Today’s press releases are running on Spanish time today, which perhaps explains why I’ve missed my usual pre-midnight slot. Regardless, do enjoy today’s press releases…
Another Johnson joins the campaign for a People’s Vote
Responding as Jo Johnson resigns from the Government to campaign for a People’s Vote Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable, said:
We warmly welcome Jo Johnson’s support of the campaign to give the people the final say on the deal and a chance to exit from Brexit.
This is a fascinating situation in which Jo and his sister are united in opposing their brother Boris and his Brexit plans.
Meanwhile today the DUP have aired their concerns over the Prime Minister’s Brexit plans. Theresa May is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Davey: Detention should be a last resort
Responding as the Government announces that it will close Campsfield House immigration detention centre, Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said:
Locking vulnerable people up – often for months on end – without giving them any idea when they’ll be released is clearly inhumane. It’s also expensive and unnecessary.
It’s good to see that the Government is slowly recognising the need to detain fewer vulnerable people, but closing down one detention centre while keeping thousands of people locked up isn’t nearly enough.
Liberal Democrats demand better. We are calling on the Government to close eight detention centres rather than just one, and make much greater use community-based alternatives to detention. That would save around £100 million that could be re-invested in an accountable Border Force and fixing the broken immigration system.
Cable: ‘Brexit can be reversed’
This afternoon, Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable delivered a keynote speech to the ALDE conference in Madrid, telling the delegates ‘Brexit can be reversed’.
Speaking to ALDE delegates, Cable described the ‘large majority – about 80% – who believe that the Conservative government has handled the negotiations badly’ and the 700,000 who marched for a People’s Vote, as evidence that ‘Brexit can be reversed’.
He also urged liberals and democrats from across Europe to continue calling for citizens’ rights to be protected and ‘to work with the Lib Dems in that fight’.
Vince Cable said:
At this critical point not just in our history but in that of Europe, what I ask is that you keep faith with liberalism in Britain. That you keep faith with the strong forces in the UK which continue to see our future as a European country. And that, with us, you stand with the millions of British people who say democracies can change their minds, and that Brexit must be stopped.
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12 Comments
Mark – thanks for posting these press releases. It’s a good idea. But can I make a small suggestion? If there’s more than one release per day, why not post the headlines first at the top of your article, and then post the full press releases underneath? The way you do it at the moment means we only see one and don’t know if there are others unless we open the article. Putting the headlines at the top would let us see at a glance what all the day’s releases were. Just a thought. But thanks again for doing it.
I agree TonyH. This is a brilliant idea Mark because it lets us know what the national party is doing and can give local campaigners ideas to pursue. Are local parties given this information through different avenues?
I would think the big message here is that Brexit can be reversed.
Mark is providing a fantastic service, one that should be provided by our PR department. We may have staff problems but, once set up, it does not take much effort to e mail the releases out to local parties and My Councillor owners who request them.
Until Mark started this service I had rarely seen a Lib Dem Press Release, and thought we did few. I now understand we do many, too many, and they lack structure.
There are many templates on writing a good press release, we do not appear to follow a particular template. A Lib Dem Press Release should be instantly recognisable.
We want our press releases to achieve publicity. They must therefore address the key issue of the day, preferably a fresh approach to a current topic.
A journalist might receive 200 press releases a day. Our scatter gun approach of up to four will get ignored.
They must cover subjects that are top headlines of the day. Good liberal suggestions, Up-Skirting, Latte Levy, Same Sex Marriage in NI, etc, are all good stuff but will not make the headline, and just causes clutter that will hide our main messages.
We need to keep the Brexit releases under control. Not too many of them. At the moment one message, peoples vote, with today’s example of why it is important. (How long do we have to wait for a Jo Johnson PR. (We have an article on the web site, but where is the Press Release?)
It looks a scatter gun approach, it does not look managed, it does not look professional.
Before the leader starts with new membership ideas our whole approach needs to be tidied up.
Err, our leader is where, saying what. No coverage in our media so far as I can see. This on a day when Corbyn has said Brexit cannot be stopped. Golden opportunity for ourselves but who knows about us, what we are saying. Surely Mr Cable should have been in London making a big speech here. Will he do it tomorrow. Leadership, perhaps we need a new face, younger, a woman maybe, that the nedia will want visuals of etc.
theakes: Don’t blame Vince. The trouble is that we are not being reported at all in the media, unless it is to sneer or to report something unpleasant about us.
The Tories and Labour have got the newspapers tied up. Free press ? – you must be joking. Many years ago when I was a constituency chairman a newspaper called ‘Today’ came out in support of the Liberal Party in the run-up to a GE. A few months later it was bought up and promptly closed down.
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” — Thomas Jefferson, Paris 1787.
Where people get their news has changed somewhat since the days of Thoma Jefferson https://medium.com/oxford-university/where-do-people-get-their-news-8e850a0dea03
“Recent years have seen the gradual erosion of television as the single most widely used source of news, to the point that by 2016 it has been overtaken by online sources in terms of reach — at least amongst the 92 percent of the UK population who has access to the internet. The reach of printed newspapers has declined rapidly in the same period, and social media has become much more important.”
Does this mean that Facebook’s newly hired head of global affairs and communications is the new Rupert Murdoch?
My mistake, there is a Press Release on Johnson, one of the better ones.
ii ANYTHING is being campaigned on by our local parties and our general policies a press release should be delivered to the local and national papers and ;of course be pit on the internet.. The local parties .need a designated person given training in journalist techniques
Yes .I remember the Today paper.I wondered why it appeared and then vanished (before my interest in politics)Equally I have heard that Morrisons do not stock THe New European stating it is too political but the Daily Mail etc are their.. Others do stock it but my locals do not put it on prominent display Could we not get the world liberal organisations together to publish ONE paper that could be translated instantly to individual languages?.
It has come to my notice that the Daily Mail is considering buying the ‘I’ newspaper. I hope this does not mean that it will close down as did the Today. The elimination of your competition is one way of reducing factual non emotive information and free speech.
Dear nigel hunter, The ‘I’ under the influence of the ‘Daily Mail’, would be even worse than closing it down.
Please don’t knock this press release service. We have waited years for it and I, for one, am very pleased we now get it regularly.