Nigel Waterson, the Conservative MP for Eastbourne who is struggling to hold his seat in the face of Stephen Lloyd’s challenge, has suffered a further blow today.
Only a few days ago the former Tory MP Ernle Money said he would be voting Lib Dem in Eastbourne, saying Nigel Waterson “has been a rotten MP and on numerous occasions, he has jumped onto any passing bandwagon and taken up causes after they have already been dealt with by others.”
Now the former chair of the local Conservative Association has accused Nigel Waterson of negative campaigning and revealed that he had told his own campaign team that he was losing the seat.
Welcome to a two-part series about the real impact social media (or social networking) is having on politics in Britain. In part one I look at the groups which face extinction, whilst in part two I will look at why pundits searching for the impact of social media on politics in 2010 are looking in the wrong place.
What impact has the introduction of cheap colouring printing technology had on British politics? Almost none. Certainly many more leaflets are colour than used to be the case, more target letters contain colour inserts and a generation of amateur designers have had the …
Stoke’s The Sentinel newspaper reports the latest in the case of an election won by one vote with one ballot apparently missing:
The public inquiry, which began on Monday, looked into why 742 postal vote envelopes were counted before election night, of which 26 were rejected, leaving 716, but only 715 were accounted for after the official count.
The petition was rejected by electoral commissioner Richard Mawrey, who said it had led to cumulative costs of six figures for both parties.
He said the “missing” vote could be explained by mistakes in the recording of information on the records.
More than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted in crackdowns on illegal file-sharing.
ACS:Law has sent thousands of letters to people claiming they have illegally downloaded material and offers them a chance to settle by paying around £500.
Which? says it has been approached by some – including a 78 year-old accused of downloading pornography – who have no knowledge of the alleged offence.
I emailed Sir Roger Singleton on 14 September about my concerns with the way the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s guidelines state that if someone has been found innocent in a court of law that does not mean they could have been completely innocent. Particularly given the many issues about the ISA’s remit, this choice of wording in their own guidelines is one of obvious concern.
I heard nothing so I emailed again on 16 October. On 19 October I was told by the Vetting & Barring Scheme Information Team that the issue had been passed to
A PUBLIC inquiry has opened into whether a Stoke-on-Trent City Council election was held according to the law…
In October, Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey counted the ballot papers behind closed doors and ruled a public hearing would have to take place in Stoke-on-Trent. The two-day inquiry began at Hanley Town Hall yesterday.
Ms Maley, of Eaton Street, Northwood, lost out to Liberal Democrat candidate Dave Sutton after several recounts – by just one vote…
It has previously been discovered that 742 postal vote envelopes were counted before election night, of which 26 were rejected, leaving 716. But only 715 were
The Labour party has descended into civil war over Luciana Berger’s success in winning the candidacy for Wavertree.
Last night Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle broke cover branding Miss Berger a “student politician” and questioned her support for Israel, views she shares with Jane Kennedy, the outgoing Wavertree MP who supported her campaign.
Mr Kilfoyle and Ms Kennedy may well have history, but his intervention has merely added fuel to a fire that was already alight since the decision was announced on Sunday.
He has given voice to a feeling of discontent shared with others in the local Labour
EXTRA CCTV is being installed at the borough council officers amid claims of a ‘Hyndburngate’ involving bosses being spied on.
At Hyndburn’s full council meeting leader Coun Peter Britcliffe accused the Labour group of behaving ‘like the Richard Nixon administration’, claiming documents were being searched during ‘internal break-ins’.
However the Labour group said the allegations were ‘completely unfounded’…
At the meeting Coun Britcliffe said: “There have been internal break-ins in which councillors have been snooping up and down looking at letters.
“We do know that one Labour councillor was found at the back of somebody’s computer in the
THE Mayor of Camden, Councillor Omar Faruque Ansari, has been suspended from the Liberal Democrat group tonight (Monday) after he was questioned by benefit investigators.
Council leader Keith Moffitt said he would remain suspended until “a serious investigation” was complete. It is understood Cllr Ansari was questioned by investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions today, although released without any charges being brought. The investigation, however, is ongoing. It does not relate to council funds…
Cllr Moffitt said in a statement tonight: “Councillor Omar Faruque Ansari has today been suspended as a member of the Liberal Democrat Group on
Back in July last year I blogged about the changes in electoral registration rules which would see people being giving the option to supply additional information, namely their National Insurance number, date of birth and signature, during this year’s electoral registration cycle. That’s part of the phased move to individual registration and gathering this extra information will be the basis for future extra security checks when people vote in person.
But wait, what’s this that the Telegraph “revealed” over the weekend? Ah, that’d be, “Britons to be asked for NI number, date of birth and signature to get right …
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, has ruled that Martin Bright, Melissa Kite, Andrew Neil and Fraser Nelson all broke Parliamentary rules by failing to fully declare their financial interests in the Register of Journalists’ Interests. The ruling follows a complaint I lodged with the Commissioner.
They have all been lobby journalists, giving them special access to Parliament and politicians. Given the possibility of lobbyists and interest groups paying members of the lobby to raise issues on their behalf, there is a financial register which – in theory – provides a degree of transparency and hence protection against abuse of …
The BBC has just published a draft of the internal guidelines for its election coverage. The 14 page document is similar to the guidance at previous elections and includes a set of sensible rules which other media outlets would do well to emulate, including:
There will be no online votes or SMS/text votes attempting to quantify support for a party, a politician or a party political policy issue.
Given the risks of party supporters attempting to pack audience feedback sections, the guidelines also wisely say:
The BBC will not broadcast or publish numbers of e-mails, texts or other communications received on either side of any issue connected to the campaign.
On balance of coverage between the parties, the key criteria is:
Previous electoral support in equivalent elections is the starting point for making judgements about the proportionate levels of coverage between parties.
However, other factors can be taken into account where appropriate, including evidence of variation in levels of support in more recent elections, changed political circumstances (e.g. new parties or party splits) as well as other evidence of current support. The number of candidates a party is standing may also be a factor.
What this does not address head on is that only a minority of seats are now Labour-Conservative contests. The majority either have someone else in first or second, or are three way (or more) contests. Coverage which is dominated by Labour and the Conservatives (which is what the form of words implies) will in fact end up not reflecting the actual contests in the majority of the country.
The expected brevity of reporting is highlighted by the comment that:
Full-length reports (e.g. 3 or 4 minute packages) about specific electoral areas should refer – as a minimum – to an online list of all candidates and parties standing.
When a “full-length” report is only 3 or 4 minutes, this is not going to be an election where we can expect much in the way of in-depth reports from the BBC.
Despite these caveats, the overall tenor of the BBC’s intentions is good – and far better than what is often seen in local newspapers with the idea of “balance” at election time becoming an excuse either to report nothing or only to allow very brief, turgid snippets. Instead, the BBC says:
The intention of these guidelines is to encourage vigorous debate and to give a higher profile to candidates of all parties in general without giving unfair advantage to one candidate or party over another.
The BBC’s draft guidelines also repeat what is now long standing BBC policy of not commissioning opinion polls to ascertain voting intention levels. Although the policy was originally born in large part by doubts over the accuracy of opinion polls and the wisdom of focusing on the horse race nature of politics, it is also now the case that there are so many general voting intention polls (even hitting record levels) that the BBC hardly needs to add to the number.
Freed from the burden which media outlets feel of the need to headline and big up their own polls, the BBC could fill a useful role in reporting polls – and calling out the exaggerated reporting of small shifts as major moves. The guidelines are hopeful on this, saying the BBC’s policy is
to report the findings of voting intentions polls in the context of trend. The trend may consist of the results of all major polls over a period or may be limited to the change in a single pollster’s findings. Poll results which defy trends without convincing explanation should be treated with particular scepticism and caution.
The guidelines cover both the general election and May’s round of local elections. Assuming nothing dramatic happens on the dates for these, the guidelines in their final form will come into force on 29th March.
Chris Wiggin – http://chriswiggin.blogspot.com (Strap line: I’m young. I live in York. I’m a Liberal Democrat. I run my own business. I finish too many sentences with exclamation marks!)
Philip Peake – http://upinforesthill.wordpress.com (Great example of how a local councillor can use a blog to campaign whilst also providing useful local information.)
It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for one of Microsoft’s best adverts (no, really) and the bicycle lane of the week but first the news.
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
Really interesting health discussion: Sandy Walkington doesn’t got for hyperbole in his description of a public meeting addressed by Norman Lamb but do read through to the end – which has an excellent account of the problems facing anyone trying to come up with policy for the NHS.
Snow joke: Residents demand grit bins as Labour stop debate: Haringey councillor Richard Wilson is on the case to get more grit bins so residents can do more to take care of their own streets during future snow falls. Haringey Labour’s response? Waffle. (Words rather than food, that is.)
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
2 Big Stories
‘Sarah’s Law’ sex offender alert scheme may be expanded
Councillor Mark Green has resigned from the Council’s Conservative Group and has been accepted as a Member of the Council’s Liberal Democrat Group. Mark represents the the Cannock South Ward.
Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a new Saturday slot posing a view for debate:
Disdainful comments about political motivations and ideological fixations abound. But what Britain needs is more ideology, not less. Because it’s having a core of ideological beliefs that gives those in power a plan for action that is more than simply responding day to day to events or taking on board completely the agendas, assumptions and perspectives of those running the machinery of government. Ideology provides a model that can make different ideas hang together in a coherent whole that is more than the …
Although it’s normal for candidates to leave the security of ballot boxes firmly in the hands of elections staff, there is in fact a long-standing legal right dating back to the 1872 Ballot Act for candidates to put their own seals on ballot boxes.
It is a right that is only rarely used, such as in the 1999 European elections in Haringey. The Conservatives decided to put their own seals on ballot boxes, motivated in part by the usual European rules requiring a 3 day delay between polling day (Thursday) and the count (Sunday). On that occasion the seals caused more concerns …
The Evening Standard ran a piece from Simon Jenkins, which included a bit of myth-recycling about what the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health had said about people clearing snow from outside their property.
There were two problems.
First, either Simon Jenkins or a sub-ed dropped the word “probably” making the quote sound far more definitive that in the original version reported in other newspapers. (I suspect it was no innocent error because there was also a similar distortion of what Lord Davies said in Parliament.)
Second, the quote was – even in the full version – wrong. …
CONSERVATIVE high command make no secret of the importance of the Westcountry to their hopes of winning the general election, but there seems to be growing unease in the region about the impact (negative or non-existent) their leader is having on voters…
Speaking to MPs and PPCs from Devon, Cornwall and Somerset there is a distinct lack of confidence, even in private.
They talk about “hanging on” to seats, “picking up one or two” others. Don’t forget the Tories need to win an extra 10 seats in the three
In the three months since I last blogged at length about the Liberal Democrat general election manifesto process, Danny Alexander (chair of the Manifesto Working Group) has won widespread praise for restoring a sense of peace, sense and order after the events around the party’s autumn conference.
On the two major flash points – mansion tax and tuition fees – hostilities have ceased and proposals been modified to win widespread support within the party. Tuition fees are still due to be scrapped, but over a longer timescale, and mansions are still due to be taxed, but with a narrower definition …
Election literature should never assume knowledge on the part of the reader. It should concisely, and in the plainest language possible, relate what has to be told. One fault of the bulk of election literature is that whilst suitable for a highly cultured and favoured class of people, it is almost useless for the ordinary elector who, intelligent and quick enough in the ordinary way, is not a close political student, conversant with every detail of the Parliamentary doings of the day.
A series of proposals to reform the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) have won the backing of the public in a new IPSOS-MORI poll (8-17 January, 980 individuals) commissioned by the Media Standards Trust:
By a 61% margin the public believe the chief purpose of this body should be to monitor compliance with the code of practice and conduct investigations where there is public concern rather than its current chief purpose of mediating on complaints between newspapers and complainants (73% – 12%)
By a 44% margin the public back an independent regulatory body over the current industry-run arrangements (52% – 8%)
The Home Office has recently published a review of the research into how to improve public confidence in the police. One of their conclusions? The very community politics idea, expressed in very New Labour vocabulary, that
The strategies most likely to be effective in improving confidence are initiatives aimed at increasing community engagement. Three out of the four interventions classified in the ‘what works’ evidence all included an element of communicating and engaging with the community (embedding neighbourhood policing; high quality community engagement; and using local-level communications/newsletters).
In other words: talk to people, listen to them and involve them. That is …
In a weird display of the mutual weakness at the top of the Labour Party, the Prime Minister and Chief Whip are in disagreement over Gordon Brown’s plans to legislate for a referendum on AV (which would be held after the general election).
Whilst Gordon Brown and, rather surprisingly given his views on the Liberal Democrats, Jack Straw are both in favour, prominent opponents include Chief Whip Nick Brown. He seems to be particularly motivated by fears that under AV he would lose …
I am so pleased that my local Lib Dem candidate is genuinely the sort of person I would be proud to go out and campaign for. I wish him luck and will do whatever I can to help him.
It has emerged that the Electoral Commission is to review the accounts of the British National party. The BNP submitted a revised set of accounts earlier this month, following concerns that the original set it had given to the commission had not been approved. Following an assessment of the revised accounts, the commission decided that it is “reasonable to assume” a breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act has occurred.
The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) neatly encapsulates much of how modern government is run, its weaknesses and the problems our democratic systems face in trying to control or improve bureaucracy.
The Office of the Public Guardian was created for the best of reasons following the 2005 Mental Capacity Act in order to administer a new Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) process by which people can lay down what should happen to them and who can make decisions for them if they lose the ability to decide for themselves.
Giving people more and clear control over their own lives is what government should do. Moreover, the OPG is, in theory, an accountable public body with annual reports, performance standards laid down by the Ministry of Justice and its operations open to questioning in Parliament.
But the reality of how it works also reveals the dark side of modern government.
The Press Complaints Commission is currently reviewing its Editors’ Code of Practice so a group of bloggers, including myself, have got together to propose five changes – and we’re running an online petition which you can sign too.
Amongst any group of people, the exact reasons for supporting the suggestions will vary but for myself they are:
(a) All the suggestions are obvious and easy ones which ask no more of newspapers than to meet the sorts of standards many journalists and editors have long since said they should meet.
(b) They pass the “what if your kids asked…?” test, by which …
Nigel Jackson (University of Plymouth) and Darren Lilleker (University of Bournemouth) have carried out a useful little piece of research into what prospective Parliamentary candidates get up to on Twitter.
Size of Twitter audience
Although size isn’t everything on Twitter, the number of followers a candidate can build up is relevant to the question of whether Twitter can be a useful medium for direct communication with voters (as opposed to indirect communication, i.e. reaching journalists and helpers on Twitter who then in turn reach the public).
This survey found PPCs with followers often numbering in the thousands which leaves open the possibility that some, at least, are reaching significant local audiences directly.
What sort of messages do PPCs send out?
Around 78% of PPCs use Twitter to send out messages discussing local issues and the same proportion also use it to promote their party, with these two groups of messages being the most popular.
Sharing information is also common: 69% promote their own campaigns but also 67% share non-news links, 53% share news stories and 35% provide local information directly in their tweets. That last figure suggest that, whatever the possibilities, many PPCs do not view Twitter as being useful to them for a direct local audience – or perhaps (very wrongly!) think a local audience is not interested in local information.
Personal touches are common with nearly 60% sending tweets about their personal life, just under half expressing personal preferences and 29% sending jokes.
Using Twitter to listen
Directly asking for views is fairly rare though, with less than one in ten asking for views on local or national issues. However, many PPCs are aware that by putting views or links on Twitter they are likely to get feedback, so the number of explicit requests for views understates the degree to which Twitter is used to solicit feedback.
The report also found that:
The number are following varies from 6 to 2,751. To give these figures some meaning we created a follows/following ratio, which compares the number of followers they have as opposed to the number they follow. Thirty six PPCs have a negative rating meaning that they follow more than follow them, so that for them Twitter seems largely about listening to the views of others. Ninety one have a follower/following ratio of 10 or under, suggesting that they use Twitter as a means of promoting their views, but do look at what others have to say. Only 2 have a higher ratio than this implying that for them Twitter is primarily a broadcast channel.
It’s all related
Number of followers, number of people being followed and frequency of tweets are all strongly correlated in the survey results. With the usual caveat about correlation not being the same as causation, it looks as if the more people use Twitter, the more they get out of it – which in turn of course encourages them in turn to use it more.
Chloe The Russian army is bogged down east of the Dnieper River in Eastern Ukraine. What possible motive does it have to attack anyone outside the conflict that has b...
paul barker Nine By-elections since May 7th & Reform have only won one, perhaps a sign of hope....
George Thomas I think this article is well written, thank you. This past week has seen a reminder in two different ways of when the LGBTQ+ community supported the miners and ...
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...
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From cinema to book shop
District council backs a parish council for Market Harborough
New by-election poll gives Burnham 5 point lead
Pope Leo speaks for all liberals when he condemns racism, supports migration, and supports Ukraine
Chloe 
paul barker 
George Thomas 
Nick Baird 
Peter Chambers 