1. What’s your formative political memory?
Watching Roots when I was nine. I was shocked to the core by the cruelty towards the slaves, the very idea that people could be bought and sold and, I think crucially, by the fact that such abuse can be stopped if good people take action.
2. When did you start blogging?
September 9th 2006.
3. Why did you start blogging?
I never wanted to just write about politics, but I thought I could help the Lib Dem cause during the hours when it would have been rude to deliver leaflets. I felt that there was a need for something which could simply explain liberal ideas to people who had no interest in politics and to be a bit of an antidote to the bile from the right wing tabloid press.
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Random, liberal, eclectic (and this one has been used by Malcolm Harvey in the 2010 Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging), fair and unpredictable.
5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Leftie, liberal, peace loving hippy.
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
2010 was the most emotionally and politically intense year I’ve ever experienced. The potent cocktail of emotions and adrenaline during the General Election and the formation of the Coalition (and since) fuelled some posts I’m quite proud of. I can’t say I really enjoyed writing them, though.
I’m going to pick is the interview I did with Jo Swinson on the day Lib Dem Voice let me loose as guest editor. Rather than have me frantically scribble notes, my son had set things up so I could record the conversation. We ended up having a 20 minute chat on a huge range of topics from how the coalition was going down on the streets of East Dunbartonshire to her recent visit to Nigeria, to her work on allergies, to sport and gender sterotyping. We were both pretty relaxed and it felt like a proper, illuminating, grown up conversation which I wanted to report in pretty much that style.
I spent the rest of the night frenetically writing it up in 3 parts: one, two and three.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
My shortlist for this had a fair few Elephant posts on it, but the one I’ve chosen is one where he describes the workings of the economic cycle. The fluffy one at his educational best.
8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
It has to be Dan and Dan’s Daily Mail Song. I never get tired of listening to it. A brilliant satire on the British right wing tabloid press in general.
Back in 2000, Susan Kramer was the first (and in many ways most successful) Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London. Here is her party political broadcast from that campaign, featuring several familiar faces including a young Mike Tuffrey and also Susan’s husband, John, who died tragically early in 2006:
If you are generally a supporter of the government, read Version A. If not, read Version B.
Version A
In excellent news that the government is taking cracking down on tax seriously, the government has appointed a heavy-weight team of tax experts to review the case for introducing a General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR). The selection of legal, judicial and tax experts means the case for a GAAR will receive expert scrutiny and make it very hard for the government to reject any recommendations for action.
Version B
In appalling news that shows how the government has sold out to rich tax-dodgers, …
Furious senior Liberal Democrat councillors have labelled communities secretary Eric Pickles “incompetent”, called for the abolition of his department, and urged the sector to take its concerns about his recent conduct to the top of government…
The comments were matched by their Labour counterparts with Salford City Council leader, John Merry (Lab), calling on Mr Pickles to relinquish his post…
Conservative councillors at the executive meeting were less vociferous but not one defended ministers during an hour-long discussion on the local government finance settlement, while LGA chairman, Dame Margaret Eaton (Con) said she was “saddened” by some
In acrimonious clashes, they warned the Deputy Prime Minister that they would fight his proposals every step of the way…
The show-down – described by one participant as “Daniel in the lion’s den” – came at a meeting between Clegg and members of a cross-party group campaigning against the plans. More than 50 peers from all major parties were present, including the former Liberal leader Lord Steel of Aikwood.
Shock news there, that peers who are against elections are against plans to introduce elections – though the presence of David Steel is disappointing.
Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
The tragic killing of six and injuries to thirteen others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, have received heavy coverage in the UK media, not only in response to the shooting itself but also following up the story subsequently. Yet other recent political deaths from countries around the world have received, at most, very little media coverage in the UK.
There are partial explanations – such as the murdered Nigerian politician being a local government figure rather than a national figure and the
Erskine May is the House of Commons rulebook – but if you want to get a copy, it’ll cost you £268.40 from a commercial publisher, and Parliament has said no to a request for a free electronic copy from a member of the public.
The origins are typical of the British constitution. Erskine May started off as a unofficial guide written by an assistant librarian in the House of Commons. Over time it established itself as the reference work and is now treated just like an official rule book. But unlike Hansard – another Parliamentary publication which originated with …
Let’s start with some updates on stories we’ve previously covered here on The Voice.
Conservative London Assembly member Brian Coleman has backed down from his attempt to ban questions to him at London Fire Authority meetings.
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is to investigate the Daily Telegraph, following complaints from Tim Farron and others that the newspaper had gone on a fishing expedition rather than having the sort of public interest case which justifies journalistic subterfuge. On the substantive policy issue at stake, Ofcom look set to recommend that the Sky bid should be referred to the Competition …
The degree to which ministers should let differences within the coalition shown in public was much debated in the second-half of the year, and I’ve blogged several times about the advantages of doing just that. So the latest news from Nick Clegg on this is very welcome:
The Liberal Democrats plan to air future disagreements with their Conservative partners in public as Nick Clegg attempts to assert a more distinctive identity for his party in a new phase for the coalition…
In a shift of tactics for the coalition, which was launched by the two party leaders in the Downing Street garden
The party is not exactly short of opponents to overcome when it comes to implementing Liberal Democrat beliefs in government, yet we are not using the party’s grassroots strengths to help win those struggles.
The Conservative Party is, to take one example, split on civil liberties. Many key figures take a similar view to the Liberal Democrats, yet there are also many opponents of what a Liberal Democrat majority government would
At the weekend The Independent ran a piece very critical of the Liberal Democrats in government:
The Royal Family is to be granted absolute protection from public scrutiny in a controversial legal reform designed to draw a veil of secrecy over the affairs of the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.
Letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, her heir and the second in line to the throne will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest…
The decision to push through the changes also raises questions about the sincerity of the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to government transparency.
In November I blogged my suggestions for how the party’s internal election rules should be changed. In brief – fewer restrictions on candidates and voters being able to talk about the contests and who they support, more leeway for online campaigning and a series of steps to encourage more debate and discussion within the party about the elections and merits of candidates. The last point was fuelled by my experience of standing (successfully) for the Interim Peers Panel – and being asked almost no policy questions by voters in the process.
Following the federal committee, interim peers panel and …
The BBC that in place of control orders the government is intending to have powers to do the following:
ban suspects from travelling to locations such as open parks and thick walled buildings where surveillance is hard
allow suspects to use mobile phones and the internet but only if the numbers and details were given to the security services
ban suspects from travelling abroad
ban suspects from meeting certain named individuals, but limited to people who are themselves under surveillance or suspected of involvement in terrorism
Under the planned new orders, the security services would lose the power to impose overnight curfews, force suspects
The rapid appearance since the formation of the Coalition of Conservative MP Nick Boles’s book Which Way’s Up? is a tribute to the speed with which Biteback turns round books – recognising that the previous slothful pace of much political publishing meant books were no longer able to capture the political weather. Boles’s book, by contrast, certainly does that and attracted immediate headlines about his support for a two-term coalition and for an electoral pact.
The heart of the book, however, is about policy rather than political tactics. Boles himself has long been a Conservative moderniser – “a Cameroon before …
Liberal Democrat Communities Minister Andrew Stunell has been laying out details of how the Coalition Government is intending to get more empty homes put to use housing people. As the press release says:
Councils will receive powerful new incentives, with the coalition matching the council tax raised for every empty property brought back into use. Local authorities will be given the freedom to spend this money as they see fit. The government is also investing £100m in a fund for Housing Associations to bring empty homes back into use.
There are around 300,000 empty homes across the UK, and local residents are being encouraged to work with the council to identify where these homes are, so that their local community can start benefitting from the extra cash that can be used to improve their local area.
It’s not often that Conservative London Assembly Member Brian Coleman comes over as a shy, quiet, introverted man who likes to shun the public spotlight.
Last week, Stephen highlighted the rather gaffe-prone No2AV campaign’s list of Labour MPs planning to vote No in May’s referendum on changing the voting system from first past the post to the alternative vote. It’s since turned out that five MPs were wrongly included in the list, with one – Barry Sherman – going as far as to say he was actually planning to go out and campaign for a Yes vote.
Today a second one of the supposed No supporters has turned out to also be campaigning for a Yes vote. This time it’s Albert Owen, MP for …
“Control orders” could be called “secret detention directives”. “Tax exiles” could be called “tax fugitives”. “Extraordinary rendition” could be called “government-sponsored kidnapping”.
In all three cases a fairly benign phrase has been adopted by both sides of the debate, despite the phrase very much favouring one. Having a bit of order doesn’t instinctively sound too bad. Exile even has a whiff of the honourably martyr about it. And “extraordinary”? Well, that’s usually a good thing, isn’t it? Especially if we’re talking about “rendition”, i.e. a word that is well outside common usage.
Ooops, not quite all good new on the snow myth-busting front. Despite good news from many parts of the country about councils laying to rest the myths around people being sued if they clear snow from outside their own homes, Wigan Council has gone for reinforcing rather than rejecting the legal myths:
HOMEOWNERS and businesses could risk being sued for clearing snow from the front of their premises if someone slips or falls, legal experts at Wigan Council have warned…
With more snow forecast for this weekend, Wigan Council’s borough solicitor Kevin Lawson said: “It is the council’s responsibility, so far as
To try to calculate the case for different voting systems by party advantage (or disadvantage) is not only wrong, it is also a mistake. Although we can guess how past elections might have turned out under AV, based on opinion-poll evidence of voters’ second preferences (as we report today, there might have been a hung parliament in 1992 and a Lib-Lab deal might have been more possible last year), people would behave differently under a different system.
Now it is time, therefore, to consider the philosophical or pure case for the alternative vote. In this, we
Two polls out tonight (so far – there may be a third) on the Oldham by-election:
ICM for Mail on Sunday: Labour 44%, Lib Dem 27%, Conservative 18%
Populus for Lord Ashcroft / Sunday Telegraph: Labour 46%, Lib Dem 29%, Conservative 15%
UPDATE: New pollster Survation (who are applying for membership of the trade body, the British Polling Council) makes it much closer with Labour 31%, Lib Dem 30% and Conservative 6% (don’t knows not excluded, hence the lower figures all round).
Cracking down on bankers’ bonuses is a “moment of truth” for the coalition government, a leading Liberal Democrat has warned, amid mounting expectations that payments of at least £7bn will be awarded in the coming weeks…
Lord Oakeshott, a Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, said this was a moment for the coalition to act, particularly on forcing more disclosure from banks on the amount they pay.
“This is the coalition’s moment of truth on fairness,” he said. “The first item on our coalition agreement is a promise to deal with unacceptable bankers’ bonuses. Secret bonuses are by definition unacceptable, so
Oops. Bit of, err…, over exuberance over on Labour List who ran the story:
Deficit caused by economic crisis, says Channel 4…
The Tories have spent most of the past year trying to establish a media narrative that says Labour are to blame for the deficit. Once they had acheived that, it was just a small step to argue that “austerity” was needed to fix problems “caused by Labour”. So it’s pleasing that Miliband’s defence of Labour’s economic record has been so swiftly vindicated by the respected Channel 4 factcheck.
There was one slight problem, as the update to the post reveals:
Two snippets of news today about freedoms – a reminder of the importance of libel law reform and good news on extending freedom of information.
In the Independent, John Kampfner (Chief Executive of Index on Censorship) writes:
“There’s nothing like a boob job cream to get readers going on an important issue. The case of Dr Dalia Nield, one of the country’s leading plastic surgery consultants, goes to the heart of the problem with English libel law. Dr Nield took issue with the company producing the cream, which claimed to increase a woman’s cup size. Her remarks, in a national newspaper,
During 2011, the political reform agenda is likely to be dominated by a spring referendum on the alternative vote and by the government fleshing out its promise to bring in elections by proportional representation for an elected Upper House. Significant though the impact of both the alternative vote and Upper House elections may be, there are two much smaller ideas the government should look to pilot during the year because a healthy democracy also requires healthy turnouts; 2011 should see weekend voting and increasing the number of polling stations tested out.
Building up traffic to a local party or councillor website is much like building up a delivery network: it brings big benefits, but it’s not the sort of thing you can do overnight. They are both best achieved by making slow and steady progress over a period of time.
Steadily work your way down the list over the next couple of months and by the time this May’s election campaigns proper kick off you should really notice the difference.
Make sure the site is listed:there are numerous websites and blog directories, but generally only two really matter for political sites: DMOZ …
It’s January, so the government’s bank levy has come into force. The basic details are that it is a o.05 per cent levy on bank balance sheets, but rises to 0.075 per cent in 2012 and the details of how it works are designed to encourage banks to rely more heavily on more stable sources of funding in the future.
Expected to bring in £2.5 billion a year, the revenue is pretty small compared to the estimated costs of the financial crisis overall (even if future sales of the government’s bank shareholdings are factored in). However, at a time when …
Earlier today both Chris White and Nick Barlow pointed out how the government’s “localism agenda” (formerly known as the man in Whitehall doesn’t know best) has taken two steps back this week. But for the two steps back, there are also two steps forward: with councils being given more discretion to decide what parking charges should be in their own patch (a piece of localism which will most likely see some Conservative councils downplay environmental considerations in setting charges, but if you believe in local decision-making…) and also, hooray, a scrapping of the “pre-determination rule” in …
Steve Trevethan Might we have a definition of government debt?
Might we have a definition of democracy?...
David Raw @ Tristan Ward. Given your views on carers, I would strongly advise you to remain healthy and not to grow old....
Katrin Harding Thanks for grasping this issue! On the consultation sessions- I’d love to join one but the timings are impossible as a parent of young children. I’m happy t...
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...
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Are Labour going to cross another red line?
Martin Wainwright's Guardian obituary of Michael Meadowcroft
Evaluating different electoral systems for the House of Commons
Steve Trevethan 
David Raw 
Katrin Harding 
Peter Martin 