The ISP Talk Talk (over whose connection I’m writing this) has made an extremely good point about the Digital Economy Bill, which is set to be debated extremely briefly in the House of Commons during the week:
Clause 14 of the bill demands that customers take “reasonable steps” to prevent their network from being used by hackers for illicit purposes. TalkTalk claims that that would “presumably” be interpreted as a demand for the latest security measures, and calculates that such expense would, spread throughout just half the current number of houses connected to broadband, necessitate approximately £300 million in upgrade costs.
Charlie Whelan’s recent interview with Left Foot Forward confirmed what’s been widely reported elsewhere, namely that Unite are running a phone canvassing operation where they are asking their members how they are intending to vote:
We’ve talked to tens of thousands, almost hundreds of thousands of people in the last couple of years and there are a proportion of Unite members who are Tories. But the current telephone canvassing we’ve been doing of Unite members shows that it’s only 8.5%. I expected it to be higher than that.
However, if you are asking people their voting intentions and then recording that …
For several months the party’s internal security team has been running an extensive and long-running investigation. This was initially tasked to investigate:
Alleged financial irregularities and ‘scamming’ concerning the procurement of print, especially large election print run, leaflets and regular publications including Identity magazine.
The leaking onto the internet of sensitive party information.
The ongoing, co-ordinated and sustained hate campaign, feeding lies to certain anti-BNP blog sites.
More recently, its focus has moved on to the catalogue of recurring and seemingly inexplicable ‘gaffes’ being made at various stages in our preparations for the general election by certain
Latest figures from the Government’s Defence Analytical Services show that more than 34,000 full-time members of the Armed Forces are not registered to vote.
That is 19% of the services, almost one in five of those in uniform – their votes that could be pivotal in a tight contest.
The Electoral Commission has been running a campaign for months to try and persuade those in uniform to register.
However, according to a survey, more than half the military has not seen a leaflet and only 5% have had a Powerpoint presentation on the subject…
Meanwhile happier news from the Liberal Democrat camp, where I hear that efforts to stand a much larger number of local election candidates than we’ve managed for quite some …
Changes in position and score are since March’s figures, and the same caveats apply as before to these numbers from TweetLevel (i.e. Twitter isn’t the only thing in the world, and this isn’t the only way of measuring people’s influence on / use of Twitter).
New this month to Twitter are Evan Harris, Nick Harvey and Charles Kennedy, bringing the total number of tweeting Liberal Democrat MPs up to 30.
UPDATE: Mark Williams has also joined Twitter recently. Apologies for missing you first time round Mark.
New entrant Evan is straight in at the top of the list. That’s no fluke: Evan’s put the work into working out how to use Twitter well and has built up a good community which reaches out beyond the usual activists suspects. Paul Burstow’s rise up the table is the other striking move.
Indeed, the piece takes such a suspicious attitude towards weighting that it puts the word in inverted commas and talks about YouGov having “admitted” that it uses weightings.
My puzzlement is quite simple.
Every single political opinion poll published by The Telegraph during your time as editor has also involved weighting.
If it’s such a questionable act, why hasn’t your newspaper shopped itself first? And will you be abandoning your own practice of publishing weighted figures?
We’ve covered before how Power2010 is pushing for a set of political reforms and targeting specific MPs who have abused the system. Now it’s the House of Lords that is getting its specific attention, with a petition for a fully elected upper house.
You can find out more about the campaign and sign the petition over on the Power2010 site.
Jonathan Mitchell – http://www.jonathanmitchellsblog.com, who is our candidate in Dulwich and West Norwood (South London) and nicely demonstrates how a string of small photos adds hugely to the messages you get from glancing at a site
Kui Kihoro – http://beginsathome.com/, who brings a welcome dash of African perspective to the Lib Dem blogosphere
Good luck to all the new bloggers, and why not take a moment to pop over to their blogs, take a read and post a comment?
Following its British debut in the London and then European elections, Votematch is now up and running for the 2010 general election. The idea is a simple one – you answer 30 questions about different policies (less in Scotland or Wales because of devolution) and the site then tells you how closely your answers match those of different parties.
It’s got quite a few nice touches which show how the team have learnt both from experiences elsewhere, particularly the phenomenally successfully version used by one in three voters in Holland, and from their past experience in Britain. For example, you …
Tony Blair’s new campaign website to support Labour has an extremely complicated ownership trail behind it that ends in secrecy – but his office has declined to explain why or provide details.
A few days ago TonyBlair4Labour.org was launched, bringing to us the shock news that Tony Blair wants people to vote Labour. (Actually, it is interesting is that Gordon Brown’s star has fallen so far that now being associated with Tony Blair is viewed as a positive by Labour. At the last general election photos of Tony Blair were frequently all over Liberal Democrat leaflets and often completely absent …
“Croydon Central seat promises to be one of the most open and unpredictable in the country,” says Croydon Today, in response to the decision of the sitting MP to contest the constituency again. Andrew Pelling, also a former London Assembly member, snook home as a Tory in 2005 but in 2007 had the parliamentary whip withdrawn following his arrest after his wife alleged assault. No charges were ever brought, but at the end of that year Pelling declared that he would not seek re-election.
Well, now that he’s confirmed persistent rumours that he would change
Peter Hadfield, formerly of the New Scientist, has taken to YouTube to tackle climate change sceptics as he recently explained on the Guardian’s Environment Blog:
After questioning and listening to hundreds of climate change “sceptics,” I have found that not all are conspiracy theorists or religious fundamentalists. Many are keen to learn about the science of climate change, but they have been learning about it from rather dubious sources.
So two years ago I began a series of videos on YouTube to explain the science, and rebut urban myths that spin round the internet and end up on the opinion pages of the Daily Express and the Wall Street Journal. The result has been astonishing. My channel, Potholer54, now has over 27,000 subscribers. The videos have been mirrored by others all over the internet, and several university lecturers have asked if they can use it in their environmental science classes. Most importantly, former sceptics tell me the videos have changed their minds about the reality of climate change.
That success, however, comes at a price. It means looking at the science – not scary and unrealistic images of submerged cities. It means accepting the fact that Al Gore is not always right, and he should not be defended when he’s wrong. It means acknowledging that while sceptics like Christopher Monckton and Martin Durkin fabricate a lot of their facts, many environmental activists tend to exaggerate theirs.
Alas, poor Guido Fawkes. Blogger Paul Staines has posted so often, and with such utter certainty, claiming that there’s something dodgy about Sarah Teather’s expense claims that he seems just a mite reluctant to admit, “I was wrong”.
Which is why you won’t find him reporting today that Sarah Teather has been cleared by the Electoral Commission, instead insinuating that Sarah got off on a technicality.
For the benefit, therefore, of Paul and his readers, here’s what the Electoral Commission said following their review of the case:
… following the inquiries made during this stage, we have satisfied that
The results are in from a survey carried out by Brunel University into how much campaigning the public has been on the receiving end of.
The mediocre news as far as democracy is concerned is that 27% of the electorate say they were contacted by at least one of the three main political parties during February (by phone, letter, leaflet, email etc.). Coming just before a general election that 27% figure is not great, even if you factor in that some people do seem to forget they has been contacted and also that other parties have been campaigning too. It’s much …
Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies has spotted some rather odd entries in Nick Griffin’s expense claims from the European Parliament. Nick Griffin had previously stalled on publishing his expenses but now he’s given in to the pressure there are some distinct oddities:
a) Nick Griffin claims to have donated £5,575.91 to a fund that has only declared income of £4560.65.
b) Nick Griffin has previously said he employs three members of staff, one of whom is shared with another MEP. However the expense claims list eight people, give no names and only one of their job titles matches previous public statements about …
It’s good to see the Open Election Data project starting to take off. The issue is very simple: lots of people make use, or would make use, of local election data but it’s usually a real pig to get hold of details.
At the moment, there are annual books – but they’re on paper, expensive and take several months to appear. There are summaries from the likes of the BBC – an excellent public service, but the more local and detailed the data you need the more rapidly you find the limitations. There are also local council websites – but …
Yesterday was the start of the local elections campaign here in London and the fight is already getting dirty.
One such scrap is taking place in ultra marginal Waltham Forest where the Lib Dems are furious at “Labour’s lies” about police numbers.
Labour leaflets claim that the Lib Dems “want to cut the number of police in Waltham Forest” whilst being “in cahoots with Tory mayor Boris plans to cut police numbers.”
The Lib Dems deny this, pointing to their fervent opposition to Boris’s police cuts on the London Asssembly.
The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has cleared Sarah Teather of allegations that she broke Parliamentary expense rules. You may remember those claims being enthusiastically hawked around by Tory Bear and others as if they were copper-bottomed fact; actually their claims were more like a rusty colander.
He discontinued the inquiry because he had no grounds for believing that claims Ms Teather made from parliamentary funds for her office provided support to the cost of the Lib Dem party…
Brent Liberal Democrats said the party contributed over and above its usage of the office, as approved by
The Labservative pitch is clear enough: Labour and the Tories are way too similar, and neither is capable of producing change. It’s a familiar enough Lib Dem campaign charge. It’s a pleasantly unfamiliar position for the party to be making the point in a wittily Web 2.0 way. Well done, Cowley Street!
The site is already doing very well at garnering coverage – and positive coverage no less (did someone mutter CashGordon?):
Lib Dems target ‘Labservatives’ with guerilla advertising campaign – The Guardian
The Lib Dems have launched quite an effective site
Rory Cellan-Jones has written one of the best posts I’ve read this year on the internet and political campaigning – i.e. it takes the impact of the internet seriously but doesn’t swallow all the hype. He starts:
Are the political parties now too impoverished – or just too bone idle – to do the basic work of research and campaigning by themselves? Or do they really believe in the wisdom of crowds? I ask because both Labour and the Conservatives appear to have caught the crowdsourcing bug.
The rest of the article is a good piece of analysis, not taking Tory and …
Current Secretary of Sate for Transport, Lord Adonis rightly gets praise from across the political spectrum. Although there’s by no means cross-party agreement on some transport issues (think Heathrow for a start), Adonis is generally respected even when he is disagreed with. Whilst he has an extremely strong claim to have been the best Labour transport minister since 1997, some of the competition for that accolade is not exactly stiff.
Indeed, the publication a few days ago of another cross-party Select Committee report into the failings of part-privatisation on the London Underground reminds me of just how bad Labour MP Glenda …
Very well chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Cable frequently got applause. Darling held his ground well, but Osborne often weak and looking shifty. No-one got in a killer blow that will shift lots of people’s views, but debate will have confirmed praise for Cable and doubts about Osborne.
You can watch again Vince’s opening and closing statements.
Other people’s verdicts
The audience: I make it 6 rounds of applause for Cable, 3 for Darling and 1 for Osborne
The journalists: “Audience pretty much unanimous cable won, hacks too privately, but many sticking to party lines in
Ahead of this evening’s debate between Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable, you might find this little summary of the party’s fiscal policies helpful:
The party’s proposed tax cuts (such as raising the basic rate income tax threshold to £10,000) will be paid for by tax rises elsewhere in the system (such as ending the higher rate tax relief on pension contributions)
The party’s spending savings (such as scrapping ID cards) will be spent two-thirds on cutting the deficit and one-third on other policies (such as the pupil premium)
As to exactly how much savings will be identified, that in part awaits …
Planning on posting out letters in April? If you’re using stamps, remember the cost of first and second class stamps goes up on Tuesday 6th April – so buy your stocks of generic 1st/2nd stamps in advance. Full details of the new prices on the Royal Mail website.
There’s nothing like a practical example for learning a skill. So here’s a little example of how to take a story and then carefully apply journalistic skill and judgement to make it into one of those proper stories they put in newspapers. Or something like that 🙂
The core of the story is this: child climbs up tree, child climbs down tree, stranger walks up to child, school staff walk up to stranger, stranger walks off, police have a word with stranger.
Fact 1: “At no point was any child ever stuck in a tree”.
Conservative MEPs have consistently voted against a string of measures to protect women’s rights.
Analysis of the record of 25 Tory members of the European Parliament this year shows they voted against, or abstained, eight times on issues relating to sexual equality, family-friendly working hours, maternity leave and reproductive health – often in clear defiance of official Conservative Party policy.
The MEPs also failed to back an EU resolution expressing concern about homophobic attacks in Croatia, which is seeking EU membership…
On 25 February, 22 out of 25 Tory MEPs voted against a resolution calling for the EU
Nick Baird Ajax should of course have been cancelled years ago. Unfortunately due to the sunk costs the MOD and Government seem to be converging on a plan to spend another...
Peter Chambers > The standout project is Ajax, which should be immediately cancelled.
Oh if only! Ben Wallace confided that "the money is spent" and that if the programme...
Tristan Ward It has been perfectly obvious since the start of trump's second term that UK defence spending must rise. The political difficulty is equally obvious given th...
cim @Nick Baird - Even taking a quarter off the UK's budget would still keep us comfortably in the top 10 for all countries and ahead of the (also nuclear-armed) Fr...
Jenny Barnes We probably do need to increase tax to fund defence. Borrowing depends on the markets beleiving that the country can afford to pay it back, which would requir...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Bobby Charlton and Arnie Sidebottom at Stamford Bridge
Latest voting intention and leadership ratings opinion polls
Pope Leo speaks for all liberals when he condemns racism, supports migration, and supports Ukraine
Growing Asylum backlog undermines Government's case
Conference booked
Nick Baird 
Peter Chambers 
Tristan Ward 
cim 
Jenny Barnes 