Tag Archives: polly toynbee

How the Guardian makes the news, then reports the news

By Mark Pack | Published 8th February 2012 - 7:58 pm

A nimble two-step from The Guardian:

1. Polly Toynbee sends tweet encouraging all and sundry to take part in an open-access online poll being run by the BMJ.

2. The Guardian reports result of said BMJ poll.

Then only thing missing, alas, is:

3. The Guardian then realises that reporting a voodoo poll which its own staff have been encouraging people to take part on is low grade self-referential journalism and pulls poll report.

Hat tip: Anthony Wells

Posted in News | Also tagged journalism, the guardian | Leave a comment

Opinion: Theresa May’s cat – why we should be proud of our conference

By Nick Tyrone | Published 8th October 2011 - 2:50 pm

The vast majority of Lib Dems who attended autumn conference would agree with me in saying that it was a success. The mood surrounding the ICC Birmingham was unmistakably positive. The feared factionalism that had been predicted by some never materialised. But what really makes our conference seem amazing, in retrospect, is just how badly the respective Labour and Conservative gatherings have played out.

Labour conference was up first. As the only major party of opposition this should have been a conference to remember for them. A year of riots, phone hacking and a poor economy gave them more ammunition than …

Posted in Conference, Op-eds | Also tagged andrew neil, ed miliband, theresa may | 11 Comments

Opinion: Get your facts right Polly

By Baroness Joan Walmsley | Published 21st July 2010 - 9:20 am

In yesterday’s Guardian Polly Toynbee criticises “casual law-making by arbitrary diktat” in relation to the unseemly haste with which the Academies Bill is being shunted through the Commons. She claims the bill was “catapulted” through the Lords (where, by the way, we debated it for a full 31 hours!) and that there is now “no revising chamber: a redundant House of Lords whipped this Bill through with as little scrutiny as it will get in the Commons”. Wrong!

Far from being redundant, the House of Lords obtained five important amendments and numerous significant statements on the record, one of them …

Posted in Op-eds, Parliament | Also tagged academies | 8 Comments

The ideological background to coalition

By Mark Pack | Published 12th July 2010 - 3:20 pm

Richard Grayson (former head of policy for the party and one of the leading lights behind the Social Liberal Forum) has written a thoughtful pamphlet for Compass about the different strains of thought within the Liberal Democrats and what they mean for coalition government.

The subtlety of some of Richard’s views mean you have to read the whole piece to do them justice, but a flavour of his interpretation of the so-called social liberal versus economic liberal difference is given by these extracts:

One other point needs to be made about the supposed social-economic liberal divide is that for the vast bulk

…

Posted in News | Also tagged iain sharpe, richard grayson | 50 Comments

Did you know that two-thirds of people don’t pay income tax?

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd June 2010 - 11:20 am

No, I didn’t either.

But that’s what Polly Toynbee says:

… it does nothing for the 62% of adults who earn too little to pay tax.

Oh hang on, what’s this Lord Bonkers is saying?

It’s not that 62 per cent of people don’t pay tax, it’s that 62 per cent do pay tax.

How out of touch with the lives of ordinary people do you have to be to make a mistake like that and not spot it? It hardly encourages you to have faith in Toynbee’s judgement as a columnist.

You think someone at the Guardian would have spotted it though.

Posted in News | Also tagged income tax, jonathan calder, journalism | 28 Comments

+++ Holy crap, the Guardian endorses Lib Dems

By Alex Foster | Published 30th April 2010 - 7:01 pm

Not content with publishing a letter from leading progressives, the Guardian tonight brings to an end its journey to a decision about which party to support.

The article is here.

General election 2010: The liberal moment has come
If the Guardian had a vote it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats. But under our discredited electoral system some people may – hopefully for the last time – be forced to vote tactically

We can certainly commend them on their decision, and my headline shows my surprise at them taking this bold step. I think many people were expecting …

Posted in General Election | Also tagged endorsement, nosepeg, the guardian | 16 Comments

Any Questions: it’s not just BBC Question Time that’s the problem

By Mark Pack | Published 28th February 2010 - 12:50 pm

We’ve covered before the habit of BBC Question Time of dropping a Liberal Democrat from the panel (three times in four weeks most recently) and also of loading up the panel with a far from politically balanced set of non-Parliamentarians.

But it’s not only Question Time where that’s a problem. BBC Radio 4′s Any Questions? has a similar habit: the superficial balance is actually undone by a far from balanced set of non-Parliamentarians.

Let’s have a look at the make-up of the Any Questions? panels so far this year:

Number of Conservative Parliamentarians / candidates: 5
Number of Labour Parliamentarians / …

Posted in News | Also tagged amanda platell, any questions, bbc, bbc question time | 10 Comments

Conference round-up: the last 24 hours

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd September 2009 - 9:31 am

Here are the three main lines promoted by the party from conference to the media in the last 24 hours:

Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference unveils plans to increase the pay of Britain’s lowest-earning troops by £6,000, improve the condition of forces’ housing, and ensure proper medical provision for all personnel. The proposals, which would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy or RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level firefighter, would be funded within the MoD’s existing budget.
Liberal Democrat Conference has demanded an independent, public inquiry into allegations of British Government complicity in

…

Posted in Conference, News | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, ming campbell, nick clegg, vince cable | 3 Comments

Nick Clegg’s blogger interviews

By Mark Pack | Published 19th September 2009 - 11:33 am

This morning a group of 10 bloggers interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The questions ranged over a wide area and here are a few selected highlights:

MPs’ expenses: Nick eloquently made the link between safe seats and good behaviour by MPs: “if you want to keep MPs honest, don’t give them safe seats for life … safe seats corrupt public life”. He said his one real regret over how he had handled the issue was not making the point more forcefully that whilst the party was not free of “blemishes”, no Liberal Democrat MP had been involved in the serious …

Posted in Blogger Interviews | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, mps expenses, nick clegg | 5 Comments

Nick takes ‘The Toynbee Test’

By Stephen Tall | Published 11th June 2009 - 11:44 am

Over at the Guardian website, there’s a 16-minute video conversation between Nick Clegg and political commentator Polly Toynbee. You can watch it in full here.

Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg | 8 Comments

Compass want Lib Dems at its conference

By Gavin Hayes | Published 2nd June 2009 - 3:43 pm

As a visitor to LibDemVoice you may or may not be aware of the work of Compass – the influential pressure group that campaigns for a more democratic, equal and sustainable world. Compass is about building a broadly based Liberal Left politics and as a Liberal Democrat activist we wanted to introduce you to our important work and to invite you to attend our National Conference on Saturday 13 June.

We believe that both the Tory and Labour leaderships want to turn back as soon as possible to the failed politics of the pre-crash – both in terms of the old economy …

Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged amnesty international, compass, constitutional reform, demos, electoral reform, electoral reform society, evan harris, fawcett society, helena kennedy, john harris, jubilee debt campaign, make votes count, neal lawson, oxfam, richard grayson, social liberal forum | 14 Comments

Guardian endorses Lib Dems in Euro elections (more or less)

By Stephen Tall | Published 2nd June 2009 - 9:54 am

Following the endorsement of its sister paper the Observer and its leading columnist Polly Toynbee, the Guardian editorial today all-but formally recommends its readers vote for the Lib Dems in this Thursday’s Euro polls:

The case for supporting the Liberal Democrats is now very strong. Anyone who believes Britain should be an engaged member of the European Union – who does not believe scare stories about the Lisbon treaty and who wants to back a party that campaigns on this – should vote Lib Dem. So should anyone who cares about constitutional renewal. Nick Clegg’s party has ancestral

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged european elections, newspapers, the guardian, the observer | 11 Comments

Polly Toynbee: vote Liberal Democrat

By Mark Pack | Published 1st June 2009 - 9:24 pm

Things are indeed achanging in the Guardian Media Group. Sunday say The Observer unequivocally urge its readers to vote Liberal Democrat for the first time. And now Polly Toynbee is urging a vote for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections and in many local elections too:

Throw out bad councils, and vote for Lib Dems in Europe…
The most consistently wise party on Europe, [the Lib Dems] never flirted with Tory press populism, but that principled stand came at a high price. On the economy or crime co-operation, “stronger together, poorer apart” is a good Lib Dem pro-EU slogan. They

…

Posted in News | Also tagged european elections, local elections | 16 Comments

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