Tag Archives: the guardian

The Sun story about Chris Huhne that was a total invention (and which the other papers happily copied)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 19th May 2013 - 1:15 pm

Remember that front page Sun story from 13 March? On the off-chance Voice readers missed this exclusive, let’s refersh your memory of the splash:

Disgraced MP Chris Huhne was ridiculed on his first day in Wandsworth jail yesterday — after a warder called him to breakfast by yelling “Order! Order!”

Only one small problem with the story: it was a complete fabrication.

The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade has the story:

Posted in News | Also tagged chris huhne, roy greenslade and the sun | 11 Comments

LibLink.. Edward McMillan-Scott MEP: The EU and US must promote human rights worldwide – that includes China

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 17th May 2013 - 3:20 pm

Yorkshire and Humber Liberal Democrat MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has co-written a Guardian article with Chinese human rights activist Chen Guancheng arguing that just because China is becoming a superpower, it must still be challenged on its appalling human rights record:

China, the world’s rising superpower, continues to systematically engage in the political repression and torture of its citizens, with an estimated 7 to 8 million Chinese currently being held in prison or labour camps. From Cameroon to Cuba, Belarus to Bahrain, governments go on torturing and imprisoning those who dare to question their authority. For too many people around the

…

Posted in Europe / International and LibLink | Also tagged edward mcmillan-scott | 6 Comments

Stephen Tall guests on Guardian Politics Weekly podcast – Tory EU referendum question: in hand or out of control?

By The Voice | Fri 17th May 2013 - 10:25 am

LibDemVoice co-editor Stephen Tall joined the panel for this week’s Guardian Politics Weekly podcast, hosted by Tom Clark and also featuring political columnist Melissa Kite and Guardian social affairs editor Randeep Ramesh. They discuss the Tories’ latest implosion over when to hold an in/out EU referendum and Theresa May’s proposal that life should mean life in prison for anyone convicted of murdering a police officer.

You can listen to it here online, or download it as an MP3 here.

Posted in News and Podcasts | Also tagged melissa kite, podcast, randeep ramesh, stephen tall and tom clark | Leave a comment

Mrs Thatcher’s impact: how the public sees it now, how LDV readers saw it in 2008

By Stephen Tall | Tue 9th April 2013 - 7:10 pm

The Guardian is the first off the blocks with an ICM poll asking the public’s retrospective verdict on Margaret Thatcher’s record in office. Here’s the topline figure of whether her 11-year premiership had been good or bad for Britain:

The paper also asked about specific policies, finding:

The sale of council homes and tackling of trade union power remain popular today, but people are less supportive of the fights she picked with Europe and tax cuts for the rich. Privatisation of the utilities and the poll tax remain deeply unpopular.

You can …

Posted in News | Also tagged icm, margaret thatcher and Polls | 13 Comments

Bloggers unite to oppose “botched late-night drafting” that proposes new press/web regulation

By Stephen Tall | Sun 24th March 2013 - 12:30 pm

I’m one of 17 signatories (on behalf of LibDemVoice) to a letter published in Saturday’s Guardian, reproduced below, which opposes the “fundamental threat” of the draft legislation approved this week by MPs of all parties which would regulate blogs and other small independent news websites.

It’s not often you’ll see us, ConservativeHome, LabourList, Guido Fawkes, Liberal Conspiracy and Political Scrapbook agree on something. But what we term the “botched late-night drafting process and complete lack of consultation” has, for once, brought us together. And, as the letter notes, perhaps even more remarkably got Tom Watson and Rupert Murdoch agreeing, too.

Posted in News | Also tagged ConservativeHome, guido fawkes, hacked off, LabourList, leveson inquiry, libdemvoice, Liberal Conspiracy, paddy ashdown, political scrapbook, press regulation and stephen tall | 24 Comments

Three things we’ve learned from today’s opinion polls

By Stephen Tall | Mon 11th February 2013 - 7:50 pm

Three interesting and important poll findings to report today…

Big lead for Labour according to ICM

First, the Guardian’s monthly ICM poll is out, showing the biggest Labour lead in almost a decade:

The movements are more or less within the margin of error. Still, the Tories will be pretty disappointed to see the party get no bounce at all from David Cameron’s promise of a post-2015 EU referendum. Perhaps unsurprisingly it …

Posted in Op-eds, Parliamentary by-elections and Polls | Also tagged eastleigh by-election, icm, peter kellner and yougov | 131 Comments

“Where we work, we win” – will that Lib Dem maxim survive the 2015 test?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 5th January 2013 - 9:50 am

Chris Rennard Don’t splutter on your Saturday morning cornflakes, but the Guardian has today published two intelligent articles on the Lib Dems and the strategy which the party is hoping will see us through to the other side of the 2015 election intact.

First, there’s Patrick Wintour‘s analysis — Liberal Democrats bank on ground war to hold on to seats — which uses as its springboard an analysis by Lord (Chris) Rennard, the party’s former chief executive and elections guru:

insists it should not be ground down by low national polls. “The

Posted in News | Also tagged chris rennard, eastleigh, featured, michael white, patrick wintour and portsmouth | 25 Comments

LibLink: Nick Thornsby – The Justice and Security Bill is the Liberal Democrats’ biggest challenge yet

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 22nd November 2012 - 4:39 pm

Our Nick Thornsby has been writing about the Justice and Security Bill over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.

First of all, he gives his view about why this Bill is bad news for anyone who is committed to civil liberties:

It is difficult to comprehend just how fundamental a departure from centuries-old principles this would be. The right to see and hear the evidence of the other side, and subsequently to challenge the veracity or utility of that evidence, forms the

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged comment is free, justice and security bill, nick thornsby and secret courts | 11 Comments

Your essential weekend reader — 12 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd November 2012 - 8:15 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

Where now for the immigration debate? – Sarah Mulley in the New Statesman with an excellent analysis: ‘the public don’t (on the whole) feel that immigration is a problem in their own local communities, although a large majority do feel that it is a problem for the country as a whole.’

The Empire Strikes Back: Ofqual, and the omnishambles of assessment – Tom Bennett on the latest GCSE controversy: ‘let’s be …

Posted in News | Also tagged david gauke, economist, isabel hardman, jeremie hardie, lord ashcroft, nancy cartwright, President Obama, sarah mulley, tom bennett and weekend reader | 3 Comments

Nick Clegg gets sassy at DPMQs

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 17th October 2012 - 3:51 pm

Yesterday saw the monthly “Pick on Nick Clegg” day at Westminster. Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions is not known for its searching scrutiny of Government. Instead, Labour and Tories line up to take cheap shots at Nick. The experience he gains there is probably why he’s so good at town hall meetings and question and answer sessions at Conference.

DPMQs usually passes by unnoticed by the press. Yesterday, however, was different. Nick had a “Stalin

Posted in News | Also tagged donald mcintyre, DPMQs, featured, huffington post, ned simons, nick clegg, simon hoggart and the independent | 4 Comments

Paddy on the Coalition, joining the party & that Sun headline

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th September 2012 - 9:50 am

There’s a fantastic interview with Paddy Ashdown by The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone published here. As you’d expect it’s crammed full of anecdotes and quotable bon mots. I’ve picked out just three to enjoy…

Paddy on the Coalition

He regards those who feel betrayed by the party as weak or naive – notably Guardian leader writers who backed them in 2010. “The Guardian feels like a jilted lover. It hates the Liberal Democrats. The Guardian feels personally betrayed because for the very first time it gave the Liberal Democrats its support and what did we do? We went off with the Tories.

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged paddy ashdown and simon hattenstone | 2 Comments

Liblink: Nick Clegg – Rio’s reprise must set hard deadlines for development

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 20th June 2012 - 12:58 pm

Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has written for the Guardian about the Rio+20 summit he’s attending. He says that it’s vital that we “revive the spirit of our predecessors to get the world on a much more sustainable path”.

He spelled out the consequences if we don’t act:

Too many people still lack food: tonight, one billion will go hungry. There isn’t enough clean energy: right now women in some of the poorest communities are fuelling their homes with tyres and plastics. Despite the noxious fumes produced, they rely on anything that will burn. Dirty water and poor

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged international development, nick clegg and Rio+20 summit | Leave a comment

Tom Brake MP writes… Justice and Security Bill – a good result for the Lib Dems and Civil Liberties

By Tom Brake MP | Tue 29th May 2012 - 4:18 pm

Back in April, the Guardian, the Daily Mail and others reported that Nick Clegg, unhappy with the breadth and scope of the Justice and Security Green Paper, and having read the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report into it, had written to Ministerial colleagues setting out his red lines for any Bill to be introduced in the second session.

These red lines, as reported at the time, were:

That any use of Closed Material Procedures (CMPs) should be restricted to exceptional cases of national security only
That they complement, not replace, the current system of Public Interest Immunity (PII)

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged daily mail, justice and security bill and nick clegg | 3 Comments

How the Guardian makes the news, then reports the news

By Mark Pack | Wed 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 and polly toynbee | Leave a comment

NEW POLL: Who is your Liberal Voice of the Year?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 1st January 2012 - 2:45 pm

Today’s the day we launch our search for the Liberal Voice of 2011 to find the individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in the past 12 months. This is the fifth annual award, and as is our tradition, we’re looking beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the greatest liberal who’s not a member of our party.

The list of nine nominees appears below. These were sought from Lib Dem members via our most recent survey; 233 nominations were submitted, and each of those short-listed needed to clear a threshold of five.

Posted in LDV Awards and News | Also tagged ai weiwei, barack obama, featured, hacked off, hillary clinton, hugh grant, ken clarke, mark littlewood, Muhammad al Bouazizi, nick davies and occupy movement | 25 Comments

VIDEO: Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and Julian Glover on the Liberal Democrats, recession and The Guardian

By Mark Pack | Fri 23rd December 2011 - 10:55 am

You can now watch again in full one of the best fringe meetings from the party conference, which saw Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and the then Guardian editorial writer Julian Glover launch a new history of the party and its predecessors, Peace, Reform and Liberation.*

Julian Glover gave a very funny speech about his newspaper’s love/hate relationship with the party – “So there you have it, 150 years from The Guardian and the Manchester Guardian calling on the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats to be brave, radical; praising the party’s policies and then writing it off as irrelevant”.

Shirley Williams turned to the history of America and of the 1930s, drawing lessons for the current economic difficulties, including why American history has made her a supporter of coalition government in the UK.

Paddy Ashdown’s speech included a collection of his favourite liberal quotes and why the lessons contained in them are still highly relevant to contemporary liberal politicians, ending with this exhortation:

The thing that we have in our party title – liberal – goes back thousands of years. You should be proud of that. It should give us strength, and it should make us campaign even harder … Henry Gibson once said, ‘You do not go out to battle for freedom and truth wearing your best trousers’. Sometimes I think our party wears its best trousers too much. This is our heritage and it is also our message today – and we should be proud of it.

Here is the meeting in full to watch, and chances are it is much better than quite a few of those Christmas TV repeats you’ll otherwise find yourself watching…

Posted in News | Also tagged featured, history, julian glover, liberal democrat history group, paddy ashdown and shirley williams | Leave a comment

LibLink | In praise of… Shirley Williams

By NewsHound | Sun 20th November 2011 - 10:08 am

One of this week’s Guardian leader columns, ‘In praise of…’, was deservedly dedicated to Shirley Williams, a Lib Dem peer, founding member of the SDP, and former Labour education secretary. Here’s a snippet:

Forever running late, but with a warmth that ensures she’s forgiven, Williams has great faith in reasonable compromise. She has pursued a more softly-softly approach towards the dreadful health bill than we have advocated. But survivors of the SDP’s internecine wars recall a wily chair perfectly capable of calling a crunch vote when an awkward customer had gone to the loo, and it is too early to judge

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged shirley williams | 6 Comments

How best to boost growth? Coalition debate sees Tories argue for supply-side reforms, Lib Dems pushing for new ‘pension infrastructure fund’

By Stephen Tall | Tue 15th November 2011 - 7:35 am

As the OECD forecasts a sharp slowdown in global growth, the Coalition is re-examining old and new ideas to boost the economy here in the UK. And, judging by this report in The Guardian, the likely approach illustrates the impact of Lib Dem thinking within government…

The Coalition choice: Tory supply-side reforms OR…

One area that has been looked at to boost growth is supply-side reforms to free up the labour market, such as those championed by Conservative adviser Adrian Beecroft. The ‘Beecroft Report’ has urged radical reform, most controversially advocating the government to stimulate private industry to hire workers …

Posted in News | Also tagged adrian beecroft, centre reform, nick clegg, oliver letwin, pension infrastructure fund, supply side and vince cable | 5 Comments

Opinion: Whisper it, but the press are starting to get it

By James Percival | Fri 2nd September 2011 - 8:53 am

Whisper it, but it seems they might be starting to get it. It’s only taken them a year and a half.

‘They’ of course are the assorted numpties of the British press and ‘it’ is how coalition government works and just how important and influential Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are within it.

For most of the time since May 2010 a crude and simplistic caricature of our government and the Lib Dems’ role in it has taken hold – that this is really a Tory government and the Lib Dems are either naive puppets being taken for a ride by …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged daily express, daily telegraph, new statesman and nick clegg | 24 Comments

Could you edit The Guardian? Take a simple test

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st August 2011 - 7:56 am

Here’s a simple test to see if you too have what it takes to edit The Guardian.

a. You have an interview lined up with a Treasury minister.

b. You have a journalist who happily admits they don’t understand the difference between a cyclical and structural deficit.

Do you say:

1. “Pah, so what? It’s not like we need an interviewer who can understand the basics of economics to interview an economics minister”, or

2. “Err, could we get a different interviewer?”

If your answer is #1: well done, you’re made it (as the third paragraph of this new interview with Danny Alexander demonstrates).

If your …

Posted in News | Also tagged Danny Alexander and journalism | 33 Comments

Opinion: Why David Cameron will not be Prime Minister in a year’s time

By Paul Walter | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 12:33 pm

Bizarrely, I was watching dancing coal miners dressed in tutus when I heard the news of Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation last Sunday evening. A little trigger went off in my mind. Suddenly, the unthinkable had become thinkable. “Cameron will be next” I thought.

OK. We’re now in the “long grass” of the parliamentary recess. Cameron put in a “Tory Trebles all round”, barn-storming performance at the dispatch box on Wednesday. He must have been thankful it was jet-lag proof Johannesburg he had come from (where he met a different type of Tutu) and not New York, with its jet-lag on the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged andy coulson, david cameron, news corporation, news of the world, nick clegg, paddy ashdown and Phone hacking | 21 Comments

Opinion: Hackgate – Who do you trust?

By Paul Walter | Thu 21st July 2011 - 10:53 am

5 Live Drive had a poll yesterday on “Who do you trust?”, particularly with Hackgate in mind.

Emerging, blinking, from two weeks of saturation “Breaking News”, answering that question is a good way to take stock of where we are.

Who do I trust?

Vince Cable is the first person who springs to mind. He (inadvertently publicly) “declared war on Mr Murdoch”. He was then forced to be “hors de combat”. He said “I think we are going to win” and we did. Murdoch is in retreat. Well done, Vince.

Tom Watson is the second person I trust as a result of this …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bbc, david cameron, news international, rebekah brooks, tom watson and vince cable | 7 Comments

In Praise of Nick Davies, the British Bernstein & Woodward to Murdoch’s Nixon

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th July 2011 - 11:50 am

One man, above all, deserves to be singled-out for his single-minded pursuit of the lies, deceit and criminality that have stained British journalism: The Guardian’s special correspondent, Nick Davies.

His has been a lonely crusade. Despite the mounting evidence of corrupt practices, the tentacles of which have extended right into the very centre of the Establishment in this country — Parliament, media barons, senior police officers, Downing Street — Nick Davies has doggedly pursued a campaign which has resulted in the closure of this country’s most-read newspaper. That is some accolade.

But, as he would be the first to point out, it should never have got this far.

The closure of the News of the World would have been avoided if those who knew the truth, or at least had the power to uncover the truth, had done their jobs properly, had fulfilled their duty to the public. And that’s as true of Rebekah Brooks as it is of ‘Yates of the Yard’.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, john yates, media, nick davies, rebekah brooks and rupert murdoch | 10 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats to hold inquiry into AV Referendum

By Simon McGrath | Tue 28th June 2011 - 9:29 am

The Guardian reports that the Party has decided to hold an inquiry, headed by James Gurling, into the Yes to AV campaign.

I wrote a piece for Lib Dem Voice back in May calling for an inquiry and since then more and more information has come to light about the shambolic and incompetent way the Yes campaign was run.

What does seem rather odd is that there has been no announcement to Party members and activists that this inquiry was taking place and asking for their input. I asked a couple of Lib Dems who had been highly active in …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged james gurling and yes2av | 19 Comments

What has the DPM done for us?

By Helen Duffett | Wed 15th June 2011 - 3:37 pm

Lib Dem blogger Matthew Gibson has blogged Nick Clegg’s achievements as DPM over the past year, as viewed by the mainstream media.

Matthew’s been monitoring the papers for months, noting all the positive stories about the Deputy PM and Lib Dem leader.

He splits these up by the common themes that have emerged: leadership, competence, being principled and standing his ground.

Here’s a taster:

Competence

The Independent praise Nick Clegg’s simple and direct language in his speech at Conference concluding ‘Clegg knows what he is doing – quite unusual for a leader of a party’ (see here).

The Daily Telegraph believe

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged daily telegraph, matthew gibson, nick clegg and the independent | 2 Comments

My letter to The Guardian, unpublished

By Mark Pack | Fri 22nd April 2011 - 2:54 pm

Sir,

I noticed that around half the recent stories about phone hacking on the Guardian website with photos feature a photograph of Sienna Miller. Does she make up around half of all the people whose phones were hacked?

Yours etc.

Posted in News | Also tagged journalism and sienna miller | 3 Comments

Charles Kennedy to join Ed Miliband on a pro-electoral reform platform

By Mark Pack | Thu 17th March 2011 - 8:55 am

It’s hardly surprising that Charles Kennedy and Ed Miliband would be appearing together to promote electoral reform. Kennedy has long been a supporter of electoral reform and by virtue of not being in government is seen by many in Labour as an easier figure to campaign alongside (even though one of Kennedy’s first acts on becoming party leader was to end the party’s then work in government with Labour). Ed Milband in turn is the author of Labour’s general election manifesto which not only pledged a referendum but also called for a change in the electoral system to follow from …

Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum, charles kennedy, ed miliband, electoral reform and nick clegg | 5 Comments

We all know the Lib Dems U-turned on tuition fees, so why’s The Guardian indulging in half-truths?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th November 2010 - 12:01 am

The Guardian carries a sensationalist headline tonight: Revealed: Lib Dems planned before election to abandon tuition fees pledge. The truth is somewhat different from the newspaper’s anti-Lib Dem spin, however.

The story is clearly designed to make the reader believe that, even as Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems spoke out against tuition fees, it was secretly their plan to renege on the party’s manifesto pledge. Yet, if you read more carefully it becomes clear that the party was simply anticipating the likely hung parliament scenario — that faced with two parties, Labour and the Tories, committed to tuition fees …

Posted in News | Also tagged higher education, nicholas watt, nick clegg, tuition fees and universities | 126 Comments

Opinion: Are the poor going to be driven out of the south by the Coalition’s housing benefit reforms?

By Simon McGrath | Fri 12th November 2010 - 3:28 pm

A shocking story in the Guardian this week that, not content with driving the poor out of Kensington and Chelsea, the Coalition’s cap on housing benefit would force them out of southern England altogether. Worse, this came from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), who sound like they ought to know what they are talking about.

I rang up the CIH and asked how I could get hold of a copy of the study and was surprised to hear that there has been not actually been one. They are apparently ‘doing some work for a Select Committee’ which …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Chartered Institute of Housing and housing benefit | 40 Comments

How the media loves mixed messages (when they suit their own message)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th October 2010 - 1:25 pm

‘Conservative spending cuts are worse than Thatcher’s, says Alan Johnson’ shouts today’s Observer, reporting the paper’s interview with Labour’s incoming shadow chancellor.

If the election had turned out differently — if Labour had won, rather than suffering one of the worst defeats in its history — the headline could have read a little different… Imagine this headline:

Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher

But wait, we don’t have to imagine that headline: it already exists, and was used by the Observer’s stablemate The Guardian back in March when reporting the then Labour chancellor’s realistic appraisal of the …

Posted in News | Also tagged alan johnson, alistair darling, chris huhne, Danny Alexander, deficit, media and the observer | 13 Comments

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Tag Archives: the guardian

Big lead for Labour according to ICM

Paddy on the Coalition

The Coalition choice: Tory supply-side reforms OR…

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