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

In other news… Hemming “resignation threat”, Rogerson on second home tax, Russell on Israel & more

By Stephen Tall | Sun 4th November 2012 - 6:15 pm

MP John Hemming’s fury over ‘cover-ups’ (Daily Express)

A LIB Dem MP threatened to resign the party whip last night and sit as an independent unless child protection was treated “more seriously”. John Hemming said the Government was “dangerously complacent” about the level of cover-ups at ­children’s homes and in the ­wider family justice system. He said if ministers did not demonstrate “a change of attitude”, he would withdraw his “personal support for the Government”.

Mentally impaired people ‘exploited by court-appointed deputies’ (BBC News)

Action is needed to prevent vulnerable people being ripped-off by those appointed by the courts to manage

…

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Stephen Tall

Obama vs Romney. Not much of a two-horse race as far as Lib Dem members are concerned

By Stephen Tall | Sun 4th November 2012 - 4:20 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Obama tops our poll with 91% support from Lib Dems

LDV asked: If you had a vote in the US presidential election, would you support Barack Obama or Mitt Romney?

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg’s first leader’s letter hits my inbox

By Stephen Tall | Sun 4th November 2012 - 12:05 pm

The first of Nick Clegg’s new ‘Letter from the Leader’ series has been emailed to party members this morning. Here it is:

I want to start writing to you, as a supporter of the Liberal Democrats, regularly and more informally than I have in the past. I want to give you a bit more of an insight into what’s going on behind those Whitehall doors and how we, as Lib Dems, are dealing with the issues and challenges that come up.

An issue that gets raised again and

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Stephen Tall

What Lib Dem members say about the party’s direction and Nick Clegg’s leadership

By Stephen Tall | Sun 4th November 2012 - 8:50 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Post-conference boost: +23% happy with party’s direction

LDV asked: Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track? (Comparison with September’s figures.)

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 12 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd November 2012 - 8:15 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

Where now for the immigration debate? – Sarah Mulley in the New Statesman with an excellent analysis: ‘the public don’t (on the whole) feel that immigration is a problem in their own local communities, although a large majority do feel that it is a problem for the country as a whole.’

The Empire Strikes Back: Ofqual, and the omnishambles of assessment – Tom Bennett on the latest GCSE controversy: ‘let’s be …

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Stephen Tall

I don’t agree with Nick. We should be in Europe to reform the EU

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st November 2012 - 9:20 am

Nick Clegg will today make the kind of speech which makes it very hard for Lib Dems to push the idea that our party is serious about reform of the European Union. According to the BBC, he will dismiss the chances of any significant changes to the EU’s budget:

In a speech to be delivered to the Chatham House international affairs think-tank, Mr Clegg will say Labour is well aware there was “absolutely no prospect” of achieving a real-terms cut. “Their change of heart is dishonest, it’s hypocritical.

…

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Stephen Tall

“Liberalism shouldn’t be about the safe option, it should always be a risky thing to take on.” Alistair Carmichael on life in the Coalition as Lib Dem chief whip

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th October 2012 - 2:15 pm

There’s a terrific interview with Lib Dem chief whip Alistair Carmichael in this month’s Total Politics magazine, in which he gives a typically candid view on what life is like as within the Coalition — and how the Lib Dem whipping operation differs from Labour’s and the Tories’. Here’s a few excerpts:

“I would say the difference between us and the other two parties in this place is that we can get to a position of unity. In fact, it’s much more important to be able to persuade a liberal,

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Stephen Tall

Trident: it’s déjà vu all over again

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th October 2012 - 12:45 pm

The latest flurry of excitement about the Trident nuclear deterrent — as the Daily Mail puts it with typical tabloid restraint: Tories and LibDems at war over contract to build Trident sub: £350m deal is jumping the gun, warns Clegg — is one of those stories which pops up twice a year. The last time was six months ago, in May, when the Ministry of Defence announced £350m-worth of design contracts for the Trident successor submarines had been signed. As then Lib Dem defence minister Nick Harvey pointed out on LDV at the time:

is being portrayed as the Coalition Government moving a step closer to a

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Stephen Tall

A headline I didn’t expect ever to write: Tory right-wing calls for affirmative action in public sector

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th October 2012 - 7:45 am

I did a bit of a double-take on reading Fraser Nelson’s latest column in the Telegraph complaining that David Cameron has been ‘strikingly relaxed’ about appointments to government-funded bodies.

‘His allies say that he has been too much of a gentleman to play Labour’s game and start stuffing quangos with Tory placemen,’ says Fraser, whose tone suggests he’d like nothing better than for the Prime Minister to start stuffing quangos with Tory placemen.

His plea for greater patronage was taken up with alacrity by Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome who …

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Stephen Tall

Giving power to local communities – much too important to be left to Nick Clegg or Parliament

By Stephen Tall | Mon 29th October 2012 - 8:20 pm

Nick Clegg in Liverpool. Photo credit: Alex FolkesLike my LDV colleague, Paul Walter, it was good to hear Nick Clegg’s announcement that he intends to give more economic powers to up to 20 cities and major towns. After all, if there’s one thing that unites Lib Dems it’s the belief in devolving power to the most local level possible.

And yet there is a grumble about the scheme that nags me: why is it that local government is having to bid to central government for “the right to decide how skills and transport funding is spent

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Stephen Tall

In other news… Nick talks Dutch, Farron’s footie boycott, Hemming’s whistleblower charter & more

By Stephen Tall | Sun 28th October 2012 - 6:45 pm

Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past few days…

Nick Clegg insists on speaking Dutch at Cabinet Office meeting (Telegraph)

Nick Clegg, who speaks five languages fluently, chose to conduct a recent meeting at the Cabinet Office with Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, entirely in Dutch. Did the Deputy Prime Minister, whose mother is from the Netherlands, do so to outfox a Downing Street official whom David Cameron had allegedly sent to spy on their conversation? “Nick enjoys being able to talk Dutch,” the Liberal Democrat leader’s spokesman tells Mandrake.

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Stephen Tall

Date for your diary – 17th December: LibDemVoice Xmas drinks, followed by Steve Richards’ Rock ‘n Roll Politics

By Stephen Tall | Sun 28th October 2012 - 1:45 pm

Here’s a date for your diary… On 17th December, The Independent’s Steve Richards will bring his Rock ‘n Roll Politics to London for a Christmas special. Premiered at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, where it earned rave reviews, here’s how the show is billed:

Award winning BBC broadcaster and columnist, Steve Richards, takes you behind the scenes of British Politics and the media, the characters, the absurdities, the tragedies. Laugh and cry as you are taken on a whirlwind tour from Harold Wilson and David Bowie in the 1970s to David

…

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Stephen Tall

New LDV members’ survey now live: your views on the economy, crime and security and the Coalition

By Stephen Tall | Sun 28th October 2012 - 6:38 am

The new LDV members’ survey is now live. So if you are one of the c.1,300 registered members 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.

Questions we’re asking this month include:

  • what you think of ‘secret courts’, elected police and crime commissioners and prisoners’ votes;
  • what you make of the Coalition’s economic policies, Council Tax benefit, ‘shares for rights’;
  • what you think about the railways and ‘Page 3’;
  • what you think about tuition fees 2 years after the

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 8 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 27th October 2012 - 8:15 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

Why don’t we trust politicians? – The BBC’s Nick Robinson takes politicians to task, doesn’t let the media off the hook either… while Labour’s Rachel Reeves mouths platitudes.

The BBC regains its honour – Nick Cohen links the Beeb’s problems with Newsnight and Jimmy Savile to the wider question of institutional trust: ‘We ought to be extending anti-managerialism into every private and public hierarchy.’

The Savile inquiries: giving truth a …

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Stephen Tall

“We’re not in recession”. Last July’s headline comes true (belatedly).

By Stephen Tall | Thu 25th October 2012 - 8:05 pm

Four months ago, just after the last set of quarterly figures published by the ONS showed a sharp contraction in the UK economy, I highlighted economist Hamish McRae’s very public assertion that the UK was in actual fact no longer in recession. Pointing to the second-highest rate of job creation ever in the private sector, combined with falling inflation, he declared: ‘pull all the other data together and the figures would be consistent with an economy growing at around 1 per cent a year’.

Here’s what he has to say about the latest quarterly growth figures of +1.0%, which …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 25 Comments
Stephen Tall

David Cameron’s ‘a little and often’ leadership doesn’t suit him and isn’t Prime Ministerial

By Stephen Tall | Wed 24th October 2012 - 12:25 pm

The Telegraph’s James Kirkup, one of that paper’s few fair-minded political commentators, has written a thought-provoking article, A devil’s advocate defence of David Cameron and No 10. His case for the defence is first, that we (public, media) shouldn’t assume the role of Prime Minister has always to follow the command/control style of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair:

Implicit – and sometimes explicit – in the various critiques of the Cameron style and No 10 outfit is the idea that a Prime

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Stephen Tall

A confession: I’m a Lib Dem and I support elected police commissioners

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd October 2012 - 9:00 pm

Here’s the thing: I don’t have a problem with elected police commissioners. I know they were a Tory manifesto idea and that the Lib Dems are opposed to them (while reluctantly agreeing to vote for them as part of the Coalition Agreement). But I’m just fine with them. My support for directly elected police commissioners is paralleled by my support for directly elected mayors:

For too long, city council politics have been in the hands of amateur part-time leaders: some have been very good, some not so

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 57 Comments
Stephen Tall

Government suffers defeat in Lords over ‘new poll tax’ changes to council tax benefits

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd October 2012 - 7:25 pm

The Government has suffered a defeat today on changes to the system of paying council tax benefit. As part of the Coalition’s existing welfare cuts, council tax relief is being reduced and local authorities are being given the power to set their own eligibility criteria from April 2013. As the Financial Times reported last week:

The coalition has earmarked £100m for councils that promise to limit the sums poorer people must pay to around 8.5 per cent of the full council tax rate – less than half what some local authorities are considering. … Lord Best, president of the Local Government Association, will on Tuesday propose an amendment

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Stephen Tall

Why the Lib Dems are standing for barely half the elected police commissioner posts

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd October 2012 - 9:15 am

With nominations closed and the elections less than a month away, time for a quick recap on where the Lib Dems are at in the forthcoming police commissioner elections.

As ConHome has taken some pleasure in pointing out, the party is standing in 23 out of the 41 contests, little more than half. A little self-righteously, they argue: ‘This is a political party that is supposed to believe in radical change, in making the state more accountable to the citizen, and in boosting local democracy.’

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Stephen Tall

Kiron Reid resigns from Lib Dems to run as independent police commissioner in Merseyside

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st October 2012 - 8:30 am

Kiron Reid, three-times Lib Dem parliamentary candidate and a councillor in Liverpool for a decade, has resigned from the party to enable him to run for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner as an independent. He’s explained his decision in an open letter on his website:

It is with regret that I resign from the Liberal Democrats. I joined the Liberal Party in May 1987 and have been a member with the same membership number ever since. Despite the party’s current problems I did not want to leave and had no intention of falling out with the Party. But I believe that the post of Police and Crime Commissioner should not be party political. I have argued this internally for

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Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 8 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th October 2012 - 8:25 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

Three big things I’ve got wrong since I’ve starting blogging and commenting – ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie confesses to a trio of big errors on the NHS, higher-rate tax and equalities: “One of the many reasons I don’t want to be an MP is that I think this sort of ability to think openly and reflectively is probably impossible when you are standing for office.”

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Stephen Tall

+++ Andrew Mitchell quits as Chief Whip over ‘Plebgate’

By Stephen Tall | Fri 19th October 2012 - 6:47 pm

Breaking news this Friday evening:

Andrew Mitchell has quit as government chief whip after criticism for making rude remarks to police officers at the gates of Downing Street. Mr Mitchell apologised for his conduct but denied using the word “pleb” in exchanges last month. … The Prime Minister has accepted his resignation.

Maybe he’d have fared better with a more frank apology right from the start – I suggested some options here.

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Posted in News | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

How you can take part in LibDemVoice’s exclusive party member surveys

By Stephen Tall | Mon 15th October 2012 - 8:14 pm

LibDemVoice’s surveys of party members signed-up to our discussion forum have been running for well over three years now. (I posted at the weekend the final set of figures from our most recent poll.)

Our surveys are a way of testing members’ views on a variety of hot topics. And as they’ve been running throughout the first two years of the Coalition they’re also an interesting record of changing views on how the Coalition is regarded within the party.

If you would like to take part in the LibDemVoice surveys, there are simply two steps you need to follow:
1) Be …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

What do The Independent, Channel 4 and BBC Radio all have in common?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th October 2012 - 2:15 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum before conference to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

BBC Radio, Channel 4 and The Independent top our poll for best-quality political coverage

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Who’s up, who’s down? How party members rate the performances of leading Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th October 2012 - 8:50 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum before conference to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

LDV asked: How would you rate the performances of the following leading Liberal Democrats and government ministers?

This was the first post-reshuffle survey of what members think of the new Lib Dem ministerial team. As it was conducted mere days

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Should Nick Clegg have appointed more female government ministers?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th October 2012 - 6:35 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum before conference to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

44% say ‘gender is irrelevant’; but 35% say Clegg should have appointed female cabinet minister by now

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg is The Sun’s Hero of the Week… again

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th October 2012 - 12:20 pm

Perhaps it’s a pre-Leveson softening up exercise. Or perhaps we’ve activated a Lib Dem sleeper agent at the heart of Wapping. Whatever the explanation, Nick Clegg has been awarded the accolade — for the second time in three weeks — of being The Sun’s Hero of the Week. I’m not sure the reasons for which the paper has saluted him will do him many favours with all Lib Dems, but (simply in the spirit of sharing) here goes anyway…

The Sun, 12th October, 2012

Notwithstanding the fact that he was our Hero of the Week just three weeks

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Stephen Tall

Your essential weekend reader — 8 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th October 2012 - 8:15 am

It’s Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices…

No, you’re not entitled to your opinion – Patrick Stokes at The Conversation argues that proper debate relies on contested claims based on relevant expertise: just holding to your own view ain’t enough.

Is The Economist left or right? – its digital editor Tom Standage answers the question ‘yes and no’: which can

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Stephen Tall

Are Lib Dems missing the moral high ground?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 11th October 2012 - 9:25 pm

The New Statesman’s fair-minded political editor Rafael Behr has written a post-conference post mortem for each of the three parties here. Noting how Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell’s outburst against police ‘plebs’ hijacked the news agenda, reviving the ‘nasty party’ jibes (“Many Lib Dems didn’t seem to mind their demotion down the news agenda and revelled in the Tories’ discomfort”) here’s what he has to say of the Lib Dem outlook from the vantage of Brighton:

Lib Dems miss the moral high ground

Nick Clegg’s strategists

…

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Posted in Conference and News | Tagged and | 20 Comments
Stephen Tall

When will the Coalition end? Here’s what Lib Dem members say…

By Stephen Tall | Thu 11th October 2012 - 4:20 pm

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum before conference to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 550 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Four-in-five say Coalition will be bad for Lib Dem prospects in

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 11 Comments
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