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. Follow @stephentall
Welcome to the 73rd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (6th-12th July), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.
Nick Clegg used his two questions to the Prime Minister today to challenge Gordon Brown on what used to be his strong suit: the economy. What Nick has done repeatedly at PMQs , and to increasingly good effect, is to link Big Issues back to everyday concerns, today focusing on energy and food prices, and starting with a punchy line straight from the Book of Vince:
The Prime Minister promised to abolish boom and bust, but now we have got both: inflation is booming, the economy is bust.
I’m not alone in being impressed by Nick: The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, not always the greatest friend to the Lib Dems, scored today’s PMQs as a victory for Nick. Fraser also acutely picks out a flaw in the Prime Minister’s lazy responses:
Brown was, as always, caught between his two responses on the economy. Response A is “it’s bad out there, your Great Helmsman will guide you through the storms.” And then there’s Response B, “I’m a great Prime Minister, things are really good here, record employment, lower inflation than anywhere in the world.” Unwisely, he chose Response B … Brown is tiptoeing closer and closer to Callaghan “crisis? What crisis?” territory.
As for David Cameron, it was as ever a fluent, often witty routine, aided by one of the poorest, most incoherent performances I’ve seen by a politician at the despatch box – that Gordon Brown is Prime Minister would astonish an impartial observer watching his ducking, clunking, stuttering replies today.
And yet Mr Cameron does insist on ruining it. A couple of weeks ago I expressed the (clearly naive) hope that the Tory leader was learning to “ his performance, attempting to tone down the shrill posturing and cheap jibes which have all too often marred his superior debating skills”. Not today. Twice he referred casually and pettily to the Prime Minister as “useless”. Whether you agree or not, I expect more serious behaviour from the man who wants to present himself as the next elected Prime Minister. Mr Cameron is doing himself no long-term good with such easy union-hack retorts.
Anyway, you can judge for yourselves below, via YouTube and Hansard:
It looks like ‘well-placed sources’ have given The Times a sneak preview of reforms Nick Clegg wants to adopt streamline/centralise* decision-making within the Lib Dems:
He is determined to overhaul an internal structure that allies say severely curtails the powers of the leader and splits internal controls between a series of committees.
Mr Clegg, who became leader in December, plans to turn the party’s traditional structure on its head, centralising all decision-making under a new “chief officers group” and diluting the roles of its committees. Sources said that the move risks causing a serious rift between Mr Clegg and Lord Rennard,
• a 100 or 80 per cent elected chamber
• options for direct elections: first-past-the-post, alternative vote, single transferable vote and a list system
• the primacy of the House of Commons must remain in any reform process and the reformed second chamber should not rival or replicate the Commons
• proposals on eligibility and disqualification, including recall ballots for elected members of the second chamber and similar arrangements for appointed members
• members should normally serve a single …
Imagine you were going on holiday this summer: which two books would you take with you? One should be a political book – whether you want to re-read it, or try something new you’ve been recommended. The other should be your own choice of summer reading – the book you’re most looking forward to reading (again, could be something new or something old). That was the question I put to some of the Lib Dems’ leading bloggers. And here’s what they said:
Lib Dem Voice is exactly what it says it is: “an independent, collaborative website run by Liberal Democrat activists, where any individual inside or outside the party can express their views.”
In particular, we welcome opinion pieces from party members, and have published articles by 148 different authors on a range of subjects since LDV was launched.
So, if you’ve got something to say, and want a platform which allows you to address thousands, why not submit it to Lib Dem Voice? There’s some brief guidance notes here.
Never let it be said that leading Labour Hackney councillor and ultra party loyalist Luke Akehurst is unafraid to stick up for even the most unpopular of causes. Leaving aside his support for the current government, Cllr Akehurst has declared on his blog:
I am in favour of extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay
Although, to be fair, we should point out that Luke does at least clarify that even he believes the US can sometimes go a little far, noting parenthetically –
(but not torture in Abu Graib)
It’s good to know even Cllr Akehurst can’t ignore all abuses of …
Paul Burstow, Lib Dem MP for Sutton & Cheam, has been criticised by the Parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon for sending newsletters to constituents at taxpayers’ expense. The BBC has the full story here:
Chief whip Paul Burstow used pre-paid Commons envelopes to send the material attacking a Tory rival to voters in his Sutton and Cheam constituency. But Standards Commissioner John Lyon said the pre-paid service was not meant for party political campaigning. Mr Burstow has apologised and offered to repay the £1,500 postage costs. …
Mr Burstow said he had stopped the practice “as soon as I discovered what
Imagine you were going on holiday this summer: which two books would you take with you? One would be a political book – whether you want to re-read it, or try something new you’ve been recommended. The other would be your own choice of summer reading – the book you’re most looking forward to reading (again, could be something new or something old).
That was the scenario I put to some of the Lib Dems’ leading bloggers. Here’s what they said:
The close-of-poll predictions last night proved to be pretty accurate: David Davis easily won in yesterday’s Haltemprice and Howden by-election, with a solid 72% of the vote. The turnout was 34%, and the Greens pipped the English Democrats to second place by 44 votes, both polling 7%. No other candidates retained their deposits.
• David Michael Davis – Conservative Party 17,113, 72%
• Shan Oakes – Green Party 1,758, 7%
• Joanne Robinson – English Democrats 1,714, 7%
• Tess Culnane – National Front Britain for the British 544, 2%
• Gemma Dawn Garrett – Miss Great Britain Party 521, 2% …
Well, that’s what the Yorkshire Post is saying, anyway, as of 12.30 am:
David Davis was tonight expected to easily win the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, with supporters predicting he would pick up at least 75 percent of the vote. …
Turnout was annouced officially as 34.5 percent – less than half that at the 2005 General Election, where 70.2 percent of constituents voted.
Mr Davis is expected to pick up between 15,000 and 16,000 votes, giving him a majority of about 10,000 to 12,000 – doubling that of the 5,116 majority he picked up in 2005.
Julia Goldsworthy, Lib Dem MP for Falmouth and Camborne and the party’s spokeswoman on communities and local government, is one of the panellists on tonight’s Question Time (broadcast on BBC1 and online from 10.35 pm GMT).
The panel will also include the Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, television presenter and business woman Saira Khan and the winner of the people’s panellist competition Michael Heaver.
So, if you want to sound-off as you watch, please feel free to use the comments thread.
It’s the day of the most bizarre by-election of the year. Exactly one month after David Davis shocked the political world by quitting the Tory front bench and Parliament in protest at Labour’s attempts to push through 42 days detention without trial, the voters of Haltemprice and Howden today deliver their verdict.
Will they judge Mr Davis’s move a brave, principled stance by turning out in force and giving him a whopping mandate? Or will they judge it all a vanity-exercise, a waste of taxpayers’ time and money, and simply stay away or register a protest vote with a fringe …
Yesterday I noted with some dismay a quote attributed to David Davis in The Guardian, suggesting that the Lib Dems had ‘funked’ putting up a candidate in today’s Haltemprice and Howden by-election – when in fact Mr Davis and Nick Clegg came to an agreement that the Lib Dems would not contest the seat before the former Tory shadow home secretary announced his resignation.
I’ve just received the following email from Martin Wainwright, the Guardian journalist who authored the piece:
Just to alert you asap to the fact that the quote attributed to David Davis by me about the LIb
Gordon Brown has likened himself to Heathcliff, the brooding, intense character in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. The Prime Minister is normally at pains to avoid being compared with other figures but his guard dropped in an interview with New Statesman, published today, in which the interviewer, Gloria De Piero, suggested to Mr Brown that many women viewed him as a Heathcliff-like figure.
Given that the character is famed for his vindictive side, the Prime Minister might have been expected to recoil in horror at such a comparison. But no. “Absolutely correct,” he replied, before adding: “Well, maybe an
We haven’t always been the best of friends: he once threatened to punch my nose in, and I’ve described him as disgusting.
The reason:
When I came close to wobbling on 90 days he held firm. (That’s also when he informed me that if I did shift my position he would punch me in the nose.)
Which seems fair enough to me. And Mark’s endorsement of Mr Davis couldn’t be warmer:
I, for one, support his decision wholeheartedly, and this week I went up to canvass for him in Haltemprice and Howden,
Welcome to the 72nd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (29th June – 5th July), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.
Let’s get straight down to it, in descending order of popularity:
Don’t forget, if you’re a party member you can register for the Lib Dem Voice members’ forum – in which case you get to read and post on a rich variety of topics which don’t always make it into the public blog. Here’s a selection of the currently active threads to whet your appetites:
* MPs expenses
* Iran – a dangerous impasse
* Henley result
* The race to succeed Nicol Stephen
* Welsh Euro List
* What are the Lib Dems doing about David Davis?
* What would you do in Glasgow East?
* Who’d be an MP?
(Disclaimer: though LDV’s forum moderators do our best …
It was all-change at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, as Gordon Brown was detained at the G8 summit – which meant a turn in the spotlight for the party leaders’ deputies, Harriet Harman, William Hague and Vince Cable.
Vince led on the crisis in the housing industry, demanding to know of Ms Harman if Labour will “build up their sensible but pathetically small programme for acquiring property and give genuine freedom to councils and housing associations to acquire property in order to let it out to the 1.7 million people in housing need on waiting lists?” As is traditional, his question went unanswered.
Particularly delicious was Vince’s suggestion that Mr Brown stop “lecturing us on what we should eat for dinner, and competing with the leader of the Conservative party to be the country’s weight watcher-in-chief”.
With mounting speculation that Ms Harman might just be prepared to step into the breach should Mr Brown be evicted from No. 10 by the comrades in grey suits, it was a big day for her: she will not be best pleased by the reviews. When last Ms Harman stood in for the PM, she attracted glowing praise for besting Mr Hague at the despatch box. But she didn’t hit her stride this time, with her attempts at jokes appearing overly pre-rehearsed.
Whether this would matter a jot in the event of a vacancy is moot – after all, according to PoliticsHome.com’s PH5,000 tracker of popular opinion, two-thirds of the public rarely if ever catch PMQs, even as a snippet on TV or radio news bulletins. However, as Ming Campbell discovered to his eventual cost, it’s certainly noticed by political commentators, and even one poor showing can prove detrimental to how a politician is depicted in the media.
Anyway you can judge for yourselves below, via YouTube and Hansard:
UPDATE:There is an update to this story, published the following day on Lib Dem Voice, in which The Guardian makes clear that the quote on which this posting was based was not uttered by David Davis.
David Davis has had many warm words written about him by Lib Dems – myself included – since he took his decision to quit Parliament to fight for his beliefs in civil liberties, and most notably Labour’s obscene push to detain without charge for up to 42 days.
True, there have also been some harsh words written about him – but
Welsh Liberal Democrat members across Wales have selected Dr. Alan Butt Philip as their lead candidate for the 2009 European Parliament elections. And having won one election, Alan Butt Philip is confident he can lead the campaign to become the first Welsh Liberal Democrat MEP.
Based on the 2007 Regional Assembly Election, an election that resembles the European Elections in its proportionality, the Welsh Liberal Democrat’s only need a 2.45% swing from Labour to take
Lib Dem MEP for the south-east of England Baroness Emma Nicholson is one of the panellists on tonight’s Question Time (broadcast on BBC1 and online from 10.35 pm GMT).
The panel will also include the Minister of State in the Scotland Office and Labour MP for Greenock and Inverclyde David Cairns; Conservative shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley; Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon; and comedian, actor and writer David Mitchell.
So, if you want to sound-off as you watch, please feel free to use the comments thread.
Nick Clegg today delivered a major speech to the Local Government Association outlining the ways Liberal Democrats intend to give real power back to local people and communities. It’s well worth reading in full – which you can do here – but for those who want the skinny, here’s a few snippets…
On the principle of ‘localism’
I am drawn to the philosophy of decentralisation and local empowerment for many reasons. There’s the basic principle of subsidiarity – the liberal belief that decisions just ought to be taken as close to the people they affect as possible. But it’s more than that. Centralised government simply doesn’t work to deliver the change I want for Britain. It doesn’t improve services fast enough. And it certainly doesn’t deliver fairer outcomes – where everybody gets opportunities no matter their background.
On the so-called ‘postcode lottery’ that results
In Britain today there is often a pervasive notion that the only way to deliver fairness and opportunity for all is to have absolute rigid uniformity. And this generates the media refrain of a postcode lottery. But people are different. Uniform services – almost by definition – do not fit individuals. We need variation, flexibility and personalisation in the way services are run and delivered if they are to fit into real people’s lives.
A postcode lottery is a terrible thing. But the terrible part isn’t that things are different in different areas. The terrible part is the lottery – it’s that you don’t get to choose what fits you, or fits your postcode.
I want things to be different in different places. I want things to be different for different people. I just want people to be able to choose what suits them – not have it handed out arbitrarily by a bureaucratic lottery no-one understands.
What devolution really means
I want to address what I really mean by devolution – because it’s a word that’s often used, but rarely followed through. Real localisation means giving communities autonomy. The power to disagree with central government. And to do something different. I believe this is only possible when communities are in charge of their own money. … if local government is spending central government’s money – central government will want a big say in what it’s spent on.
So at the heart of any real plan to transfer power downwards in Britain must be a plan to transfer taxation downwards. Britain has the second most centralised taxation system in Europe. Second only to Malta. And Malta has a population about the same size as Croydon. This has to change. Until it does, all this talk of double devolution and post-bureaucratic ages will be so much hot air.
Today David Cameron joined David Davis on the campaign trail in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election in support of Mr Davis’s candidature. Perhaps he did so through slightly gritted teeth – the former Tory shadow home secretary’s resignation put in the spotlight Tory divisions on 42 days just at the point when pressure was piling on Gordon Brown following his ‘non-deal’ with the DUP to secure a wafer-thin Commons victory. But, whatever his private feelings, Mr Cameron did it.
Doubtless he joined him for many reasons – to avoid repeated stories of Tory splits, and because he recognised how popular …
At this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg highlighted a serious issue paid scant attention in society – the lengthy waiting lists facing millions of NHS patients with mental health problems. No surprises that Gordon Brown side-stepped the question (it’s what he does), though it sparked a quick-fire response from Nick: “ is doing it again: he is confusing a list with an answer, and a review with action.” Nick has well and truly found his feet in the bear-pit of PMQs.
But what of David Cameron? Last week I noted that he seemed a little out of sorts. Today, again, many have noted his more subdued performance, and even given Mr Brown a ‘points win’ (pretty much by default, for Gordon isn’t a patch on Tony). Some suggest it’s a deliberate strategy; that Mr Cameron daren’t try ‘too hard’ lest the force of his rhetoric brings the Prime Minister to his knees – and that the Tories want to keep Mr Brown in place. I don’t buy the explanation for a moment.
What I hope might be more accurate is that Mr Cameron is deliberately moderating his performance, attempting to tone down the shrill posturing and cheap jibes which have all too often marred his superior debating skills: he’s trying hard not to seem as if he’s trying too hard. As I say, I genuinely hope that’s the reason; that the Tory leader is demonstrating a little more maturity to reflect his current standing as PM-in-waiting. PMQs might be marginally less boorish if so.
Anyway you can judge for yourselves below, via Hansard:
To celebrate the beginning of Gordon’s second (and last?) year as Prime Minister, what could be more cheering than to have a look at the parties’ polling averages over the last 12 months? Well, if you’re a Labour supporter, smearing yourself in slurry would probably be more comforting, but never mind:
June 2007 (Tony Blair’s last month in charge)
Tories: 36%, Labour: 36%, Lib Dems: 17% Tory lead 0%
July 2007 (Gordon Brown’s first full month as PM)
Tories: 34%, Labour: 39%, Lib Dems: 16% Tory lead -5%
August 2007 (Floods, terrorists and foot-and-mouth)
Tories: 34%, Labour: 39%, Lib Dems: 16% Tory …
We tend not to be too poll-obsessed here at LDV – of course we look at them, as do all other politico-geeks, but viewed in isolation no one poll will tell you very much beyond what you want to read into it. Looked at over a reasonable time-span and, if there are enough polls, you can see some trends.
Here, in chronological order, are the results of the eight polls published in June:
Welcome to the 71st of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (22nd-29th June), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.
Let’s get straight down to it, in descending order of popularity:
Many Lib Dem Voice readers will be familiar with Anthony Wells’ name. He writes the UK Polling Report blog, which (though Anthony is a card-carrying Tory member) carries the most impartial and intelligent analysis of British political polls anywhere on the web.
On Politics Home today, Anthony analyses the results of the site’s PHI5000, a daily tracker of public opinion, to try and work out quite what’s behind the extraordinary slump in the Labour party’s fortunes in the past two months. You can read his full analysis here, but the conclusion is admirably concise:
David Le Grice Honestly our performance in Aberdeen south is Aberdeen south is an indictment of where our party is at. In 2010 it was one of our top target seats, we held the ...
nigel hunter UKcould keep special pre Brexit terms if it rejoined the EU----Michel Barnier says----Guardian article. Negotiations can achieve great things....
David Warren I have just finished telephone canvassing in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, moving onto Kinwarton ward in Stratford Upon Avon.
Happy to help in future contests...
Noncoonformistradica "There was no social service support for unmarried mothers (the term always carried judgemental overtones),"
I have a vague memory dating back to the early 1...
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