30 Comments

• Joe Otten 15th Jan '14 - 10:46am

  Sorry, but to be a complete pedant, this is not a sound way to determine 2nd and 3rd place.

• Richard Morris 15th Jan '14 - 11:49am

  Astonishing how well Birgitte did!

• paul barker 15th Jan '14 - 12:13pm

  Perhaps you could hold the vote a few weeks earlier this Year, before we all get caught up in Xmas.

• Matt (Bristol) 15th Jan '14 - 12:33pm

  Joe Otten: Please explain why this is not a sound methodology for 2nd place, at least? (I’m a novice at these things) – it looks like Malala, the 2nd placed candidate was in 2nd place at all stages.

  Surprised that Mandela was not preferred by more people; whatever one feels about his early history of opposing the South African state with the threat and exercise of force, his securing a significant and largely peaceful transition from racist oligarchy to multiracial democracy is unequalled in the modern era. I suppose people felt that Mandela was yesterday’s news. A bit sad, that.

• Chris Ecclestone 15th Jan '14 - 12:53pm

  Pity our leadership haven’t been more vocal on Snowden rather than standing shoulder to shoulder with Obama and Cameron..

  Once again the membership are saying something different to the leaders… they need to get “on message”… and I am not talking about the members!

• dennis parsons 15th Jan '14 - 12:53pm

  Matt (Bristol) – on your logic, Winston Churchill would win every year. Dying was not a major contribution to a more liberal society. Surprised Nelson Mandela got so many votes.

• Geoffrey Payne 15th Jan '14 - 12:58pm

  Matt – if it were for lifetime achievement then Mandella would have got first place from me. However for year 2013 it had to be Snowden – a worthy winner this time.

• Jennie 15th Jan '14 - 1:27pm

  Well THAT could have been a lot more depressing than it was.

• Ryan Cullen 15th Jan '14 - 1:56pm

  @Matt (Bristol) the sound way to select 2nd and 3rd is to re-run the election, but instead have two winners to find second, and three winners to find third. This affects the quota and can results in the winners first preferences being redistributed.
  That said @Joe Otten, the results were the same.

• Andrew Martin 15th Jan '14 - 2:07pm

  I’m pleasantly surprised…the daft ones (I won’t say which!) were eliminated pretty early

• Geoff Crocker 15th Jan '14 - 3:38pm

  Hopefully Snowden’s win would be endorsed by more than the 363 LDVers who voted. It’s time the world stopped the hypocrisy of using his evidence in their complaints about NSA surveillance, whilst keeping him persona non grata locked away in Russia. On this basis Germany (where Angela Merkel used his evidence to complain by phone to Barack Obama) owes Snowden asylum, whilst the US whose government institutions are examining his claim, itself owes him amnesty. We could start by welcoming him to the UK. The Lib Dem leadership is notably silent on this injustice.

• g 15th Jan '14 - 5:02pm

  Anybody who aids Russia and China to the detriment of democratic nations is not a liberal.

  Snowden is many things, brave certainly, foolish undoubtedly,traitorous perhaps, but a liberal he is not. Liberals do not act without care of consequences for innocents.

• Geoff Crocker 15th Jan '14 - 7:15pm

  Anyone who makes the free world aware of just how far they are under surveillance is a liberal. Why otherwise are the leaders of the free world like Angela Merkel complaining to the US government? How has he helped Russia and China? His revelations are about a process, not about content. He’s only in Russia as a fugitive from a government which wants to prosecute him for letting us know what they’re up to.

• Max Wilkinson 15th Jan '14 - 8:30pm

  As I understood it, this wasn’t a ‘who is the biggest liberal’ test. It was about specific action(s) during the last year that contributed to the cause of liberalism. On that basis, Snowden passes the test.

• Peter Andrews 15th Jan '14 - 9:15pm

  Very happy with this result as I think Edward Snowden did a very brave thing to help protect all of our Liberties from state surveillance even if so far little seems to have change because of his actions.

• Martin Lowe 15th Jan '14 - 9:28pm

  In my mind, Edward Snowden speaking out against the actions of the State reminds me of Harry Willcock saying “I’m a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing” when he refused to produce his ID card and was subsequently prosecuted.

  I hope that Snowden will eventually be as vindicated as Willcock was.

• Lucas Amos 15th Jan '14 - 11:00pm

  Pretty worrying that pope francis got to round 10.

• Catherine 16th Jan '14 - 12:03am

  Good result in my opinion. As others have said, if it was a lifetime achievement test I’d have gone for Mandela , and if it was 2012 I’d have gone for Malala, but for 2013 Snowden edges in front I think.

• Neil 16th Jan '14 - 12:52am

  “Anybody who aids Russia and China to the detriment of democratic nations is not a liberal.”

  Sure, because America, despite being a democracy in name, makes it the standard bearer of all liberty and freedom in this world. Who cares if they spy on citizens?

• Eddie Sammon 16th Jan '14 - 4:16am

  g, I never thought I would find a lone accomplice on the “Snowden is not a hero” bandwagon from the left of the party, but here I have :).

  I don’t have strong opinions on this, but broadly I think he released too much information and to the wrong sources and then ran away. Liberalism is not anarchism.

  Parts of the left (the Guardian newspaper especially) are often too quick to support anti-western narratives, which aids regimes such as as Al-Qaeda and North Korea. g is right when he says “Liberals do not act without care of consequences for innocents.”.

• Eddie Sammon 16th Jan '14 - 4:42am

  By the way, by calling him a hero, especially the liberal hero, we are encouraging others to do the same. It’s back to g’s criticism of acting without responsibility. I don’t mean any personal criticisms here, I just think we need to look at it from a slightly different angle.

• Eddie Sammon 16th Jan '14 - 4:46am

  It is true doing nothing also has it’s consequences, so people shouldn’t be frightened into inaction, I just get worried that people actually agree with the bulk of what the Guardian writes, a large part of which says “the west is the enemy”.

• Eddie Sammon 16th Jan '14 - 5:44am

  I don’t mind if people think Snowden was largely right, I just sense knee-jerk hero proclamations because some think being free to be blown up by terrorists is fundamentally liberal. It’s not, it’s anarchist. 🙂

• Catherine 16th Jan '14 - 7:33am

  Eddie – I would agree with a criticism of Julian Assange based on that logic. He released information indiscriminately, much of which showed activities that were embarrassing but not illegal or particularly immoral. (He also left Bradley Manning to face most of the consequences so I would add a charge of cowardice to one of irresponsibility. )

  Snowden is different. The information he released didn’t just highlight some slightly dodgy official activities that surprised no one. It brought to light the wholesale abuse of power by various UK and US intelligence agencies. Many of the powers that the “snoopers’ charter” legislation would have granted to the security services, for example, were already being used – with no legislative endorsement and without the knowledge or consent of parliament or the British public. That’s not just slightly dodgy or a bit embarrassing, that’s shocking. A piece of legislation that was dropped because it was too controversial, and which Nick Clegg rightly spoke out against (albeit somewhat at the last minute), turns out to have been unnecessary because they were doing it all already.

• Eddie Sammon 16th Jan '14 - 7:51am

  Thanks Catherine, you have improved my view of Snowden. This is the high quality debate we need.

• g 16th Jan '14 - 7:51am

  I’m not a Lib Dem!

  Neil,

  Sure, because America, despite being a democracy in name, makes it the standard bearer of all liberty and freedom in this world. Who cares if they spy on citizens?

  Are you really so naive as to think that Russia and China don’t spy on us too?

  Everybody spies on each other, they always have. There should of course always be scrutiny over just how much and arguments over the necessity, and these should be in public. Europe and the USA have the freedoms in place for us to discuss spying, and challenge our politicians about it. What do you think happens to people in Russia or China who criticise their state? A lot of then end up dead, in prison camps or, if they are lucky, under long term house arrest.

  (second attempt at posting this, first was using wrong name)

• Mark 16th Jan '14 - 8:11am

  I tend to agree with g, Eddie and Catherine – mixed views of what Snowden did and how. I voted for the Uruguayan President as he seemed to make the biggest positive contribution.

• Matt (Bristol) 16th Jan '14 - 2:40pm

  I felt Malala and Mandela (among others, including the Campaign for Equal Marriage) edged it over Snowden in that they effected major change in the law and/or culture in their countries; Snowden may prove with hindsight to be a significant actor in the history of liberalism, but at the moment his is (even viewed positively) a voice of protest and challenge, but not yet the leader or initiator of a movement for coherent longterm constructive change.

• Richard Coates 16th Jan '14 - 7:55pm

  You should have massaged the results and made Snowden and Malala equal 1st 🙂 lol
  In my view, both have demonstrated incredible courage.
  OK, OK – I know you were measuring ” biggest liberal impact in the past 12 months”.

• Chris Manners 20th Jan '14 - 4:21pm

  “Liberal” is a funny word. Whatever nonsense the current Orange Book front bench comes out with, someone will pop up to tell us it’s in line with “liberal” heritage and values.

  Yet “liberal” apparently also covers stuff that the same leadership would cross the road to avoid, like civil liberties.