Author Archives: Paul Walter

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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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged , and | 19 Comments
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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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged | 30 Comments
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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Posted in Conference | Tagged | 6 Comments
Paul Walter

How to watch the conference live

By Paul Walter | Sat 17th September 2016 - 4:17 pm

Yesterday, Caron ran down eight ways to follow the Brighton conference. As she mentioned, BBC Parliament will be carrying the conference on Monday and Tuesday. You can also watch the live stream on the party’s website here (albeit that the audio and video currently seems a bit out of sync):


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Posted in Conference | Tagged | 3 Comments
Paul Walter

“Devonwall” seat proposal – the government ignore Cornish pride at their peril

By Paul Walter | Fri 16th September 2016 - 2:45 pm

The Strand, Bude by paul walterThe Strand, Bude, Cornwall

On Wednesday I was lucky enough to be in a choir leading the singing of “Trelawny” in an ancient Cornish church. “Trelawny” or “The Song of Western Men” is the “unofficial Cornish national anthem” written by Rev R.S. Hawker. The congregation joined in with the choruses – most enthusiastically – and rapturous applause from “one and all” followed the song. It was a magical moment and reinforced that great feeling of community which one feels amongst Cornish people. There’s a real passion and pride about the Cornish nation.

The Boundary Commissioners and Theresa May should have been present at that church. I have a hunch that witnessing such strength of feeling, they would think again about their proposals for a “Devonwall” seat. The church in question is just south of Bude and part of the proposed parliamentary constituency of Bideford, Bude and Launceston, straddling Devon and Cornwall – or, I should say, Cornwall and England.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 25 Comments
Paul Walter

Brexit: Government’s first rumblings are encouraging

By Paul Walter | Mon 5th September 2016 - 7:54 pm

At long last we have had some statements from the government concerning Brexit. If anything, they are revealing through what they don’t say, but I find Theresa May’s first rumblings encouraging.

First of all, via Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, we learnt that the Prime Minister has ruled out a “points system” for EU immigration.

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Posted in Op-eds | 19 Comments
Paul Walter

A bizarre, but welcome, loophole for students in the new BBC iPlayer licence rules

By Paul Walter | Mon 5th September 2016 - 11:41 am

Student on laptop in Iowa City, Iowa (22041012645)

A big concern for students, and their parents, is how to watch TV when they are at college or university. £145.50 for a licence is a very steep price for a student to pay for just part of the year, even if they are sharing that cost with others in their flat or house.

Up until September 1st, students could use BBC iPlayer without paying the licence fee.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Paul Walter

We shouldn’t criticize Jeremy Corbyn for finally doing a bit of reasonably clever “media”

By Paul Walter | Wed 24th August 2016 - 5:35 pm

Jeremy Corbyn is getting a bit hammered, particularly by Richard Branson, for a video of him sitting on the floor of a Virgin Train.

You can read the ins and outs of “Traingate” elsewhere.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 42 Comments
Paul Walter

Can the nation somehow unite around the values represented by Money Saving Expert, NSPCC, TK Maxx and M&S?

By Paul Walter | Mon 22nd August 2016 - 9:40 am

Our esteemed editor, Caron, returned yesterday from a very well earned holiday and, revitalised by sun-soaked walks on Rosemarkie Beach, underscored the party’s need not to “go wobbly on the EU“. She concluded:

The future prosperity of our country depends on us winning these hearts and minds and we need to get on with it. We need to provide the glue that helps this very divided country to come back together and solve the problems it faces.

According to research based on years of mass polling by YouGov, uniting the country could boil down to somehow responding to the common themes represented by four brands: Money Saving Expert, NSPCC, TK Maxx and M&S.

Based on affinities identified in the polling, Emily James, chief strategy officer at advertising agency Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R says that the brands that are most likely to determine whether someone voted Leave or Remain in the referendum are:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 9 Comments
Paul Walter

While Brexit remains a mystery, ministers indulge in empire building and turf wars

By Paul Walter | Wed 17th August 2016 - 2:30 pm

The Guardian reports:

Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, made an attempted power grab on key areas of Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office, writing to his colleague and the prime minister, Theresa May, in an effort to wrest control of Britain’s overseas economic policy, a leaked letter has revealed.

Tensions have been escalating between the Foreign Office and Fox’s Department for International Trade, but the former defence secretary’s suggestion has apparently been given short shrift by No 10, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

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

Boris is in charge of the country – what could he get up to?

By Paul Walter | Wed 17th August 2016 - 10:00 am

Boris is in charge of the country.

What could he get up?

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Posted in Humour | Tagged | 14 Comments
Paul Walter

Owen Smith fishing with his ‘rich Tory friends’ – when Twitter gets rather silly

By Paul Walter | Wed 10th August 2016 - 2:29 pm



The tweet above, and others like it, caught my eye.

Labour leadership candidate Owen Smith is pictured on a fishing trip with rich Tory MPs Richard Benyon and Charles Walker. “Not much socialism there” was one tweeted comment.

So, the inference is that Owen Smith has lots of rich Tory chums and goes on fishing trips with them. So he can’t possibly be a socialist, or even a true “new Labour” man.

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

What will the Presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump be like?

By Paul Walter | Wed 10th August 2016 - 12:25 pm

In the US, the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates has proposed three televised Presidential debates in September and October.

It is fascinating to imagine how these will go. On the one hand we’ll have the ultimate cool-headed policy wonk in Hillary. On the other we will have the hot-headed, insult-firing Trump.

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

“Letter of the month” nails Trump

By Paul Walter | Wed 10th August 2016 - 10:55 am

This is a particularly clever nailing of the Donald Trump style. It comes from the Tampa Bay Times, was written by Terry Vaught of Dover, Florida, USA and tweeted by TBT reporter Mark Puente.

All it needs is that very skilful Trump impersonator, Lewis MacLeod, from Dead Ringers to voice it:

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Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged | 3 Comments
Paul Walter

Invoking Article 50 could be a disaster for the UK

By Paul Walter | Wed 10th August 2016 - 9:25 am

With the exception of the overseas French territory of Saint Barthélemy, no country has ever left the European Union. Greenland left its predecessor, the European Economic Community, in 1985. Exit negotiations, in that case, took more than 100 meetings over three years. Given that the EEC was a slimmer organisation than the EU, that negotiations were mainly over one subject – fish – and that Greenland has a population smaller than Bracknell or Bury, this should set alarm bells ringing for the UK.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 59 Comments
Paul Walter

Written on lavender notepaper, outgoing Prime Minister gives honours to his mates

By Paul Walter | Mon 1st August 2016 - 2:47 pm

This goes back to Harold Wilson in 1976 – so there is nothing new about controversial prime ministerial farewell honours lists.

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Posted in Photo feature | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Paul Walter

Brexit: The invocation of Article 50 can be reversed

By Paul Walter | Sun 24th July 2016 - 12:05 pm

In May, the House of Lords select committee on the European Union published a detailed document on the process of withdrawing from the EU.

Among other things, the committee concluded that:

…we have no reason to believe that the requirement for legislative consent for its repeal would not apply to all the devolved nations.

-That is, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The committee also concluded that, once Article 50 of Lisbon Treaty has been invoked, it can be reversed before the end of the two year negotiating period:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 28 Comments
Paul Walter

Brexit: How we could be in the single market with greater control over immigration – the Adam Smith Institute

By Paul Walter | Sat 23rd July 2016 - 9:10 am

The words of President Hollande on Thursday reinforced the UK’s apparent dilemma:

It’s the most crucial point… Britain will have to choose: stay in the single market and accept free movement or have another status.

I have banged on about this since the referendum. There is a halfway house – that of being in the EEA and EFTA.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 10 Comments
Paul Walter

Brexit: The betting on what will happen next

By Paul Walter | Thu 21st July 2016 - 10:55 am

CGP Grey is an Irish American You Tuber and podcaster. He’s done some excellent animated YouTube videos which explain complex issues very quickly. I recommend viewing his masterpiece on what would happen if the USA’s presidential electoral college is tied, and his corker on the Canadian-USA border. They are both priceless.

CGP Grey has now turned his attention to the Brexit options. He talks very fast on this following video. In fact, I don’t remember him talking this fast on any of his previous videos. He talks faster than the actors on West Wing. In 6’57” he beautifully explains the Brexit scenario and the post-Brexit options. It really is brilliant.

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 4 Comments
Paul Walter

Through careful language, Theresa May leaves her options open on Brexit

By Paul Walter | Thu 21st July 2016 - 9:30 am

I’ve mentioned before that Theresa May is, as one might expect, using very careful language on post-Brexit options.

In her leadership launch statement, she said:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 24 Comments
Paul Walter

BBC poll suggests by 2:1 voters want PM May to prioritise single market over restricting free movement

By Paul Walter | Thu 14th July 2016 - 1:33 pm

Mark Easton presented some interesting “Brexit expectations” polling by ComRes for the BBC last night on the Ten O’clock News. Here are a couple of highlights:

Most Britons think that maintaining access to the single market should be the priority for the Government when negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the EU (66%), while just a third say this of restricting freedom of movement (31%).

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Paul Walter

Brexit minister (10th July): PM has promised to put border controls ahead of economy in negotiations

By Paul Walter | Thu 14th July 2016 - 11:58 am

The new Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, has already helpfully set out his Brexit negotiating positions in a speech to the Institute of Chartered Engineers in March (carried in full on his website). He has also more recently written a detailed article on the subject on Conservative Home.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Paul Walter

So farewell then David Cameron…

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th July 2016 - 11:20 am

In the week of Chilcot, we can at least observe that David Cameron didn’t cause an unnecessary Middle East invasion which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 14 Comments
Paul Walter

Hopefully this will be the last stunning day in British politics for a while

By Paul Walter | Mon 11th July 2016 - 6:04 pm

Well, well, well. Yet another stunning day in British politics.

There we were expecting two months of two candidates touring constituency Conservative parties. And then suddenly we hear that we’ll have a new Prime Minister on Wednesday evening.

Our Prime Minister exits the stage humming a bar of the West Wing ending theme tune.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Paul Walter

The EFTA/EEA Norway model provides some scope to lessen the pain of Brexit, while increasing control over immigration

By Paul Walter | Mon 11th July 2016 - 9:49 am

One of the legacies of the Leave’s irresponsible, hotch-botched campaign is that, in the public mind, leaving the EU has become inextricably intertwined with leaving the single market and eschewing free movement of goods, services, capital and people. We need to move beyond this binary thinking, which is bordering on the moronic.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 40 Comments
Paul Walter

The next Prime Minister won’t be Michael Gove but will be a human being

By Paul Walter | Thu 7th July 2016 - 5:55 pm

So, huge sighs of relief and trebles all round. Michael Gove will not be Prime Minister. Phew!

So, the next Prime Minister, and presumably the country’s future direction with it, will be chosen by the 0.2% of the population in the Tory party from amongst Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom. So we’ll get our second female Prime Minister.

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Posted in Op-eds | 53 Comments
Paul Walter

Splendid and moving tribute to David Rendel, former Liberal Democrat MP

By Paul Walter | Thu 7th July 2016 - 4:10 pm

David Rendel at Anti-Iraq war demo 15th Feb 2003 Some rights reserved by Paul Walter

David Rendel at the 2003 London march against the Iraq war. David described voting against the Iraq invasion, in the House of Commons, as his proudest moment.

Last Monday, a memorial event was held for former Liberal Democrat MP, David Rendel. This was at the Corn Exchange theatre in Newbury. Family, friends, colleagues and former constituents of David filled the hall to overflowing.

The tributes started with a film of David’s life put together by Rachael Clarke, Deputy head of policy of the Liberal Democrats. This film included video footage and photos from David’s political and family life.

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Posted in Obituaries | Tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Paul Walter

Post-Brexit: We need to embrace plan B

By Paul Walter | Mon 4th July 2016 - 10:58 am


Flag of EFTA

Tim Farron is playing a blinder at the moment. Our clear support of the European Union, while accepting the referendum result, is absolutely right.

But we need a dual track approach here. We need to have an alternative to EU membership lined up. “Plan B”, if you like.

It seems to me that rejoining the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) (we left in 1973 after 13 years membership) and staying in the European Economic Area (EEA), is the answer to the current UK post-Brexit conundrum.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 27 Comments
Paul Walter

Tom Brake MP: After Brexit negotiations, give people another chance to have their say

By Paul Walter | Sun 3rd July 2016 - 12:20 pm

Tom BRake speaking on pavement Two Chairmen pub London 2nd July 2016 #marchforeuropeAfter yesterday’s March for Europe in London, some Liberal Democrats repaired to the Two Chairmen pub in Westminster. As I approached, I became aware of a speech taking place. It was Tom Brake MP (right), on the pavement outside the pub, giving an impromptu view of the EU situation, and answering questions. It was, in many ways, a return to old-fashioned democracy. Certainly Tom gave a fascinating commentary on what might happen next.

Thanks to my colleague Joe Otten, who videoed most of the speech, I have been able to transcribe here much of what Tom said. He started by saying how much he was worried about eastern European countries, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, and how they might react to Brexit. He said that Poland’s people are in favour of the EU, broadly, but that their government might use Brexit as a trigger against the EU.

He went on:

We’ve got to fight.

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Posted in Europe Referendum | Tagged and | 8 Comments
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