Author Archives: The Voice

First a Conservative candidate for Hull council wrote a New Statesman blog post predicting a “yellow revolution” in Hull.

Then a senior Labour candidate for the Welsh Assembly predicted on the same site that Labour would lose two seats – only be told off by his party for daring to suggest as much. (Hat-tip: Peter Black.)

Batten down the hatches and keep an eye out – our own Mark Pack has written a yet-to-be-published blog post for them too…

Answer: One four-letter word.

Those present in the hall on the final day of party conference in Harrogate may recognise this excerpt…

HRH Sir Mr the Merciless (© Millennium Elephant) would like to thank all we activists who’ve been pounding pavements, littering letterboxes, procuring poster sites, setting up stakeboards and canvassing communities for the local, Welsh and Scottish elections this Thursday. To make it extra special, he’s decided to do it through the medium of song and expressionist dance.

OK, not really. It’s a YouTube talking head:

In response to recent questions raised about the party’s diversity fund, Steve Hitchins has provided Liberal Democrat Voice with a piece that will soon be run in the party’s official newspaper, Liberal Democrat News.

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Last summer, Ming Campbell announced the launch of his diversity fund “to assist women, disabled, black and ethnic minority candidates to contest winnable seats for the party”. This fulfilled a pledge made in his leadership campaign and he asked Steve Hitchins to work with him on these issues. Steve has an excellent track record in promoting women and ethnic minority candidates based on the time that he was the Lib Dem Leader of Islington Council.

In September Ming was able to announce that £200,000 had been pledged from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to help improve the diversity of the parliamentary party at Westminster. The party is gearing up for a General Election at any time from when there is a new Prime-Minister. So selections are speeding up, quite a few of the most winnable seat selections have already taken place and over £50,000 has already been allocated to help make the difference in a number of the key seats where the result could be crucial to improving the diversity of our MPs.

No money is offered prior to a selection, but objective assessments of targeting policy are being made, support allocated professionally by the party’s Campaigns Department and additional support provided from the Diversity Fund in some cases where winning would improve the diversity of the parliamentary party.

The Labour Party has been accused of depriving taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of pounds in stamp duty in the sale of its London headquarters, despite the Chancellor’s clampdown on stamp duty avoidance schemes in his mini-budget last week.

The Independent on Sunday has learnt that Labour sold its Westminster headquarters this year using a specially created company. The device, which Labour insists is a normal commercial transaction, cost the Treasury about £210,000 in lost stamp duty.

More

Prison life can be lonely, and word reaches Lib Dem Voice that controversial former Lib Dem donor Michael Brown has taken to talking to the press from prison – we’re told he has been forcefully putting “his side of the story”

More column inches still to come…

Major announcement coming…