With May’s AV referendum finally passed by Parliament this week, both Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have been taking to the public stage to argue for a Yes vote.
Nick Clegg’s speech today majors on how the alternative vote will hold politicians better to account:
Under the Alternative Vote, politicians will need to aim to get half of their constituents to choose them. That means they will have to work harder to appeal to more people than before. It means they will have to reach out to people who were ignored under First Past the Post. It means they will no longer
As someone who has often responded to government consultations on legislation, either on behalf of the party or as an interested individual, and even sometimes got the law changed, I’ve often been disappointed how few people respond to those consultations. In very technical areas, that may not matter too much, but there is a huge swathe of legislation where wider input can provide sensible ideas. It is, after all, the outsider to a system who can often spot what has become second nature to those in the system but no longer makes sense (if it ever did).
I only wonder, because it’s a bit odd if the Ben Summerskill who last September said it was too soon to decide on whether or not to support gay marriage as he would not be “jumped into” expressing a view on proposals (on what is, after all, hardly a new issue) is the same Ben Summerskill who is now complaining that the government is not moving quickly enough on the issue?
Though if I were a minister, I’d be tempted to write to him, “Yes Ben, we’re not moving at the speed you’ve strongly argued for previously. We’re moving much …
After last month’s trip down memory lane looking at how internet campaigning worked in Brent East in the 2003 by-election, here is the piece I wrote for the Hansard Society after the 2001 general election (when I ran the Liberal Democrat online campaign). As with the Brent piece, it shows how many principles have stayed the same even as different internet phases have come and gone. And no, the power to draw up sensible imprint rules for the online world mentioned below still hasn’t been used.
Introduction
Perhaps the most notable Internet innovation during the 2001 general election was the ability …
The Government’s Welfare Reform Bill is being published today and its measures are mostly as previously trailed. The big policy in it is the Universal Credit – a major simplification to a horrendously complicated benefits system – and a very Liberal Democrat policy.
Because of the heavy previous trailing of the Welfare Reform Bill’s measures there are no major surprises in what it proposes but there are three respects in which it shows the outcome of the at times very lively debate within government – mostly, though not always, Liberal Democrat versus Conservative – about its contents. In that respect, …
The Electoral Commission has published the results of its third survey of reports of electoral fraud and other malpractice, this time covering the 2010 general and local elections and for the first time including data for every police force. Commenting on the findings, Electoral Commission Chair, Jenny Watson, said:
There was some high profile reporting of alleged electoral malpractice around the elections and perceptions of fraud continue to be a concern to voters. Yet these figures do not support the more pessimistic perceptions: there’s no evidence of widespread attempts to commit electoral fraud, or of election results being called into question. It is important the public have accurate information on electoral malpractice and I would like to thank police forces across the UK for proving the data to make this analysis possible.
It’s taken a lot of work to get to this point and no one should be complacent about the risks at the elections and referendums this year. We continue to work closely with the police, elections staff, the Royal Mail and political parties to ensure the threat of electoral malpractice is reduced, and we’ve seen examples of excellent joint working between police forces and electoral administration teams.
The UK Government’s commitment to introducing individual electoral registration will be another important measure to help tighten up the democratic process. The next step is for them to consider introducing the requirement for ID at polling stations in Great Britain, as is already the case in Northern Ireland. We’ve raised this in our report after the UK Parliamentary General Election and asked Government to lead the debate.
The reference to showing ID at polling stations reflects increasing concerns over impersonation at polling stations in the last few years, partly as a result of many of the easy ways of carrying out postal vote fraud having been curtailed by changes in the rules.
Overall the Electoral Commission found that 232 cases of alleged malpractice were reported to the police as a result of the May 2010 elections, with the police deciding in 137 cases that no further action was required.
So far two cases have been to court (one conviction and a fine of £200, one acquittal), two cases saw police cautions issued and 23 were concluded with the police giving informal advice short of a caution. The other 68 cases are either still with the police or awaiting decisions by prosecutors.
These apparently comforting figures have been attacked by some as showing undue complacency by the Electoral Commission:
Critics have attacked the report as a whitewash, stating that the lack of successful prosecutions simply highlights how difficult it can be to investigate voting irregularities.
Rob Hoveman, an election agent for the Respect Party, which claimed postal-ballot rigging was commonplace in East London, said: “The fact is that it remains very easy for votes to be cast through personation, for false voters to be registered and, above all, for undue, inappropriate and illegal pressure to be applied in the casting of postal votes through the postal vote on demand system.”
He added: “Just because a crime hasn’t been prosecuted doesn’t mean a crime didn’t take place.” (The Independent)
In addition to these concerns over whether particular problem areas exist which need more effective action, the details of some cases which were not pursued suggest that there is more going wrong than the number of successful prosecutions indicates. The Electoral Commission’s report gives this example from Peterborough:
Initially, Peterborough City Council followed robust sifting procedures of several hundred applications to register to vote and to vote by post. Following this, 150 applications were identified as high risk and referred to Cambridgeshire Constabulary for further investigation.
A man was identified to have delivered the applications to the City Council. He was subsequently arrested and his computer equipment was seized from his home address.
He denied any knowledge or involvement concerning fraudulent voting applications and summarised his involvement as being a delivery driver for the Conservative Association. He freely admitted handling the applications and denied any knowledge as to how they were constructed. Low level enquiries were completed with the Conservative Association to identify the existence of reliable third party evidence that might identify those involved but none was found.
The defendant was bailed to allow the examination of his computers to identify the existence of source documents (tenancy agreements in particular) which may have been used in support of false applications and to complete an identification procedure involving potential witnesses. Both these lines of enquiry were negative and no further action was taken against him.
A joint decision was made by Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire Constabulary that, as no person appeared to have been denied their right to vote in the 6 May elections nor any suspect identified, no further investigation would be carried out. Furthermore, no further referrals, intelligence or complaints, were received by Peterborough City Council or Cambridgeshire Constabulary in relation to allegations of electoral fraud.
One of the reasons – in fact, probably the main reason – why so many Liberal Democrats are relaxed about the Conservative Party leadership’s enthusiasm for the Big Society idea is the overlap between the Big Society and the traditional Liberal Democrat belief in Community Politics. That’s a topic I wrote about at greater length before Christmas, but what has struck me since is how little senior Liberal Democrats talk about Community Politics now.
Despite the frequent media discussion about the Big Society, which provides an opening to talk about the Liberal Democrat alternative/supplement (delete as you wish), Community …
Europe’s climate chief insisted on Monday that tougher greenhouse gas targets would improve the EU’s economic performance, rather than push businesses overseas, as companies and green campaigners tussled over whether current emissions goals were too weak…
Her words came as a row flared between Chris Huhne, the UK’s climate change secretary, and Günther Oettinger, the EU’s energy commissioner, over whether to toughen the European climate target from a cut of 20% in emissions by 2020 to a 30% cut.
Last week, Oettinger warned: “If we go alone to 30%, you will only have a faster process of de-industrialisation in
Shortly after the Conservative Party won its fourth general election in a row in 1992, a symposium met to consider the question of whether Britain – formerly a country with regularly rotating government between the two main parties – was turning into a political version of Japan, where the same party had been in power for nearly forty years.
Even between the event occurring and the publication of a book based on it, Turning Japanese? Britain with a Permanent Party of Government (eds. Helen Margretts and Gareth Smyth), political events in both countries had taken a dramatic turn. In Japan the LDP lost power, starting a period of much greater political fluidity with even subsequent LDP Prime Ministers struggling to restore their party’s previous dominance. Meanwhile in Britain the collapse of the Conservative Party’s economic policies following Britain’s enforced exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) quickly made the government appear very vulnerable, even if debates in Labour continued on whether, as John Smith preferred, one more heave was all that was needed or whether, as Tony Blair insisted on after John Smith’s death, a more radical reshaping of the party was required to win the next election.
The unprecedented filibustering by Labour peers (or rather more accurately, given the splits between hardliners and moderates about Labour’s ranks in the Lords, some Labour peers) of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is having two unintended side-effects which will be important for the future of political reform.
The most obvious is the way in which Labour’s chosen style of opposition has driven Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers closer together. A more subtle form of opposition might have looked to divide the coalition partners, but repeated late nights …
1. What’s your formative political memory?
A toss up between my Mum voting in favour of joining Europe in the referendum and my Dad feeling agitated about and improving workers rights in industry.
2. When did you start blogging?
In January, so please be gentle with me! (though all constructive feedback from fellow LibDems welcome).
3. Why did you start blogging?
Have been thinking of doing it for some time, as occasionally you need a few more words than Twitter or broadcasting allows – plus the New Statesman asked me!
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Politics, liberalism, media, coalition, punditry.
5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Liberal – that is all.
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
As a total novice there is little to choose from. However I enjoyed having a pop at the Daily Telegraph in this one about Nick Clegg’s Red Box.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I thought this was the most astounding blog of 2010. It’s by Peter Watt, former General Secretary to the Labour Party, and it summed up in so many ways why working with Labour right now would be such a challenge because, as Peter describes, they currently have an inability to listen and struggle to believe that others in politics wish to do good.
8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
God would love to do something political but I LOVE this Virgin Atlantic ad soooooooooo beautifully done I could watch it over and over. Enjoy!
In a speech given during the week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg strongly defended introducing a diversity of suppliers to public services, saying that,
The questions that confronted me, when I came into government, were these:
How can we reinvent and strengthen our public services at a time of anxiety and stretched resources?
And how can we preserve the public sector ethos as we move to a more plural, diverse and personalised way of running our public services?…
We have to modernise our public services. And we can make them better if we do.
Clegg went on to emphasise that increasing public expenditure is not …
The political advertising put out by people who disdain negative ads is often too self-consciously worthy to be effective. John Hickenlooper’s advert as part of his successful run for Governor of Colorado however was rather different – and was rated as being very effective by those watching the race:
Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.
On Friday former Liberal Democrat policy director and Parliamentary candidate Richard Grayson announced more details of his response to Ed Miliband’s invitation to encourage Lib Dems to take part in Labour’s policy review. The details came in the form of an article due to be published in Liberator:
I saw that invitation as part of an effort to move Labour away from the tribalism which has been such a feature of its past. I have long been committed to pluralism and have a history of working with people from other parties. I have done that for some time through Compass, and
Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
“We must think long term” is a common cry in politics and government. Far easier said than done, but whether it is investing in early years education, making decisions over building new physical infrastructure such as railways, setting rules for pensions or a myriad of other decisions, government repeatedly makes decisions which only work well if they are stuck to for a long period of time and whose positive impact may not be directly felt for many years. For example, the failure …
Earlier today, the Protection of Freedoms Bill was published which, in the words of Lib Dem MP Tom Brake, “brings to fruition proposals which were first drawn up by Nick Clegg four years ago, and demonstrates our commitment to rolling back unnecessary and intrusive laws introduced by Labour”.
Key provisions of the Bill include the enactment of some previously announced decisions alongside some new, additional proposals:
an end to the routine monitoring of 9.3 million people under the radically reformed vetting and barring scheme
millions of householders protected from town hall snoopers checking their bins or school catchment area
The rise of online political coverage has done no harm to the mini-publishing boom brought about by a general election. In addition to the one-off books and the relatively new series there are some long running series that churn out a new edition for every general election. The Nuffield series is the most famous and longest-running but the Britain at the Polls series is a worthy and complimentary series. Its latest offering, Britain at the Polls 2010 (edited by Nicholas Allen and John Bartle), provides something extra even in the face of the latest Nuffield offering, The British …
From the early 1990s the City had sought to justify light-touch regulation and tax concessions by listing the many socio-economic benefits of finance … The most persistent of the City’s claims was that tax revenues from finance were a key source of funding for New Labour’s social programmes. But … over the 5 years from 2002 to 2007, tax receipts from finance totalled £153 billion and averaged just 6.7 per cent of government receipts. In the same period, manufacturing employed many more workers, who all paid taxes under strict
As I’ve commented on before (such as here), there has often been a problem with the Press Complaints Commission upholding a complaint about a story but the news outlet’s website not being fully updated to reflect this. For example, the complained about story might continue to appear on a newspaper website without any indication in the story that it was subsequently the cause of a ruling against the newspaper.
Now however the Press Complaints Commission has issued new rules:
When a complaint is upheld by the PCC, the editor is obliged to publish it with “due prominence”. Here is some
I’d like you to reconsider your decision to ban the use of the word “reform” when your staff are reporting or commenting on the proposed changes to the voting system for the House of Commons (as reported in The Independent last month).
Given that the phrase “electoral reform” has been a widely used term for decades to describe all sorts of different proposals to change the electoral system and given that it has been widely used by proponents on all sides of those exchanges too, I’m surprised that you now are of the view that it isn’t an appropriate …
By “mutual agreement”, earlier today Lord Oakeshott stopped being a Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman in the Lords. In a lively alternative to the usually banal exchange of letters on such occasions, Oakeshott and Danny Alexander instead exchanged waspish soundbites.
Matthew Oakeshott criticised today’s deal with the banks on bonuses, lending and other matters saying, “If this is robust action on bank bonuses, my name’s Bob Diamond and I’m going to claim my £9m bonus next week”.
Danny Alexander responded on Channel 4 that his “name clearly isn’t Bob Diamond”.
Lord Oakeshott was not “the” Liberal Democrat spokesman in the Lords, a role which …
I’ve been a bit ambivalent about the idea of crime maps, both because of the many categories of crime missing completely from them and also because the provision of a map in itself risks being seen as the final step rather than a preliminary step in making government more accountable and responsive to the public.
But that ambivalence was ended by Simon Jenkins. Not quite in the way he expected, I suspect, for his piece last week arguing vigorously against crime maps ended up persuading me that they are a good idea. That is because all but one of his …
Fintan O’Toole’s Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger is a coruscating account of how the Irish boom turned into biter bust. The sharpness of the prose as O’Toole recounts a tale of property boom, tax evasion and dodgy banking practices both entertains and obscures.
Along the way we have a blizzard of names and details about tax dodging, back handers and absent regulation. We also have the bitter irony of the failed exposure of politicians. When politicians were exposed yet their political careers continued unimpeded, the message to other politicians was – look, it does you no …
A very warm welcome to Nick Thornsby, who has started helping out on The Voice this week with our LibLink postings. These highlight articles which have appeared elsewhere from Liberal Democrats, particularly opinion pieces in the mainstream newspapers.
Thank you Nick, and if any readers spot an article that should be LibLinked which we haven’t yet picked up on, do get in touch.
Nick’s own blog is at nickthornsby.wordpress.com, which is also well worth a read as it has continued going strong since the Phil Woolas court case, when it was an essential source of information.
Peter Snowdon’s history of the Conservative Party in opposition, quickly updated last year to include the final stage in their recovery, has four white men on its cover striding towards the reader – Cameron, Osborne, Hague and Clegg. It tells you immediately the sort of book that Back from the Brink: The extraordinary fall and rise of the Conservative Party is: tightly focused in on politics as seen from and carried out in Westminster.
This is an account of senior political figures and their political, policy and media manoeuvrings. The public feature very rarely (unlike in Deborah Mattinson’s memoirs from …
This morning the government’s plan to phase in a permanent banking levy were altered to bring in the levy in full straight away. It will bring in an extra £800 million as a one-off and, in the words of the Today program is, “Maybe not of a kick, more of a shove perhaps”.
Although attempts to encourage an increase in bank lending are by no means over, the combination of those slow talks and the paying out of large bank bonuses, has not exactly been winning the banking sector friends in government, even amongst Conservative ministers let alone amongst Liberal Democrats.
The Labour government completely failed to take into account the horrific nature of the crime, the consequences and the sentence imposed when it took the view that it could assist the release of Mr Megrahi.
Equally in Scotland, the Justice Secretary failed to take account of these three significant factors when reaching a conclusion about the exercise of compassion.
If both had paid proper attention, the Labour government would not have been so embroiled and the Scottish
Peter Martin @ Kira,
The words you quoted were from Peter Davies'. Not me. I wouldn't agree with raising VAT on energy to 15% right now. I'd leave it as is.
The point ...
Peter Martin “‘why can’t social care and NHS spending be treated as ‘investment’’. Of course, that wont wash”.
I'd agree if were talking about re...
Peter Martin There's really only two fiscal rules that make any sense:
1) If inflation caused by an overheating economy is the main issue, then governments should tax mor...
Peter Davies @Kira Collins You seem to have missed the bit about raising tax allowances. That primarily helps those on low wages....
David Wright According to this well-argued article (by Lib Dem councillor Mark Ellis), a simple wealth tax wouldn't work, but tax on TRANSFER of wealth could, if current tax...
The reference to showing ID at polling stations reflects increasing concerns over impersonation at polling stations in the last few years, partly as a result of many of the easy ways of carrying out postal vote fraud having been curtailed by changes in the rules.
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Martin Wainwright's Guardian obituary of Michael Meadowcroft
Evaluating different electoral systems for the House of Commons
Brexit and summer holidays
Peter Martin 
Peter Davies 
David Wright 