Author Archives: Paul Walter

Paul Walter

Witney: great result – thanks team!

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2016 - 8:15 am

Well, that was a great result at Witney. Congratulations to Liz Leffman who was an astonishingly brilliant candidate.

This was the biggest swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems since the Winchester by-election in 1997.

We moved from 4th to 2nd. In 2015 the Guardian described the 25,155 Tory majority at Witney as “ultra safe”. Liz and team reduced that majority to just 5,702 with a very high turnout for a by-election – 47%.

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Paul Walter

Lib Dems win seat from Tories in Yorkshire

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2016 - 3:32 am

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Paul Walter

Lib Dems up 6% in St Albans by-election

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2016 - 3:30 am

Lib Dem hold. Many congratulations to Councillor Ellie Hudspith!

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Paul Walter

+++Witney result: Biggest Con to Lib Dem swing since the 1997 Winchester by-election.

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2016 - 3:17 am

Con 17,313
Lib Dem Liz 11,611 😃
Labour 5,765
UKIP 1354
Green 1363

CON: 45.1% (-15.1)
LDEM: 30.2% (+23.5)
LAB: 15.0% (-2.2)
GRN: 3.5% (-1.5)
UKIP: 3.5% (-5.6)

Turnout 47%

19.3% swing from the Tories to the Lib Dems.

The Greens and UKIP lost their deposits.

The Tory majority was slashed from 25,155 of “ultra safe” for the Tories to 5,702!

Lib Dems rise from 4th to 2nd.

Via Neil Fawcett’s Live Facebook broadcast, Liz Leffman said:

This is a really great result. Thank you to everyone who helped in any way. This is a beginning for us – we can still go on and do even better.

You can read the 2015 result here.

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 36 Comments
Paul Walter

Liz Leffman gets 11,611 votes in Witney

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2016 - 3:12 am

Liz got just over 30% of the vote.

Con 17,313
Lib Dem Liz 11,611 😃
Labour 5,765
UKIP 1354
Green 1363

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Paul Walter

Witney turnout estimated at 47%

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2016 - 3:10 am

So much for the “low turnout” that was forecast earlier!

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Paul Walter

Live updates from the Witney count

By Paul Walter | Thu 20th October 2016 - 11:23 pm

The Witney Gazette is carrying live updates from the Witney by-election count here. Turnout is said to be low and a Tory majority is expected. Estimates of the Lib Dem vote are currently around the 25% mark, which would be a fantastic achievement given we started as 50/1 outsiders, fourth with 6.8% of the vote.

This great success has been the result of wonderful teamwork led by a superb candidate, Liz Leffman. Just today we had 400 activists in the constituency, 300 people making calls from home, 10,000 doors knocked on and 13,500 phone calls made.

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Paul Walter

++Lib Dems gain council seat in North Cornwall

By Paul Walter | Thu 20th October 2016 - 11:13 pm

Many congratulations to Leigh Frost and team on winning a seat on Bodmin Town Council in St Leonard’s ward. The by-election was caused by the resignation of a Conservative councillor, and was hotly, but unsuccessfully, contested by the Labour party.

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Paul Walter

The USA may face a very dangerous situation on November 9th

By Paul Walter | Mon 17th October 2016 - 9:46 am

P112912PS-0444 - President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the Oval Office - crop
How a Presidential election concession normally looks – Mitt Romney and Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office after the latter’s election

I should declare an interest. I am a great Woody Harrelson fan. He could read out passages from the New York phone directory and I would think it is great.

There’s a scene in the film “Game Change” with our Woody at his best. “Game change” is the film that looks at Sarah Palin’s selection and campaign as Vice Presidential nominee in the US 2008 Presidential election.

The scene in question is after Barack Obama’s election is confirmed, and as John McCain is planning his concession speech. Sarah Palin, played by Julianne Moore, is determined to also make her own speech at the same occasion, praising John McCain.

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Paul Walter

Boris’s pro-EU article highlights the stupidity of Theresa May’s hard Brexit approach

By Paul Walter | Sun 16th October 2016 - 9:29 am

We’ve known for a while that Boris Johnson wrote two articles for the Telegraph, for and against Brexit, two days before declaring himself as a “leaver”. Only the leave article was published, leaving the remain article under wraps. Via a book and the Sunday Times, the second article has now been revealed.

It contains such corkers from Boris as these:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 36 Comments
Paul Walter

Extra push for Liz Leffman in Witney

By Paul Walter | Sat 15th October 2016 - 6:08 pm

witney-mosaic
Hundreds of supporters have been flocking to the Witney Lib Dem HQ this weekend. I was there earlier today and delivered a whole village. It was fantastic to see our hub throbbing with activity. One of the main things hapening this weekend is the delivery of a constituency-wide newspaper, the West Oxfordshire Chronicle.

Liz Leffman has been thanking supporters for the fantastic work done so far and asks for an extra push in the final days before polling on Thursday this week.

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 23 Comments
Paul Walter

Donald Trump’s attitude to holes and digging is just plain dumb

By Paul Walter | Fri 14th October 2016 - 4:10 pm

The US Presidential election has boiled down to this: If it is a referendum on Trump, Clinton wins. If it is a referendum on Clinton, Trump wins.

At the moment, it seems to be an extraordinarily florid referendum on Trump. This is a shame, as policy doesn’t seem to be getting a look in. But I suppose Americans are debating clearly the sort of person they want to see in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Paul Walter

Marmite row – Nick Ferrari demonstrates ignorance of modern business

By Paul Walter | Thu 13th October 2016 - 5:05 pm

There’s been a lot of coverage today about the Unilever/retailer wrangle, which has led to some ranges of famous brand products being out of stock on, for example, Tesco’s website. Marmite seems to have been chosen as the leading talking point in this debate. Unilever appear to be asking for increases in prices for their products due to the fall in the value of the pound.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 44 Comments
Paul Walter

101 uses for Tony Blair?

By Paul Walter | Mon 10th October 2016 - 10:47 am

Tony Blair says he is considering ways in which he may be of use in returning to UK public life, as reported in an interview write-up in Esquire magazine.

Perhaps he needs our help to suggest ways he could be of use to the public and UK politics in general?

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Posted in Humour | Tagged | 14 Comments
Paul Walter

Clinton and Trump second debate – broadly a draw

By Paul Walter | Mon 10th October 2016 - 3:48 am

The second Clinton/Trump took place early this morning. This time it was “Town Hall” style – with questions from audience members. It started without the traditional handshake (which has one precedent in the shape of one of the Nixon/Kennedy debates) but finished with a brief one.

Some of the subjects covered were: the leaked video-tape of Trump, Bill Clinton’s misdemeanours, taxes, the Clinton emails, the character needed to be President, ISIS, Syria, Supreme Court judges, energy and healthcare.

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Paul Walter

Events of the week highlight the courage and clarity of Tim Farron’s stance

By Paul Walter | Sat 8th October 2016 - 10:15 am

It’s been quite a week in British politics. The Tory conference and the UKIP self-combustion serve to crystallise a distinct change. A sea change, if you like.

We heard Amber Rudd saying companies will have to register “foreign” employees (next step getting them to wear badges?) and Theresa May hard Brexiting.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 33 Comments
Paul Walter

The founding king of England encouraged an open, outward-looking country

By Paul Walter | Thu 6th October 2016 - 5:22 pm

Full marks to Tom Ash. Earlier this week he nailed an historic parallel for Brexit. That was Henry VIII and the reformation.

However, those who favour an open, outward-looking UK, can claim an older, greater precedent than the Brexit-like Henry VIII, who broke with Europe basically because he couldn’t perform in bed sufficiently to produce enough healthy sons. (OK, there’s a bit of historic licence there and I’m being a bit (a lot?) cheeky – apologies – and I also apologise to the Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish that this is all about England).

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Paul Walter

In pictures: Leaders from the archives

By Paul Walter | Thu 6th October 2016 - 11:10 am

Just delving about in the Getty Images archive, I happened upon these great images of our current leader and some of our past leaders*. Please click on the images to read the captions.

* includes predecessor parties.

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Paul Walter

Philip Hammond: The Tories are the only party who can represent modern Britain …then the camera turned onto the audience

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th October 2016 - 11:10 am

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Posted in Humour | Tagged and | 13 Comments
Paul Walter

Yes, they have Vice-Presidential debates as well….

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th October 2016 - 9:40 am

There’s a great line in the film Apollo 13 before the on-board emergency in the space ship. A character refers to the very low TV audience for the coverage of the mission saying:

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Paul Walter

Whoops – there goes another UKIP leader

By Paul Walter | Wed 5th October 2016 - 8:35 am

It’s a little known political trivia answer that Suzanne Evans was leader of UKIP for a few days in May 2015. Nigel Farage stood down after losing Thanet South in the General Election and Ms Evans stood in for three days. Then the party’s national executive commitee rejected Farage’s resignation.

Incredibly, now another UKIP leader has stood down after a few days. Diane James has resigned 18 days after being annointed by an awkward Farage non-kiss as leader.

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Paul Walter

Is Theresa May frog-marching us out of the single market through a covert process?

By Paul Walter | Tue 4th October 2016 - 12:15 pm

I have now read Theresa May’s speech from the Conservative conference on Sunday.

The key passage appears to be this one (with my bolding):

…we will seek the best deal possible as we negotiate a new agreement with the European Union. I want that deal to reflect the kind of mature, cooperative relationship that close friends and allies enjoy. I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work. I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services. I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the Single Market – and let European businesses do the same here. But let me be clear. We are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

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Paul Walter

Liz Leffman narrows the odds of a Lib Dem victory at Witney

By Paul Walter | Tue 4th October 2016 - 10:45 am

Liz LeffmanIt’s all go at Witney. Here are some of the highlights of the last few days:

  • Hundreds of helpers descended on our Witney HQ over the weekend,
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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Paul Walter

Tim Farron opens Witney by-election HQ

By Paul Walter | Sun 2nd October 2016 - 9:55 am

This video (below) shows a spirited Tim Farron opening our large HQ in Witney. Please do help with Liz Leffman’s campaign! You can help by following this link.

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

+++BREAKING NEWS+++ Time for “slow news”?

By Paul Walter | Sat 1st October 2016 - 8:49 am

BBC1 Newsflash logo from black and white TVThere was a time when news of the death of the King took months to percolate through to all parts of the realm. Some villages heard the news when a random horse rider came through after taking a wrong turning. I like to think that some villagers in some instances didn’t hear about the death of the King until his successor had also died, but perhaps that is fanciful.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Paul Walter

Nick Clegg to present first episode of new series of ‘Have I got news for you’

By Paul Walter | Fri 30th September 2016 - 10:55 am

Nick Clegg on The Last Leg 4I did wonder if I’d slipped down a rabbit hole when I heard this news.

But, given his acclaimed appearance of The Last Leg and his LBC experience, it is perhaps understandable that ‘Have I got news for you’ have invited Nick Clegg to present the first show of the new series on October 7th. Now that he has been separated from his Deputy Prime Ministerial limo for a while, he is perhaps sufficiently non-establishment enough to provide a bit of grist to the HIGNFY mill.

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Posted in Humour | Tagged and | 18 Comments
Paul Walter

US Election: Non-college-educated whites versus the rest?

By Paul Walter | Wed 28th September 2016 - 9:25 am

One of the noticeable features of last night’s US Presidential debate (see full transcript here) was how Donald Trump was goaded into saying things to damage his chances with key constituencies. His “stop and frisk” proposal will not, I suspect, go down well with African American communities. Mention of his criticism of Alicia Machado, a hispanic former Miss Universe, probably met with displeasure from women and Hispanics. There was the airing of the “birther” controversy and a whole series of Trump favourites, as he was very successfully goaded by Hillary Clinton.

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Paul Walter

Trump and Clinton finally meet to debate

By Paul Walter | Tue 27th September 2016 - 4:42 am

Well, at last we saw Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton facing each other this morning. You can watch the debate in full via CBS and YouTube below.

My first impression was that Hilary Clinton certainly put the “health” and “stamina” issues to bed. Donald Trump started to get a little frayed as the debate wore on. Clinton carried on confidently and was as fresh as a daisy at the end. She certainly looked “presidential”.

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Paul Walter

Liz Leffman’s Witney campaign hits the ground running

By Paul Walter | Sat 24th September 2016 - 5:12 pm

Sal Brinton Liz Leffman Paul Walter Charlie dog at Witney by-election 24th Sep 2016

(R-L) Party President Sal Brinton, Witney candidate Liz Leffman and Paul Walter with veteran Focus delivery dog Charlie at the Witney by-election campaign HQ today

The Lib Dem Witney by-election HQ was abuzz with activity when I visited to help today. I was astonished by the busy team all set to work so early in the campaign. It was great weather for delivering leaflets. I enjoyed doing my very large bundle in Carterton, with the sound of the aircraft at Brize Norton in the background.

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 9 Comments
Paul Walter

#LibDemDisco is splattered all over the tabloids

By Paul Walter | Mon 19th September 2016 - 2:30 pm

The 2016 #libdemdisco has been liberally covered in the tabloids.

The Daily Mail went with “Were there points for the best dad dancing? Lib Dem grandees dance the night away at bizarre competitive DISCO”. They described the disco as a “Booze-fuelled late night event” and said:

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