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.

Final Eastleigh poll puts Lib Dems narrowly ahead of Tories – but all within margin of error!

What will (I assume) be the final poll of the Eastleigh by-election was published this morning. Conducted by Populus and commissioned by Lord Ashcroft, it shows the Lib Dems sustaining a narrow lead — significant in itself, but the more so as Eastleigh voters were interviewed over the weekend during which the controversy over allegations against Lord Rennard were prominent. Figures shown are compared with the most recent Populus poll, published at the end of last week:

    Mike Thornton (Lib Dem)

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , and | 12 Comments

Today’s front pages: the Chris Rennard allegations dominate

Today’s front pages of the newspapers are about as grim as you might imagine after the weekend’s events…

rennard front pages - 25 feb 2013

I’ve not had chance to read through all the press yet. Two that have caught my eye are this critical, but fair-minded, editorial in The Guardian:

Like the BBC over Jimmy Savile in recent weeks, the Liberal Democrats have faced difficult press allegations in recent days. Last night the Liberal Democrats found themselves scrambling to clarify whether they looked in the other direction over claims about their former

Posted in News | Tagged and | 8 Comments

Nick Clegg’s statement on Chris Rennard: 5 key points

It’s just over an hour since we published Nick Clegg’s statement concerning the allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour levelled against Lord (Chris) Rennard. Here are some quick, initial thoughts:

1) Nick Clegg has stuck by his position, repeated earlier today by Vince Cable and Danny Alexander, that he “did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast.” However, he was aware of “indirect and non-specific concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct” in 2008, his first year as party leader. He asked Danny Alexander to put these allegations to Chris Rennard, who …

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Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “Five days to make a difference.”

Just one issue dominates Nick’s weekly letter: the Eastleigh by-election and the close contest between the Lib Dems and Tories. Here’s his letter in full…

libdem letter from nick clegg

Five days. That is all we have got left to make sure the people of Eastleigh send Mike Thornton to Westminster as their new MP. Five days to make a difference.

I went back to Eastleigh this week. And each time I visit, I am overwhelmed by the number of volunteers, from all over the country, who are giving up their spare time to

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Chris Rennard allegations: where we’re at

Today’s press makes grim reading for the Lib Dems. Three of the Sunday papers lead on the allegations that Lord (Chris) Rennard behaved sexually inappropriately during his time as chief executive, and — more worrying still — that the party covered it up.

Posted in News | Tagged | 26 Comments

++ Another new Eastleigh poll – and this time it shows the Tories in front by 4%

nick clegg eastleighLast night brought news of a Populus poll for The Times showing the Lib Dems ahead of the Tories by 33%-28%, a Lib Dem lead of 5%.

But tonight a Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday has shown the Tories ahead of the Lib Dems by 33%-29%, a Tory lead of 4%.

Survation conducted an Eastleigh poll a fortnight ago — then they found the Lib Dems leading the Tories by 36%-33%. Here’s how the figures compare:

    Lib Dems 29% (-4%)
    Conservatives 33% (n/c)
    Ukip 21% (+5%)
    Labour 13% (n/c)

Only …

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections and Polls | Tagged , , and | 56 Comments

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the week’s campaign news

Lib Dem chief executive Tim Gordon summed up the week so far in his weekly email to activists:

Liberal Democrats have broken their own party’s by-election campaign records with more volunteers, more money raised and more campaign literature delivered in the opening days of the Eastleigh by-election campaign than any other.

And today’s been no exception:

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++ New Eastleigh poll: Lib Dems have 5% lead over Tories, Labour trail in 4th place behind Ukip

eastleigh bar chartUK Polling Report has the figures from the latest (and last?) opinion poll to be conducted in Eastleigh ahead of polling day this Thursday — it shows the Lib Dems leading the Tories by 5%.

The poll was conducted for The Times by Populus, the firm which undertook a previous survey for Lord Ashcroft (changes in brackets compare the two):

    Lib Dems 33% (+2%)
    Conservatives 28% (-6%)
    UKIP 21% (+8%)
    Labour 11% (-8%)

On the face of it, this is good news for the Lib Dems. HOWEVER, we know the Tories are mounting …

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 19 Comments

UK loses its triple-A rating – George should’ve listened to Danny

The BBC reports tonight’s predictable news:

UK’s AAA credit rating cut to Aa1 by Moody’s
The UK has had its AAA credit rating cut by Moody’s, based on its expectation that growth will “remain sluggish over the next few years”. The ratings agency became the first to lower the UK from its highest rating, to Aa1. … The UK’s net sovereign debt was the equivalent of 68% of the country’s annual economic output, or GDP, at the end of last year. All three major credit agencies last year put the UK on “negative outlook”, meaning they could downgrade its rating if

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Chris Rennard allegations – the party needs to do better than this

There’s a certain grim irony that the BBC’s mis-handling of the Jimmy Savile row should re-erupt at the same time as Lib Dems consider our own party’s alleged failings to take seriously enough claims of inappropriate sexual behaviour levelled against former chief executive, Lord (Chris) Rennard.

There is a gulf both in the severity and scale of the allegations. But there is also a potentially worrying similarity: that just as the BBC turned a blind eye to the alleged offences one of its stars, so too did the Lib Dems.

Like many in the party I’d heard rumours …

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Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the latest campaign news (21 Feb)

It was another day when more than 200 Lib Dem volunteers had signed-in by lunchtime to help Mike Thornton’s by-election campaign in Eastleigh. It really is quite amazing to see the party’s by-election campaign in full swing.

The big push will come this weekend, the final one before polling day — you can sign up to help here:

Eastleigh: The BIG weekend
So far our campaign in Eastleigh has broken all attendence records in recent memory – the challenge this weekend is to go even further. Can YOU help us beat the all-time by-election attendence record, and give local campaigner Mike Thornton the best possible boost just before polling day?

Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged | 3 Comments

Don’ forget #CallClegg on at 9am today

In a change to the usual schedule, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will be taking questions from listeners around the country at 9am this morning, Wednesday (not tomorrow, Thursday):

With any luck, he’ll get the chance to differentiate himself from David Cameron’s ill-judged attack on Hilary Mantel for her article on the Duchess of Cambridge.

And a bit of good cheer for Lib Dems this morning. …

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Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the latest campaign news (19 Feb)

thornton hughes browneIt’s been another record-breaking day for Mike Thornton’s team in Eastleigh — well over 200 party volunteers had arrived by lunchtime today, with many more arriving later on.

This follows the 530+ who visited this weekend, and the 1,000+ who campaigned during the first week. The party’s poll ratings may not be sky-high, but the determination of Lib Dem activists to prove wrong those who argue the party’s doomed has rarely been more resolute!

This Lib Dem enthusiasm has been picked up by the press this week:

Tories sniff defeat

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged and | 6 Comments

Half a defence of John O’Farrell’s comments on Margaret Thatcher

OFarrell-things betterI wonder if Labour HQ wish they’d read John O’Farrell’s 1998 book, Things Can Only Get Better, a little more carefully before he was selected to fight the Eastleigh by-election?

First there was his call for Labour voters to vote tactically for the Lib Dems to beat the Tories, as uncovered by Mark Pack here: Should Labour supporters vote tactically to beat the Tories? “Go for it” said John O’Farrell. (Incidentally, the Telegraph then ran the story here without any credit.)

And then yesterday, the Mail ran with …

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , and | 68 Comments

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of all the weekend’s news (18 Feb)

The penultimate weekend’s campaigning was frenetic at the Lib Dems’ Eastleigh HQ…

Over 530 Lib Dem volunteers passed through its doors in just this weekend (to add to the 1,000+ who’d visited in the previous week). Visitors included an upbeat Nick Clegg (BBC report and video here) and others — as this video shows:

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , , and | 2 Comments

Your essential weekend reader — my personal pick of the week’s must-reads

Papers - Some rights reserved by NS MewsflashIt’s Sunday lunchtime, so here are a baker’s dozen of thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from all those I’ve linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here.

The lesson from Poundland: work pays – Tim Harford looks at the workfare which didn’t work and the workfare which did work. Guess which one the Government scrapped? ‘It is ironic that this is one of the few areas where the government is carrying out rigorous tests of what …

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Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “From Eastleigh to Africa – and back again!”

Nick’s latest weekly missive focuses on two places: his visits as party leader to the Lib Dem by-election campaign in Eastleigh, and his visit as Deputy Prime Minister to Mozambique and Ethiopia to focus on ‘the three Ts’ – tax, transparency and trade. Here’s his letter in full…

libdem letter from nick clegg

Like so many of you, I’ve been to Eastleigh this week. I was there to visit a local college with our excellent candidate Mike Thornton on Monday, and after a brief stop off to see the kids, I headed straight

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Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the week’s campaign news

Mike_ThorntonIt’s only just over a week since the Eastleigh by-election was called. But this first Lib Dem / Tory by-election battle of the parliament has attracted a lot of interest. One aspect that hasn’t been noted much in the media is the level of enthusiasm within the Lib Dems to fight this by-election, and fight it to win.

As the party’s weekly briefing itself noted, Mike Thornton’s campaign has broken the party’s by-election records, with “more volunteers, more money raised and more campaign literature delivered in the opening days of the Eastleigh by-election campaign than any other”.

Here a few of the stats:

  • Well over 1,000 Lib Dem volunteers have visited the by-election HQ since it was officially opened on Saturday morning.
  • On Thursday alone, 2,200 phone calls were made to prospective voters and activists knocked on 1,700 doors.
  • More than 650 individual donations have been received through the party’s website and through email appeals in the last six days.
  • 21 of the party’s 57 MPs have already visited: Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander, Ed Davey, Vince Cable, Sir Malcolm Bruce, Sir Nick Harvey, Tim Farron, Jo Swinson, David Laws, Duncan Hames, Andrew Stunell, Simon Wright, Sir Robert Smith, Stephen Gilbert, Tom Brake, Roger Williams, Don Foster, John Leech, Tessa Munt, Mark Williams, John Pugh and Adrian Sanders.

Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , , , , , , and | 11 Comments

IFS verdict: Labour’s 10p tax idea “has no plausible economic justification”

institute-for-fiscal-studies-logo-370x229Ed Miliband’s announcement yesterday that Labour will re-introduce a 10p starting rate of income tax paid for through the introduction of Vince Cable’s mansion tax has received a tepid response from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The IFS put out a note yesterday headed simply, Better options exist to help low earners than 10p tax rate:

A 10p tax rate would reduce taxes for those on low incomes and strengthen their work incentives. A far simpler and more sensible way of achieving these aims would be to spend the same

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Rejoice! Labour has a policy. Even better it’s a Lib Dem policy.

Yesterday at PMQs Ed Miliband channelled Ronald Reagan. Today he’s channelling Vince Cable:

Here’s what Ed has just announced:

Let me tell you about one crucial choice we would make, which is different from this government. We would tax houses worth over £2 million. And we would use the money to cut taxes for working people. We would put right a mistake made by

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Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the latest campaign news (13 Feb)

Here’s a round-up of news from the past 24 hours in the Eastleigh by-election…

Mike Thornton’s campaign in full swing

mike thornton david chidgeyThe Lib Dems’ Mike Thornton — pictured here (by Jon Aylwin) with 1994 by-election victor David Chidgey — has been focusing on how the pupil premium, the party’s flagship education policy, has been helping Eastleigh schools:

Lib Dems boost Pupil Premium (Southern Daily Echo)
The policy introduced by the Liberal Democrats has invested £1.7m in Eastleigh schools, and is aimed at ensuring every child has a fair start in life.

Just one of the reasons why volunteer help has been pouring in to help Mike retain the seats for the Lib Dems:

Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 12 Comments

Mark Pack to appear on Question Time as @BBCExtraGuest

Congratulations and good luck to Mark Pack, my co-editor here for another fortnight, who’s in the virtual hot-seat as this week’s @BBCExtraGuest, tweeting opinions and answering questions before and during this week’s edition of BBC1’s Question Time (Thursday, 10.35 pm):

You’ll be able to follow Mark’s tweets as @BBCExtraGuest here.

Congratulations, too, to Lib Dem blogger Richard Morris, whose open letter maybe reminded the BBC …

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Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the latest campaign news (12 Feb)

Here’s a round-up of news from the past 24 hours in the Eastleigh by-election…

mike thornton eastleigh jon aylwinNick Clegg offered Lib Dem candidate Mike Thornton his full backing on a visit to Eastleigh on Monday. Here‘s the Guardian report:

“I am confident we will keep hold of this seat but not because I say so but because the people of Eastleigh are telling us that,” said Clegg. Focusing on the party’s local dominance – it is the only place in the country where every councillor at district and county level is a Liberal Democrat – he said voters would focus on its “record of action” and said the party had “to be quite clear where our differences lie”. … Speaking after meeting students at the local college, Clegg said: “Cutting council tax, promoting more apprenticeships, creating jobs, protecting green spaces – those are things that Liberal Democrats haven’t just talked about, they are things they have actually done and it’s a record of which we are tremendously proud.”

It’s not just Nick Clegg who’s been doing his Eastleigh stint, though. Pictured above (with thanks to Jon Aylwin) is North Devon MP Nick Harvey out canvassing with Mike and some of his supporters.

Want to join the hundreds of Lib Dems who are doing their bit to help get Mike elected as the next Lib Dem MP for Eastleigh on 28th February? Here’s a reminder of how YOU can make a difference:

  • Volunteer to help in Eastleigh itself
  • Make phone calls for the party if you can’t get there in person
  • Give a donation to help fund the campaign.
  • Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 5 Comments

    Three things we’ve learned from today’s opinion polls

    Three interesting and important poll findings to report today…

    Big lead for Labour according to ICM

    polling station -  Some rights reserved by Simon Clayson
    First, the Guardian’s monthly ICM poll is out, showing the biggest Labour lead in almost a decade:

      Labour 41% (+3%)
      Conservatives 29% (-4%)
      Lib Dems 13% (-2%)
      Ukip 9% (+3%)
      Others 8% (+1%)

    The movements are more or less within the margin of error. Still, the Tories will be pretty disappointed to see the party get no bounce at all from David Cameron’s promise of a post-2015 EU referendum. Perhaps unsurprisingly it …

    Posted in Op-eds, Parliamentary by-elections and Polls | Tagged , , , and | 131 Comments

    Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of all the weekend’s news

    A quick round-up of all things Eastleigh — especially for the benefit of those who’ve been in Eastleigh this weekend and as a result have missed out…

    Lib Dem candidate selected: congrats Mike Thornton!

    First, and most important, the Lib Dems have a candidate: Mike Thornton was selected by the Eastleigh local party on Saturday evening.

    You can read about him and his policy priorities here.

    Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment

    Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “If you want fairer taxes, there’s only one party for you: the Lib Dems.”

    No prizes for guessing which subject dominates this week’s letter from Nick Clegg to party supporters: the forthcoming Eastleigh by-election. Nick reflects on his own experiences campaigning in by-elections of yore – “exhilarating, exhausting and exciting in equal measure” – and urges all party activists to help in whatever way we can in the next three weeks. A major feature of the campaign in Eastleigh and across the country will be the Lib Dems’ push for Fairer Taxes, and it’s great to see Nick’s message including web-links to enable readers to take action for themselves on this key message. Here’s

    Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 20 Comments

    Your essential weekend reader — my personal pick of the week’s must-reads

    It’s Sunday morning, so here are 12 thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from all those I’ve linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here.

    In Search of Monsters – Stephen W. Smith looks at the background to France’s military intervention in Mali: ‘One could even say that they will provide the Saharan Taliban with the very thing they were thirsting for: an expeditionary force of infidels on home turf.’

    Trident is no longer key to Britain’s security

    Posted in News | Tagged and | 2 Comments

    The PM and the EU: Cameron’s zen art of compromise maintenance

    David Cameron - Some rights reserved by The Prime Minister's OfficeCredit where it’s due. If David Cameron had returned to Britain empty-handed or walked out of the EU budget talks in a fit of pique he’d have been pilloried. Plenty of his opponents were hoping he’d do just that.

    As it is, he’s able to boast (not without justification) that he’s successfully negotiated a 3% real-terms cut in the EU budget — to a cumulative €960bn (2014-20) — and protected the British rebate. Nick Clegg, who’s been a particular critic of …

    Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , , , , , and | 13 Comments

    5 reasons for Lib Dems to campaign in Eastleigh (just in case you needed any more)

    eastleigh campaignMark Pack has posted last night’s poll findings from Eastleigh, showing the Tories narrowly ahead with both Labour and Ukip out of serious contention. In case you needed some reasons to help the Lib Dem campaign in the next three weeks in whatever way you’re able here are 5 from me…

    The Lib Dems can win…

    Lord Ashcroft’s poll is pretty ideal for the party: it piles the pressure on the Tories as early front-runners, while confirming how tight the contest will be. The Lib Dems’ local strength is significant …

    Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , and | 7 Comments

    Lib Dem conference to vote on whether it can ‘no-con’ the party leader

    nick-clegg-birmingham conf9.30 am on Saturday morning may not be a prime-time slot, but on 9th March there will be more than usual interest in a constitutional amendment tabled to the Lib Dem spring conference.

    Why? Because the amendment will make it possible for the Lib Dem federal conference to pass a vote of no confidence in the party leader to trigger an election.

    Here‘s the proposed amendment:

    const amend - mar 2013

    ‘An election for the Leader shall be called upon a vote

    Posted in News | Tagged , and | 41 Comments
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