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

Daily View 2×2: 11 January 2010

By Stephen Tall | Mon 11th January 2010 - 10:50 am

Happy Monday morning, everybody! It’s 440 years to the day since the first lottery was held in Britain; 60 years since the first recorded snowfall in Los Angeles; and the 56th birthday of actor-comedian John Sessions. But enough factoids, here are the factuals …

2 Big Stories

The fall-out from the Labour SnowStorm plot

We’re in the final months of Gordon Brown’s premiership, and the Labour debate is focusing on what happens after the party loses the election. James Purnell, who resigned from the cabinet in June to no discernible effect, tells us his differences with Mr Brown in an article in

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #151

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th January 2010 - 6:45 pm

Welcome to the 151sh of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (3rd – 9th January 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, usually courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Revealed: the Lib-Con pact election poster

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th January 2010 - 10:45 am

Liberals and Conservatives united together in a British general election to fight for freedom and vanquish Big State corporatism:

Over half a century ago, mind.

***


Disclaimer: this poster, photographed by me, is from the Bodleian Library’s modern political papers archive – copyright is believed to reside still with the party. Could Cowley Street please contact me if they wish this image to be removed.

Posted in Humour | Tagged | 40 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo … ‘British papers are rubbish’ special edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th January 2010 - 5:45 pm

Welcome to this latest LDVideo instalment, featuring three video clips this week united by a common theme – the general uselessness of British newspapers and their inability to report facts.

First up, we have this classic clip from iconic 1980s’ political comedy, Yes, Prime Minister, in which Jim Hacker explains to the civil service who reads the British newspapers:


(Also available on YouTube here).

Secondly, here’s Stephen Fry’s QI – in Call My Bluff mode – exploding a few of the Euro myths peddled by the right-wing media:

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

LDV readers say: Televised leaders’ debates will be great help to Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th January 2010 - 3:30 pm

A fortnight ago, LDV posed the question, What difference, if any, do you think the televised leaders’ debates will make to the Lib Dems’ standing in the polls? Here’s what you told us:

  • 60% (258 votes) – They will be a real help to the Liberal Democrats
  • 24% (105) – They will make only a marginal difference either way
  • 8% (34) – They will backfire for the Liberal Democrats
  • 8% (33) – They will be utterly irrelevant to how people vote
    Total Votes: 430 Poll ran: 26th December 2009 – 8th January 2010

So, a convincing majority of you – six …

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Posted in Voice polls | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: Who is your Liberal Voice of the Year?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th January 2010 - 11:45 am

Ten days ago, in the dying days of the last decade, LDV launched our search for the Liberal Voice of 2009, to find the non-Lib Dem individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in this country in the past 12 months.

Our thanks to all who put forward nominations, all of which were considered carefully by the LDV editorial collective, which has agreed to short-list the following (in no particular order):

  • Guy Herbert, general secretary of NO2ID, for his campaigning work against the database state;
  • Peter Tatchell, for his tireless and fearless international human

…

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Posted in LDV Awards and Voice polls | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 24 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five (ish): 8/1/10

By Stephen Tall | Fri 8th January 2010 - 6:55 pm

What could be simpler: five categories, each with five links. And it’s Friday.

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. The Independent View: Wootton Bassett demonstrations: another Muslim point of view (12) by Shaaz Mahboob
2. General election prediction: new figures out (9) by Mark Pack
3. Can you come up with a punchy Lib Dem slogan? (56) by Stephen Tall
4. 20,000 road signs in kilometers – an evil EU plot? (34) by Iain Roberts
5. Ten predictions for the general election televised party leader debates (7) by Mark Pack

5 active LDV Members’ Forum threads

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Stephen Tall

Nick: Labour and Tories stand for ‘corrupt politics’

By Stephen Tall | Wed 6th January 2010 - 5:15 pm

In his hardest-hitting attack yet on the Labour and Tory parties, Nick Clegg has used an interview for BBC News’s Hard Talk programme to denounce both parties for colluding in ‘corrupt politics’. You can watch a three-minute clip from the programme here, in which Nick discusses Afghanistan.

The Guardian reports Nick’s comments here:

Clegg uses an interview today on the BBC’s Hard Talk programme to publish a list of “progressive” policies Labour and the Tories have blocked. He says: “A vote for Labour or the Conservatives is a vote for corrupt politics. A vote for Labour or the Conservatives is a vote for tax dodgers in politics. A vote for letting guilty MPs off the hook. A vote for an unfair voting system.”

Here’s the party’s evidence for Nick’s verdict:

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

+++ Hoon and Hewitt call for Brown leadership ballot

By Stephen Tall | Wed 6th January 2010 - 12:50 pm

Poor Gordon Brown. He actually had (another) pretty good day at Prime Minister’s Questions – of which more later – but that won’t matter diddly-squat now … all the news is of the latest move by some Labour MPs to defenestrate him.

Yes, I know, it’s hard to keep up. In 2008, Siobhain McDonagh resigned from the Government, calling on Mr Brown to quit. In 2009, James Purnell resigned from the cabinet, calling on Mr Brown to quit. The result: nada, nothing, niet. He’s still there.

And now in 2010, former cabinet ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt have written …

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Posted in News | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick: fairness is the Lib Dems’ core value

By Stephen Tall | Wed 6th January 2010 - 10:15 am

‘It’s all about fairness’, is the refrain we can expect to hear a lot from Nick Clegg in the next few months, leading up to the 2010 general election. It was noticable that the word ‘fair’ was deployed in each one of Nick’s four key policy areas set out in his Times article yesterday on the Lib Dems’ approach to a ‘hung parliament’:

  • fair taxes;
  • a fair start for all our children;
  • a fair and sustainable economy that creates jobs; and
  • fair, clean and local politics.

And it’s the word which recurs in this BBC interview, where Nick states his belief that the core value of the Lib Dems is fairness:

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Is this the laziest piece of political journalism ever?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 5th January 2010 - 8:05 pm

Well, no, it’s probably not. But it must at least qualify for the laziest piece of journalism this decade. I refer to today’s Independent article, ‘Clegg faces party backlash over Tory alliance’, by Nigel Morris and Michael Savage. Oh, go on, then, here’s a link if you must; though I begrudge handing them the traffic. The opening para gives a flavour of the kite-flying, unsourced speculation:

Nick Clegg faces a backlash from grassroots Liberal Democrats if he moves his party too close to the Conservatives in a hung parliament.

Well, yes, he probably would. Which is why he won’t. Unless the …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Can you come up with a punchy Lib Dem slogan?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 5th January 2010 - 11:55 am

Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal put in a pithy request to the political parties yesterday, Day -1 of the 2010 general election campaign: Better Slogans, Please.

Iain is equally scathing of Labour’s efforts (‘Come on Labour, wake up, get a move on! Don’t you know there’s an election on?’) and the Tories’ (‘a rather unhappy fudge of a slogan that doesn’t stick in the brain. Fail.’). But he’s also slightly underwhelmed by the Lib Dems’ sloganeering:

The Lib-Dems: The party knows there is no point diving in when the two larger parties are getting all the attention. Instead,

…

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Posted in General Election and News | Tagged | 60 Comments
Stephen Tall

LibLink … Nick Clegg: The Liberal Democrats are not for sale

By Stephen Tall | Mon 4th January 2010 - 11:50 pm

Over at The Times, Nick Clegg has penned an article setting out, perhaps in the clearest detail yet, exactly how the Lib Dems will respond in the event of a ‘hung Parliament’. He begins by noting the heat-without-light debate that the new year has brought:

Much of what we have heard so far is unsurprising: absurd pledges on spending, vitriolic attacks on cuts. But one development is new: both the old parties now claim to be almost identical to the Liberal Democrats. David Cameron and Gordon Brown are ostentatiously flirting with Liberal Democrat voters, clumsily trying to woo them —

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Belated LDV statporn for 2009. And my answer to the question, does it matter?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 4th January 2010 - 9:05 pm

Call it laziness, call it New Year ennui, but I’d half a mind not to re-commence my monthly LDV statporn posts. I realise they can be a little bit self-congratulatory and/or self-obsessed. But I’ve finally got round to doing it. And here’s why.

First, because I think it’s only fair to LDV’s readers and, more importantly, our contributors (both those who write for us, and those who comment on what’s written here) to know how many people read this site. It is not my blog, or that of any of the small, volunteer team who runs LDV: it is …

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

Cameron’s confusion over Tory marriage tax plans

By Stephen Tall | Mon 4th January 2010 - 5:40 pm

It can be hard pre-launching an election campaign, can’t it? Here’s the PoliticsHome rolling news front page from today:

At 3.04 pm, the site reported:

David Cameron said he could not guarantee a Conservative government would be able to offer a tax break to married couples, despite having personally supported such a move. “It’s something within a parliament I would definitely hope to do,” he said, but insisted the state of the public finances prevented him from offering any guarantee. “We’re not able to give people absolute certainty

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 4 January 2010

By Stephen Tall | Mon 4th January 2010 - 9:35 am

Morning all, and welcome to LDV’s ‘Back-to-Work’* edition of the Daily View, on the day in 1642 King Charles I sent soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, and Rose Heilbron became the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, in 1972. And a very happy birthday to Sir Isaac Newton, born 367 years ago today, and chef Rick Stein, 62 today.

* For those of us with cushy office-based jobs.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

…

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #150

By Stephen Tall | Sun 3rd January 2010 - 8:30 pm

Yay, we’ve reached a ton-and-a-half 🙂 … Welcome to the 150th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere – the first of this decade – featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (27th December 2009 – 2nd January 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, usually courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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Stephen Tall

10 key Lib Dem questions for 2010

By Stephen Tall | Thu 31st December 2009 - 3:45 pm

In what is fast becoming a pre-New Year tradition as eagerly anticipated as ‘the biggest ever DFS sale’, Lib Dem Voice is publishing its list of 10 key questions, the answers to which we think might well help shape 2010 for the party. You can read last year’s list here; and our answers to those questions here (Part I) and here (Part II).

Here below, then, are my top 10 questions for the coming year in Lib Demmery:

1. In the 2010 general election, how many Lib Dem MPs will be elected? Will we increase our number from the …

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Posted in Op-eds | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

A look back at the polls: December ’09

By Stephen Tall | Thu 31st December 2009 - 1:45 pm

The last month of the year: a time for taking stock, and anticpating the challenges of the 12 months to come. So what could be more fitting than for LDV – no slavish followers of the polls, we – to reflect on 2009’s polls? Let’s start, though, with the latest polling data. Here, in chronological order, are the results of the nine polls published in December:

Tories 40, Labour 29, Lib Dems 19 (6 Dec, ICM)
Tories 40, Labour 27, Lib Dems 18 (6 Dec, YouGov)

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

Our starters for 2009 – how did we do? (Part II)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 30th December 2009 - 3:20 pm

A year ago, Lib Dem Voice posed 10 questions, the answers to which we believed might shape the Lib Dem year – time to revisit them, wethinks. To read Part I dealing with Qs 1-5, click here.

6. Will Nick Clegg more fully establish himself as party leader, recognised both by the public and media as someone to be listened to?

Even Nick’s fiercest critics, inside and outside the party, would have to admit that the Lib Dem leader enjoyed a pretty good 2009. First, Nick found an issue that he was able to make his own – justice for …

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Posted in Op-eds | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

Our starters for 2009 – how did we do? (Part I)

By Stephen Tall | Tue 29th December 2009 - 4:55 pm

A year ago, Lib Dem Voice posed 10 questions, the answers to which we believed might shape the Lib Dem year – time to revisit them, wethinks.

1. Will there be a general election in 2009? (If yes, many of the rest of the questions will have very different answers).

No, there wasn’t: with Labour recording their lowest poll ratings ever, and with threats to Gordon Brown’s leadership never quite either disappearing nor materialising, this was an easy one to rule out early in the year.

But, of course, 12 months ago, it looked – potentially – a little different. …

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Posted in Op-eds | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Who’s your Liberal Voice of 2009?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th December 2009 - 5:22 pm

LDV wants to find out who our readers think merits the title Liberal Voice of the Year 2009, and we’ll be running a New Year poll to find the individual or group in British politics which has most inspired you in the last year. But, as is our traditional little twist, we want to look outside the Liberal Democrats – and find the greatest liberal who’s not a member of our party.

So, who would you pick? It could be a member of another political party, or one of the majority of Britons who belong to no party; or a group …

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Posted in LDV Awards | 19 Comments
Stephen Tall

The Lib Dem donor who’s “one of the most powerful men in the City”

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th December 2009 - 2:40 pm

The Times today profiles Paul Marshall, founder of top hedge fund manager Marshall Wace, and a former SDP/Liberal Alliance candidate who has donated in excess of £162,000 to the Liberal Democrats as well re-founding the liberal think-tank Centre Forum. Here’s an excerpt:

Mr Marshall, who stepped back from his investment role in 2004, decided to take on a more active position at the hedge fund last year as the markets started sliding and the group’s profits were reportedly down 75 per cent. However, the hedge fund made an £88.8 million profit in the 18 months up to February

…

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

LDV readers say: we least want David Cameron to be the next Prime Minister

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th December 2009 - 1:30 pm

A few weeks back, I posed the question here on LDV: In the event of Nick Clegg not forming a government after the next election, who do you *least want* to be Prime Minister in a year’s time? And to give our poll that little added piquancy I offered only two options: Gordon Brown or David Cameron.

Over 1,000 LDV readers (who, I never tire of reminding folk – especially any journos on the look-out for an easy story – may or may not all be Lib Dems) voted, and here’s what you said:

  • Gordon Brown: 42% (468 votes)

    • …

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    Posted in Voice polls | Tagged , and | 9 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    ‘A lot less disagreement’ between Lib Dems and Tories, says David Cameron. Excellent news!

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th December 2009 - 11:52 am

    And verily did David Cameron spake forth unto the multitude of political journalists desperate for Bank Holiday copy, and lo he did utter his New Year platitude:

    Let’s be honest that whether you’re Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, you’re motivated by pretty much the same progressive aims: a country that is safer, fairer, greener and where opportunity is more equal. It’s how to achieve these aims that we disagree about – and indeed between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats there is a lot less disagreement than there used to be.

    How wonderful!

    Mr Cameron is, we understand, preparing this …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 17 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Daily View 2×2: 28 December 2009

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th December 2009 - 10:15 am

    Morning all, and welcome to LDV’s Bank Holiday edition of the Daily View, on the day in 1832 John C. Calhoun became the first Vice President of the United States to resign, and the Peak District became the UK’s first National Park in 1950. And a very happy birthday to 28th US President Woodrow Wilson, pianist Richard Clayderman and actress Sienna Miller.

    Without further tarrying …

    2 Must-Read Blog Posts

    What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

    • Labour’s ‘class war’ is a shambles! (Jane Watkinson)

      Labour have no values anymore, they are just as bad as the Tories. … It is up to the Liberal Democrats to now break the facade of a two-party system as Labour and the Tories are two sides of the same coin.

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    Posted in Daily View | Leave a comment
    Stephen Tall

    Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #149

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 27th December 2009 - 6:30 pm

    Welcome to the 149th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere – the last of this deacde – featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (20th – 26th December 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, usually courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

    Don’t forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

    As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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    Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment
    Stephen Tall

    Lib Dems and Labour neck-and-neck on 28%, says voting study

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 27th December 2009 - 11:05 am

    Today’s Times publishes a study by Professor Colin Rallings and Professor Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University based on actual votes cast in the dozens of by-elections that take place for council seats each month. Here are the headline findings:

    It shows that although David Cameron’s Conservatives have a 10-point lead over Labour as the year draws to a close, the gap has been narrowing since the summer. The by-election model, which has been reworked to take account of different patterns of competition between the parties, has the Tories on 38%, with both Labour and the Liberal Democrats on 28%.

    The calculations

    …

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    Posted in Polls | Tagged , , and | 13 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    NEW POLL: will the TV debates make any difference to the Lib Dems?

    By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th December 2009 - 6:37 pm

    We now know the UK will see its first ever televised debates between the leaders of the three major UK-wide parties in the run-up to the 2010 general election. The consenus is there have been two winners: Sky News, which, with brilliant audacity, put the issue front and centre, and by so doing ensured that (i) the debates will happen, and (ii) it muscled in on the act, instead of being excluded by the BBC and ITV. (There’s a lesson there for Channel 4, which had been comprehensively outmanoeuvred).

    The second winner, according to the commentariat, is Nick Clegg. Here’s Andrew …

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    Posted in Voice polls | Tagged , , , , and | 12 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    LDVideo … Christmas Eve supplement

    By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th December 2009 - 6:30 pm

    Welcome to this latest, Christmas Eve LDVideo instalment, featuring three of the most memorable video clips doing the rounds on the blogosphere.

    First up, is this simple but poignant ‘Merry Christmas from the UK Border Agency’ video, with a tip of our hat to Duncan Stott’s Split Horizons blog.

    And now for something completely different, courtesy of Beau Bo D’Or: ‘Politicians B-Roll video for naff political advertising’.

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News and YouTube | Leave a comment
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      A very similar argument to that set forth by Phillip Inman in the Guardian the other day. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/13/labour-introduce-w...
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      Just to correct Paul Barker, Lambeth is *not* a coalition or joint administration, there is a minority Green leadership. The Liberal Democrat group on Lambe...
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      @ Nonconformistradical. So you're saying that the correct sentence was imposed albeit for the wrong reasons. You could be right about the sentence. But we...
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