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

Kennedy speaks out on Megrahi

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th August 2009 - 8:20 pm

While Nick Clegg has publicly disagreed with the SNP Scottish executive’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi, former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has joined David Steel in declaring his belief that the decision was the right one. Charles’s local paper the Ross-shire Journal reports his views:

The Justice Secretary faced an unenviable decision, in which neither of two practical options represents a good outcome. The whole tragic, tangled web of Pan Am Flight 103 raises profound issues of principle and of process.

“The most regrettable aspect of what has happened is that the appeal was withdrawn, and there is now no clear route to try to resolve all the doubts which surround the Lockerbie bombing and Mr Al-Megrahi’s conviction.

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

Time to stop wasting money on “frigging ridiculous” health authorities, says Clegg

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th August 2009 - 7:45 pm

The Guardian big-ups Nick Clegg’s plans to cut waste in the public services, specifically by trying to rein-in hospital trusts using their monopoly position to drive up costs. The paper bills it as “one of the most radical ideas of any of the main political parties to save money”:

Under the Lib Dem plan, hospital trusts would be forced to charge the same rate for operations as the cheapest and most efficient hospitals in the country.

Clegg said: “It is a very specific but rather radical idea, of saying that all hospital tariffs under the ‘payment by results’ system should match the most efficient tariffs in the hospital system. We think that would save about £2bn a year.”

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Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Clegg: Turner’s bank tax is “unworkable”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th August 2009 - 7:09 pm

The BBC tells us:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has queried the “workability” of a suggested tax on banks to curb excessive bonuses. Lord Turner, head of the UK’s finance watchdog, has suggested taxing banks’ financial transactions. The Treasury has urged restraint on bonuses but stressed taxation was a matter for the chancellor. Mr Clegg said the idea had practical pitfalls but agreed with Lord Turner’s “sentiments” and said that some banks needed to be broken up. …

Mr Clegg said there were real questions marks about the “workability” of a UK-only bank tax, given that most banks operated across

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Stephen Williams condemns Bristol Tories’ attack on anti-homophobia charity

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th August 2009 - 2:30 pm

Pink News has the story:

A Liberal Democrat MP has accused both the Tories on Bristol council and one of the city’s newspapers of misrepresenting a National Lottery grant to a gay group. The Bristol Evening Post ran a story yesterday on Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH). The highly-respected group has been awarded £391,668 by the Big Lottery Fund for a project reaching out to LGBT young people.

EACH said on its website:

“Throughout the next five years this will be spent upon EACH’s ground-breaking project, REACH: supporting lesbian, gay or bisexual young people develop a sense of pride in their identity and help their peers and adults in young people’s settings challenge homophobic bullying.”

The leader of the Conservative group on Bristol City Council, Councillor Richard Eddy, told the paper the grant was “mistaken and misguided” and “an outrageous waste of money.”

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

Nick launches ‘In The Know’ to save taxpayers’ money

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th August 2009 - 1:45 pm

Nick Clegg has today launched the Lib Dems’ ‘Ask the People in the Know’ project inviting public sector workers to help identify ways in which government can cut out waste while protecting services in order to save taxpayers’ money.

Anyone working in the public sector can submit their ideas on where money can be saved at http://nickclegg.com/intheknow. Nick has pledged that ideas submitted via the ‘Asking the People Who Know’ website will help inform the work currently being undertaken by the party to identify areas of waste in public spending:

Hard-working nurses and teachers tell me how frustrated they are by

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MPs targeted by Nazi spoof websites

By Stephen Tall | Fri 28th August 2009 - 11:30 am

Powys’s County Times has noted the sudden spate of spoof websites linking some 90 Lib Dem MPs and candidates to the Nazis:

Every Lib Dem MP in the UK has fallen foul of one political blogger, who goes under the tag ‘Illiberal Democrat’, and has created a series of blogs which appear to link the party to Naziism. Both Powys MP’s are Liberal Democrats, and both have their own page filled with anti-liberal propaganda and Swastikas.

Roger Williams MP, Brecon and Radnorshire, was quick to condemn the blogs: “I think it’s rather pathetic and rather purile for someone to soil our

…

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

Brick through window is British way, says BNP councillor

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th August 2009 - 7:45 pm

The Guardian reports on a volient incident in Loughton, Essex:

Racist attackers abducted a Muslim community leader at knifepoint, bundled him into a car and threatened his life unless he stopped running prayer sessions in a community hall that has been the target of a British National party campaign. Police have confirmed they are treating the incident as a hate crime and are investigating links with an earlier firebomb attack on the same man’s home. …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 21 Comments
Stephen Tall

Labour teaches kids the new 3 Rs: Remand, Raw, and Recession

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th August 2009 - 6:45 pm

Three stories today – see if you can spot the blatant connection.

First up, the first R: Remand. Lib Dem research today revealed that over a million kids have been convicted of a criminal offence over the last decade, with a further million cautioned since Labour came to power in 1997. Here’s the breakdown of figures as revealed in an answer to a Lib Dem parliamentary question:

* 1,033,454 children aged between 10 and 17 have been convicted of a criminal offence since 1997. This includes almost 30,000 10 to 12 year olds.

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Stephen Tall

Laws: “Government’s truancy strategies are not working”

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th August 2009 - 6:10 pm

Here’s a new one to add grist to I Hate Ryanair‘s mill – truancy rates are on the rise as more parents pull children out of school to take advantage of cheap holidays, reports the Telegraph:

Almost 68,000 pupils in England are missing classes every day, an increase of 7,000 compared with the same period last year, it was disclosed. The rise was fuelled by term-time holidays, suggesting more parents are looking for cut-price deals in the economic downturn. According to official figures, family breaks accounted for the largest number of school absences after illness.

David Laws, the Lib Dems’ …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Clegg: expenses reform is being “swept under the carpet” #mpsexpenses

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th August 2009 - 9:45 am

Nick Clegg has today penned an article for The Daily Telegraph urging the Labour and Tory parties to take action to reform Parliament in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Here’s an excerpt:

The new political season is beginning. Spring and early summer were defined by the expenses scandal, but what will the autumn be like? Will demand for change continue or will the political establishment succeed in sweeping it under the carpet? …

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Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: 54% reckon Lib Dems will lose support at next election

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th August 2009 - 8:30 am

Earlier this month, Lib Dem Voice asked our readers – who, I cannot emphasise enough, may or may not be Lib Dem supporters – what you think the next general election holds in store for the Lib Dems? Here’s what you told us:

24% (116 votes): An increase in % vote and an increase in seats
22% (103): An increase in % vote but a decrease in seats
12% (57): A decrease in % vote but an increase in seats
42% (201): A decrease in % vote and a decrease in seats.
Total Votes: 477 Poll ran: 7th-24th August 2009

A fairly pessimistic assessment, you might conclude, with a plurality of readers reckoning the party will go backwards, both in terms of share of the vote and number of seats held. Interestingly, while almost half (46%) of you think the party will increase its share of the vote, barely one-third (36%) think the party might also end up with more MPs as a result.

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Posted in General Election and Voice polls | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem Reading West PPC steps down

By Stephen Tall | Wed 26th August 2009 - 9:00 pm

From the GetReading website comes news that Patrick Murray, the party’s Parliamentary candidate in Reading West – and occasional contributor to Lib Dem Voice – has decided not to contest the seat at the forthcoming general election:

Mr Murray, 27, has announced his decision not to stand at the General Election. He said the decision of the sitting MP Martin Salter to stand down had made him realise he would not have the time to fight the seat.

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Posted in Selection news | Tagged and | 19 Comments
Stephen Tall

Those Lib Dem donation figures in full (Q2, 2009)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 26th August 2009 - 6:30 pm

The Electoral Commission has published the latest donation and borrowing figures for the political parties today, and its website allow us to gain a picture of the Lib Dems’ fundraising efforts over the years. Below is the full breakdown of cash and non-cash donations received by quarter since 2005, and annually between 2001 and 2004.

Lots of familiar names on the 2009 Q1 list, with five/six-figure gifts coming from: Lord Alliance (£250k), Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (£205k), Anthony Wilkinson (£105k), C& C Business Solutions (£50k), George Lyon (£15.5k), Christopher Nicholson (£15k), and Andrew Haisley (£10k). Incidentally, as I understand it, Lord Alliance’s gift is the conversion of a loan to a donation, which represents a big boost to the party’s balance sheet – which is no bad thing, given the party’s deficit in 2008.

The most generous Parliamentarians I spot-checked were:

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Stephen Tall

Julia Goldsworthy condemns Grayling’s ‘The Wire’ comparison

By Stephen Tall | Wed 26th August 2009 - 9:45 am

In the absence of much real political news, Tory shadow home secretary Chris Grayling’s rather bumbling attempt to drink the kool-ade – by referencing cult US crime TV show ‘The Wire’ in a speech echoing his party’s tired ‘Broken Britain’ theme – has backfired.

As The Indpendent caustically notes today, not only has Mr Grayling shown himself to be guilty of ludicrous hyperbole, but he’s also been forced to admit his Wire knowledge is a little on the scant side:

… his comments are not backed up by facts. With 234 murders in 2008 Baltimore had nearly twice the number of London, despite having less than one tenth of the population. In fact the chance of being murdered in Baltimore, a city with a population of about 650,000, is one in 2,700. In Britain the chances are one in 85,000.

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dems step up pressure on Brown over Lockerbie comments silence

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th August 2009 - 7:00 pm

Gordon Brown has, after five days’ silence, commented on the Scottish government’s decision to release on compassionate grounds Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. Mr Brown said he was “repulsed” by the welcome Mr al-Megrahi received on his arrival home.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dems’ shadow foreign secretary, is unimpressed:

Gordon Brown’s comments on Lockerbie are a masterclass in evasion. When a decision is made by another politician, and has such grave international consequences, the Prime Minister’s refusal to say whether or not he supports it almost amounts to negligence.

“It is hard to see why he can’t tell us what he thinks of the decision to release a man who has been convicted of the worst terrorist attack in British history. As long as Gordon Brown remains silent on this issue, people will suspect he has something to hide.”

This appears to be yet another example of Mr Brown’s tin-ear for communication. It strikes me the Prime Minister had two choices, both of which are (to my mind) equally valid.

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Stephen Tall

Time for a high-pay commission?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th August 2009 - 6:30 pm

Catching up on what happened in British domestic politics while I was sojourning on the continent, I came across Vince Cable’s Guardian article, The rich must be reined in, in which our deputy leader advocated the establishment of a high pay commission ‘to measure the claims of top earners that their rewards are justified and necessary, even if they offend natural justice and our sense of fairness.’

It seems to have evaded the LDV Collective’s radar (tsk, I go away for two weeks, see what happens), so here’s an excerpt:

There is nothing intrinsically offensive to most people about talented inventors, entrepreneurs, performers or sports stars benefiting substantially from unique talents that enrich or protect or entertain the rest of us. Even if Bill Gates didn’t give away a lot of his fortune, most of us wouldn’t quarrel with his being a very rich man.

There are, however, two things that do cause offence: one is reward without merit, or reward for failure; the other is tax-dodging. We have plenty of both. If a £25,000-a-week footballer is lazy or useless, the crowd provides a public exercise in market-testing. Other talents are less public. That is why all high pay should be publicly declared in a way that directors’ pay already is. …

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Stephen Tall

The cost of pavement politics

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th August 2009 - 5:40 pm

What’s cost the taxpayer £82m over the last five years? Answer: compensation claims against county councils and unitary authorities by members of the public who have tripped on pavements. The figures from 90 local authorities were obtained by the Lib Dems under Freedom of Information requests; there are still 10,000 claims unsettled.

Here’s what the Lib Dems’ shadow transport secretary Norman Baker had to say:

With council and household budgets under more pressure than ever, the last thing the local taxpayer needs is to be paying massive compensation claims for injuries caused by dangerous pavements. This is money that could have been spent on improving pavements and preventing these problems in the first place.

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Stephen Tall

Film censorship “in chaos”, says Foster

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th August 2009 - 9:05 am

As the BBC reports:

Retailers who sell violent video games and 18-rated DVDs to children cannot be prosecuted because of a legal blunder 25 years ago. Dozens of prosecutions under a 1984 Act have been dropped because the government of the day failed to notify the European Commission about the law. But previous prosecutions will stand, according to the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS).

Lib Dem shadow culture, media and sport secretary Don Foster was quick to react to the news:

The Conservative’s incompetence when they were in Government has made laws designed to prevent video piracy and protect

…

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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: What should we pay our MPs?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 24th August 2009 - 8:57 pm

Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack – the grandees’ grandee – isn’t alone in thinking MPs are under-paid. Today’s Times reports (under the oh-so-impartial headline, MPs hijack expenses inquiry with complaints and demands for pay rise – do you remember the days when newspapers reported facts, and let us form our own opinions?) that Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life inquiry into Parliamentary standards has been

bombarded by MPs’ complaints about their miserable lifestyles, media intrusion, the inadequacy of existing allowances — along with repeated demands for a hefty pay rise. … A detailed analysis by The Times of hundreds of submissions shows that such views are far from exceptional, particularly among Conservative MPs who believe that they would be earning far more if they had never entered politics.

The debate has been well-rehearsed. Gone are the days of amateur MPs, men with means who could afford to regard being elected to Parliament as their public duty and/or an amusing hobby. Paying members of Parliament is an essential pre-requisite of a democracy of all the talents. How much they should be paid inevitably plunges you into the murky realms of envy, greed and compromise.

On a rational supply and demand basis, it is perfectly obvious that MPs should be paid not a single penny more. Political parties in winnable seats have no problem in finding candidates: more people want to do the job than there are vacancies available. It’s an employer’s market, and in this case the employer is the taxpayer: why should we cough up more cash?

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Stephen Tall

Brown’s silence on Megrahi: “absurd” says Clegg, “right” says Steel

By Stephen Tall | Mon 24th August 2009 - 1:45 pm

Nick Clegg has today condemned Gordon Brown for issuing no statement following the release on compassionate grounds of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi:

Although the decision to release Megrahi was a Scottish one for which Gordon Brown was not personally responsible, the fallout puts the UK at the centre of an international storm.

“In these circumstances, it is absurd and damaging that the British Prime Minister simply remains silent in the hope that someone else will take the flak.”

He went further on this lunchtime’s BBC Radio 4 World at One, openly criticising the decision of the Scottish Executive, saying, “I find it difficult to accept that someone convicted in a British court of law should be released as he was.”

But speaking on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today Programme his predecessor Lord (David) Steel – a former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament – defended the Prime Minister’s stance:

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Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Ton (The Top 10!)

By Stephen Tall | Sat 15th August 2009 - 6:00 pm

‘Tis the season for lists… All this week we’ve published the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year – August 2008 to July 2009, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator.

(Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.)

And now, at last, we come to this year’s Top 10:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Ton (Nos. 11-20)

By Stephen Tall | Fri 14th August 2009 - 5:50 pm

‘Tis the season for lists… All this week we are publishing the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year – August 2007 to July 2008, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator.

(Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.)

In today’s penultimate instalment we run through 11-20:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Ton (Nos. 21-40)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 13th August 2009 - 5:50 pm

‘Tis the season for lists… All this week we are publishing the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year – August 2008 to July 2009, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator.

(Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.)

In today’s fourth instalment we run through 21-40:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Ton (Nos. 41-60)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 12th August 2009 - 5:50 pm

‘Tis the season for lists… All this week we are publishing the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year – August 2008 to July 2009, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator.

(Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.)

In today’s third instalment we run through 41-60:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Ton (Nos. 61-80)

By Stephen Tall | Tue 11th August 2009 - 5:50 pm

‘Tis the season for lists… All this week we are publishing the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year – August 2008 to July 2009, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator.

(Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.)

In today’s second instalment we run through 61-80:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Ton (Nos. 81-100)

By Stephen Tall | Mon 10th August 2009 - 6:00 pm

‘Tis the season for lists… All this week we are publishing the top 100 posts by Lib Dem bloggers, in descending order of popularity, for the last year – August 2008 to July 2009, inclusive, according to click-throughs from the Aggregator.

(Profuse thanks to techno-wizard and stat-monkey Ryan Cullen for compiling this table.)

In today’s first instalment we run through 81-100:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV Weekend Meme: your favourite blog-posts

By Stephen Tall | Sat 8th August 2009 - 10:30 am

The Lib Dem blog awards are with us again – and one of the categories is ‘Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2008)’. This is actually my favourite award for the simple reason that it recognises writing talent, pure and simple. By which I don’t mean that the prose has to be worthy of a Booker nomination; rather that the article has to attract, engage and provoke readers – elevate our thinking, if you like.

All of which musing prompted me to ask my LDV colleagues – and myself – to self-nominate the favourite articles we’ve posted here on the site. Here’s what we said:

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Posted in LDV meme | Tagged , , , , , and | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

YouTube ‘cos we want to: Charles Kennedy special

By Stephen Tall | Sat 8th August 2009 - 8:45 am

It’s one of the curiosities of YouTube that, because it’s only four years old, even fairly recent events and people of prominence are sometimes almost absent. Search for ‘nick clegg’, elected leader of the Lib Dems 18 months ago, and you’ll find 520 videos; search for ‘charles kennedy’, who led the party from 1999 to 2006, and there are fewer than a hundred, many of them relating directly to his resignation.

Here are three of the clips I found, and dusted down for your viewing delectation:

First up, and seven years before Charles was elected party leader, he was one of the Lib Dem talking heads for the BBC’s 1992 general election coverage. And doesn’t he look youthful:

Secondly, Charles gives a personal explanation of what motivated him to get into politics (the shakiness is down to the cameraman, I think, rather than CK):

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: open up BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th August 2009 - 4:30 pm

A couple of weeks ago, Lib Dem Voice asked our readers the question, Do you think Radio 4’s Thought for the Day should be opened up to secularists and humanists?

The result was pretty clear-cut:

* 60% (384 votes): Yes, open it up
* 19% (122): No, keep it for religion
* 21% (134): Just scrap Thought for the Day
Total Votes: 640 Poll ran: 14th July – 6th August 2009

But we can’t guarantee the BBC will listen…

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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: What do you think the next general election holds in store for the Lib Dems?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th August 2009 - 3:00 am

August may be a quiet month in domestic politics, but it’s merely the precursor to the new Parliamentary year to come – by the end of which there will have to be a general election, and (it seems almost certain) a change of government. What better time, then, to ponder what we think awaits the Lib Dems at that election?

Our poll ratings seem steady enough, consistently in the 18-20% range – down on the equivalent stage in the 2001-05 Parliament, when the party was boosted by its lone opposition to the Iraq war – but pretty strong compared to most …

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Posted in Voice polls | 18 Comments
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