Author Archives: The Voice

Lembit to star in next ‘Celebrity Big Brother’?

According, that is, to The Sun (a favourite read of The Voice):

Limelight-loving Lembit has signed up for the show — back next January after a year’s break. Bosses picked the goofy-grinned Lib Dem hoping he’ll reveal all about his doomed affair with Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia. Lembit might even copy fellow MP George Galloway when he was on the show — and don a skin-tight red leotard.

Oddball Lembit, 43, and Gabriela, 25, got engaged after he popped the question in Rome in April, but split a few months later. He’s also had a relationship with TV weather girl Sian

Posted in News | Tagged | 44 Comments

Nick Clegg writes on ID cards

From yesterday’s Guardian:

ID cards for foreign nationals are the thin end of the wedge, whatever they look like – and the home secretary, who unveiled their design today, knows it. Here’s how it goes:

Step 1: Target a weak group who have no political voice in the UK and who benefit from little public backing or support, and make them the guinea pig for a deeply unpopular policy.

Step 2: Once the sacrifice of their rights has embedded as “standard procedure”, pick off the next target – airport workers perhaps – or a group similarly small and likely to fly

Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments

Presidential election news

From an email to party members:

One of the most important features of our party is our “one member, one vote” democracy.

Nominations closed yesterday for the position of Party President.

All paid up party members will soon choose the person who is to take over from Simon Hughes for 2009 and 2010. The next two years will be very important with a General Election as well as important European and local elections.

The President can speak for the party, represents our members and plays a significant role in how our party is organised.

So, if you were …

Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments

Guardian: Lib Dems face censure over ‘cold-calling’ campaign

Here’s the report:

The party is on the brink of being censured by the commissioner, Richard Thomas, for breaching strict privacy rules when Clegg called 250,000 voters in 50 marginal constituencies last Wednesday night after his keynote speech to the Lib Dems’ conference.

The privacy watchdog has confirmed that it believes the automated calls were a Lib Dems’ marketing exercise, which meant the party had to have the prior approval of all 250,000 people or be in breach of the regulations. The commissioner’s staff saw the “script” for the calls – which invited listeners to vote on Lib Dem

Posted in News | Tagged | 23 Comments

Lembit quits Lib Dem shadow cabinet to focus on three-way fight for presidency

The BBC website gives us the low-down on the various ins and outs of the minor shadow cabinet reshuffle and a new entrant to the Lib Dem presidential race:

Lembit Opik is standing down as Liberal Democrat housing spokesman to concentrate on his campaign to succeed Simon Hughes as the party’s president. A Lib Dem spokesman said the MP for Montgomeryshire was facing two rivals in the presidency election – Baroness Scott and Chandila Fernando.

The housing portfolio will now be overseen by local government spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy. Voting for Lib Dem president ends on 7 November, with a result the

Posted in News | Tagged | 61 Comments

Lib Dem MPs lead the way in social networking

Of course this news will comes as no surprise to Lib Dems, but it’s nice to see our interactive Parliamentarians getting due recognition for attemtping to connect with the electorate in new and innovative ways – this report from PublicTechnology.net was based on reasearch from the University of Plymouth and Bournemouth University:

The research found that Liberal Democrat MPs were the most likely to have a social networking site, providing 51.2 per cent of such sites but representing only 9.7 per cent of all parliamentary constituencies.

Proportionately the Conservatives were the least likely, with only 10.8 per cent of all

Posted in News and Online politics | Leave a comment

Gordon Brown’s speech

So, what did you make of it? Comment away…

Posted in News | 19 Comments

Conservatives set to drop green taxes policy

ConservativeHome has the story:

A senior frontbencher has now told us that, as part of an ongoing review of economic policy, higher green taxation is very unlikely to feature in the next Conservative manifesto.

Posted in News | Tagged | 11 Comments

Tomorrow’s YouGov: Liberal Democrats on 20%

While Liberal Democrat Voice doesn’t do polls, as regular readers know, news reaches us of a new voting intention poll from YouGov which will be reported in tomorrow’s Telegraph. The poll was carried out at the end of this week.

Here are the headline figures compared with the last YouGov poll:

  • LD: 20% (+4)
  • Con: 44% (-2)
  • Lab: 24% (-3)

This is the highest rating for the Liberal Democrats in a YouGov poll since November 2005 (and YouGov traditionally poll the Lib Dems lower than other companies).

The gap between us and Labour, at four points, is the smallest this Parliament, and you …

Posted in News and Polls | 37 Comments

“Lib Dems defend phone poll plan”

The BBC story is pretty self-explanatory, with a detailed explanation from Chris Rennard about what the party has been doing:

Lord Rennard argued it was “quite different” to what the SNP and Labour had done previously.

“In the same way as perhaps MORI or ICM or organisations such as that might ring people and ask them which issues concern them most and what are their views on those issues – that is exactly what we are doing.”

He added: “We want to hear from people and our prognosis of the government is it’s out of touch and not listening and Nick Clegg and

Posted in News | Tagged | 18 Comments

Conference: Glee Club

You’ll be pleased to hear we are able to draw a veil over most of Glee Club because we were, happily, not there.

But one little vignette has come our way. While the crowd were waiting, all agog, for Lembit and his Magic Harmonica, a couple of Ros Scott acolytes began light-heartedly chanting “I’m 4 Ros, I’m 4 Ros.”

Lembit, getting in drinks for everybody, aimed a mock scowl at the audience. “Now, if you keep doing that he’s not going to play,” warned the compere.

Cue entire audience: “I’M 4 ROS! I’M 4 ROS!”

Posted in Conference | 8 Comments

That Adrian Sanders / Mark Littlewood contretemps

Well, it’s been in all the newspapers by now: but Julian H’s Orange By Name blog has the exclusive eye-witness account.

Posted in Conference | Tagged | 7 Comments

Michael Crick on the Make It Happen debate

Via the BBC blogs:

This afternoon’s discussion at the Lib Dem conference on tax cuts was one of the best debates I have heard at a party conference in many a year. In fact, not since Labour’s big nuclear disarmament debate of the 1980s have I heard exchanges so passionate and genuine.

The Lib Dems managed to organise it so that both sides were properly represented without trying to stage manage things in the way that other parties are occasionally suspected of doing. And I even got the impression that one or two people may have cast their votes on the

Posted in Conference | Tagged | 3 Comments

3 from LDV in top 50 Lib Dem list

The Telegraph is continuing to run through the list of top 50 most influential Lib Dems, as compiled by Iain Dale and four unnamed party sources. Yesterday was numbers 41-50; today it’s 31-40, and three Lib Dem Voice regulars make the cut:

32. Mike Smithson

Founder, PoliticalBetting.com

Smithson has established his website, PoliticalBetting.com as one of the most respected and visited political websites on the net. Never shy about his LibDem history and credentials he is a shrewd observer of the political scene. So successful has he been at political

Posted in Site news | Tagged | 3 Comments

Who are the most influential Liberal Democrats?

The Daily Telegraph is publishing its top 50, with numbers 41-50 released so far.

Posted in News | 7 Comments

And the winners are…

Tonight has been the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year awards, with the prizes going to:


Best new Liberal Democrat blog: The People’s Republic of Mortimer (Alix Mortimer)


Best use of blogging or social networking by a Liberal Democrat: Baroness Ros Scott’s campaign for party president


The Tim Garden Award (for the best blog by a Liberal Democrat holding public office): Peter Black AM


Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog (LDV readers poll): Bad Science (Ben Goldacre)


Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog: My inner disgusted colonel (The People’s …

Posted in Best of the blogs | Tagged and | 3 Comments

Nick Clegg on vision and tax

Two major new pieces from Nick Clegg in the media. First, in the New Statesman on his liberal vision:

Because of our commitment to freedom, openness and tolerance we are the only party that uses its conference to let the members decide the policies. The debate isn’t confined to the conference hall. It starts over breakfast and – as anyone who has ever visited the conference hotel bar will know – goes on well into the night. You hear it in the streets and up and down the beach, and at fringe events on subjects that

Posted in Conference | 1 Comment

Don’t bitch about the party’s message – run your own

That’s the intriguing story from the US, where a leading Democrat activist is encouraging people to make up their own message and then run internet ads based on it:

Every day, thousands of times over, we critique campaign messaging, debate the quality of ads, muse about targeting strategies, and suggest new lines of attack. The problem is, as Matt has often pointed out, the only help the Obama campaign wants comes in the form of campaign donations and volunteers to work on field operations. So, no one is really listening to our suggestions. We are not making a difference on messaging.

There

Posted in LDVUSA and Online politics | 4 Comments

Labour whip quits after calling for leadership contest

From the BBC:

A junior member of the government is out of a job after breaking ranks to call for a challenge to Gordon Brown as party leader.

Government whip Siobhain McDonagh said she wanted to “clear the air” about the leadership issue.

A government spokesman said that if Ms McDonagh has not resigned then she will be sacked. The source said her replacement had already been appointed.

The source said Ms McDonagh had always been “Anti-Gordon”.

Ms McDonagh – who was the only member of the government not to nominate Mr Brown for the party leadership last year

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Newsflash: Kirsty Williams to announce Welsh leadership bid

News reaches The Voice that Kirsty Williams, the Assembly Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, will announce in the next hour or two that she will stand for the leadership of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.

The current leader, Mike German, is expected to stand down after the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ autumn conference.

The BBC have heard the rumour too.

Posted in News and Wales | Tagged and | 14 Comments

Times: Clegg backs ‘top-up’ payments for cancer drugs by NHS patients

Here’s how The Times is reporting the story:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, will set out today why he believes patients should be allowed to pay privately for drugs to “top up” NHS care. The Liberal Democrats will seek to outflank both Labour and the Tories after patients who bought life-extending cancer drugs privately were refused further treatment by the NHS.

Under current guidelines, patients risk forfeiting their right to NHS care, such as nursing or chemotherapy, if they pay privately for treatment rejected or not yet approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

The Government is

Posted in News | 38 Comments

The Iain Dale meme… Signs You Are About to Defect to the Tories…

Iain Dale, bless his cotton socks, has kindly brought The Voice’s attention to his blog posting yesterday, Top Ten Signs You Are About to Defect to the Lib Dems. Would LDV readers care to reciprocate in a suitably light-hearted manner, and come up with some Signs You Are About to Defect to the Tories?

Your suggestions below, please, ladies and gentleman…

Posted in Humour | Tagged | 57 Comments

Nick Clegg on cutting taxes

Nick Clegg’s pledge to go even further than the current Lib Dem commitment to cut the basic rate of income tax by 4p was the main topic for his interview on BBC Radio 4’s The Westminster Hour on Sunday night. You can listen to it here, and read the views of Lib Dem bloggers Linda Jack and James Graham here and here.

Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 15 Comments

Andrew Rawnsley on Gordon Brown

From The Observer:

A Prime Minister cannot be on perpetual probation. That is a recipe for the government to carry on fragmenting, for his reputation to continue to disintegrate and for the Conservatives to cement their huge poll lead. It is evident what the Labour party should do for the good of its own political health. It ought to make a collective decision either to get rid of Gordon Brown or to rally around him. But Labour can’t do either and why that is so has become evident from the events of the past few days.

The Prime Minister does not

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Lembit: Lib Dem presidency is “the one job I’ve always wanted”

According to the Independent’s Pandora column:

“I’m back in business,” announces Lembit Opik. “I’m definitely going to stand for president of the Liberal Democrats. It’s the one job I’ve always wanted.” … With the campaign set to begin at the party conference, the Montgomeryshire MP’s only current rival for the post, which Simon Hughes vacates in November, is Baroness Ros Scott. And Opik is sure he can win. “I’ve got to be regarded as the odds-on favourite,” he insists. “I came runner-up last time.” …

“Who are these people saying I’m not going to stand?” he retorts. “People used to say

Posted in News | Tagged | 7 Comments

Chris Huhne unveils new crime policy proposals

Via the BBC:

Annual fitness tests for police and an end to the “job-for-life” culture are among the proposals in a Lib Dem policy document on fighting crime.

Home Affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said more officers were needed on the streets to catch criminals.

But he said there also needed to be an urgent review of working practices to make it easier to sack those who could not do their job properly.

The party said it would also jail fewer criminals for minor offences.

And it would give police authorities the power to set their

Posted in News | 1 Comment

LDV: your name here

Lib Dem Voice has, we notice, come in 15th in Iain Dale’s / Total Politics list of top 100 blogs. More important for the Lib Dem blogosphere is the fact that all the top 10 Lib Dem blogs made it into the top 100, and a further 11 into the top 200.

But you won’t be surprised that the Voice’s attention was grabbed by this prediction from Mr Dale that in the next year:

LibDem Voice will receive a cash injection similar to LabourHome from a rich LibDem donor

I’m sitting by my BlackBerry now, just waiting for it to light …

Posted in Site news | Tagged and | 2 Comments

Ed Davey on tax cuts

Via Reuters:

“We will go into the next election with not just tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes, but net tax cuts overall, and that is a big shift for the party,” said LibDem MP and campaigns chief Edward Davey.

He said the party would seek to reallocate 20 billion pounds of public spending if elected to meet LibDem priorities, with any surplus passed on as tax cuts, under proposals to be considered by members at their Bournemouth conference.

Since the party’s creation in the late 1980s it has argued for consistent or rising government spending.

But Davey said spending

Posted in News | Tagged | 19 Comments

Congratulations to Nick Clegg

All of us here at the Voice extend our warmest congratulations to Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, on the news that he and his wife Miriam are expecting their third child in February:

Mr Clegg and his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez said they were “thrilled to bits” to be expecting their third child in February. The couple already have two boys and Mr Clegg said they always hoped to have a “little brother or sister” for them. The announcement comes one week before the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth – his first as party leader.

Posted in News | 3 Comments

Tavish Scott’s new team

Fresh from his election as Scottish leader, Tavish Scott has unveiled his new team. Liberal England and Caron’s Musings have the details.

Posted in Scotland | Tagged | Leave a comment
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