Author Archives: Alex Foster

Alex Foster is a former Lib Dem councillor in Nottingham and has been a party staffer working in the constituency offices of MPs and MEPs in the East Midlands. He is Lib Dem Voice's bursar and likes to create podcasts.
Alex Foster

Note to agents: do not publish anything you learn at postal vote opening

By Alex Foster | Thu 29th April 2010 - 4:35 pm

Twitter has come alive in the last two hours with tweets and retweets of Labour’s new media Tsarina Kerry McCarthy, who appears to have attended a postal vote opening session in her constituency of Bristol East – and then tweeted her tally totals.

Just to be clear, this is illegal. You should not do it. If you are attending postal vote processing sessions or are an agent yourself, please make sure your entire team knows that anything you learn at that session cannot be shared.

Mark Pack has the full listing of the section of the law that applies …

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Alex Foster

TV’s Gloria de Piero refuses to go on TV

By Alex Foster | Sat 24th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

News from the Ashfield constituency, where yesterday I was delivering in a street with a most unusual name.

It appears that Labour’s parachute candidate, TV’s Gloria de Piero, is so frit of her lack of local links that she has pulled out of all hustings engagements, including a piece arranged by the regional TV slot of the Daily Politics.

Gloria De Piero had previously said she would attend hustings on the BBC politics show (25th April), a chamber of commerce breakfast hustings (22nd April), a Nottingham Evening Post hustings (28th April) and Sutton-in-Ashfield churches together hustings (29th April) but has

…

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Alex Foster

Surprising lines in new LD merch

By Alex Foster | Wed 21st April 2010 - 10:46 pm

So, what feels like an age past, but was in fact only 10 days ago, we brought you news of a David Heath action figure dreamed up by some whizzy PR firm.

No doubt hoping to get a second bite at the cherry, they’ve hopped on the Cleggmobile to bring out a Lib Dem leader version of the publicity stunt.

It gets top billing on this blog post at NOTW who then try to outdo themselves with Nick-based puns around all sorts of other party merchandise they’ve found. Everything from Nick Clegg sunrise sneakers to a dog vest, in case …

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Alex Foster

Factoid: Clegg now more popular than Cable

By Alex Foster | Wed 21st April 2010 - 9:45 pm

Of some passing interest is this little factoid that Politics Home press released last night:

In PoliticsHome’s weekly tracker, Nick Clegg has become the most popular politician in the country

Nick Clegg’s approval rating in PoliticsHome’s weekly tracker has risen by a massive 35 points in the week following the first leaders’ debate.

He has now overtaken Vince Cable to become the most popular politician in the country.

Where to start with the interestingness? Most popular politician in the country? A mixed acolade at best. Yeah, he’s popular, but he’s still one of those awful politicians.

Risen by a massive 35 points? …

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Alex Foster

LibLink: David Yelland – “Clegg’s rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics”

By Alex Foster | Sun 18th April 2010 - 11:52 pm

There are, of course many good reasons why the Lib Dems in power would be in the interests of our nation, but some of the most intriguing yet have been outlined by David Yelland in a piece for the Guardian’s Comment is Free.

The piece has many telling details of how journalism works in this country these days, but the chilling conclusion of the piece is this:

Over the years the relationships between the media elite and the two main political parties have become closer and closer to the point where, now, one is indistinguishable from the other. Indeed, it is

…

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Alex Foster

What challenges might the future bring?

By Alex Foster | Fri 16th April 2010 - 10:40 pm

Challenge #1 – the electoral system

I nearly wrote this a few weeks ago, at which point it would have looked prophetic – writing it now just looks like I’m crowbarring it on the back of the rather sensational Yougov / Sun poll, news of which is breaking on Twitter.

Any number of people have taken the poll figures, Con: 33 (-4); Lab: 28 (-3); Lib Dem: 30 (+8), plugged them into UK Polling Report’s uniform swing calculator, and reeled, aghast at the revelation that our awful electoral system is so completely bust that it’s conceivable that the party …

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Alex Foster

Congratulations to David Ford

By Alex Foster | Mon 12th April 2010 - 3:59 pm

Congratulations go from all at the Voice to David Ford, the leader of Alliance, the Northern Ireland sister party of the Liberal Democrats. The Northern Irish Assembly has voted David in as Justice Minister as other parties failed to find cross-community support.

The BBC reports

Before appointing a new minister, MLAs passed a vote to increase the number of devolved ministries at Stormont, to include the new Department of Justice.

Mr Ford will be in charge of the department with more than 4,000 employees and a budget of nearly £1.5bn.

He is the first Northern Ireland Justice minister since Westminster took policing

…

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 6 April 2010 – they’re off!

By Alex Foster | Tue 6th April 2010 - 7:21 am

Good morning and welcome to Daily View on this, the first day of the General Election.

As if we hadn’t all been at war footing for weeks anyway.

In history on April 6th, in 1869 celluloid was first patented, paving the way for commercial photography and cinematography. Every Youtube video you watch during the campaign will be thanks to the technology and techniques first pioneered on celluloid over 100 years ago.

On this day in 1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested for attempting to book into Chris Grayling’s B&B; in 1896, the first modern Olympic Games is held. It’s the day in 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany and the day in 1930 when Ghandi began the Salt Satyagraha which ultimately led to independence for India.

Today Rory Bremner turns 49 and Mylene Klaas turns 32 – my age.

2 Big Stories

Gordon Brown triggers general election

Most helpfully, the fact that Gordon Brown was planning to head off to see her Maj today to dissolve Parliament and trigger a general election was leaked to all the papers far enough in advance that they could run stories today, and not have to play catchup tomorrow.

Here’s the Guardian, who have also been leaked enough snippets of manifesto to get their clothespeg ready:

A draft of the manifesto seen by the Guardian pledges that an unprecedented fourth-term Labour government would be “bolder about the role of state intervention in markets” and deliver sweeping constitutional change. Failing police forces could be taken over by their neighbours under one radical proposal.

You’d have thought they wouldn’t want to mention the fact that there are any failing police forces after 13 years of glorious Labour rule. Or that any further constitutional change was necessary.

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2:

By Alex Foster | Thu 1st April 2010 - 6:55 am

Welcome to Daily View on this auspicious date, which in most Western cultures is considered a day of pranking and merriment. Of course we at LDV have no truck with such levity, and everything we write today is the honest truth.

Happy birthday to Gmail – 6 today!

2 Big Stories

Hadron Collider II planned for Circle Line

The Independent reports:

London Underground is in talks with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) about the possibility of using the 23km tunnel of the Circle Line to house a new type of particle accelerator similar to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

One immediate benefit for passengers will be air-conditioning, installed to cool the huge superconducting electromagnets needed. Win-win!

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Alex Foster

Campaigners’ weather forecast

By Alex Foster | Sun 28th March 2010 - 1:11 pm

It’s lovely now! Go outside and do some leafleting!

But there is a storm coming later this week – my RSS feed of severe weather warnings tells me there are warnings in place for Tuesday from 2am to midnight for very heavy rain and even snow on high ground. So, for Tuesday, it might make sense to plan some indoor activity – preparing your leaflets, researching your stories and making some phone calls.

The warning appears to apply for from the Midlands and further north, Northern Ireland, but not Scotland, so key seats from Watford to Durham and Cardiff …

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Alex Foster

Guardian readers switching to Lib Dems in droves

By Alex Foster | Thu 25th March 2010 - 11:56 am

Wednesday’s editorial for the Guardian – which I found online here – is one of those pieces you see all too often in the Guardian, the time honoured preparation of the nose peg. Hold your nose, disregard the stench and put the cross by the rose.

It tries to find some vestige of hope in the Labour party, one thing remaining that is still worth voting for. But it’s the penultimate paragraph and not its conclusion that rings truest:

The party’s activists and MPs are so obviously convinced of their own decent intentions and past record that they fail to

…

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Alex Foster

Who made the threatening #cashgordon phone call?

By Alex Foster | Tue 23rd March 2010 - 9:12 am

Are you up to speed with the mess the Tories made out of trying to use social media yesterday? They launched a website trying to criticise Gordon Brown for something or other. Part of the site included a twitter feed so that any twitter user using the hashtag #cashgordon could get their words on the site. Users quickly found out that these were not screened before going live, which meant you could get anti-Tory sentiment onto the Tory website. And then the more technically minded twitterati discovered that if you included some code in your tweet, you …

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 23 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Tue 23rd March 2010 - 7:45 am

Diagram of wings of early planeIn history, March 23rd was the day in 1903 the Wright Brothers applied for a patent on one of the earliest aeroplanes – and the day in 1933 Adolf Hitler became dictator of Germany.

It’s birthday to Joan Crawford, Wernher von Braun, José Manuel Barroso, Marti Pellow and Russell Howard.

Today in history, two people who underwent pioneering surgical procedures died: Britain’s youngest ever liver transplant patient died, aged three, and in 1982, the recipient of the first ever artificial heart died, aged 61.

2 Big Stories

All yesterday, two huge political stories raged through the online world: the farce of a Tory attempt to use social media, #cashgordon, and foreshadowing of last night’s Dispatches, which showed three Labour former cabinet ministers in a very bad light.

The newspapers catch up with the latter, but don’t seem to be covering the former.

Byers, Hewitt and Hoon suspended over lobbying allegations

The Telegraph reports:

Three former Cabinet ministers, Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon, have been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party over allegations they tried to sway policy decisions by lobbying the Government.

The Lib Dem party line on this horrid mess which embarrasses Parliament?

Liberal Democrat Shadow Leader of the House, David Heath said, “MPs should not be using their positions to further their own interests over those of the people they should be representing. Liberal Democrats brought forward measures to restrict the influence of lobbyists in Parliament. Sadly, Labour voted them down while the Tories failed to show up. Labour and the Tories claim they want to clean up politics but the reality proves different.”

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 18 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 18th March 2010 - 7:42 am

How to sign "Thank you" in BSLOf all the days in history I’ve had to write about so far, March 18th seems about the dullest. Nothing particularly interesting has ever happened today, so that’s a bit of a challenge for the day just leaving the starters blocks.

About the best the wikipedia page for today can offer up is that John Updike was born today and the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to transportation. Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube was disconnected and BSL was first recognised as an official British language.

2 Big Stories

Ashcroft’s lawyers silence ‘Panorama’

The Independent reports:

The BBC has shelved a Panorama documentary about the business affairs of the Tory billionaire Lord Ashcroft, because of a threat of legal action.

The Corporation has received what one insider described as “several very heavy letters” from Lord Ashcroft’s lawyers. There is now little or no prospect of the investigation being broadcast before the general election, if it goes out at all.

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Alex Foster

Digital economy bill must be debated in the Commons

By Alex Foster | Tue 16th March 2010 - 12:36 pm

So despite conference taking our peers out for a friendly word in their shell-like, it seems the Digital Economy Bill has successfully cleared the hurdles in the House of Lords.

Some industry experts are relying on the bill passing simply because it runs out of time, the MPs fail to scrutinize it, and it gets through thanks to the wash-up.

So now is the time to write to your MP to insist the bill gets a proper hearing in the Commons.  38 Degrees have information and a campaign to help you do that.

Posted in Conference, LDV campaigns and News | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 16 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Tue 16th March 2010 - 7:30 am

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View. I’m standing in for your usual Tuesday host because Sara was rushed into hospital yesterday. Get well soon, Sara.

March 16th in history saw the resignation of Harold Wilson in 1976; in 1995, Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment and officially outlawed slavery in US.

Today is the birthday of Isabelle Huppert and Jimmy Nail.

2 Big Stories

Police investigate Labour MP Ashok Kumar’s death

Police and doctors are investigating the death of a Labour MP whose body was found at his home yesterday.

Dr Ashok Kumar, 53, had been working as normal, with major commitments as parliamentary private secretary to Hilary Benn, the environment secretary. He was also campaigning for Corus steelworkers’ jobs in his Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency. His body was found after anxious staff failed to rouse him by phone and called emergency services, who broke into his home.

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Alex Foster

Lib Dems and the #debill

By Alex Foster | Sun 14th March 2010 - 11:58 am

I don’t want to be excessively partisan, but for the second time this weekend at conference, I’m getting a really good feeling about the Liberal Democrats.

The first was when we heard that a senior, experienced MEP thought our party was the best way forward.

But the second has been our response to the Digital Economy Bill and a huge online campaign from internet activists within the party and of no party.

Yes, it’s true that our team in the Lords invited the anger of the online activist fraternity. A lot of resentment has been brewing about the Digital Economy Bill as a …

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Alex Foster

+++ PODCAST: Lib Dem #debill debate

By Alex Foster | Sun 14th March 2010 - 10:47 am

I always seem to start my podcasts with an apology. In the hurry to bring this recording to you so you can share in the debate the Lib Dems had this morning, I have not yet processed my sound file. It could do with a bit of amplification for sure. And I’m afraid I missed the vital first few moments of Bridget Fox’s speech. And after that, the speeches will be punctuated by the sounds of the hall slowly filling up as the debate progressed, and the frustration of many of the delegates that what looked like …

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Alex Foster

PODCAST: Authoritarianism fringe

By Alex Foster | Sat 13th March 2010 - 12:48 pm

Last night a good crowd turned out to hear Paul Burstow MP, Mark Pack, Alex Wilcock and Bridget Fox talk about our new online project, Authoritarianism vs Liberalism and to talk more generally about their work and current campaigns.

Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting: Make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box

As ever, I was there with my trusty Zoom H2 so that we can share the fringe meeting with our listeners at home. …

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Alex Foster

+++ BREAKING: Conservative MEP defects to Liberal Democrats

By Alex Foster | Fri 12th March 2010 - 3:41 pm

Exciting news live from the LDV Broom Cupboard in Birmingham’s ICC.

News reaches us that Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has defected to the Liberal Democrats and will be joining us here at party conference.

The MEP said today: “I have been around the higher circles of the Conservative party for long enough to fear that on Europe Cameron says one thing in opposition and will do another in government.

“I have long fought against totalitarianism and the extremism and religious persecution it brings. It was wrong of Cameron to associate with MEPs who have extremist pasts in his new European alliance.”

I guess …

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 11 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 11th March 2010 - 7:34 am

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View.

Today is notable as the day before LDV’s fascinating fringe event on how to make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box – do join us tomorrow in Birmingham to find out how.

302 years ago today, Queen Anne was the last British monarch to withhold Royal Assent from a bill of Parliament.

In 1864, Sheffield saw a Great Flood when a dam under construction burst. The ensuing inundation wrecked a number of bridges, destroyed 800 houses and killed 270 people.

People born on March 11th include Laurence Llewellyn Bowen, Harold Wilson and Douglas Adams; and deaths include Alexander Fleming, John Wyndham and Slobodan Milošević.

2 Big Stories

Parties battle over high speed rail

Will Labour’s Y or the Conservative Reverse-S win the day? Find out in The Times

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 4 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 4th March 2010 - 7:33 am

Good morning and welcome to Thursday’s Daily View.

There’s a huge chunk of exciting things that happened today in history, so it’s an auspicious day to welcome a baby Cullen. Our technical editor Ryan has been tweeting progress, and as I write this there’s a lot of pushing going on. Best wishes from all at LDV to the Cullen family – I’m sure LDV Towers will soon get used to night feeds. I’m dusting off my copy of Gina Ford as I type.

Male swans from Matthew Bourne's Swan LakeSo, today in history: the US Congress met for the first time in 1789. In 1790, France was divvied into départements. In 1797, John Adams succeeded George Washington, the first ever peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in modern times. Chicago was founded in 1837; Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake premiered in Moscow in 1877 and in 1882, East London saw Britain’s first electric trams. The first Daimler car was unveiled and in 1933, the first woman joined the US Cabinet.

March 4th birthdays include Vivaldi, in 1678, Sir Patrick Moore, and Nottingham novellist Alan Sillitoe (I was at the meeting of Nottingham City Council that made him an honorary freeman of the city, incidentally)

2 Big Stories

Evil Gays update

Civil partnerships – gay marriages – could soon be registered in places of worship – something currently expressly banned by statute, which is particularly unfair on those faiths which don’t have a problem with gay relationships, including Quakers and Reform Judaism. The Times has one version of the information; the Telegraph on the other hand manages to paint a far more bleak version of the havoc that could be wrought by litigious homos.

Meanwhile, David Cameron has averred that his party’s tax breaks, maternity and paternity rights planned for married couples will also be available to their civilly partnershipped brethren. Not quite sure how this tallies with last month’s pronouncement that would be no new gay rights under the Tories.

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Alex Foster

Conference – not just for conference delegates

By Alex Foster | Mon 1st March 2010 - 12:20 pm

Two weeks from now, the Lib Dems’ spring conference will all be over and delegates will be back home on the ground in their constituencies.

The new location of Birmingham for our conference brings a whole host of opportunities to Lib Dem members who live in parts of the country previously untouched by conference season.

Training

The most important of these is that you do not need to be a delegate to benefit from party training and fringe sessions held away from the main venue.  The party is running a full day of  training in Birmingham on Saturday, 13th March – and these …

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 11 February 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 11th February 2010 - 8:11 am

Well, let’s see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. Then it was February 11th and time for Daily View, on this, Canadian actor Leslie Nielson’s birthday.

He shares the date with the Beast of Bolsover, Dennis Skinner, and Caribou Barbie, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Other notable occurrences today include the death of Sylvia Plath in 1963 and the début of Julia Child’s US TV show The French Chef in 1963. If you’ve never seen it before, go see Julia making omelettes.

2 Cheerful Stories

British Retail’s “irreversible downward spiral”

The Guardian has news that some British towns and cities have so many empty shops they may never recover:

Many of Britain’s towns and cities are suffering from such huge shop vacancy rates that they risk becoming ghost towns, wiping hundreds of millions of pounds off property values, a study revealed yesterday.

Cities such as Wolverhampton and Bradford, where nearly a quarter of shops lie empty, could be on an irreversible downward spiral as a result of the financial crisis. The research by the Local Data Company shows retail vacancy rates across Britain rose 2% in the past six months of last year to 12%, with some towns seeing as much as 24% of its shops lying empty.

“As much as 24%” ? What’s wrong with “Almost a quarter” ?

Oh, and NB, the photo in the story is my home city Nottingham. I’m not sure where it was taken, but it’s not really typical of the city.

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Alex Foster

Congrats to Alex Folkes

By Alex Foster | Thu 4th February 2010 - 8:35 am

Last night, newly elected councillor Alex Folkes broke the news on his blog that he’d won the New Councillor award in the LGIU c’llr awards.

Obviously I’m very very chuffed at the news and want to thank the LGIU very much indeed.

LDV often share facilities with Cllr Folkes at conference when he’s working as a photographer – indeed much of his work is available for use, if correctly credited, at the Lib Dem Flickr group.

The criteria for the award were:

  • election for the first time in June 2009
  • visible positive impact on the political group and/or community
  • they will have pioneered

…

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 4 February 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 4th February 2010 - 7:04 am

Good morning, on this misty day which in history saw three awful earthquakes – in Haicheng, Guatemala and Afghanistan.

This day is a birthday to American civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks (pictured) as well as to the American vice-president famously unable to spell “potato”, Dan Quayle.

Deaths on the 4th February include Liberace and American novelist novellist writer Patricia Highsmith, who wrote Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley, and – according to Wikipedia at least – the first lesbian novel with a happy ending.

Today is also Facebook’s 6th birthday. How many other 6 year-olds earned $300m last year, had new words entered into dictionaries, and caused moral panic?

2 Big Stories

Legg Report published

Later today, Sir Thomas Legg’s report will be published on Parliament’s website. The Guardian – MPs ordered to pay back more than £1m reports:

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Alex Foster

Three “disgusting, eco-fascist, bullying” questions for Conservatives

By Alex Foster | Thu 28th January 2010 - 11:18 am

Cast your world-weary, battle-hardened, politico and political eyes over this disgusting filth spewing from the keyboard of swivel-eyed maniacs working through the night on behalf of some disreputable campaign to send vile messes to hard working Tory PPCs:

Can you clarify that:

You accept that climate change is caused by human activity?

Do you support the target to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020?

Do you support the EU imposing tougher regulation to combat climate change?

Hardly the worst questions a campaigner will receive.

In my brief time working in politics both as an elected representative myself and for MEPs and MPs, I have seen some …

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 28 January 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 28th January 2010 - 7:08 am

Smoke trails against a black skyGood morning, and welcome to Daily View this morning. 24 years ago, 28 January saw the NASA Challenger disaster.

It’s the date of the death of Henry VIII and the beginning of the Diet of Worms. (If they went to that sort of effort, I hope they lost a lot of weight!)

197 years ago today saw the first publication of Pride and Prejudice and in 1958, Lego bricks were first patented. Today’s bricks still mesh with the original 1958 system.

Birthday bunny hops today go to novelist David Lodge and hobbit-actor Elijah Wood.

2 Big Stories

Boris Johnson to stand down as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority

Over to the Guardian for today’s first story.

In direct contradiction to his manifesto, Boris Johnson has decided he doesn’t have time to be a writer, a mayor, and a Police Authority chair, and so something had to give.

Tory Troll has a bunch of handy quotes and links on the story.

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 21 January 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 21st January 2010 - 8:30 am

1920s woman in silk kimono smoking using a cigarette holderGood morning and welcome to Daily View. If you submit a tax return, there are hardly any days left to get on with it.

On this day in 1908, New York City voted to ban women from smoking in public. Two years ago, Black Monday did a number on the world’s stock markets.

In birthdays, we sing a song to Commander in Chief star Geena Davis and Christian Dior, who were born today.

And in deaths, we remember George Orwell – and use him as an excuse to pimp this link – a cartoon that fears that when it comes to dystopias, it was Aldous Huxley who nailed it, rather than George Orwell.

2 Big Stories

Stop the presses!

Men are wearing shorts in the snow in New York.

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Alex Foster

Today’s Massachusetts Special Election

By Alex Foster | Tue 19th January 2010 - 10:15 am

Today there will be a special election in the US state of Massachusetts to elect a new Senator to represent the state after Ted Kennedy‘s death last year.

And boy, are the stakes high for this one.

Nominally an extremely safe seat for the Democrats, the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley should be a shoe-in.

And yet Republican former centrefold star Scott Brown, once voted by Cosmo as America’s Sexiest Man (the link is fairly safe for work, but does contain a tastefully cropped naked man) has been closing the gap in the polls, and in some cases even taken a lead.

Of key importance in this battle is the senatorial supermajority, which we have covered on The Voice in the past. In the US senate, a party with 60 of the 100 senators – or the votes of 60 senators – can move a vote of cloture which can end a filibuster. This removes from the minority party a powerful tool to veto legislation by talking it out. This has become all the more fraught recently since Obamacare, the extremely controversial healthcare legislation currently under consideration. If the Republicans win the Massachusetts, the Democrats lose their right of veto and they could lose Obamacare.

Here’s a video for each candidate to give you a flavour of the battle.

First, President Obama is staking his political reputation to support Martha Coakley and underlining the future of Obamacare:

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