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

Wikio’s top blogs in the UK: September ’09

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd October 2009 - 7:30 pm

Those lovely people at Wikio have emailed The Voice with their list^ of the top blogs in the UK in June 2009.

(Lib Dem blogger Jennie Rigg has already published the list of top 30 politics blogs: below is the full list for all blogs, though there’s considerable overlap between the two owing to the dominance of politics blogs in Wikio’s weightings.)

1 Iain Dale’s Diary (=)
2 Guy Fawkes’ blog (=)
3 Liberal Conspiracy (=)
4 Liberal Democrat Voice (+1)
5 Labourlist (-1)
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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick welcomes Ireland’s Lisbon yes vote, says Tories are “embarrassing themselves”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd October 2009 - 5:25 pm

Ireland’s yes to the Lisbon Treaty was emphatic (albeit at the second time of asking): 67% voted to approve it, with just two of the 43 constituencies rejecting it, on an icnreased turnout of 58%.

Nick Clegg was quick to welcome the result – and to note the awkward situation David Cameron now finds himself in:

This result finally puts to rest years of wrangling over Europe’s future and paves the way for a stronger and more democratic European Union.

“The worst thing would be to re-open this self-indulgent debate. David Cameron should now finally accept the treaty as a fact of life instead of plotting with Eastern European nations to have it blocked. The Conservatives are already embarrassing themselves and Britain with their petulant impotence on Europe.

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , , , and | 17 Comments
Stephen Tall

YouGov marginals poll: what it means for the Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd October 2009 - 12:30 pm

PoliticsHome has today published its YouGov survey of some 240 marginal seats, with a sample of around 35,000 voters, providing the most complete picture of regional polling trends, and likely constituency results. The results are fascinating – but, as with any polls, it comes with health warnings.

The most important is that, even with the large sample size, the number of people in each individual seat is not high enough to give reliable voting intention figures for individual constituencies. This is an especially relevant consideration when looking at Lib Dem MPs and target seats, as the ability of a local party to organise an effective ‘ground-war’ campaign often marks the difference between a successful hold / gain and a near-miss.

For example, the PoliticsHome survey predicts that Chris Huhne’s seat of Eastleigh will be a Tory gain based on the Lib Dem – Tory swing in the south and south-west. However, I will eat my hat (really, I will) if Chris is unseated.

You can find the full survey results here. Let’s have a look at the implications for the Lib Dems.

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Posted in General Election and Polls | Tagged | 30 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five (ish): 2/10/09

By Stephen Tall | Fri 2nd October 2009 - 7:22 pm

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

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. That Andrew Marr question: wrong, wrong, wrong (32) by Stephen Tall
2. Opinion: The disaster of Bournemouth was avoidable (26) by William le Breton
3. NEW POLL: Do you support Vince’s ‘mansion tax’? (31) by Stephen Tall
4. Bournemouth was a hit, no shambolic disaster (26) by Iain Roberts
5. Opinion: Conservatives are complete hypocrites on LGBT issues as Section 28 raises its ugly head again (16) by Andrew Reeves

5 recent Lib Dem tweets

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Posted in Friday Five | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

The leaders’ debate – is it really now game on?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 2nd October 2009 - 6:40 pm

Fair play to Sky News. It’s a month since the broadcaster upped the ante on a leaders’ debate, with Adam Boulton launching a full-throated campaign – including writing for LDV – for Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron to debate each other in the lead-up to general election day.

The result? The AP tells us a deal has now been reached between the broadcasters:

Broadcasters have written to Britain’s main political parties proposing a series of televised debates before the general election. The BBC, Sky News television, and ITV have written to the leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties with a joint proposal for three live televised debates before the election, which must be called by the middle of next year.

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Posted in General Election and News | Tagged , , , , , , and | 12 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW: post-conference ’09 LDV members’ survey #ldconf

By Stephen Tall | Fri 2nd October 2009 - 3:40 pm

Following the Lib Dem autumn conference in Bouremouth, Lib Dem Voice is conducting a survey of our Forum for party members on some of the issues that arose.

The survey includes questions on why you did (or didn’t) attend the conference; what you thought about it; your views on Nick Clegg’s statements on tuition fees and spending cuts; Vince’s ‘mansion tax’; and which MPs you thought emerged best from the conference.

The survey – a link to which has been emailed to all signed-up members of LDV’s forum – should take only 5-10 minutes to complete, and your responses …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem social networking web developments coming soon!

By Stephen Tall | Fri 2nd October 2009 - 1:45 pm

myconservativesMuch excitement across the Tory blogosphere this morning over the launch of myconservatives.com. The launch hasn’t been a totally 100% slick affair, as this screen-grabs illustrates – and as Chris Keating has already blogged:

Much angst at the ConservativeHome comments thread on this where many people seem to be reporting you can’t get through to it and that it redirects straight to the Tory Party homepage. Not great publicity, really. Someone should have thought that one through.

Still, it’s nice to know that technical cock-ups can occur in even the best-funded parties.

Those …

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Posted in Online politics | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

Because homphobia is gay when it’s against Tories, too

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 9:00 pm

The Lib Dem blogosphere has a bit of a love-hate relationship with arch Tory blogger Iain Dale.

Some regard him as little more than a self-promoting tribal propagandist who plays a clever game of appearing impartial when it suits him. Others believe him to be a nice fella for a Tory, who spreads round a lot of blogging link-love, and maintains a prolific, usually entertaining blog, which through hard work and determination has brought him mainstream celebrity. My view? As a Lib Dem I think there’s a bit of truth in both verdicts (though, truthfully, I incline more towards the latter).

But …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 26 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lamb slaughters Burnham’s “vague unfunded” hospital parking wish

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 8:35 pm

In a pledge so carefully worded it already anticipates its own failure excuses, Labour’s health secretary Andy Burnham yesterday pledged to abolish hospital parking fees:

It’s not right if some people don’t get visitors every day because families can’t afford the parking fees. … We can’t do it overnight, but over the next three years, as we can afford it, I want to phase out car parking charges for in-patients, giving each a permit for the length of their stay which family and friends can use”

Using the phrases “over the next three years” and “as we can afford it” in …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

YouTube ‘cos we want to: Gordon, Dawkins and Fordham

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 8:10 pm

Welcome to the latest edition of our occasional LDV feature, YouTube ‘cos we want to, featuring some of the most memorable political moments from the past week (or so).

First up, in tribute to the triumph of this week’s Labour party conference in Brighton, let’s enjoy in all its 11 seconds of glory, Gordon’s huff with Sky’s Adam Boulton after a particularly feisty interview:

Hat-tip: Paul Waugh. You can enjoy the full interview here.

Second’s up … for many the highlight of Lib Dem conference was meeting Richard Dawkins, while for others it was hearing his declaration that, though not a member, he has voted for the party in every election since it was founded. So here for your delectation is his 5-minute speech to the conference hall:

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged , , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (Sept. ‘09)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 12:55 pm

… We’d say a big thank you to the 27,708 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in September.

This takes us back closer to our pre-summer trend readership of c.30,000 – and is up some 43% on the equivalent figure for September ’08 of 19,435.

This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 Oct 2008 – 30 Sept 2009) to 306,418, almost double the equivalent figure for 2007-08 of 158,046.

The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

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Stephen Tall

Some 0.5m Lib Dems read the now-Tory-again Sun

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 12:35 pm

Apologies, readers, I appear to be on a bit of poll roll over the last 24 hours, what with this, this and now this … Yesterday’s ‘big news’ – or, more accurately, the story which garnered most column inches – was the announcement that The Sun has jilted Labour, and is shacking up once again with the Tory party.

There was no real surprise there: The Sun backs winners, and follows (and doubtless re-inforces) its readers’ opinions. Ipsos-Mori was quick off-the-mark to press release its figures showing the voting intentions of Sun readers in 2009 compared with 2005, general election year. These show a collapse in Labour support with hefty swings towards both the Tories and Others:

2005 – Tory 33%, Labour 45%, Lib Dem 12%, Others 10%
2009 – Tory 42%, Labour 29%, Lib Dem 12%, Others 17%

Interestingly the Lib Dem figure is unchanged between 2005 and 2009, at 12%.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

73% say Marr wrong to ask PM about prescription pills

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st October 2009 - 12:15 pm

An interesting little stat from YouGov’s latest tracker poll (with a hat-tip to Anthony Wells’ UK Polling Report blog). The internet polling company asked the question: Gordon Brown was asked on TV to respond to media rumours that he had been prescribed pills to help him cope with the stress of his job. Do you think it was right or wrong to ask him about this?

And here’s how those polled replied:

>> 22% – Right: the public have a right to know full medical details
>> 73% – Wrong: everyone, including the Prime Minister, has a right to privacy on medical matters that do not materially affect their work
>> 5% – Don’t know

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

Two more Lib Dems quit PoliticsHome panel

By Stephen Tall | Wed 30th September 2009 - 9:30 pm

I blogged at the weekend about the resignations of three Lib Dem MPs – Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Lynne Featherstone – from the PoliticsHome ‘insiders’ panel’, the PH100, in protest at the acquisition by Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft of a majority stake in the site.

Today I’ve hear from an impecable source that another Lib Dem MP – not previously publicly listed as a member of the PH100 – has also quit: Chris Huhne. The only other Lib Dem MP publicly listed as a PH100 member is David Laws, and I’ve not yet heard if he’s resigned.

The second Lib Dem to resign from the panel is, erm, me.

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

A look back at the polls: September ’09

By Stephen Tall | Wed 30th September 2009 - 7:10 pm

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 18 polls published in September – the number is extra high this month because of the recently instituted daily YouGov tracker poll. (Note to self: we need to find a way of averaging the trackers, otherwise they will dominate and distort LDV’s (very unscientific) monthly poll average).

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Posted in Polls | Tagged | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Does it matter if The Sun backs the Tories?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 30th September 2009 - 9:35 am

suncover.jpg The Sun is shining on the Tories this morning, with the announcement by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid that it will back the party at the next general election for the first time since 1992. Indeed, so proud was the rag paper of its announcement that they took the trouble to email Lib Dem Voice (twice) to let us know all about it – you see how much we matter to them!

The Sun’s endorsement of the Tories in not full-throated.

Most of its leader article is devoted to setting …

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

Gordon’s speech – Danny Alexander responds (and so do I) #lab09

By Stephen Tall | Tue 29th September 2009 - 6:50 pm

Gordon Brown delivered his speech to the Labour Party’s conference in Brighton today – you can read it in full here, or watch it here.

For the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg’s chief-of-staff Danny Alexander has issued the following response:

Gordon Brown’s speech showed just how tired and bereft of new thinking the Labour Party is. His new announcements were a hotchpotch of the ineffective and the ill-thought through, rehashed press releases, copied ideas and humiliating U-turns.

“The fact is Gordon Brown has presided over a huge and widening gap between the richest and the poorest, he has failed a generation

…

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

12 years to re-state a watered-down pledge. So much for progress. #lab09

By Stephen Tall | Tue 29th September 2009 - 6:25 pm

The Labour Party manifesto 1997:

We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system.

Gordon Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference 2009:

There is now a stronger case than ever that MPs should be elected with the support of more than half their voters – as they would be under the Alternative Voting system. And so I can announce today that in Labour’s next manifesto there will be a commitment for a referendum to be held early

…

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

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #136

By Stephen Tall | Tue 29th September 2009 - 6:00 pm

Welcome to the 136th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (20-26th September 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, partly 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 | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

To be fair …

By Stephen Tall | Tue 29th September 2009 - 9:40 am

I made clear my view on Sunday that the BBC’s Andrew Marr was bang out-of-order to ask Gordon Brown whether he uses prescription drugs seemingly on the basis of nothing more than Internet rumour:

… in making it an issue on the basis of no evidence, Andrew Marr and the BBC have done a real disservice to serious political reporting.

I stand by my assessment. However, I also pointed out that, at the time of writing, no-one from the right-wing blogosphere had taken Mr Marr to task. It’s only fair, therefore, to note that Tory MP Nadine Dorries yesterday broke ranks with the fellow members of her tribe to post a stinging denunciation:

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV readers split on Nick’s talk of need for “savage” cuts

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 7:25 pm

A week ago, Lib Dem Voice asked our readers the question on everyone’s lips at conference: Do you think Nick Clegg was right to say that the Lib Dems need to be “quite bold, or even savage, on current spending”?

I was clear on my view:

I cannot see how the talk of “savage” cuts is helpful – quite simply, it’s not the language of Lib Dems. Just as importantly, it’s not backed up by policy proposals. Even Vince Cable has so far come up with some £14 billion of potential savings, while estimating that a total of £112 billion will

…

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

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Vince Cable: I stirred up a hornets’ nest, but my Mansion Tax is fair

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 2:25 pm

The debate has raged now for a week, ever since Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announced his wish that the Lib Dems adopt the so-called ‘mansion tax’, a levy of 0.5% on households living in homes worth more than £1m. (You can vote on the issue over at LDV’s current poll). Was he right, or was he wrong?

Well, Vince has heard both sides of the argument now – including from his Lib Dem shadow cabinet colleagues – and has come out fighting in favour of his ‘mansion tax’, using his regular column in the Daily Mail to make his points. First of all, he points out, no tax is ever popular, but it’s going to be necessary:

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 28 September 2009

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 9:45 am

2 Big Stories


Germany elects new centre-right government to be led by Angela Merkel

The Financial Times reports:

Germany is on course for its first centre-right government in 11 years after voters gave chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and her Free Democratic allies a majority in parliament.

The victory of the conservative-liberal alliance – which had campaigned for tax cuts and a return to nuclear energy, but also social justice and tougher rules for finance – in Sunday’s poll ends four years of awkward co-operation between the CDU and its rival Social Democratic party in a grand coalition. …

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

That Andrew Marr question: wrong, wrong, wrong

By Stephen Tall | Sun 27th September 2009 - 5:15 pm

It’s a few weeks since I was emailed an article by John Ward (also sent to a number of other blog-sites), subsequently published at notbornyesterday.org, alleging the Prime Minister suffers from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, and that these conditions are being treated with prescription pills.

I decided not to publish, or refer at all to the allegations on Lib Dem Voice. As I explained to John in an email at the time, “without named sources for the story it’s not something we could publish on LDV. I appreciate, given the nature of the story, that having sources on the record is difficult, but still.”

The BBC’s Andrew Marr today felt no such compunction, asking Gordon Brown bluntly: “A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?” To which the Prime Minister would have been quite entitled to reply – though of course he couldn’t, as Mr Marr would have known – “None of your damned business.”

There are two issues here. First, was the BBC right to pose the question (and I’m sure the line of questioning was cleared at a high level within the Corporation)? And, secondly, should it matter to us what the Prime Minister’s reply was?

Was the BBC right? Absolutely not.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , and | 37 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: Do you support Vince’s ‘mansion tax’?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th September 2009 - 8:44 pm

Even Vince Cable now admits that his announcement during the party conference that he wants the Lib Dems to adopt a policy of levying a new tax of 0.5% on the value of properties over £1m could have been smoother. His failure to consult shadow cabinet colleagues, let alone the party’s policy committee, dented even Vince’s seemingly unassailable reputation. However, the process muddle is a side issue to the bigger question: is the policy right, and could the party campaign successfully on it?

First, the policy, and here are two alternative, liberal views. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has …

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Posted in Voice polls | 35 Comments
Stephen Tall

Clegg and Cable resign from PoliticsHome panel in protest at Ashcroft takeover

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th September 2009 - 5:17 pm

A minor media spat broke out this week, following the announcement that Lord (Michael) Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman who bankrolls the party’s target seats while refusing to say if he pays tax in this country, has bought a majority stake in the political news and commentary aggregator site, PoliticsHome.

This triggered the resignation of the site’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Rawnsley, who issued a public statement arguing that:

It was essential for users of the site that they could feel absolute confidence in the political independence of PoliticsHome. I do not believe that can be compatible with being under the ownership

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , , and | 15 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five (ish): 25/9/09

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 6:55 pm

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. Cabinet Office: correspondence chaos (14) by Mark Pack
2. Conference fringe: Defending free speech – keep libel laws out of science (28) by Prateek Buch
3. Nick Clegg’s conference speech, the live-blog #ldconf (10) by Stephen Tall
4. The Independent View: Time to be honest about English matters (31) by David Rickard
5. Blog of the Year Awards 2009: The Winners (6) by Helen Duffett

5 top #ldconf Lib Dem Tweeters

(Hat-tip: Stephen Glenn)

1. Caron Lindsay 86
2. Cllr Daisy Benson 72
3. LibDemConf 70
4. Anna Pascoe 65
5. Stephen …

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Posted in Friday Five | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem shadow cabinet media tarts, #ldconf special

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 3:45 pm

Donning the hat of his day-job, LDV’s Dr Mark Pack has been busy number-crunching to discover which of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet attracted most media coverage, in print and online. (Of course, column inches is no guarantee that the coverage will have been altogether positive).

Here’s the top 10:

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: pay MPs more!

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 2:45 pm

A month ago, Lib Dem Voice set up a new poll for readers asking the simple question, MPs are currently paid £65k per annum. Do you think they should be paid more than this, the same, or less in the future?

Here’s what you told us:

44% (234 votes) – More than £65k
35% (187) – The same as now
21% (115) – Less than £65k
Total Votes: 536. Poll ran 24 Aug – 13 Sept 2009.

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Posted in Voice polls | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time – LDV open thread, 24 September 2009 #bbcqt

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 10:20 pm

It’s Thursday, it’s 10.35 pm … it’s BBC1’s Question Time.

The series opens tonight in Bournemouth, setting of this week’s Lib Dem conference. The party’s representative is David Laws, the MP for Yeovil who succeeded Paddy Ashdown. A leading light of the ‘Orange Bookers’, who aroused the hostility of may Lib Dem activists for proposing a social insurance model for healthcare in the lead-up to the 2005 general election, he has gained growing respect even among his critics for his forensic approach to education policy as the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for children, schools and families.

Joining David on …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged and | Leave a comment
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