributions towards the end – including an excellent one from Ivor Gaber – give a flavour of how the internet is changing the way journalists operate. It is instructive just how often reading blogs features in the brief “week in the life” of James Landale, though again a new person to the profession might perhaps have been well served by a piece majoring on whether, and if so how, to use the opportunities offered by blogging and Twitter. People such as Benedict Brogan and Paul Waugh have shown how these tools can be used to enhance reputations and make connections to help further journalism careers.

These are, however, reasons to read other books too rather than not to read this collection, for Sheila Gunn has put together an entertaining and enlightening easy-to-read introduction to the profession of political journalism.

You can buy Sheila Gunn’s So you want to be a political journalist? from Amazon here and So you want to be a politician? is also available. My chapter for the latter is available online for free.

Certainly better to pick from the front page than the back page, as announcing a barcode would have been lacking a little in interest (except, perhaps, to one of my former economics lecturers, who once tried to persuade us that the checksums on barcodes matched up with a warning from the Bible and predicted an imminent Second Coming).

That however wasn’t the only major policy was a distinct Liberal Democrat flavour to it. So too was the news about pensions. As Stephen Williams MP put it, “Proposals for a £140 flat rate pension, together with the Lib Dem commitment of restoring the earnings link, will ensure our pensioners get a fair deal”.

Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s previous strange absence from the debate was put to rest when he announced a series of pieces of good news on the Green Investment Bank: starting a year earlier, £2 billion more in funds and, crucially, it can borrow. As Paul Waugh put it “Big victory for Cable”, not to mention Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, who had taken the lead in settling the internal debate over how much powers to give.

Amongst the details was success for the long-standing Liberal Democrat calls for water rates relief in the South West, though overall the details did not add up to a particularly green budget, Green Investment Bank aside. The IFS’s initial analysis is that, “The Chancellor also insisted that green taxes will rise as a proportion of total receipts. This remains the case on current Treasury forecasts, but by the narrowest of margins”. Some of the non-financial measures, such as the new standard for zero-carbon homes, give the Budget a greater overall green tinge than the pure financial numbers show. How deep that tinge is will depend on how measures such as the presumption in favour of sustainable development pan out when the details are settled.

Here’s the email from Nick Clegg to party supporters about the Budget:

Today the coalition government has announced a budget that will return the UK to sustainable and balanced economic growth and which puts helping Alarm Clock Britain at its heart.

We are increasing the income tax threshold by £630 to £8105; lifting hundreds of thousands of low income earners out of paying income tax and putting £126 back in the pockets of low and middle income earners. This is in addition to the last budget that took nearly a million of the lowest income earners out of tax and made millions of hard working individuals £200 better off. We are making a real difference in people’s lives – from the front page of our manifesto to people’s back pockets.

Alarm Clock Britain will be further helped by the measures we have taken to give motorists a fairer deal. We are shifting taxation away from the pumps and onto the broader shoulders of the oil companies instead – with fuel duty being cut and taxation on oil companies rising.

At the same time we are making the wealthy pay their fair share with increased measures to tackle tax avoidance, higher charges for non-doms and a special tax on private jets. This budget also places green growth front and centre – the Green Investment Bank will begin operation next year with £3bn of capitalisation, delivering an additional £18bn of investment in green infrastructure by 2014-15.

We were left a toxic economic legacy by Labour with a record deficit and debt. Under Ed Balls Labour have no answers and solutions to the mess they left. The difficult decisions we have taken in government have rebuilt confidence in Britain’s ability to pay its way, kept interest rates lower than they would otherwise have been, and have provided the stability that business and individuals need to invest in the UK’s economy.

There are no easy decisions in this budget. But we are delivering a budget which will mean that that those who can pay more will; and those who are working hard to make ends meet will get a helping hand. This budget is progressive, green, liberal and what our country needs at this time.

Earlier in the day Danny Alexander took to YouTube to talk about the Budget:

Today, Nick Clegg can bask in last night’s AV Bill victory, delivering an historic referendum that could possibly see his party in power for a long time.
But the DPM can also celebrate having played a key role in a string of other areas being discussed today. On each issue, you can judge his success by the irritated reaction of the average Tory backbencher.

Paul helpfully lists welfare reform, gay marriage, green policy, growth, the AV referendum and more.

Go ahead and read He Who Libs, Wins.

The Voice also has a copy of Lib Dem Deputy Leader Simon Hughes’ letter to party members in his constituency:

The end of this half term has been an excellent time for Liberal Democrats in Westminster and in government.

Just before midnight last night the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Act became law, and the referendum date of the 5th May was given the green light. For the first time ever the British people will have the chance to vote for a fairer voting system for the UK Parliament. I hope progressives everywhere will now start campaigning to make sure there is a resounding success for the ‘yes’ campaign.

This morning the government made clear that the Welfare Bill which was published today will change some of the plans announced last summer and much for the better. In particular, and thanks to the firm view of Liberal Democrats and the determined advocacy of Nick Clegg and Steve Webb, the plans to deduct housing benefit for people who have been out of work for a year have been dropped. I have made it clear for months that this was a necessary change if this legislation was to have Liberal Democrat support.

Earlier this afternoon the Environment Secretary made a gracious and complete admission that the government should start again in thinking through our policy for forestry and woodlands in England. If this government is to gain the reputation we all wish as the greenest government in British history, than a different strategy for ensuring access and biodiversity was clearly needed. The government has listened to the voices of the public and has shown that it is willing to change its mind.

Also this afternoon the Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister has announced that civil partnership registrations will be able to take place in religious buildings with the agreement of the faith group in question. This is clearly the right thing to do.

We all know that these are still difficult times for the British economy and difficult times for the British people. As a party our priorities remain to rebuild a healthy and sustainable economy and create a fairer and more liberal Britain.

We will apply all our efforts to achieve these objectives over the five years for which we have been given the responsibility and the privilege of being part of the government of Britain.

Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes has been quick to make plain his outright opposition to the proposal, telling the Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh:

“The ideas put forward by David Cameron this week in no way represent the policy of the coalition and certainly do not represent the policy of the Liberal Democrats.

“We will not let anybody have their homes taken away. We must continue to suppport established and cohesive communities where people have the security of knowing that they will continue to have a home.”

Mr Hughes is convinced that the issue will now feature at the Lib Dem annual conference next month (in the form of condemnatory motions from the grass roots, I suspect).

“I’m sure that Liberal Democrats from all over the country will look forward to discussions with our coalition partners over these proposals and fully expressing their views. Labour floated this idea and quickly withdrew it because it had been badly thought out.”

He added that it was “perfectly proper” to have a debate about tenancies but warned the biggest priority was to build more homes.

Paul also has an interesting account of the behind-the-scenes discussions:

I’m told (not by the man himself, I stress) that Mr Hughes ‘exploded’ last night when he heard of the Cameron words.

He had first got wind of the controversial proposal recently when Andrew Stunnell flagged it up in the party hierarchy. He warned ministers that the party should ‘not touch this with a bargepole’ but it seems there was confusion as to whether Nick Clegg was alerted of the concerns.

Crucially, Hughes appears to have been assured that no announcement was going to be made on the subject until after discussions within the coalition.

It seems, therefore, that Mr Cameron was speaking purely in a personal capacity, and not on behalf of the Coalition Government.

To most people watching this is not a surprise. The Lib Dems’ opposition to the Iraq war, which was supported by both Labour and the Tories, is pretty well-documented, I think it’s fair to say. The fact that the Lib Dems and Conservatives have reached a coalition agreement does not alter the past, nor does it alter politicians’ individual views. Why should it?

And yet the response from some journalists has been to label this a “gaffe” – a term otherwise known as a politician saying something he believes which a journalist hopes to be able to spin into a story.

Indeed, it’s interesting to see how a story like this can develop. For example, the first notice I can see taken of Nick’s “illegal” comment was by the Spectator’s James Forsyth. While praising the Deputy Prime Minister’s performance he noted:

Clegg has long called the invasion of Iraq illegal. But it is a different matter to do so when standing in for the Prime Minister and speaking from the Treasury bench in the House of Commons. That implies it is the official position of the government, with all that entails.

I’m not entirely sure it does imply that. But it’s interesting how this musing by Mr Forsyth becomes concrete fact by the time The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland refers to it:

As some Tory observers have already noted statements offered at the dispatch box during PMQs have the status of government policy. Are we now to understand that the coalition regards the 2003 invasion as “illegal”?

I think Mr Freedland’s question can comfortably be added to John Rentoul’s ever-expanding list of ‘Questions to which the answer is no’.

But first prize for hyperbolic over-egging the pudding has to go to the Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh, who suggests today was the ‘Worst day yet for the coalition’, and then lists a desperately thin series of speculative and pedantic snippets to justify his OTT-ness.

I have just started reading Nicholas Jones’s absorbing account of the general election, Campaign 2010. He makes the telling point of quite how out-of-the-loop the media commentariat were during the creation of the coalition, quite how irrelevant to the whole process they were.

It strikes me they’ve never really caught up, perhaps never wanted to. The Coalition doesn’t fit within journalists’ trite-and-tested formula that ‘government splits’ are news. Yet everyone knows the government is split. The public understands there are two different parties in government (compared with two different factions during the Blair/Brown years) and doesn’t expect us always to agree, and certainly not on issues which divided us in the past, such as Iraq.

The media’s inflated response to Nick Clegg’s utterly unsurprising statement that the Iraq war was “illegal” tells us much more about the banal quality of political reporting in the Westminster Village than it does about supposed tensions in the Coalition.

Here’s the speech which got this reaction:

Thank you so much for inviting me to speak to you today. It is a real honour to be here.

You don’t need me to tell you that the job you do is one of the most important jobs there is.

You are the lifesavers as well as the shoulders to cry on. You are the healers and well as the comforters.

Politicians have the chance to make a difference once in a while. You make a difference every day, if not twenty or a hundred times a day.

You, as nurses and as a profession, have my respect, my admiration, and my utmost commitment to support you and the work you do in our NHS.

The RCN itself, of course, is the largest organisation of its kind in the world, and also, I might add, the best.

I met a group of student nurses a few months ago when they came up to Parliament on the RCN bus.

And today, I’ve come here to the RCN on the Liberal Democrat campaign bus – the most glaringly bright yellow vehicle you’ve ever seen.

It’s a particular honour to be here because you are leading the way in addressing the challenges in the NHS, setting the example politicians must now follow – something I want to discuss in more detail in a moment.

And you are making your voice heard on the political stage, with your Nursing Counts Campaign.

You are right to say that NHS services must be protected.

That if the axe falls on caring staff, it will cost us all more in the long term.

And you are absolutely correct to highlight the importance of public health and specialist nurses, to help us keep people healthier and manage long-term conditions more effectively.

One particular proposal you are making caught my eye: protection for whistleblowers.

Just before I was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats I went on a march with a Manchester nurse Karen Reissmann who had spoken out about her concerns over the provision of treatment in her local area and had been summarily sacked.

Though I clearly didn’t make much of an impression as she’s now standing for another party.

But there’s a simple principle: nurses need to be able to highlight their concerns without fear and without threat of retribution.

You see what is going on: you must speak out, and when you do, you will always have my support.

Whether it’s community nursing to improve public health and reduce demand on the NHS, or specialist nursing, from rheumatology to mental health, to take the burden off consultants, and GP follow-up appointments and improved patient care.

Your skills, initiative and ideas are going to be essential to the changes we make to ensure the NHS services people rely on are protected even now that money is tight.

I could tell you about the wonderful nurses in our local surgery, or in our local hospital, who have cared for my three sons on countless occasions.

I could tell you about the nurses who helped my wife Miriam just this weekend when she fractured her elbow.

But the truth is the only thing that is remarkable about my experiences in the NHS is how wholly unremarkable they are. I am just one of millions.

Parents turning up at A&E in the middle of the night with a sick child in their arms.

People going through months or years of chemotherapy in the battle against cancer.

Others finding a route out of depression or addiction with counselling and care.

Every experience is different, and yet each is the same.

The NHS is not a faceless institution but the sum total of millions of individual, acts of care and support.

The brainchild of a Liberal, Beveridge, the NHS was founded on a series of fundamentally liberal, and fundamentally British values.

Fairness. Equity. Solidarity. Those principles endure today. Rightly so.

It is something that perhaps too many of us, too often, take for granted, but which must never change.

The NHS is a precious inheritance. It must not be cast aside.

I am wholly committed, head and heart, to keeping our NHS, free to use and paid for by us all. But you and I also know that’s the easy bit to say.

The real question that politicians now have to answer is not: How much do you love the NHS?

It’s how do you protect and improve the NHS at a time like this when money is tight.
There will be 3.5m babies born in over the course of the next five years – 100,000 more than in the last five.

How do we guarantee they will be born as safely as babies born today?

There will be an extra 1.7m people in need of long term care by 2026.

How do we guarantee they will get the standards of care available today?

There are new treatments and new drugs for diseases like cancer being developed every day.

How do we ensure a publicly funded NHS can afford to make world-class treatment available for all?

And how do we do any of this when there is less money to go around in all our public services?

I believe we can and must protect services and jobs in the NHS.

But we can only do so if we face up to the realities of the situation in which we find ourselves.

I could have come here with promises of bags of gold, but you would not have believed me. You live in the real world. You know, we all know that money is now tight.

The deficit now stands at £167bn.

And we all know that finding bucketloads more money for health at a time when budgets are tight could only come at the cost of other equally essential areas like schools and police.

So you know we have to find ways to help the NHS do more with the money it already has.

And you are rightly sceptical, as you said at the weekend, of promises from politicians that do not face up to those basic facts.

And do not acknowledge that cuts are not something that might happen in the future but something that is happening, right now.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies this morning assessed the parties’ policies on the deficit and taxation.

And concluded that the Liberal Democrats’ plan is the most credible – even if there’s still much more work to do, we have gone further in spelling out how to cut the deficit.

The most fair – we will put money in the pockets of people who need a break by raising the income tax threshold so that no one will pay a penny of income tax on the first £10000 they earn.

A proposal which the IFS has specifically said is the best way to encourage people to move off benefits and into work.

The old politics is to make unfunded promises and hit you with surprises after the election.

Our way of doing things is to be as open and upfront as possible about the challenges we face and how, together, we can start to fill the black hole in the public finances and deliver fair taxes to millions of people who need a break.

We need a new, different approach to the way money is allocated and used within the NHS.

That is what I want to talk to you about today.

I want to talk about our plans to help the NHS work better with the money it has by devolving power to patients, to local people and to staff like you.

Plans mirrored in many ways by the approach of my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament for the Welsh and Scottish NHS – both of which face similar if not greater pressures than the NHS in England.

We will look for efficiency and unnecessary programmes of spending wherever they lie. But because the NHS faces exceptional demographic pressures, savings we identify within the health service will be diverted, penny for penny, pound for pound to areas of the NHS which have been starved of cash, or could be in future years.

Areas like dementia, where demographic pressures are high, cancer, where the costs of treatment are rising, and mental health, which has been a Cinderella service within the NHS for far too long.

Our working assumption is that we will stick to the government plans for NHS funding.

That doesn’t mean trying to do the impossible: more with less.

It simply means spending money where it is needed, not wasting it elsewhere.

Just think of the mistakes that have marred the impressive record of investment in recent years:

A grandiose IT project running years behind schedule and billions over budget.

GP and consultant contracts poorly negotiated with no clear benefit for patients.

And an endless cycle of botched reorganisations of the endless quangos, boards, trusts and agencies that make up our health services.

An NHS which has more administrators, managers and clerks than it does hospital beds.

Government figures show it would take one person 491 years to provide all the data the government agencies demand from health services each year.

Last year filling in those forms cost the country a total of £1bn, enough to pay the salaries of more than 25,000 nurses.

Just imagine how different – how much better – our NHS could be if this were changed.

My vision for change in the NHS is a liberal one.

It’s about dispersing power – to patients and to clinical staff.

You know as well as I do that the NHS is over-centralised and still driven far too heavily by targets and bureaucracy.

And you know, both as people who work in the NHS and as people who use it that patients themselves have too little control, both over their day-to-day care, and over the direction and priorities of the NHS as a whole.

So I want to give more power to local people.

More power to staff and more power to patients.

First: local people

In the last 13 years, increases in public spending have been accompanied by the politics of big government.

More money has been given – and Liberal Democrats welcomed that decision wholeheartedly.

But it was given on the condition that central government got to decide how to spend it.

Central directions, onerous inspections and a myriad of bureaucratic targets. Micromanagement, waste and skewed priorities.

These are the hallmarks of a Labour NHS.

Liberal Democrats will radically change the way the NHS is run by devolving power to local people.

I want to turn remote PCTs that answer to the Secretary of State, into accountable Local Health Boards answerable to the people who use the local NHS.

Two thirds of the members directly elected by local people and the final third indirectly elected representatives from local councils.

Let me assure you: this isn’t a proposal for yet another reorganisation of NHS structures.

I know – I hear it all the time from everyone I meet who works in the NHS – that you are sick to the back teeth of restructuring.

Our proposals will not put you through another pointless cycle of change.

What we want is for the existing structures, Primary Care Trusts, to become democratically accountable.

A responsive NHS should have a central structure, of course, but it should not dictate local needs – it should respond to them.

The signals shouldn’t always go downwards, in the form of orders, targets, rules and regulations.

The signals should go upwards, from patients, from communities, from doctors, nurses and local managers who have the perspective to understand what is best for individual patients’ needs.

But it’s not enough to devolve power to the health board level.

We should go further still.

Labour has finally moved towards a set of entitlements for every patient, and I want to see that idea implemented in full.

Under our proposal, where a health service provider fails to deliver those entitlements they will be legally obliged to pay for that treatment in whichever facility can provide it – inside the NHS or outside.

We know this can work because we’ve seen it work in Denmark.
Their entitlement system has driven up efficiency standards as state hospitals do everything within their power to avoid paying for treatment elsewhere.

It will do the same here. Saving money and improving standards.

And then, we need to empower individuals with truly personalised health services.

I welcome the changes the government is making to move in this direction.

I want to see more direct payments and individual budgets for people with chronic, long-term conditions – and in mental health services, in particular, where care still lags too far behind.

That means allowing health service users the opportunity to take much more control of managing their own care.

By giving real choice to the individual, we can empower that patient and allow them to shape a care package for themselves – a package that suits their individual wants and needs.

And nurses, especially specialist nurses, will be right at the heart of delivering those new kinds of care.

In the community, in surgeries, in hospitals – you are the people who the NHS will rely on more and more in future years.

The final step to reform is to put more power into the hands of you, the people who serve our NHS.

I know this is politically fashionable right now.

Even Labour, who took power away from front line staff, is eager to make promises.

The difference I can offer is simple: employee empowerment is a fundamental liberal principle.

Liberal Democrats are not fair-weather friends, promising more freedom one day, and threatening more rules the next.

The idea of devolving power away from Whitehall, away from managers, and to the public servants who are the heart and soul of the NHS goes to the core of everything we believe in.

We will put front line staff in charge over their ward or unit budgets. A change Nursing Standard has long been campaigning for.

We will allow staff to establish not-for-profit social enterprises or John Lewis-style employee trusts to run services of all kinds within the NHS.

We will let diversity and flexibility flourish within our health service.

And we can assure you: this will be a permanent change, not a temporary blip in an otherwise unrelenting stream of centralisation.

Nine months ago I launched a consultation exercise called Ask the People in the Know.

A website where public servants themselves could submit their ideas for delivering the services they know best – for less.

Cutting out the waste that only those on the front line see.

For far too long, governments of both old parties have sought to change things with commissions or reports researched, written and implemented in an office in Whitehall.

I wanted to turn that conventional wisdom on its head.

Instead of commissioning an expert to spend a year writing a report on inefficiency…
I asked the people who already know. We were inundated with responses.

Hundreds of people – dedicated public servants – putting forward their ideas from small changes to procurement regimes to major proposals to abolish duplication between regulatory agencies.

I want to ask the same question again today to you.

This weekend the RCN rightly said that unless change happens in our NHS, the savings needed will be delivered by sacking staff who are so desperately needed to deliver care.

And that will cost us all more money in the long term.

So how do we make the savings we all acknowledge are needed?

From Whitehall, a Liberal Democrat government can cut bureaucracy and streamline quangos. And we will.

We will scrap Strategic Health Authorities, saving £140m a year from management costs

We will help PCTs cut their management and admin costs back – in real terms to what they were in 2005, saving £800m a year.

We will decentralise the NHS and cut the central department in half – saving £100m a year.

And we will cap NHS chief execs’ pay, so that none earn more than the Prime Minister.

From government, too, we can use pay restraint to keep pay costs under control, and so protect jobs.

We will seek pay restraint with fairness.

Our proposal is very different from those of the two other parties.

I reject the idea from the Conservatives of a blanket pay freeze for all registered nurses.

But I reject, too the idea from Labour that you give a 1% pay rise to everyone, meaning an extra £1000 a year for a chief executive on £100,000, but just £190 extra

for a nurse just starting out on his or her career.

That is deeply unfair.

We propose a cap on pay rises of £400, so that the little money there is for pay increases is shared fairly.

Going to nurses who need it not consultants and senior managers who are already very comfortably off.

Every nurse earning less than £40,000 will be better off under our pay plans than under either of the other parties.

And while I do believe there needs to be reform to public sector pensions we will not remove a penny of entitlements you have already built up, and for which you have worked so hard.

So: cuts to central bureaucracy and restraint on pay: these are essential.

And the money will be diverted, penny for penny, pound for pound to areas of the NHS which have been starved of cash, or could be in future years.

But it is still not enough to protect the services we rely on. We can and must do more.

I was heartened by the report of the NHS Institute which identified £3.6 billion of efficiency savings that could be made if less efficient Trusts performed better.

Changes like reducing pre-operative bed days, increasing day surgery rates, and increasing the numbers of patients who turn up for their appointments.

The only problem is: I can’t make those things happen. Only you can.

So tell us how.

We need to change the way power flows in the NHS.

You should be telling us how to run it, not the other way around.

Central bureaucrats, hidden behind closed doors, do not know how to cut the fat without cutting into the services people need.

You do.

It is only the skills, innovation and ideas of the nursing staff of our health service that can protect it from the cuts you fear.

This is a time of real change for the NHS.

Let us make sure it is change in the right direction.

The NHS will not survive if we do not, together, take time to listen to the people who count, who work in the NHS, and then deliver savings which make sense.

By turning the NHS on its head, letting power flow up from you to the hospital boards, the local health boards and on, up to Whitehall, I believe we can protect the NHS we all rely on, even at a time when money is increasingly tight.

That is the change the NHS needs.

And nurses can and must be at heart of making it happen.

The Conservatives think they can improve education in this country by making the teaching profession “brazenly elitist” but it looks like they haven’t done their homework. David Cameron’s latest wheeze would actually exclude Carol Vorderman, the Tories’ own Maths Taskforce chief.

David Cameron made a speech today at a south London school, outlining Conservative pledges:

The Tory leader said he wanted to make teaching the “noble profession” and would bar students with a poor degree from taking government cash to train for the classroom.

And in what was almost certainly a conscious echo of Labour rhetoric, Mr Cameron said: “Good education is the right of the many not the privileged few.”

Michael Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary, went further in confronting head on claims that the Conservatives’ policies favour the better off.

An incoming Conservative government would be guided by a “moral purpose” to make opportunity more equal, he said, adding that it was a ‘scandal’ only 79 boys in receipt of free school meals achieved three ‘A’s at A-level nationwide compared with 175 pupils from Eton alone.

“It’s a scar on our conscience and we are pledged to reverse it,” said Mr Gove.[Times]

However, “breaking open the supply of education” won’t be achieved by discouraging graduates with lower classes of degree.

The Think Politics blog has some interesting thoughts:

Quite apart from whether Mr Cameron can find enough Maths graduates with a good degree to fill schools’ recruitment needs, an important question must be asked: does it matter?

In fact, Mr Cameron is wasting his time. A degree, or the quality of a degree, is no better at predicting a person’s likelihood of success as a teacher than the colour of that person’s hair.

The piece goes on to quote Malcolm Gladwell, writing for the New Yorker:

In teaching, the implications are… profound. They suggest that we shouldn’t be raising standards. We should be lowering them, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don’t track with what we care about. Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree—and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before… It needs an apprenticeship system that allows candidates to be rigorously evaluated.

Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard points out:

Under the Gove plan, only the highest calibre graduates should be given state funding to become teachers. Those with anything less than a 2:2 would be barred from a new high-flyers recruitment scheme.

Unfortunately, a quick bit of research shows that Carol Vorderman – Mr Cameron’s prized Maths Taskforce chief – didn’t do all that well when she studied engineering at Cambridge. She got a third class degree.

Looks like poor old Carol doesn’t measure up to the demands of her favourite party.

But you’ve got to love this ‘man of the people’ quote from his spokesman, who, when asked how much the change in tax status would cost Mr Goldsmith, replied:

The benefits were very marginal. I don’t know if it is £10 or £10,000.”

Hat-tip: the Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh.

Today is World Aids Day and also 90 years since the first female MP, Nancy Astor, took her seat in the Commons.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• UKIP HOW RUDE! Thats not your website

Bracknell Blog spots a domain squatter.

• What St Austell Bay means for Cornwall (clue: lots more Lib Dems)

Alex Folkes has been a very good blogger all year and deserves a swingometer for Christmas.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Loo paper shortage in the Commons by Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard. Suggestions for something to use until fresh stocks arrive…?

“A stultifying blanket of bureaucracy, suspicion and fear” No, not the Tories’ General Election manifesto, but David Cameron’s views on intrusive health and safety rules. (Whereas state intervention to boost wealthy married couples’ tax-free allowance is fine, apparently.)

Following in the footsteps of email, blogging has also established a firm place in the logistics of politics, even if its impact on the overall style and conduct of politics is less clear and less dramatic. Blogs have become a key news medium for people involved in or significantly interested in politics, they have become a key part of the flow of news to and from journalists and for some MPs and candidates they reach local audiences large enough to be a significant factor in their election efforts.

For those running blogs, the run up and immediate aftermath of polling day is likely to provide the opportunity to establish themselves with new, larger audiences – and for one or more newcomers to blaze onto the scene. How, then, is the blogging landscape likely to look in the future?

At present, the political blogging landscape seems relatively clear. There are a small number of high traffic sites (Political Betting, Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes in particular), a range of sites for individual parties which are the centre of news and gossip online for those parties (particularly ConservativeHome, Lib Dem Voice and – in its much improved post-Derek Draper form – LabourList), expert sites for particular niches (most notably UK Polling Report but also
geographic or issue based ones such as London Reconnections), some high profile journalists (e.g. Nick Robinson and Paul Waugh) and a smattering of individual blogging politicians. Beyond that are a large number of low traffic personal blogs, from which issues and personalities sometimes bubble up. There has also been the mini-wave of Labour veterans returning to party political fray as bloggers, with Alastair Campbell, John Prescott and Matthew Taylor all taking to the medium.

Although blogging in its early days was primarily about individuals expressing themselves and having the sorts of chances to reach wider audiences that were normally only available to a select few, in practice the political blogging scene has ended up dominated at the high traffic end either by blogs from traditional sources of power (MPs, journalists) or from groups of people. Even Political Betting, although still very much Mike Smithson’s creation, has a regular team of contributors. Even at the local level, it is rare for a blog to reach the sorts of audiences that good MP or candidate blogs does, though the patchy coverage of the latter leaves many more gaps to be exploited.

The move into blogging by existing sources of power, the establishment of high profile team sites and the establishment of ‘brand names’ like ConservativeHome means that we may see blogging actually become a rather less flexible field, with it being harder for new people to break in. Moreover, whilst journalists do sometimes pick up stories from bloggers, that is as nothing compared to the scale on which bloggers pick up stories from journalists. It is the rare political blog that regularly produces original stories.

A possible picture of the future comes from the current top 10 politics websites in the US. Taking the Hitwise data (and their definition of politics website) for June 2009 we have:

• The Huffington Post
• Fox News
• Free Republic
• The Politico
• Daily Kos
• CNN
• Infowars
• Townhall
• Real Clear Politics
• Michelle Malkin

Although there is a very strong showing for blogs in that list, it also illustrates how a medium originally about individuals getting a new level playing field has congealed to be dominated by large enterprises. Daily Kos, for example, did originate with one person’s enthusiasm, but it is now a large team and in effect a small (or rather not so small) business. The Huffington Post has a budget many political parties would happily die for. And so on.

So my money is on possibly one or two new names grabbing significant new attention, but the upshot essentially being that those at the top more firmly establish themselves. There’ll be an A list of political bloggers more deeply entrenched. It will be a different elite from pre-blogging days, featuring people who wouldn’t previously have got a chance to be in the elite, and a more open elite, but an elite nonetheless.

Where new individuals in general will have more scope to shine, I expect, will be in providing on the ground commentary on particular campaigns or specialist commentary on how particular issues are played out through the election. Nich Starling (the Norfolk Blogger) has shown the possibilities during the Norwich North by-election. Although clearly partisan – being a former organiser for Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb and even talked about in the early stages of the campaign as a possible by-election candidate – his blog provided a detailed account of the progress of all the candidates’ campaigns that was of interest to Lib Dems and non-Lib Dems alike. In his case, by providing a detailed account of events, including posting up copies of all literature received and keeping a running tally, he provided information and content of interest to a wide range of readers.

Nich Starling’s success came from reporting – and making – the news, rather than simply being yet another blog that gives political comment on stories that are already been widely talked about by other blogs and the traditional media anyway.

The opportunity for such grassroots reporting of constituency campaigns, in a form that makes it easy for national journalists to spot stories, is also likely to result in far more of the ‘gotcha’ moments where a campaign or candidate is embarrassed by a false step that in the past would have not got any notice outside the constituency.

So whilst the overall blogging landscape may stay much the same, for many individuals it will be a rollercoaster ride.

Reproduced from the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK 2009.