Category Archives: General Election

RichardWilson

The Independent View: The Skeptical Voter

By RichardWilson | Thu 8th April 2010 - 2:20 pm

Skeptical Voter is a non-partisan project aimed at helping UK voters make an informed choice by documenting where each candidate stands on science, secularism and evidence-based policy.

Over the past few months we have been developing the Skeptical Voter wiki, a candidate database that works along similar lines to Wikipedia. Anyone can create or edit an entry, and our volunteers have been busily collating information about the views of incumbent MPs on issues ranging from the abolition of the blasphemy law to climate change science.

The Skeptical Voter wiki is already a rich source of information, with …

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Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg reveals Tories’ £13bn VAT bombshell

By Stephen Tall | Thu 8th April 2010 - 10:25 am

For the past week, the Tories have been decrying Labour’s plans to raise National Insurance, pledging to reverse the rise but with a startling lack of clarity about how they will pay for it – beyond vague talk of ‘efficiency savings’, the kind of fantasy finance David Cameron and George Osborne would be quick to scorn if other parties tried it on.

Today Nick Clegg is showing that NI cuts may be popular with business – but they have to be paid for by someone, and the most likely people to pay the price of the Tories’ cuts will be …

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Stephen Tall

3 to see: Lib Dem #GE2010 campaign coverage

By Stephen Tall | Thu 8th April 2010 - 10:00 am

Pushed for time, but want to keep up-to-date with how the campaign’s going? Here are today’s must-reads ….

Nick Clegg launching Scottish Lib Dem election campaign (BBC)

It will be almost like old times for the Lib Dems, with former leader Charles Kennedy joining Nick Clegg to launch the Lib Dems’ Scottish campaign – as CK himself tweeted earlier today. Here’s how the BBC reports it:

Mr Clegg will get the Scottish campaign under way in Glasgow along with Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott and senior party figures, including Charles Kennedy.

The party – Scotland’s second biggest in Westminster terms –

…

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Stephen Tall

Pollwatch Day 2 #ge2010 – Lib Dems at 20%, Lab 30%, Tories 38%

By Stephen Tall | Thu 8th April 2010 - 12:00 am

Three new polls tonight, and there’s good news for the Lib Dems – we’re up in all of them:

    YouGov in the Sun … CON 37% (-3%), LAB 32% (n/c), LIB DEM 19% (+2%)
    Populus in the Times … CON 39% (-1%), LAB 32% (+2%), LIB DEM 21% (+1%)
    Angus Reid in the Express … CON 37% (-1%), LAB 26% (-1%), LIB DEM 22% (+2%)

Of course, all these changes are within the +/-3% margin of error so we should be very careful about reading anything too much into these increases unless they are sustained in the coming days. Still, it’s nice to see …

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Mark Pack

General election: what have we learnt today?

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 11:53 pm

After yesterday’s revelations about how the party leaders want to be seen, what did we learn today?

a) We learnt that David Cameron likes bare elbows on TV more than he likes George Osborne (plenty of clips of David Cameron with sleeves rolled up and elbows showing whilst Osborne appeared to be auditioning for the role of Lord Lucan)

b) We learnt that the public think the Liberal Democrats have run the most impressive campaign so far*

c) We learnt that Kevin Maguire doesn’t like being quoted by Zac Goldsmith

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Stephen Tall

The #ge2010 Golden Half-Dozen: pick of the Lib Dem blogs (7th April)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th April 2010 - 9:45 pm

During the election campaign Lib Dem Voice will each day be highlighting six blog-posts from the Lib Dem Blogs Aggregator which we think are well worth reading.

Here’s our pick from 7th April, the first full day’s campaigning …

  • There’s an election coming – hurrah! (Lynne Featherstone)


    • Lynne on the joys of standing for re-election: “It’s been an absolute privilege and a joy to be the MP in Hornsey & Wood Green, representing the constituency where I went to school, where I got married and where I have worked for many years.”

  • Stop Whinging, Big Business (The Futility Monster)

    • Deeply

…

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Also posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Televised Prime Ministerial debates: how to ask a question

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 9:20 am

From the joint BBC / ITV / Sky news release:

All three debates will be broadcast in mid-evening slots in front of a studio audience selected by ICM. Members of the audience will be able to put questions to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg directly. Viewers are also able to submit their own questions in advance by email via the addresses below.

Each of the programmes has a pre-determined theme for half of its airtime, with the remaining time open to questions on any election issue.

The First Election Debate will be broadcast on ITV1 on Thursday 15th April …

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Stephen Tall

Pollwatch Day 1 #ge2010 – Lib Dems at 20%, Lab 30%, Tories 38%

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th April 2010 - 12:10 am

Lib Dem Voice doesn’t usually obsess about polls – we round them up on a monthly basis when you can see trends, but we don’t try and read huge significance into every statistical blip. General elections, however, are different.

Like it or not, all of us who are political obsessives will be slavishly following every twist ‘n’ polling turn for the next four weeks. If we move up a single point, it will be because the public loved Steve Webb’s latest pension proposals. If we drop a point, it will be because the media has been ignoring us (again).

Ignore anyone who tries to point out the reality that polls will fluctuate, and trying to pin ups and downs on any specific campaign incidents is to imagine that the British public is paying anywhere like as close attention to politics as we are.

Caveats firmly in place? Check. So let’s get on with our poll-sessing.

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Mark Pack

How do the media election websites compare? (UPDATED)

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th April 2010 - 11:50 pm

The FT beat me to the punch with a review of the different election websites, so I’ll give my review a slightly different focus: which are best for local information about candidates? And if you are a candidate (or helping a candidate) what online information should you worry about making sure is correct?

BBC:

  • More extensive constituency descriptions that others listed below, but otherwise the constituency pages are surprisingly skimpy by comparison with only very limited election results and candidate information.
  • Some links to BBC news stories where there has been one relevant to the constituency.
  • Uses Thrasher & Rallings for the

…

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Mark Pack

General election: what have we learnt so far?

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th April 2010 - 8:17 pm

a) Gordon Brown wants to be seen as a team player (hence massed ranks of Cabinet behind him for election announcement)

b) David Cameron wants to be seen as Barack Obama (hence shirt, rolled up sleeves and people behind him when he speaks!)

c) Nick Clegg wants to be seen with Vince Cable (hence Vince becomes the first non-leader to ever have his picture emblazoned on a party leader’s battlebus)

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Stephen Tall

Donate today – help get the Lib Dems off to a flying start! #ge2010

By Stephen Tall | Tue 6th April 2010 - 4:35 pm

Today marked the official start of the general election campaign. And today’s the day you could help ensure the Lib Dems get the best possible result – by making a donation to support the Lib Dem Voice election appeal.

Thanks to the support of LDV readers, we have just crossed the £1,000 threshold – a terrific response. But the candidates in our five battleground seats will need more than that to help get their campaigns off to a flying start.

So please: make a donation to help the Lib Dems today.

Here are some examples of what your gift could do to help the party get its message across:

    * £10 will pay for a Focus newsletter for 500 houses
    * £25 will buy 2,000 tabloid-style newspapers
    * £50 pays for a dozen super-size election garden posters
    * £100 will cover a Focus leaflet for a whole ward
    * £250 will pay for 10,000 addressed letters to be delivered by volunteers
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Mark Pack

What happens in wash up – and what will happen to the Digital Economy Bill?

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th April 2010 - 12:22 pm

The concept of “wash up” has become subject of greater attention just before the last few general elections, but it’s not nearly as special as descriptions make it sound. What happens is that just before Parliament is dissolved for a general election various pieces of legislation are rushed through rather than be lost and have to start again from scratch after the election. There are no special Parliamentary rules to allow this speedy legislation. Instead, Parliament just has to vote for speedy processes as it can at any other time in the Parliamentary cycle. If you have the votes, you …

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Tony Samphier

The Independent View: Where do the candidates stand on democratic reform?

By Tony Samphier | Tue 6th April 2010 - 8:40 am

After three years of ifs, buts and maybes since the “election that never was” debacle in 2007, we’re going to be put out of our misery this week.

The phoney war that has been fought out by the political class, to the bemusement of the electorate, is one of the least appealing aspects of our elitist political culture.

With this in mind, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by responses from candidates to the general election policy comparison web initiative DEMREF 2010, which, for my sins, I have hurriedly got together in recent months.

To date, the majority of candidates who …

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Mark Pack

This is how general elections used to be called

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 10:17 pm

Somehow I can’t quite imagine a Prime Minister’s election calling soundbite including the phrase “the provisions of the Representation of the People Act” any more. Nor indeed the response of the major parties to an election been called to be having special meetings of senior party figures. None of this modern flying start stuff.

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Baroness Ros Scott

Ros Scott’s campaign diary

By Baroness Ros Scott | Mon 5th April 2010 - 8:16 pm

During the general election campaign we will be running a series of diary pieces from party president Ros Scott. To kick off here’s her campaign diary of this month so far:

1 April

I’m fed up with waiting for Gordon Brown to call the election, so I’ve started without him.

Maundy Thursday saw me up bright and early to catch the 8.35 train to Sheffield for my first official visit of the campaign. I met up with Paul Scriven, leader of the City Council, and our Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) in Sheffield Central. Paul is both a highly effective council leader and …

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Mark Pack

A must read site for people following the online general election campaign

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 7:02 pm

A great new website has just been setup by Rob Fenwick (the founder of Lib Dem Voice and my colleague back in 2005 on the Liberal Democrat internet campaign): Campaign Digest.

It looks like it will become an essential source of information, particularly with its daily snapshots of the front pages of the main party websites – tracking how they change during the campaign – and its archiving of email content from the different campaigns.

Well worth bookmarking and visiting regularly.

Also posted in Online politics | Tagged | 2 Comments
James Evans

The Independent View: Introducing Hustings.com

By James Evans | Mon 5th April 2010 - 11:20 am

A lot has been written about the growing gulf between the voting public and their representatives, voter apathy and low turnout.  Candidates and the media do their best to engage voters but it’s an uphill slog.  At this election in particular a low turnout is a real risk because people have been put off voting at all by a succession of scandals.

A lot has also been written about how the internet may help candidates connect with voters.  Who knows whether this will be seen as the first ‘e-election’.  But it has struck me for a while that candidates’ online campaigns …

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Helen Duffett

Election campaign essentials [contains chocolate]

By Helen Duffett | Sun 4th April 2010 - 6:50 pm

With campaigning going into overdrive this week, take a moment to check that you’ve got all the information you need:

The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors have pulled together a handy set of election campaign essentials over at the ALDC website (including gratuitous chocolate pic 🙂 ).

From essential forms and artwork templates to official and party guidance, it’s worth going through the list and seeing if there’s anything you’ve missed for your campaign.

Some of the items require a login to view them; you can of course join ALDC here.

Meanwhile on Lib Dem Voice, Mark’s keeping us on track …

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Iain Roberts

A straight choice? Does this squeeze message hold water?

By Iain Roberts | Sun 4th April 2010 - 6:09 pm

Under our First Past the Post voting system, the squeeze message is a legitimate one, used by all parties when it’s to their benefit.

Voting for the third (or lower) placed party in the seat is, they all argue, a wasted vote. Those lower placed parties will say otherwise, but it’s a fair tactic. Lib Dems would say that under a better voting system, tactical voting wouldn’t be needed.

But in this election we’re seeing a new twist on the theme from the Labservatives, and it’s a bit of a stretch to see how it could be honest or …

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Sara Bedford

The price of a Labour marginal? £81 million

By Sara Bedford | Fri 2nd April 2010 - 6:05 pm

Earlier this year Professor Tim Briggs, medical director of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore, threatened to challenge local MP Tony McNulty and stand as an independent candidate for Harrow East. Professor Briggs was angry that after a 15 year campaign for funding to rebuild the hospital and a decision to fund essential repairs two years ago, the hospital remains in a state of disrepair, with rainwater seeping through ceilings and a maintenance backlog estimated at £54 million. The situation had worsened further, when a row between the hospital and NHS London intensified, leading to fears that the hospital could be split up as part of a restructuring process to save money.

Within four days of Professor Briggs announcement, Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Health had agreed an emergency meeting to discuss funding for the hospital. And on the last full business day before the General Election, an £81 million package to rebuild the hospital was announced. Professor Briggs expressed his delight at the decision, but not his surprise. Andy Burnham expressed similar thoughts when the Professor later announced that he would not now seek to join Dr Richard Taylor on the green benches. Making the announcement, Andy Burnham said, “Tony brought me here in 2006 and made the case for the hospital and for his constituency, and for me it was unfinished business.” One wonders why it took four years for the business to be finished?

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Mark Pack

Votematch is back: which party most closely matches your policy preferences?

By Mark Pack | Thu 1st April 2010 - 12:10 pm

Following its British debut in the London and then European elections, Votematch is now up and running for the 2010 general election. The idea is a simple one – you answer 30 questions about different policies (less in Scotland or Wales because of devolution) and the site then tells you how closely your answers match those of different parties.

It’s got quite a few nice touches which show how the team have learnt both from experiences elsewhere, particularly the phenomenally successfully version used by one in three voters in Holland, and from their past experience in Britain. For example, you …

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Mark Pack

Labservative: the party hits the streets to find out what the public thinks

By Mark Pack | Wed 31st March 2010 - 9:34 pm

“This is a man. This is a street. Let’s talk Labservative.” More Alan Partridge than your usual Party Political Broadcast fare:

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Also posted in Humour and Online politics | Tagged | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Campaign survey: mediocre news for democracy, good news for the Lib Dems

By Mark Pack | Wed 31st March 2010 - 11:50 am

The results are in from a survey carried out by Brunel University into how much campaigning the public has been on the receiving end of.

The mediocre news as far as democracy is concerned is that 27% of the electorate say they were contacted by at least one of the three main political parties during February (by phone, letter, leaflet, email etc.). Coming just before a general election that 27% figure is not great, even if you factor in that some people do seem to forget they has been contacted and also that other parties have been campaigning too. It’s much …

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Mark Pack

Labservative.com: reaction so far

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th March 2010 - 7:14 pm

Earlier today Stephen covered the launch of www.labservative.com saying,

The Labservative pitch is clear enough: Labour and the Tories are way too similar, and neither is capable of producing change. It’s a familiar enough Lib Dem campaign charge. It’s a pleasantly unfamiliar position for the party to be making the point in a wittily Web 2.0 way. Well done, Cowley Street!

The site is already doing very well at garnering coverage – and positive coverage no less (did someone mutter CashGordon?):

  • Lib Dems target ‘Labservatives’ with guerilla advertising campaign – The Guardian
  • The Lib Dems have launched quite an effective site

…

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dems launch Labservative.com

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th March 2010 - 4:10 pm

Lib Dems still reeling from Vince Cable’s debate victory in Ask the Chancellors, have another reason to be reeling today … the party has launched a subversive multimedia viral ad campaign – www.labservative.com – and it’s a 24-carat success.

The Labservative pitch is clear enough: Labour and the Tories are way too similar, and neither is capable of producing change. It’s a familiar enough Lib Dem campaign charge. It’s a pleasantly unfamiliar position for the party to be making the point in a wittily Web 2.0 way. Well done, Cowley Street!

Here’s the video:

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Stephen Tall

Election Appeal: Help elect Sal Brinton in Watford – DONATE to her campaign TODAY

By Stephen Tall | Mon 29th March 2010 - 4:40 pm

Liberal Democrat Voice is running a special appeal to raise funds for five of the party’s very best general elections candidates – all of whom have a real chance of winning but need your help NOW to ensure they do win.

Click here to make a donation TODAY.

Today we’re highlighting the campaign of Sal Brinton, Lib Dem candidate for Watford …

Watford nearly proved to be one of the shocks of the 2005 General Election, as Sal Brinton took the Lib Dems from a distant third place to a very close second. Just 1,148 votes separate Sal from Labour Minister and

…

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Stephen Tall

Is this the general election result that would usher in electoral reform?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 27th March 2010 - 8:45 am

So the polls are narrowing, the Tory lead tottering along within the range of 2-7%. As we all know, the Tories need to poll at around 40% to be sure of a working majority, or else they will have to significantly out-perform their national ratings in the key marginal battlegrounds.

And if they don’t succeed? Well, that will clearly be a disaster for David Cameron’s leadership which has been predicated on the fact that he’s the Tories’ talisman. A hung parliament with a minority Labour/Tory government, perhaps with the tacit consent of the Lib Dems, appears at this stage the …

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Stephen Tall

The 7 retiring Lib Dem MPs (and the 7 candidates hoping to replace them)

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 2:10 pm

Seven Lib Dem MPs have announced they’re retiring at this year’s general election. All seven are men: of their replacements, four are women. Here’s the list in full:

John Barrett (LD) – Edinburgh West

Majority: 13,600 (30%) – second safest Lib Dem seat in the UK.
Reason for leaving: to spend more time with his grand-daughters.
Hoping to succeed him: Mike Crockart.

Colin Breed (LD) – South East Cornwall

Majority: 6,507 (13%).
Reason for leaving: not stated.
Hoping to succeed him: Karen Gillard.

David Howarth (LD) – Cambridge

Majority: 5,058 (11%).
Reason for leaving: “to concentrate on my other life, as an academic.”
Hoping to succeed him: Julian Huppert.

Paul

…

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Mark Thompson

The Liberal Democrat general election prospects: what does history say?

By Mark Thompson | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 12:22 pm

I was having a look at data from previous elections recently with a particular focus on the number of seats and percentage of votes gained by the third party in the last few decades.

The first thing that is clear and which I already knew is that in the last three general elections, the Lib Dems have consistently increased their number of seats. The figures are:

1997: 46 (+26)
2001: 52 (+6)
2005: 62 (+10)

The huge leap in 1997 is often put down to our improved targeting campaign techniques championed by Chris Rennard.

There is something else interesting in the figures which I had not …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Could Nick Clegg be next Imperial Commander?

By NewsHound | Sat 20th March 2010 - 10:45 am

The Guardian leader column notes that yesterday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, billed as a two horse race, was won by a promising outsider when the two favourites both faltered; and wonders if the same might happen on May 6th.

Imperial Commander was always a true, in-form, thoroughbred contender…Can Nick Clegg be the two-legged equivalent of Imperial Commander? In a good year anything is possible – even under first past the post.

Also posted in LibLink | Tagged | 2 Comments
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