Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall. He writes a fortnightly column for ConservativeHome and 'The Underdog' column for Total Politics magazine. He edited the 2013 publication, The Coalition and Beyond: Liberal Reforms for the Decade Ahead, and is a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum. He was awarded the inaugural Lib Dem ‘Blogger of the Year’ prize in 2006, was a councillor for eight years in Oxford, including a year as Deputy Lord Mayor, and appears frequently in the media in person, in print and online. Stephen combines his political interests with his professional life as Development Director for the Education Endowment Foundation, though writes here in a personal capacity. Follow @stephentall
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 13th September 2009 - 2:00 pm
Shirley William’s memoirs, Climbing the Bookshelves, is published on 24th September, and you can order it from Amazon using this link (and earn the party some commission). Today’s Sunday Times serialises the book: “the rebel ‘Gang of Four’ politician, reveals her maverick streak was rooted in a free-spirited childhood”. Here’s an excerpt:
I was a competitive child. I liked risk, matching myself against challenges. Climbing my father’s bookshelves to the very top was one such challenge. So later was amateurishly climbing mountains, breaking fingernails as I clung on to wet rock. Risk was one of several things that attracted me to politics when I was young, though I was also drawn to some obvious causes — poverty and inequality, lives limited by the accident of birth. …
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 13th September 2009 - 10:05 am
Welcome to the Sunday edition of LDV’s Daily View. And as Mark Pack of this e-parish is (apparently) forraging for chocolate in Bristol, it falls to me to bring you today’s supplement with extra multimedia entertainment.
2 Big Stories
NSPCC and Nick criticise new Government regulations for parent helpers
Ministers are under intense pressure to scale back plans for a “big brother” child protection database which will force millions of parents to undergo paedophile and criminal checks. In a major blow for the Government, Britain’s largest children’s charity, the NSPCC, criticised the regulations for parent helpers which it said threatened “perfectly safe and normal activities” and risked alienating the public.
The paper also quotes Nick Clegg’s condemnation of Labour’s proposals:
This scheme is wildly over the top. How are we supposed to create a country fit for our children if we regard every adult looking after children as a potential threat?”
Independent broadcasters will be allowed to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows. The change is intended to bring in extra funds for commercial broadcasters. Experts believe it could raise up to £100m a year.
There are currently strict rules against product placement and this ban would remain in place on BBC shows. Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is expected to announce a three-month consultation on the changes in a speech to the Royal Television Society next week.
The move will not apply to the BBC, and children’s programmes will remain product-placement free. A long-overdue acceptance of commercial reality? Or a retrogade intrusion into public broadcasting space?
After about an hour or so of having my knuckles scraped by ridiculously snappy letterboxes, and falling over on uneven paths, and generally feeling pretty battered and bruised and grumpy, I got to a house where a skinhead with no shirt on and a BNP tattoo set his dog on me. … I suspect that this is a big part of the reason political parties are haemorrhaging membership. The expectation that people risk their own personal safety for nothing on a regular basis is not a rewarding experience for the activist.
… the whole point of blogging is that it is interactive, or it is nothing. If most committee members don’t blog, don’t engage with the blogosphere, in short, have lives, and do not respond immediately, or even at all, will they be criticised? You bet they will and, like I did, would probably withdraw back into their collective shells.
Sunday Bonus track
You may have noticed a chap called Derren on the telly this week attracting a lot of attention. Here’s a reminder of him at his best:
By Stephen Tall
| Sat 12th September 2009 - 6:49 pm
In the lead-up to this year’s Lib Dem autumn conference in Bouremouth, Lib Dem Voice is conducting a survey of our Forum for party members on the recent political and economic crises – asking about what you think, and also your perception of how the party has dealt with them.
The survey has been designed jointly with the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), to tie-in with a conference fringe event on the theme, ‘The end of politics as we know it?‘, (1pm, Tue 22 Sept) with a panel comprising Ming Campbell, Shirley Williams, Charles Clarke and, erm, …
By Stephen Tall
| Sat 12th September 2009 - 1:55 pm
Was The Guardian’s Martin Kettle right yesterday to argue, as per his article’s headline, The biggest problem for the Liberal Democrats is illiberal Britain. It was a long, thoughtful piece – and, hey, it’s much better to be talked about than not, especially if you’re a Lib Dem – but, still, it was at best a partial explanation.
Let’s start with the positive stuff. First of all, Mr Kettle acknowledges the various ways in which the party has “been right on so many issues”:
By so many yardsticks, the Lib Dems deserve to be higher in the polls than they are. Michael Meadowcroft, intermittent party loyalist and former MP for Leeds West, listed several of them in a typically forceful Guardian letter today: the economy, Europe, ID cards, Iraq and localism. On all of them, as he says, the Lib Dems have been consistently right. One can add others to the list that Meadowcroft omitted: climate change, police powers, tax, electoral reform. All big subjects on which the Lib Dems have been right most of the time in ways that put the other parties to shame.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. But then there’s the problem of the current opinion polls: the Lib Dems have been tracking in the high-teens, occasionally breaking the 20% barrier.
By Stephen Tall
| Sat 12th September 2009 - 12:40 pm
The Grauniad, bastion of liberal values. But also a newspaper which today gives vent to a number of unsubstantiated smears against the Lib Dems in an article by Steven Morris – Liberal Democrats accused of dog whistle politics over Gypsy claims – which buys hook, line and sinker into the spin from Labour and Tory HQs.
The Grauniad’s story focuses on Islington (though cheerfully throws a few other snide half-truths into the mix to legitimise turning a local issue into a story for a national newspaper – of which more later), and the recent proposal by Islington Labour party to consider locating a site for travellers and gypsies in Highbury Fields, the borough’s premier open space. The Lib Dems in the area have campaigned against the idea, arguing that Highbury Fields is unsuitable as a location for any development, including new travellers’ sites. Agree or disagree with the local party’s position, but it’s an entirely consistent view.
What’s most definitely not consistent is Islington Labour leader Catherine West’s spin. Here’s how the Grauniad presents it:
By Stephen Tall
| Fri 11th September 2009 - 6:45 pm
Welcome to a new LDV feature, one of those ventures which we all may learn to love, or might die a dismal death – Reader, You Decide. The format’s simple: five categories, each with five links. Feeling daring? Then read on …
Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has been unfairly treated for saying in public what a large number of other people are confiding in private. … the doubts Mr Clegg has expressed about the strategy, resources and prospects of the Afghan campaign are shared by many others.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 9th September 2009 - 9:40 am
A little less than a year ago, Lib Dem Voice welcomed Stoke-on-Trent city councillor and Burton parliamentary candidate Gavin Webb back to the party after a protracted and controversial internal party inquiry suspended then un-suspended him.
Now it’s time to bid him farewell again, with news today that Gavin has quit the Lib Dems and joined the Libertarian Party (LPUK). Gavin’s full statement follows:
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 8th September 2009 - 8:40 pm
Iain Dale has the results of a ComRes survey of 151 MPs (undertaken back in April-May this year) to find out which journalists and which bloggers they most respect. Here are the findings:
The public wants Britain to scrap the Trident nuclear missile system but believes spending on health and education should rise each year, according to a ComRes poll for The Independent. By a margin of 58 to 35 per cent, people believe that the £25bn renewal of the Trident programme should be abandoned because of the state of the public finances.
Nick Clegg announced back in June his intention to ask the party conference to rule out like-for-like Trident replacement, arguing that the recession made it unaffordable and the political situation made it unnecessary.
The Indy notes that supporters of all three main parties support scrapping Trident:
Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell are the former political ‘big beasts’ that the public would most like to see more of, according to a new PoliticsHome poll. 1,228 UK adults were shown a list of former political big hitters and asked to tick all of those they would like to see return to prominence.
The two former Lib Dem leaders were the most popular choices, with just over a third of people (thirty four per cent) wishing for Kennedy’s return, and twenty two per cent backing Campbell. Kennedy was the most popular choice among supporters of all political parties and none.
For the record, here’s the list of former big-hitters missed most by Lib Dem supporters, and whom we’d – apparently – like to see more of:
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 7th September 2009 - 7:45 pm
Welcome to the 133rd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (30th August – 5th 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:
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 7th September 2009 - 9:45 am
2 Big Stories
Government’s Libya policy: confusion reigns
The mounting government confusion over its policy towards Libya continues today.
First we had the Prime Minister’s refusal to make a comment on the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi; then it emerged that Gordon Brown had let it be known he agreed with the Scottish executive’s decision; over the weekend Justice Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged the obvious – that government policy was strongly influenced by trade and oil.
And now it emerges that Mr Brown is stepping up British attempts to win compensation for the victims of the bombing:
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 6th September 2009 - 2:45 pm
Martin Kettle’s article in The Guardian – suggesting that the week beginning 12th October is make-or-break week for those Labour MPs who’d like to oust Gordon Brown – has sparked a fresh bout of Labour leadership speculation. The Economist’s Bagehot is having none of it:
Labour MPs have had their chance. And it wasn’t in June 2009 or in October 2008. It was in 2007, when almost all of them lined up, baa-ing, to endorse Mr Brown. They were too numbed by more than a decade of unthinking obedience and by cowardice to do anything else. That is a
The 10:10 campaign to encourage Britons – and Britain – to cut carbon emissions reached the seat of governmenttoday, with a public call on the Palace of Westminster to sign up. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat energy and climate change spokesman, wrote to John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, to ask for his support.
The paper quotes from Simon’s letter (which I can’t find online at the party’s website):
By Stephen Tall
| Sat 5th September 2009 - 2:15 pm
There’s been plenty of interesting Lib Dem internet chatter asking whether – now Ukip’s soon-to-be-ex-leader Nigel Farage is breaching normal convention and standing against the incumbent Speaker, Tory MP John Bercow, in Buckingham – the Lib Dems should follow suit.
Opinion is divided. Some say we absolutely shouldn’t – here, for instance, is Stephen Glenn:
… while the ‘convention’ for not standing against a sitting speaker is not as set in stone as some people may have you believe, it is none the less a precedent symbolising the apolitical nature of the role. Indeed it seems to be one, that even if contested, the constituents seem to back up as not one speaker seeking election since 1969 has polled less than 50% of the vote.
Liberal Democrats wanting to be taken seriously should give the Speaker a clear run at the next election as is the convention.
Meanwhile Mark Littlewood at Liberal Vision is more open to the idea that the Lib Dems should stand a candidate to oppose Speaker Bercow and Mr Farage:
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 2nd September 2009 - 11:50 pm
It’s been a busy day for Nick… speaking out on the Prime Minister’s contortions over the release of Mr Al Megrahi, confirming his intention to accept Sky News’s invitation to a televised leaders’ debate, as well as launching a new Lib Dem campaign, this one aimed at increasing the pay of the lowest-paid troops by £6,000 a year.
Here’s the summary of the new proposals:
The proposals, which would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy or RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level firefighter, would be funded within the
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 2nd September 2009 - 11:40 pm
As LDV noted this morning Sky News has decided to lay down the gauntlet, and formally invite the major party leaders to particpate in a televised debate during the general election campaign. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has formally accepted his invitation, issuing the following statement on his website:
Many thanks for your letter of yesterday. It is great to hear that Sky News are taking this important initiative and I would be delighted to accept your invitation.
At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, we must
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 1st September 2009 - 9:30 pm
… We’d say a big thank you to the 19,655 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in August.
This is our lowest readership figure of the year to date, down a notch on last month’s 22,000 – not surprising in a holiday month and when genuinely exciting political news is scarce. For the record, August’s 20k is still more than 50% up compared with the same month last year (13k).
This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 Sept 2008 – 31 Aug 2009) to 299,315, more than double the equivalent figure for 2007-08 of 147,363.
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 1st September 2009 - 7:30 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 six polls published in August:
A WESTCOUNTRY MP has told an official inquiry into the Parliamentary expenses scandal that politicians should be able to profit from their taxpayer-funded second homes. North Devon Lib-Dem MP Nick Harvey made the case in a six-page letter to the Committee on Standards in Public Life which has received more than 700 submissions.
Mr Harvey, who claimed up to £1,250 a month mortgage interest for his house in London, argued: “If making a capital gain is seen by some as a ‘crime’, then it is a ‘victimless crime’ because it does not add in any way to the taxpayer’s burden: it is simply a function of market movement.
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 1st September 2009 - 9:00 am
It’s six weeks since Total Politics asked blog-readers to vote for their Top 10 favourite blogs in their annual survey promoted here on LDV, as well as at LabourList and Iain Dale’s Diary. More than 1,500 people voted, and here is the full list of the Top 75 Lib Dem blogs in the Total Politics list:
Are you spending half your August Bank Holiday Monday stuck in a traffic jam? Well, just think of it as extra vacation. Lib Dem research has revealed that the average British commuter spends the equivalent of 23 working days per year travelling to and from work; a Londoners’ average yearly commute is 1,370 miles.
Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson, who is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, comments:
Commuting is often an incredibly frustrating experience, whether you are on a crowded train platform staring at your watch, crammed on to a bus or tube train or stuck in a traffic jam. Even moderate commutes make people less happy – something the Government’s own research shows.
Welcome to the 132nd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (23rd August – 29th August 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:
Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, Lib Dem blogger James Graham has a pop at the Lib Dem leader for squandering the political opportunity presented by a quiet August. Here’s an excerpt:
Where was Nick Clegg when #welovetheNHS kicked off? He did, in fairness, manage to fire off a single tweet – 24 hours late – but the party made no attempt to use this as an opportunity to carve out its own distinctive agenda on health. Four days after his return to Libya, Clegg did manage to squeeze out a press release about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi but while criticising Gordon Brown for not making his own position clear declined to do likewise. Considering Clegg was calling for the summer recess to be cancelled just a couple of months ago, this does smack somewhat of dropping the ball. …
The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal. Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.
The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release. The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.
The Lib Dems Ed Davey – who has been leading the campaign for full disclosure over Mr Al Megrahi’s release – is quoted by the paper:
This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”
There’s been plenty of reaction to yesterday’s Guardian story in which Tory-controlled Barnet council revelled in their plans to adopt the practices of no-frills airlines like Ryanair in their delivery of local services:
Barnet wants householders to pay extra to jump the queue for planning consents, in the way budget airlines charge extra for priority boarding. And as budget airline passengers choose to spend their budget on either flying at peaktime or having an in-flight meal, recipients of adult social care in Barnet will choose to spend a limited budget on whether to have a cleaner or a respite carer or even a holiday to Eastbourne. Other examples of proposed reforms include reducing the size of waste bins to minimise the cost of council rubbish collections.
The proposals are being seen as an example of “new Conservatism” which is spreading among Tory-controlled boroughs. Observers believe “radical outriders” such as Barnet offer a glimpse of how a David Cameron government could overhaul public service provision in an era of heavy spending cuts.
The Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh has dug out a couple of revealing quotes, first from Tory Barnet councillor John Hart:
With council tenants, and I’ll admit I am putting it crudely, it has been a lot of ‘my arse needs wiping, and somebody from the council can come and do it for me’.”
An intriguing row has broken out in Shoreham, West Sussex, in the lead-up to a by-election to fill a vacancy on the parish council. The local paper tells all:
CONTROVERSY is stirring in grassroots politics, with the nomination of a Liberal Democrat to stand in a Rustington Parish Council by-election. Jamie Bennett’s punt at parish politics has rippled the normally tranquil waters of the council, on which all 15 current members sit as independents.
Lib-Dem Jamie will contest the West ward seat vacated by former parish council chairman Mike Warrington, who has moved away from the area, in a two-horse race with Andy Cooper, described as the “Keep Rustington Council Independent” candidate. The by-election is on Thursday, September 17.
This kind of debate isn’t unusual at parish council level – the size of most parishes, and their limited budget powers, tend to mean the decisions they can make are small-scale: what place does party politics have in such circumstances?, goes the argument.
Welcome to the return of our regular Saturday fix of a trio of videos doing the political rounds. You can catch up on our previous outings by clicking here.
First up, this week’s news over the pond has been dominated by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy – here’s an excerpt from his famous “The Dream Shall Never Die” speech to the Democratic Party’s 1980 national convention in which he formally ended his Presidential aspirations:
Secondly, US comedian Jon Stewart is on top-form in this clip from his Daily Show, exposing how Fox News has (whisper it gently) gone all liberal on us:
cim What part of the "triple lock" would you end, though? Allowing pensions to reduce below either CPI or average wage increases inevitably leads to pensioners stea...
expats Ed's first paragraph was a 'moan' about things are; his second was to promise to change it.
What was missing was the "HOW" bit..*
*Promising to call on 'exp...
Mick Taylor @Chloe. In a democracy. a majority of 1 is enough. How many elections have been won with a single or double figure majority? The plain fact is that the bill pas...
Mary Reid @Jana - yes, of course we should treat people as individuals. But we have to marry that principal with the need to counterbalance past discrimination. Sometimes...
Mick Taylor Jason Connor is absolutely correct. Adam Shaw says that the gap has closed, but if you have only the state pension, even at the highest rate you have to live on...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Reform inadvertently lose their majority
The Major Oak is dead and Phil Harding has discovered another ancient site near Stonehenge
Reform own goals
Trumps' White House thuggery appals the world including most Americans
cim 
expats 
Mick Taylor 
Mary Reid 