The digital makeover was initially denied by Miss Dinenage, who hopes to replace outgoing MP Sir Peter Viggers – notorious for his duck island expenses claim. ‘By virtue of the fact it’s so big it’s slightly pixelated,’ she insisted. ‘It does look different but it’s not airbrushed.’
But her assistant Glenn Duggan admitted the image had been changed without her knowledge, adding: ‘It has been done to make it more visually attractive for a billboard.
Labour MP Tom Harris, bless him, is clearly feeling a little bit insecure, as the Lib Dems enjoy a successful conference with a spring in their step and the full glare of the media spotlight. Tom’s blog is a good, fun read – but like his Tory equivalent Iain Dale, he has a bit of a tribal blind spot when it comes to the Lib Dems.
Here’s what Tom has to say about Lib Dem shadow schools secretary David Laws declining to take the media bait asking whether the party would back Labour or the Tories in the …
If Nick Clegg sounded a little hoarse from a sore throat throughout his leader’s speech to the Birmingham spring conference then it’s not surprising: he has been omnipresent in the media this week, winning the Lib Dems more coverage than I can remember outside of an election campaign.
The first responsibility of any Lib Dem leader’s speech is to forget that he is talking to the party faithful in the conference hall – they will vote for the party regardless – and to pitch directly to the wider public watching the speech live or on news bulletins.
Very sneakily, Clegg’s team have found a neat way to turn questions about hung parliaments into a positive message about Lib Dem policy. We saw it on the news today, and I’m sure we’ll see it wheeled out again – and again, and again, probably until journalists get bored of asking the question.
When asked what the Lib Dems would do in the event of a hung parliament, Nick’s strategy is to say what the Lib Dems would want to get from any sort of deal, which mysteriously matches closely with the four key themes. Nick says we would …
Today’s setting of the budget for 24 March means it’s all but certain that the general election will be on 6 May, the date of the scheduled local elections. What that means in terms of deadlines for nominations, applying for postal votes and so on is detailed in this general and local elections 2010 timetable I’ve put together.
The Liberal Democrats will centre their campaign on joint appearances by Nick Clegg, leader, and Vince Cable, Treasury spokesman, in an attempt to project a blend of youth and experience.
A clutch of former Lib Dem leaders will be deployed in the regions. Paddy Ashdown is taking a hands-on role directing the Lib Dem’s defence of the south-west heartlands. Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy will be touring seats in Scotland and the north.
The article also lists Chris Huhne (“pugnacious, quick-footed”) and Lynne Featherstone (“sound media performer”) as ones to watch in the Liberal Democrat campaign.
The BNP has announced its Buckingham candidate for the 2010 General Election, adding another candidate to a slate which already includes UKIP, John Stevens (former Lib Dem member and before that, Conservative MEP,) Patrick Phillips (“conservatively minded” Independent candidate) and Geoff Howard (former Conservative and UKIP member).
With the three main parties refraining from standing against the Speaker, it will be interesting to see how the vote is split by the minor parties and independents, all of whom have or have had right-wing leanings.
The Liberal Democrats have chosen a spokesperson rather than a candidate.
I’ve certainly criticised academics a few times for not really getting political campaigning – and so spending time looking in the wrong place (such as in my post on internet campaigning) but one exception to that certainly is Phil Cowley of Nottingham University. So it’s not a great surprise that the new Election 2010 blog run by him and colleagues is looking very good, with a regular feed of relevant content – but also content that isn’t simply duplicating what is elsewhere.
If you go to Amazon searching for “Why vote Liberal Democrat?”, edited by Danny Alexander and just published by Biteback, you may be surprised to find yourself being presented instead with a book of the same title from 1997, written by William Wallace. The new book is misfiled by Amazon under the title “Why vote Lib Dem?” but actually the 1997 volume provides an interesting contrast with the 2010 version.
The 2010 book is one of a series, covering also Labour, Conservatives, SNP, Plaid and the Greens. All the others are single person authored books (with the exception of …
The Hansard Society’s latest Audit of Political Engagement has added to the view that there is likely to be another risible turnout at the impending General Election. The study finds that only 54% say they are certain to vote.
The Hansard Society have offered some ideas about how to boost turnout. They suggest that more should be done to target groups such as the ‘disenchanted and mistrustful’. Apparently, a quarter of adults, mostly young and working-class, fall into this category of voters who distrust politicians but not yet entirely hostile.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is to speak first in the first debate, hosted by ITV, while Gordon Brown and David Cameron will do so in the subsequent debates, on Sky and the BBC.
THE Green Party’s Weston candidate has withdrawn from the General Election contest before it has even begun – because he wants the Liberal Democrats to win. Dr Richard Lawson had been nominated by his party to fight the Weston seat currently held by Conservative John Penrose. But Dr Lawson has today announced his decision to withdraw his candidacy ‘to increase the chance of the Liberal Democrats taking the seat’. …
said: “”My candidature was founded on the idea that Weston was a safe Conservative win. That platform becomes shaky if Weston becomes vulnerable to
Further developments in Buckingham, John Bercow MP’s constituency, where convention dictates that other parties don’t put up a candidate against the incumbent Speaker:
UKIP is looking forward to a large donation, whilst claiming that fundraising on Bercow’s behalf breaches Parliamentary rules. Meanwhile, Buckingham Liberal Democrats announce their plan for the General Election.
The Times reports that a UKIP member from Buckingham has complained to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after receiving a letter from fundraising team “The Friends of Speaker Bercow”:
has written to the commissioner expressing concern that The Friends of Speaker Bercow may be breaching parliamentary rules by
The political impact of TV debates in other Parliamentary democracies (and yes, yawn yawn, obligatory American reference, in the US too) has often been more about expectations than about absolute performance. Beat expectations and you benefit from the debate, even if that means people viewed you as the narrow loser. But if you were expected to be a big loser and then beat expectations and only just lose, you benefit.
Also the impact of debates has often been to reinforce people’s existing predilections rather than switch people between different parties or candidates. That has, for example, been a common feature in Canada, where TV debates have been held off and on since 1968. (Yawn yawn, US example, 1988 second Dukakis-Bush debate and others.)
In other words, you’re best placed to come out well from a debate if your party is the one most in need of motivating its supporters and if the expectations about your performance are low. Step forward then, Gordon Brown.
As for Nick Clegg?
Both of Brown’s advantages are advantages over David Cameron – and only over David Cameron. Liberal Democrat share of the vote is fairly static overall as turnout changes: from purely partisan motives, the level of turnout does not really matter, though of course from the perspective of health democracy higher turnout is much to be preferred. The expectations one is trickier, but the expectations amongst many in the media that Nick Clegg will benefit hugely from being in the debates is based on simply him being there, so he won’t go in to them with the pressure of extremely high personal performance being expected by the media.
Moreover, for Nick Clegg there is that third factor: TV debates can raise the profile of leaders beyond the main two parties.
For Nick and the Liberal Democrats this is likely to be a major boost, because consistently the party does best when it is in the news (even if, during the post-Kennedy leadership contest several MPs did their level best to disprove that). As simple a move as asking people about their views of party leaders before asking them which party they’ll vote for raises the third party’s vote in opinion polls. That’s why for many years Gallup gave the party higher ratings that other pollsters.
Compared to that, appearing in a trio of TV debates alongside Brown and Cameron will be a massive boost for Nick Clegg and the party.
Whilst we wait to find out what the televised general election debates will bring, enjoy this moment from the 1988 Canadian debates. The 1988 election was a re-run contest between Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives, who had won a landslide in 1984, and the Liberals under John Turner, still leader despite leading his party crashing out of power in 1984. John Turner is the silver haired one:
Slightly out of character (!), Iain Dale initially missed a chance to put the boot into Labour in his recent post about Labour’s leaflet printing arrangements. Iain went (at first) for the “this could mean we’re about to have a snap election” line, and only really getting to the real story in a subsequent update.
That’s because what the email about Labour’s leaflet arrangements really tells us is that lots of Labour candidates had finalised key parts of their general election artwork, but now Labour is getting a new slogan and they are having to redo their artwork. In other …
With the party’s spring federal conference just round the corner, the latest report from the party’s Federal Finance and Administration Committee (FFAC) is out, which gives the chance to compare the party’s finances now with five years ago.
The good news bit
The federal party’s core activities are generating significantly higher income.
General fund surplus after income generation costs:
2004 £2,642,253
2009 £3,214,500
That 22% increase is impressive, particularly given the recession in 2009 and its impact on fundraising.
The no news bit
The federal party’s debts have not changed much over the last five years, with only a very small rise in the accumulated deficit on the general …
The artwork for the Liberal Democrat campaign logo has now gone live on the extranet/huddle and is available for use on campaign material.
The slogan has been designed to reflect the key themes of our campaign – change and fairness. Throughout the campaign we will aim to demonstrate that we are the only party offering the real and substantive change needed to deliver a fairer Britain. The logo will be a visual indication of that commitment.
Our campaign will be built around four steps to a fairer Britain:
Jamie Saddler is pounding the streets as the Liberal Democrat candidate in Wirral South and is producing a campaign diary for Catch21, an organisation trying to get more young people interested in politics. Jamie is 23 himself and so has caught their eye.
In his first diary, Jamie talks about tax policy, the military and what it’s like on the campaign trail:
I have more action days planned, I’ll be knocking on more doors, delivering more leaflets, and visiting schools and community organisations right across the constituency. It’s hard work, but I’m enjoying every minute of it! I’m a Wirral lad, and
By Iain Roberts
| Tue 16th February 2010 - 9:22 am
It can be a harsh blow for any parliamentary candidate. You’ve filled in the forms, been through the selection process, made your speeches, answered the questions and, in a fiercely fought contest that may even have involved more than one applicant, emerged victorious to represent your party in the General Election.
And then you discover that the seat, in which your party has failed to top 13% of the vote in either of the last two elections, is unaccountably not having tens of thousands of pounds poured into it by the central party; nor are activists from across the region …
With the general election looking to be heading towards a hung Parliament according to the latest prediction we’ve published from a group of academics, how are things looking for the Liberal Democrats?
For Labour, long time backer J K Rowling (who surely could match the Ashcroft money and hardly notice it had gone, if the mood took her) is joined by David Tennant. He must be a worry for Labour – Tennant’s support may lose Gordon the Dalek vote his only-slighty-too-authoritarian government seem to have spent the last 13 years attracting.
The Conservatives meanwhile have Carol Vorderman, Kirstie Allsopp* and Trevor ‘bong’ MacDonald. Older readers will remember Carol …
By Stephen Tall
| Sat 13th February 2010 - 10:50 am
Over the next five weeks, Lib Dem Voice is going to be asking all our Lib Dem-supporting readers to consider making a donation to support five candidates standing for the party at the imminent general election.
We know many of you will already be donating to the national party and/or your local party. We know not everyone will be able to afford to make a donation. But we hope that as many of you as are able will spare whatever spare cash you can to support the Lib Dem candidates we will be profiling in the coming weeks.
Candidates who make extensive use of social media will receive a boost to their election campaigns, courtesy of Sky News’s plans to feature such material in a set of special constituency pages being created for the election.
Each constituency will have its own page and those pages will pull in feeds from candidates. Sky is asking for information on candidate blogs, Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts, In addition, Sky will also pull in photos from Flickr and films from YouTube if they are tagged with the names of both the constituency and the candidate. (Let’s hope Sky are remember to …
The Government has backed a move to amend election law to ensure that general election counts are started on the evening of polling day, exception in exceptional circumstances.
This exception will mean that counts for constituencies where there are severe logistical problems in getting ballot boxes in from polling stations, such as from Scottish islands, are likely to continue to commence on Fridays. However, for other constituencies counts will commence on Thursday evening.
The new clause in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill will require the counting of votes at a UK Parliamentary general elections to commence within four hours of the …
Democracy has been saved “at the eleventh hour” – that’s right, the cross-party “Save general election night” campaign has successfully lobbied the government to stop councils from delaying counting votes until a day after the election.
It seems many Liberal Democrats are welcoming the right outcome for the wrong reason.
There are two main possible justifications for this:
(1) Counting the votes as soon as possible, to minimise the risk of someone tampering with ballot boxes.
(2) Feeding the frenzy of wanting instant results broadcast as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, the campaign has been geared towards the latter, and most Lib Dem MPs who’ve supported …
By Iain Roberts
| Tue 9th February 2010 - 10:24 am
Look at a Lib Dem election campaign, whether it’s a sitting MP or target seat challenger, and you’ll invariably find a hard working local campaigner, a local champion, and leaflets full of local stories.
That’s not at all what you see in Conservative literature. Across many seats the Tories have all but given up promoting their local campaigning credentials, or selling their candidate as the best person to be the MP. True, you’ll always find a few token stories, but the vast majority of material hitting doormats promotes Cameron, and Cameron alone.
With new polling figures in, the general election prediction model we covered in November and December has churned out a new prediction for the next general election – and it’s a striking one:
New prediction: Conservative lead of 6% but Labour largest party with 299 seats (27 short of an overall majority)
December prediction: Conservative lead of 9% with 315 seats (11 short of an overall majority)
November prediction: Conservative lead of 10% with 322 seats (4 short of an overall majority)
The academic team who have compiled the prediction say,
The race remains too close to call under reasonable scenarios, either favorable to the government or the opposition. The election of a hung Parliament cannot be discarded at this point.
Background to prediction
In November Lib Dem Voice published the first of our exclusive general election predictions, based on the work of a group of academics who have analysed polling data (not just party support levels) in the run up to previous British elections:
I have an article published in the January edition of the Government Gazette, the monthly magazine of the Centre for Parliamentary Studies, looking at the Lib Dems’ prospects for the coming general election. Here’s what I say …
A missed opportunity. That was the consensus, inside and outside the Liberal Democrats, on the party’s general election results in 2005.
The disappointment was the greater as realisation dawned that the unique set of circumstances of that election – an unpopular government and an even more unpopular opposition – might never again be repeated. What could have been the Lib Dems’ breakthrough …
Here’s how The Economist’s Bagehot characterised the performances of Gordon Brown and David Cameron at their respective press conferences this week:
On Gordon Brown: “… was his usual funereal self (even if he did manage a decent joke about the date of the general election). I thought he looked exhausted. But what he had to say was relatively upbeat: the recession is over; the government has plans for the “job-rich prosperity” that is just around the corner and an expanded middle class.
On David Cameron: “… was his usual breezy self, cracking jokes, remembering journalists’ names, etc. But what …
David Allen A clear, credible, principled strategy from the Yorkists! Makes a welcome change.
Sadly, followed by twenty below-the-line posts, providing nearly twenty ve...
Simon McGrath so we get a permanant increase in costs for these subsidies based on ( alleged ) windfall profits. Its another big increase in spending -how is it to be paid ...
Peter Davies @Kira CollinsThat assumes we want to help people more with their energy bills than with all the other bills they may be struggling with. There is no reason why ...
Rob Heale Agree that we need to focus on strategy and have clearer messaging:-
1. We MUST prioritise membership recruitment in all we do, including PPB's, most leaflets...
Kira Collins Disappointed. The most obvious means of reducing energy bills is to remove VAT. Relatively straightforward to do and does not adversely impact on the attractive...
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Brexit and summer holidays
The pine martens of Shropshire
The shame of Liverpool Labour councillors taking their allowances but not turning up to do the work
David Allen 
Simon McGrath 
Peter Davies 
Rob Heale 
Kira Collins 