Author Archives: Stephen Tall

Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall. He writes a fortnightly column for ConservativeHome and 'The Underdog' column for Total Politics magazine. He edited the 2013 publication, The Coalition and Beyond: Liberal Reforms for the Decade Ahead, and is a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum. He was awarded the inaugural Lib Dem ‘Blogger of the Year’ prize in 2006, was a councillor for eight years in Oxford, including a year as Deputy Lord Mayor, and appears frequently in the media in person, in print and online. Stephen combines his political interests with his professional life as Development Director for the Education Endowment Foundation, though writes here in a personal capacity.
Stephen Tall

Lembit: time for Lib Dems to stop the conspiracy against me

By Stephen Tall | Fri 17th October 2008 - 9:56 am

A fairly extraordinary press release has been issued by Lembit Opik – one of the three Lib Dems standing for the post of party presidency which will be decided by an all-member ballot within the next few weeks – demanding an end to an alleged “conspiracy” in the party against his candidacy.

I’ll reproduce the whole release below, but here’s the part which will cause some sharp intakes of breath:

If anyone is conspiring against me I ask them to stop … I don’t agree with conspiracies in the Liberal Democrats. That’s why I backed former leader Charles Kennedy to the end – I was appalled by the perceived internal campaign against him. That’s why I defended Ming Campbell up to his moment of resignation, in the face of a whispering campaign against him too. I still refuse to play any part in such negative campaigning.”

Quite why Lembit should feel it’s appropriate to rake over the ashes of the Kennedy and Campbell resignations in a way that paints the party in quite such an unattractive (and, in my view, misleading) light is beyond me. To do so in a campaign for a post which is, above all, about uniting the party and moving it forwards smacks of appallingly poor judgement.

Editor’s note: Lib Dem Voice has volunteered to remain neutral in internal party elections. However, such defensive statements by a candidate which serve only to feed the anti-Lib Dem narrative of much of the media is, I believe, reckless. I hope this is the last we’ll see of it from Lembit’s campaign.

The full press release is below:

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Posted in Party Presidency | Tagged and | 81 Comments
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time: open thread

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th October 2008 - 9:50 pm

In a week that’s witnessed two seemingly impossible events – a perfect start to the England football team’s World Cup campaign; and the partial political rehabilitation of Gordon Brown – today’s BBC1 Question Time (10.35 pm) will once again attempt to make sense of the last few weeks’ economic turmoil.

In the gold corner will be Julia Goldsworthy, Lib Dem MP for Falmouth and Camborne, and the party’s shadow secretary of state for communities and local government (and, for one week only, inbetween Lembit Opik’s resignation from the Lib Dem shadow cabinet, and last week’s mini-reshuffle, our housing spokeswoman, too). And …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Has Obama sealed the deal? (And is that a good thing?)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th October 2008 - 8:48 pm

Last night saw the third and final presidential debate between Senators Obama and McCain. The polls suggest the Democratic hopeful emerged the winner with the public (though perhaps not with the now-immortal Joe the Plumber); the pundits are calling it pretty much a draw, which isn’t good enough for Senator McCain, who is trailing nationally, and especially badly in the battleground states which will determine the winner.

The ElectoralVote.com map, as of today, gives Senator Obama a lead of 352 over Senator McCain’s 171 in the electoral college; most worryingly for the Republicans, the polls …

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Posted in LDVUSA | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

Should a Lib Dem be the next Commons speaker?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th October 2008 - 1:25 pm

A rumour swept the political blogosphere last night that former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke is interested in becoming the next Speaker of the House of Commons (a position currently occupied by Michael Martin, and from which he is widely expected to stand down at the next election or sooner). Here’s Sky News’s Jon Craig:

My spy tells me he has heard that Ken has asked some of his mates to take soundings among Labour and Conservative MPs about the level of support he would receive if he ran for Speaker. … Ken Clarke has always said he would never

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 17 Comments
Stephen Tall

PMQs: Cable tackles Harman on unemployment and interest rates

By Stephen Tall | Wed 15th October 2008 - 7:53 pm

With our Superman Prime Minister currently bestriding the globe like a Colossus of financial acuity, it was left to Harriet Harman at today’s Question Time to bat for the Government and laud the financial bail-out as Gordon Brown’s Dunkirk. It was not her finest hour. Ms Harman struggled to sound on top of her brief throughout the half-hour exchange, with both Vince Cable and William Hague asking tough questions that left her visibly floundering.

You can watch Vince’s encounter for yourself via YouTube here, or read the Hansard transcript, below:

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Posted in News and PMQs | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Are the Tories playing the expectations game?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 14th October 2008 - 5:44 pm

There’s been a fair amount of publicity today generated by ConservativeHome’s ‘scoop’, a briefing they’ve been fed received on the party’s analysis of the political impact of the current economic crisis, and in particular:

Team Cameron readily concede that Brown has enjoyed a good few days. They expect the Conservatives’ poll lead to drop into single figures in the next month or so. They expect to lose the Conservative lead on economic competence but expect it to be restored by the new year.

Now, forgive me for lapsing into cynicism, but this strikes me as a rather easy way …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

The financial crisis: what will be the impact on Labour?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th October 2008 - 7:26 pm

Yesterday I looked at the impact of the current financial crisis on the Lib Dems, the one party which correctly anticipated the credit crunch and its impact. Inevitably (if frustratingly) much of this will depend on the extent to which the public blames Labour for the mess the UK currently finds itself in, or the extent to which they credit Labour if the Government’s bail-out package helps rescue the UK from amidst the debris of the current global crisis.

In short, what the Lib Dems have to say is unlikely to have any immediate positive or negative impact on …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

42 Days defeated in House of Lords

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th October 2008 - 6:57 pm

This report from Sky News:

Peers voted 309 to 118 to reject a controversial proposal to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge.

It only narrowly passed through the House of Commons in June – and was not expected to clear the upper house of Parliament.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will make an emergency statement on the result in the Commons at 8:30pm tonight.

The latest bid to extend pre-charge detention for terror suspects was rejected by a coalition of Tory and Liberal Democrat peers and Labour rebels.

They backed a move by crossbencher Lord Dear, a former chief inspector of

…

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Posted in News | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV members’ survey (5): what you think of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th October 2008 - 1:34 pm

At the start of last week, Lib Dem Voice emailed the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the current state of British politics, especially as they affect the Lib Dems. Many thanks to the 181 of you who completed it.

Today we turn our attention to the performance of the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet (prior to last week’s minor reshuffle). Reproduced below, in alphabetical order, are the full results of our survey, which shows how effective each member is felt by members to be, together with a net satisfaction rating (those who think they’re very/fairly effective minus those think they’re very/fairly ineffective).

The list is a long one, so here’s the skinny:

First of all, who’s at the top of the charts…

Top 5:
Vince Cable: +95%
Chris Huhne: +78%
Norman Baker: +58%
David Laws: +30%
Lynne Featherstone: +30%

And then we have the ones who, erm, aren’t at the top of the charts…

Bottom 5:
Nick Harvey: -16%
Stephen Williams: -25%
Sarah Teather: -25%
Roger Williams: -25%
Michael Moore: -32%

Finally, I thought we’d take a look at those with the highest number of Don’t knows / No opinions in the survey…

Most anonymous 5:
Michael Moore: 37%
David Howarth: 38%
Willie Rennie: 39%
Paul Burstow: 43%
Roger Williams: 49%

Full results follow:

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #86

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th October 2008 - 8:49 pm

Welcome to the 86th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (5th-11th October), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

How about starting with the most popular blog-posting, and we work our way down? Here goes…

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

Is there anything more the party can do to turn the polls around?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th October 2008 - 3:49 pm

Obsessing about any individual poll is a mug’s game, as we at Lib Dem Voice have long argued. However, we have also always said that polls – taken together and observed over a reasonable time period – are useful evidence of trends. And the trend for the party at the moment is, let’s be honest, not the happiest.

Three weeks ago, the Lib Dems benefited from a polling spike – two polls putting us at or above 20% – possibly as a result of increased publicity surrounding the party conference. Since then there have been seven polls (three from YouGov, …

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Posted in News and Polls | 102 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV members’ survey (4): how you will vote in the race for party president

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th October 2008 - 12:42 pm

At the start of last week, Lib Dem Voice emailed the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the current state of British politics, especially as they affect the Lib Dems. Many thanks to the 181 of you who completed it.

Today we look at the race to become the next president of the Liberal Democrats. LDV asked: Three candidates are standing for the presidency of the Liberal Democrats: Chandila Fernando, Lembit Opik MP, and Baroness …

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Posted in LDV Members poll and Party Presidency | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Who is Oedipus Snark?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 10th October 2008 - 1:09 pm

Lib Dem Voice-reading habitués of the online Telegraph and fans of novelist Alexander McCall Smith may well have been asking themselves this question already. For the uninitiated, Mr McCall Smith is “writing his first ever online novel Corduroy Mansions exclusively for Telegraph.co.uk”, and one of the characters is named Oedipus Snark. Here’s his CV:

Name: Oedipus Snark
Age: 40
Profession: Possibly the first ever nasty Liberal Democrat MP.
Significant relationships: his ego; his lover Barbara Ragg.
Likes: Himself, wriggling out of prior engagements.
Dislikes: Putting himself out for other people, journalists.

You can catch up with the serial here. Libellous suggestions as to Mr …

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Posted in Humour | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV members’ survey (3): big post-conference boost for Clegg leadership

By Stephen Tall | Fri 10th October 2008 - 9:53 am

At the start of the week, Lib Dem Voice emailed the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the current state of British politics, especially as they affect the Lib Dems. Many thanks to the 177 of you who completed it.

Today we look at Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Lib Dems. I approach this survey question with some trepidation, as last time we published these results – showing 65% of LDV-reading party members satisfied …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time: open thread

By Stephen Tall | Thu 9th October 2008 - 9:50 pm

With western capitalism imploding – and the even more surprising news that Gordon Brown yesterday managed an unscripted quip – BBC Question Time reports, only a little self-importantly, there “have been some changes to the line-up due to the dramatic developments in the banking crisis.”

Sadly the BBC don’t tell us who they’ve bumped off the panel to make way for the heavweights felt capable of delivering the gravitas appropriate to a week which has seen the quasi-nationalisation of the financial services industry. But speaking of gravitas, who better to be representing the Lib Dems tonight than Chris Huhne, the …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

Because even a stopped clock is right twice a day

By Stephen Tall | Thu 9th October 2008 - 7:45 pm

I’ll be honest: The Spectator’s Coffee House blog is not one of my favourites reads. Despite or because of its prolific output – eight posts today, and counting – too much of it reads as unthinkingly pro-Tory, while its visceral contempt for Labour too often blinkers it to serious analysis. Coffee House may speak with many voices but they all sound the same. And yet, and yet… There have been two articles this week which have partially broken the mould and seem worth highlighting.

First up, is James Forsyth’s verdict on Gordon Brown’s cabinet reshuffle, All tactics, no strategy:

When you

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Party elections 2008 – who’s standing for what

By Stephen Tall | Thu 9th October 2008 - 2:18 pm

As everyone knows, Lib Dems love elections – and what could be better than our internal elections, where a Lib Dem is guaranteed to finish first? Over on the official party site, you can find out the full list of nominated candidates for the following party positions and committees:

Party President
Chandila Fernando – www.chandila.com
Ros Scott – www.im4ros.com
Lembit Opik – www.lembit4president.co.uk

Timetable: A ballot of all party members will be held between 13th October and 7th November 2008. (Only those members with valid membership subscriptions on 24th September 2008 will be eligible to vote.)

The Federal Executive – 15 Places to be elected

The …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters and Party Presidency | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV members’ survey (2): what you think of the other parties

By Stephen Tall | Thu 9th October 2008 - 9:33 am

At the start of the week, Lib Dem Voice emailed the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the current state of British politics, especially as they affect the Lib Dems. Many thanks to the 177 of you who have so far completed it.

We started off asking about the Labour and Tory conferences: From all that you have seen and read, how successful do you think the Labour/Conservative party conference was in terms of showing …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV members’ survey (1): reshuffle reaction, and time to bring back Charles, Ming and Paddy!

By Stephen Tall | Wed 8th October 2008 - 10:02 am

On Monday night, Lib Dem Voice e-mailed party members signed up to our Forum asking a number of questions about the current state of British politics, including the reshuffle. On Tuesday morning Nick Clegg decided to spike our guns by announcing a mini-reshuffle of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet. The survey’s still live for those who haven’t yet completed it, but we thought it was worth reporting the results of what our survey found now before it goes even more stale. To date, 168 of you have completed it, for which many thanks.

First off we asked for your …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 53 Comments
Stephen Tall

The government’s corruption of the electoral process continues apace

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th October 2008 - 5:48 pm

Two sad news stories today which will attract very little media coverage but which speak volumes about the declining integrity of democracy in the UK.

1. The entirely expected merging of the 2009 Euro elections and English local elections on a single date.

The BBC reports:

The government is to press ahead with plans to hold the 2009 English local and European elections on the same day. The change, which must be approved by both houses of Parliament by 7 November if it is to take place, would see both polls take place on 4 June.

Martin Land launched a broadside against …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Stephen Williams speaks out on Lib Dem tuition fees policy

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th October 2008 - 2:35 pm

A recent Lib Dem Voice article which attracted a great deal of comment from LDV readers posed the question, Lib Dems to drop Tuition Fees pledge? Stephen Williams, Lib Dem MP for Bristol West, and the party’s shadow secretary of state for Innovation, Universities and Skills, has just posted this comment to the thread, setting out his views:

Let’s get some facts on the record. In the 2001 and 2005 elections in Bristol West I stated quite clearly that I opposed students paying fees. I stand by those comments completely and emphatically.

The policy review I am leading is to

…

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Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 19 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem shadow cabinet reshuffle – what’s happened

By Stephen Tall | Tue 7th October 2008 - 12:45 pm

And the headlines are:

1. The Lisbon Treaty rebels are back in favour

Back in March, three Lib Dem front-benchers resigned in order to vote against the party whip and in favour of a referendum on Lisbon – but now:

> Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) returns to the Northern Ireland and Scotland brief from which he resigned.
> Former countryside spokesman Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) takes on the environment, food and rural affairs portfolio.
> And David Heath (Somerton & Frome) is appointed to lead a Commission on Privacy with a remit to examine the current state of privacy in the …

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Posted in News | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW: LDV members’ October survey now live

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th October 2008 - 8:40 pm

If you are a registered member of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum – and any paid-up party member is welcome to join – then you now have the opportunity to make your views known on a range of issues in our October members’ survey. Topics we are asking your opinion on include:

– what you thought of the Labour and Tory party conferences;
– whether you believe Gordon Brown will survive, and what you really think of David Cameron;
– if you think it’s time for a Lib Dem shadow cabinet reshuffle, and which of the party’s ‘Big Beasts’ you’d choose to …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Mandelson and Osborne: private should mean private

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th October 2008 - 3:15 pm

The man-they-love-to-hate is back. Peter Mandelson may be unpopular with his Labour colleagues; but it is the Tories and right-wing press which truly despise him. His crime? Being part of the New Labour team which got Tony Blair elected and consigned the Tories to the footnotes of history for a decade. And now they are, to coin a phrase, ‘dripping pure poison’ on his return to the cabinet.

I hold no brief for Peter Mandelson: I met him once (when I served him a cup of hot water, his favoured tipple, back in my student waitering-to-pay-the-bills days). He strikes me …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

Is 42 days dead?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th October 2008 - 1:16 pm

The BBC’s Nick Robinson thinks it is in spite of the Labour Government’s official denials.

The Lib Dems’ shadow home secretary Chris Huhne wrote here on Lib Dem Voice back in the summer explaining why detaining without trial terrorist suspects for 42 days was wrong both in principle and in practice:

Detention without charge for terrorist suspects has already risen from 7 days, to 14 days, to 28 days just since 1997. The sad truth is that ministers are using this simple number as a proxy to persuade the public that they are tough on terror. In fact, such

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 12 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #85

By Stephen Tall | Sun 5th October 2008 - 6:45 pm

Welcome to the 85th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (28th September – 4th October), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

How about starting with the most popular blog-posting, and we work our way down? Here goes:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Tagged | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: Miliband would be most effective Labour leader

By Stephen Tall | Sat 4th October 2008 - 1:55 pm

A fortnight is a long time in politics, y’know. With the Tories’ huge poll lead slipping back to being simply large, the economy facing a serious recession, and Gordon Brown’s conference speech judged relatively successful, the likelihood of the Prime Minister being forced from office has – at least for the moment – receded. But before all that happened, Lib Dem Voice asked our readers to say who you thought would be the most effective next Labour leader (from the Labour party’s point of view).

Here’s what you told us:

David Miliband – 19% (67)
Alan Johnson – 17% (61)
Jack

…

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Posted in Voice polls | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Missed the US VP debate? Then here’s 4 easy steps to catch up

By Stephen Tall | Fri 3rd October 2008 - 5:42 pm

For those of you who missed last night’s Vice-Presidential face-of between the Democrats’ Senator Joe Biden and the GOP’s Governor Sarah Palin, you can:

1. watch the whole debate on YouTube here;
2. read Lib Dem Voice readers’ live-blogging their reactions on our Question Time open thread from here;
3. catch-up with the blogging debate reax at Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish blog here; and
4. see what the early buzz from the US pollsters is here.

Posted in LDVUSA | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: is it time for elected police chiefs?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 2nd October 2008 - 7:23 pm

Sir Ian Blair has resigned as commissioner of London’s Metropolitan police force, and the race to be his successor is now on, with the appointment the responsibility of the Home Secretary. All of which begs the timely question: should police chiefs be directly elected?

Lib Dem policy is against directly elected police chiefs, instead proposing that chief constables be made accountable to police authorities. Writing for Lib Dem Voice recently, the party’s shadow home secretary Chris Huhne explained the policy:

for the 35 police authorities that straddle lots of councils (out of the total number of 43 in England and Wales),

…

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Posted in Voice polls | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

David Cameron: he was for the environment before he was against it forgot about it

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st October 2008 - 6:28 pm

If you listened carefully, you will have heard David Cameron mention the environment in his speech to the Tory party conference today. Here are his remarks in full:

I want a clean environment as well as a safe one.

and

didn’t champion green politics as greenwash but because climate change is devastating our environment because the energy gap is a real and growing threat to our security and because $100-a-barrel oil is hitting families every time they fill up their car and pay their heating bills.

So, there you have it: two sentences. That’s 59 words in a speech of 7,134 words …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 12 Comments
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