Category Archives: News

John King

The lighter side of Brexit – why we staged our April 1st satire

By John King | Sun 1st April 2018 - 12:01 pm

“The town that wants its own Brexit” was of course a spoof story, but the people are real enough. For Dick Vos read Richard Vos, Liberal Democrat party organiser for Stratford- upon-Avon. Jack Prince, in case you didn’t guess, is myself. We are members of Stratford4Europe, one of the more active and dynamic of the regional pro-European groups.

What we were aiming to do was to inject a bit of humour into the Brexit debate, which has got somewhat bogged down in sterile circular arguments. Humour can cut through the ice where intellectual arguments fail. It can also be therapeutic. Laughter is the best medicine, as they say. So in healing the wounds of a deeply divided nation, it should have some value.

We have certainly found that is true in the case of the Brexit café, a local initiative pioneered by Sophie West which has brought together Remainers and Leavers for friendly discussions. Whilst not comedy, this relies on good humour. At the national level there are initiatives such as the ‘Number 10 Vigil’ – live songs and entertainment featuring a lookalike Boris Johnson, which is no longer confined to Downing Street but has been travelling around the country on the Brexit Truth Bus.

Satire is often the best way to make serious points. For example, the folly of the First World War was poignantly highlighted by the film “Oh! What a Lovely War”, and with no loss of respect for the great fallen. Similarly “The town that wants its own Brexit” highlights the constraints of parochial thinking, with no loss of respect for Leavers.

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The Voice

Exclusive: New allegations over misuse of data by shady campaigning firm

By The Voice | Sun 1st April 2018 - 10:25 am

Lib Dem Voice can exclusively reveal that urgent investigations are now underway after we uncovered what appears to be a further serious misuse of data in the EU referendum.

A mysterious private campaigning firm which calls itself Bainbridge Claptrap-Witterer is believed to have trawled the data of the now-defunct Lib Dem social network, Lib Dem Act. The site was wildly popular for a time around 2010 and is thought to have had a membership at one point running into double figures.

The firm, which is based on an industrial estate just outside of Leicester but is thought to have adopted the use of Bainbridge in its name to appeal to middle-class pro-remain campaigners, is understood have built a sophisticated model predicting propensity to support remaining in the EU based on users’ posts on Lib Dem Act.

The site was intended to act as a private space for party members to share campaigning tips and stories, but owing to the tendency of users just to upload photos of their dogs, data experts at the shadowy firm appear to have built a sophisticated model linking breed of dog to a range of European issues based on the data obtained from the profiles of literally a dozen users.

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Caron Lindsay

Watch: Happy Easter from Wera Hobhouse

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st April 2018 - 6:30 am

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Caron Lindsay

#RunRennieRun: The highlights of day one and how you can help on day two

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 31st March 2018 - 8:34 am

As we reported yesterday, Willie Rennie is running the 117 miles of the Fife coastal path to raise money for Scottish mental health charity SAMH. Yesterday he ran more than 40 miles from Kincardine to Buckhaven.

The weather was not in any way co-operative – the odd shower might have been a bit refreshing but driving rain, cold and sleet is never fun.

He’s now raised more than £5000 – with £1000 going on since Thursday. If you want to give him some motivation to keep going, please give all you can here.

If you want to go and cheer him …

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The Voice

Vince Cable’s message for Passover

By The Voice | Fri 30th March 2018 - 8:05 pm

Here is Vince Cable’s message for Passover

Millions of Jewish families and friends across the world will come together tonight to celebrate Passover.

They will reflect on the struggle of the Jewish people to be free.

For people of all faiths and none, the story told at Passover is a reminder of the importance of freedom, and standing up for the oppressed.

It is also an opportunity for us to recognise the valuable contribution Britain’s Jewish communities make to our country today.

To everyone celebrating Passover, Chag Pesach Sameach!

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The Voice

Vince Cable’s Easter Message

By The Voice | Fri 30th March 2018 - 7:11 pm

Here is Vince Cable’s Easter message:

I would like to send warm wishes to all those celebrating Easter here in the UK and around the world.

For many Christians, Easter is a time of deep reflection and self-examination, and is an important reminder of the values of forgiveness, compassion and kindness. These are principles that resonate with people of all faiths and none.

At the heart of the Easter story is a message of hope and we see this demonstrated through various faith-based projects across the country, whose work helps to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Thank you to the thousands who continue to give their time and energy for the good of their local communities.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Sal Brinton: Ministers must protect our NHS against privatisation

By NewsHound | Fri 30th March 2018 - 10:25 am

This week, Sal Brinton and others argued in the House of Lords that action was needed to ensure that Brexit didn’t open the door to privatisation of the NHS.

She wrote about the issue for The House magazine:

If you asked most people what effect Brexit would have on our health service, regardless of how they voted in the Referendum, I suspect they will cite that large red bus from the Leave referendum campaign stating the EU costs the UK £350m per week, which on leaving could be invested in the NHS. Not only was this untrue, but there are now figures to show that the cost of leaving to our economy could be equal to £350m per week. And, at a time of unprecedented pressure on the NHS, it needs urgent and real investment to prevent it crumbling.

However, one of the lesser known pillars of protecting our NHS is also at risk with Brexit. With more and more parts of its services being put out to tender, the NHS has been protected by the EU Directive on Public Health Procurement. This directive governs the way in which public bodies purchase goods, service and works and seeks to guarantee equal access and fair competition for public contracts in the EU markets. It was approved in 2014 and includes protection for clinical services and more legal clarity on the application of procurement rules.

She also looked at some of the wider impacts on the Health Service that Brexit will have:

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie starts his four marathons in three days around Fife to raise money for mental health

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 30th March 2018 - 8:45 am

Easter weekends aren’t generally a time of rest for Willie Rennie.

For the last four years, there’s been an election going on, so he’s been campaigning at full pelt.

But there isn’t an election going on in Scotland this year. So he could decide to lie about and eat chocolate.

That’s not very Willie, though. He’s decided to spend the weekend running the length of the Fife Coastal Path to raise money for SAMH, a Scottish mental health charity. He sets off from Kincardine in a few minutes’ time and his schedule is brutal. 42 miles today. He’s slacking tomorrow. Only 29 miles. And then he finishes on Sunday with a 44 mile run. He’ll be running through the Dunfermline and West Fife constituency he represented as an MP between 2006-10 and will finish in his current North East Fife Scottish Parliament constituency. He represented the whole of Fife as a regional list MSP from 2011-16.

That’s a bloody long way. In 3 days. He’s been warming up by taking part in races in the bracing Scottish Winter.

He’s achingly close to raising £5000. When you are doing an endurance challenge like that, knowing that people are giving generously really helps motivate you. So, if you can, please give him some financial encouragement here.

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Caron Lindsay

Another Thursday night, another Lib Dem Gain

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 29th March 2018 - 11:09 pm

Amazing news from the East Midlands

Congratulations to the amazing Hinckley Lib Dems team.

We didn’t have a candidate in the only other principal by-election yesterday.

…

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The Voice

Martin Horwood standing for local council

By The Voice | Thu 29th March 2018 - 8:13 am

FORMER CHELTENHAM MP Martin Horwood is putting on his rosette again – this time to stand for Cheltenham Borough Council. There’s an unexpected vacancy in Leckhampton ward following independent councillor Ian Bickerton’s recent resignation. That means the ward will be electing two councillors in the borough council elections on 3 May instead of one. Glenn Andrews is the other Lib Dem candidate.

Martin handed in his nomination papers at the council offices today – and the retiring independent councillor Ian Bickerton was one of his nominators. Martin stood down as Lib Dem …

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie calls for Land Value Tax “to shape society and economy in fair and just way”

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 28th March 2018 - 10:01 pm

It was the Greens’ opposition day debate in the Scottish Parliament. They chose to hold it on local government finance.

It was a worthy subject, but they were a little muted. Their Andy Wightman made a speech which pretty much said “The Council Tax is bad. Let’s replace it with something.”

Don’t get me wrong, this was fine as far as it went. It was certainly a million miles better than the Tories and SNP who voted together to keep the Council Tax that the latter had once railed against.

If you are one of those liberals whose hearts beat a little faster at the mention of Land Value Taxation, you might want to sit down and have some smelling salts handy. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie espoused that old liberal idea from the dawn of time, saying that it would change the way our society and economy works in a fair and just way. Here’s his speech in full:

We have heard from Murdo Fraser and James Kelly that the SNP has been on a journey with the council tax. There was a time when it would take every opportunity to condemn it. Alex Salmond called it unfair and insisted that he would scrap it, but he did not. Nicola Sturgeon said—quite strongly—that she “hated” it. She went on to criticise any suggestion that it should be tinkered with, but then she did that.

Now SNP members seem to be the staunchest defenders of the council tax. When they secured the support of the Greens and the Labour Party for their arbitrary increases to the council tax, I argued that those would not be the first steps towards further reforms but the last steps. We have heard from the minister this afternoon that we will have to get a consensus across the Parliament from the other parties before he will even consider taking our proposals forward. Rather than being with us on developing a consensus, he is going to be a bystander, and his long-grass amendment confirms that.

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Caron Lindsay

Tom Brake: People are entitled to know if Leave won by cheating

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 28th March 2018 - 8:50 am

Yesterday, Tom Brake led a debate in Parliament about the allegations of cheating by the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum.

You can read the whole debate here.

As I listened to the debate, I felt that the atmosphere was reminiscent of the hostility Charles Kennedy faced when he got up to oppose the Iraq war. Apart from the Minister, there were no substantive speeches from the Tories, but they did shower Tom with contemptuous and irrelevant questions in an attempt to detract attention from the serious allegations.

Charles Kennedy was widely shown to have been right in 2005 and …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 26 March 2018 – everyone loves a parade…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 26th March 2018 - 7:32 am

So, the big weekend of pro-Remain parades is over, with a weekend of Liberal Democrat campaigning still to come. And whilst the Government continues to flounder in the face of all of the things it was warned about, there is still no apparent sign that they will do anything other than keep on going, in the hope that it will be alright on the night. Besides, with a Leader of the Opposition almost as committed to freeing the country from the supposed restrictions placed upon us as the Conservatives are, there is little risk of defeat.

Hope springs eternal though, and …

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The Voice

WATCH: Brake: The British people are entitled to the truth

By The Voice | Sun 25th March 2018 - 10:25 am

In a video this morning, Lib Dem Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake revealed that he had reported the alleged collaboration between Vote Leave and BeLeave to the Police and that he would be raising this in Parliament tomorrow.

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Michael Berwick-Gooding

How can we make sure families have enough to live on?

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Sun 25th March 2018 - 8:55 am

On the Six O’clock News on BBC1 on Thursday there was a report on children living in poverty.

Mark who is a single dad is not working so I suppose we should expect him and his children to be living in poverty. He lost £340 a month because of the benefit cap. It is our policy to abolish the benefit cap but that is not enough to remove Mark and his family out of poverty.

The report correctly states that those who work more than 15 hours are not subject to the benefit cap. Therefore the problem must be the level of benefits.

Corey is working being paid the minimum wage but he and his partner Danielle and their children are living in poverty.

The report states that Corey some months receives no Universal Credit because he can receive two lots of wages in a month. I assume he must be being paid every 4 weeks. On the government web site it states, “If you’re paid weekly, every 2 weeks or every 4 weeks, you’ll receive more than one set of wages during some assessment periods. This means your earnings might be too high for Universal Credit. You’ll be told if they are and whether you’ll need to reapply to continue to get Universal Credit”.

This is a madness. Surely Universal Credit should be paid on the assumption you receive the same amount of wages each week and then if you earn more for a particular week then the amount is adjusted downwards for that week which is being paid on the day of the month allocated to that claimant, but that you don’t end up with no benefit just because there are two pay days in one calendar month.

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Caron Lindsay

“I know that Vote Leave cheated” – should be a game changer but will it make a difference?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 24th March 2018 - 10:12 pm

In case you missed it, here’s the shocking video on Channel 4 News tonight where a young man who campaigned to Leave alleges that the Leave campaign overspent.

This young man, Shahmir Sanni, has complained at being outed by a former Vote Leave campaigner who now works in Downing Street.

There’s more in the Guardian:. The controversy centres on a donation to BeLeave, an organisation targeting young people run by former Liberal Democrat Darren Grimes.

What he has spent months coming to terms with is that this donation may not have had anything to do with BeLeave’s creativity and flair. “Vote Leave didn’t really give us that money,” he says. “They just pretended to. We had no control over it. We were 22-year-old students. You’re not going to just give nearly a million pounds to a pair of students and let them do whatever.”

To Sanni’s mind, what this means is: “They cheated.”

With this on top of the Cambridge Analytica stuff, the legitimacy of the referendum result must be called into question.

Tom Brake said tonight:

These allegations are stunning and touch directly on one of Theresa May’s closest advisors.

The British people expect fair play and campaigns to abide by the rules – they must not be cheated. These allegations must be examined by the police. If they represent what happened it is outrageous and shameful.

The referendum had a very narrow outcome. One of the biggest exercises in democracy must not turn out to be one of Britain’s biggest electoral frauds.

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NewsHound

Jo Swinson on leadership, the importance of humility and meeting a hero

By NewsHound | Sat 24th March 2018 - 11:30 am

This afternoon, Jo Swinson will be speaking at the “Aye Write” book festival in Glasgow.

Ahead of that, she gave a long interview to the Sunday Herald. Here are some of the highlights:

She talked about how the author of the book she had requested as a prize at school had got in touch with her:

When Jo Swinson was a teenager, studying at Douglas Academy in Milngavie, she was awarded the Senior Dux prize for achievement, and was given a trophy plus a book of her choice. What she opted for, as she describes in her book Equal Power: And How You Can Make It Happen, was a popular title by Kate White, a journalist who would later go on to edit Cosmopolitan. It was called Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead But Gutsy Girls Do.

Swinson croons her enthusiasm when I mention the book. Recently, she tells me, she gave it a mention in a World Book Day article and as a result the author got in touch with her. “I’m just so over the moon about this,” says Swinson. “I got this email from her last week, out of the blue, saying I’m so touched that this book made such an impact. She said she’d like to meet up for a coffee. I’m so beside myself with excitement that I’ll have to try not to be a dreadful fan girl.”

She also explained why she had not gone for the Lib Dem leadership last year.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems GAIN a Council seat in Aylesbury

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 23rd March 2018 - 7:32 am

Good news from Aylesbury where new Cllr Waheed Raja gained the Central and Walton ward from the Conservatives.

We actually lost this ward by a single vote back in 2011. It’s great to see Waheed and the team win it back with a really good swing.

During my long time in the East Midlands, I knew that Worksop was not exactly a Lib Dem hotspot, so it was good to see a respectable result from a standing start for Leon Duveen in the Worksop South East ward:

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The Voice

Lib Dems: Universal Credit could lead to up to 1.3 million evictions

By The Voice | Thu 22nd March 2018 - 11:00 am

New data released yesterday by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reveals that only 6% of Universal Credit claimants in the private rented sector have their rent paid directly to their landlords, compared to 35% in the socially rented sector .

This is despite calls by Liberal Democrat DWP spokesperson Stephen Lloyd to make payments to landlords default. Lloyd has argued that maintaining the status quo will lead to many of the 1.3 million benefit claimants in the private rented sector being evicted, and potentially made homeless.

According to the Residential Landlords Association, 73% of landlords still lack confidence in renting to tenants on Universal Credit due to uncertainty that they will be able to recover rent arrears, while 38% have already experienced UC tenants going into arrears.

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The Voice

Lloyd: Government must delay “horror” changes to mortgage support

By The Voice | Wed 21st March 2018 - 9:15 pm

Support for Mortgage Interest is a benefit given to people claiming Universal Credit or certain other income-related benefits who have a mortgage or who have taken out loans to make repairs to their home. It pays for the cost of interest on up to £200,000 of a person’s mortgage in order to prevent claimants from defaulting on their mortgage.

From next month, SMI will be replaced by a loan of the same value, which is repaid (with interest) when the property is sold.

It’s pretty cheap, as benefits go, costing the Government around £300 million a year. It is certainly about 3.5 times cheaper than letting someone’s home be repossessed and then having to pay housing benefit to put that household in the rented sector.

Apart from the whole principle being flawed, the implementation seems to have been botched as only around 10,000 of the eligible families have taken up the loan. Some people haven’t even been sent the information about it so that they can make an informed choice about whether to take the loan.

Our Work and Pensions spokesperson Stephen Lloyd said the whole thing was a horror and called for implementation to be delayed.

Every month we seem to be hearing yet more examples of this Conservative government being both mean-spirited and unintelligent; this mortgage interest benefit change is a classic example. It will force some homeowners into even more debt, and will force others to sell their homes putting themselves at the mercy (and cost) of their local council’s housing department. Which, naturally, will cost the taxpayer more in housing benefit than keeping them in their own house by paying mortgage interest payments. An absolutely ridiculous decision.

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Mary Reid

Are you wearing odd socks today?

By Mary Reid | Wed 21st March 2018 - 12:52 pm

Today is World Down Syndrome Day and this year across the world people are wearing odd socks to celebrate difference. So if you got dressed this morning before you realised, then maybe you can change one of those socks when you get home? #lotsofsocks, #WDSD18.

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The Voice

Wera Hobhouse’s bill could see 2 year prison sentence for upskirting

By The Voice | Tue 20th March 2018 - 10:25 am

Wera Hobhouse has revealed further details of her bill to outlaw upskirting. Offenders could end up with 2 years in prison.

From the Evening Standard:

Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse, who tabled the Bill, said changing the current law to make it easier to prosecute would allow the law to “catch up with technology”.

It could also mean that members of the paparazzi would be prosecuted for taking shots of celebrities where their underwear is deliberately shown

The move comes after data published by the Press Association last month revealed girls as young as ten among the alleged victims who have been targeted in public locations such as restaurants and festivals….

 …Ms Hobhouse said: “It is, on the face of it, a vile, discriminating and outrageous practice. I personally have not – fortunately – had this unpleasant experience, but it is just outrageous, it is humiliating for anybody who has that happen to them and it has a deep impact on them.”It is so obviously in your face a wrong thing and yet our law has not kept up with this practice.”

Wera is asking supporters to contact their MP to ask them to support her Bill:

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Caron Lindsay

The Democratic primary for New York Governor just got interesting

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 20th March 2018 - 8:55 am

The collision of two of my favourite worlds will keep me well occupied until June 26th when the Democrats choose their candidate for New York Governor.  Yesterday, Cynthia Nixon, who played my favourite character in Sex and the City, Miranda Hobbes, announced her candidacy with a  very effective video.

The Democrats already hold the seat, of course. Andrew Cuomo seeks his third term and won in 2014 with 54% of the vote in the General Election. He is the obvious frontrunner to fight again for the Democrats with, at the moment, a fairly massive lead over all-comers. From the New York Times:

Ms. Nixon, 51, has never before run for elected office and has chosen a huge undertaking for her first bid: seeking to unseat a two-term incumbent (and son of a three-term governor) who is sitting atop more than $30 million in campaign cash. “Our leaders are letting us down,” she says in a video posted on Twitter, talking about the inequities in New York spliced between images of her walking on the streets of New York City and taking the subways. “Something has to change,” she says in the ad. “We want our government to work again, on health care, ending mass incarceration, fixing our broken subway. We are sick of politicians who care more about headlines and power than they do about us. It can’t just be business as usual anymore.”

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Mark Valladares

Brexit: concessions to the left of us, concessions to the right of us…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 19th March 2018 - 3:20 pm

So, a big announcement, with the outline of a transitional deal. The highlights;

  • The transition period will end on 31 December 2020, three months earlier than sought
  • EU citizens arriving during the transition period will have the same rights as those already in the U.K. at 29 March 2019
  • No veto on new EU legislation during the transition period – the “vassal state” clause
  • Gibraltar excluded unless Spain can be persuaded to reach an agreement
  • No repatriation of control over fishing quotas

So, what does this mean for the Conservatives or for the United Kingdom? Good deal, bad …

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Chris Bowers

Thinking the unthinkable is fun and might just lead us somewhere interesting

By Chris Bowers | Mon 19th March 2018 - 10:32 am

Have you ever wondered if there’s a policy the Lib Dems could be promoting that simply isn’t part of the political landscape? One that doesn’t fall under economics, health, education, environment or any of the traditional categories of modern-day politics?

This question was raised during the ‘Radical Liberalism’ fringe meeting held in Southport last weekend, which was part of the Social Liberal Forum’s fringe programme and which I chaired. The meeting itself was very unlike most fringe meetings which focus on a speaker or two from the top table – this was more of a brainstorming session, and I threw in a number of questions at various intervals to guide the debate. The result was that most of the 80 or so people who packed out the room contributed to the discussion.

About half-way through, I asked whether there were any policies that people might like to throw into the mix which weren’t currently on the political map, even if they may seem a bit off-the-wall. I said they might well not be viable, but sometimes thinking the unthinkable leads to ideas that might not otherwise emerge.

The first suggestion was that we might advocate moving the capital from London to somewhere more central. The person suggesting it wasn’t just arguing for geographical fairness, but saying it doesn’t help us to have the country’s administrative and democratic centre in the primary financial hub, and that London should be allowed to become like Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Zürich which are major cities but don’t host national parliaments and governments.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 19 March 2018 – the chilly breeze of reality…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 19th March 2018 - 7:58 am

Another difficult weekend of cold weather over, it’s time for me to return to my editorial duties for another week, on the 739th anniversary of the Mongolian victory at the naval Battle of Yamen, which ended the Song Dynasty in China. Also, on this day in 1628, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted land for settlement.

Admittedly, this isn’t quite as much of a challenge as it might be, because the stocks of submitted articles are close to non-existent. However, we do have a report from Chris Bowers on the “Reclaiming Liberalism” fringe at last weekend’s Federal Conference, challenging you all …

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Caron Lindsay

Tim Farron: How would you want your family to be treated if they were fleeing war?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 18th March 2018 - 12:53 pm

On Friday, MPs kept alive a Bill proposed by the SNP’s Angus MacNeil aimed at reuniting refugee families. The debate was one of those which makes you proud of MPs from all parties. The Bill had support from Conservative, Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs.

Ed Davey, Alistair Carmichael and Layla Moran all made interventions.

Tim Farron made a really powerful speech. His leadership was marked by his constant and passionate pressure on the Government to do more to help refugees and it’s something that he still continues to pursue. Here’s his speech in full.

I will try to be brief, Mr Deputy Speaker, because the most important thing today is that this Bill proceeds. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), and to all hon. Members who, unusually, are here on a Friday. This is my fourth debate on a Friday in 13 years, because this Bill matters. It is a chance and a test. It is a test of our support for the people who need it most; it is a test of our ability to act with compassion and common sense. It is not a hard test, because this is a modest and tightly defined common sense Bill.

Let us be clear what the changes in the Bill would mean for the refugee children who are already here in the United Kingdom. These are children who have experienced unimaginable things. Nevertheless, I want Members to try to imagine. What horrific set of circumstances might have to happen to a family that would mean that the danger and misery of fleeing across land and sea, as well as the risk of separation, is preferable to staying put? Imagine how you would want your children and your family to be treated at the end of your journey. Imagine that sanctuary, and the kindness that goes with it, and be very clear that that must be the model for how we treat families today.

Separated refugee children in the United Kingdom have already overcome threats and danger in their own communities. They have been split from their families in their rush to find somewhere—anywhere—safe and have then been forced through a terrifying journey by sea and land to Europe, journeys that we know have claimed hundreds of children’s lives. These refugee children are here right now living in our communities alongside us, asking us today to step up and reunite them with their families. The Bill will allow them a future with their families instead of being separated from them. It will mean children growing up with their parents where they should be, at their side, rather than living with the constant worry about the fate of their families, stranded and out of reach. The Bill simply makes that possible.

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Caron Lindsay

Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower used to work for Lib Dems and warned us of our 2015 demise

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 18th March 2018 - 11:21 am

The Cambridge Analytica data story that’s been unfolding is equally fascinating and terrifying.

Today, the Observer has an interview with the whistleblower Christopher Wylie. 

He’s only 28, but he’s worked for the Canadian Liberals, the Obama campaign and the Liberal Democrats.

At 19, he taught himself to code, and in 2010, age 20, he came to London to study law at the London School of Economics.

“Politics is like the mob, though,” he says. “You never really leave. I got a call from the Lib Dems. They wanted to upgrade their databases and voter targeting. So, I combined working for them with studying for my degree.”

I have always been pretty wary of Facebook quizzes because I’ve been sceptical about them having small print somewhere that allows them to access more information about me that I’m happy with complete strangers having. I tend to go through my privacy settings to see if I’ve inadvertently given anyone permission to take my personal data. It turns out I have good reason for being so careful. I know that some of my friends don’t use Facebook at all, partly because of concerns about data security.

Back in 2013, Chris Wylie made this conclusion about the Liberal Democrats after studying results of research into measuring personality traits across millions of people:

“I wanted to know why the Lib Dems sucked at winning elections when they used to run the country up to the end of the 19th century,” Wylie explains. “And I began looking at consumer and demographic data to see what united Lib Dem voters, because apart from bits of Wales and the Shetlands it’s weird, disparate regions. And what I found is there were no strong correlations. There was no signal in the data.

“And then I came across a paper about how personality traits could be a precursor to political behaviour, and it suddenly made sense. Liberalism is correlated with high openness and low conscientiousness, and when you think of Lib Dems they’re absent-minded professors and hippies. They’re the early adopters… they’re highly open to new ideas. And it just clicked all of a sudden.”

Here was a way for the party to identify potential new voters. The only problem was that the Lib Dems weren’t interested.

“I did this presentation at which I told them they would lose half their 57 seats, and they were like: ‘Why are you so pessimistic?’ They actually lost all but eight of their seats, FYI.”

To be fair, it was obvious to everyone that we were likely to take a massive hit in 2015. Few predicted the extent of our demise and you wouldn’t have needed this kind of tool to suggest that our campaign strategy was, shall we say, sub-optimal. 

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Caron Lindsay

How I broke LDHQ’s chatbot

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 18th March 2018 - 8:55 am

A few days ago, I got a bright email from our party’s new Head of Membership and Member Engagement, Greg Foster.

You may well have had it too if you are a party member.

Its purpose is to advertise a new survey tool that the party is trialling.

It is basically a chatbot asking you questions in Messenger.

I had to have a go.

It felt very weird to be interacting with a bot, but I soon found myself typing away in relaxed and conversational tone with it as it asked me about my history in the party, what prompted me to join and what …

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NewsHound

Swinson: EU nationals won’t be convinced by Labour

By NewsHound | Sat 17th March 2018 - 6:45 pm

Buzzfeed has done an analysis of our prospects in this May’s elections. They talked to former LDV co-editor Mark Pack and the party’s Deputy Leader Jo Swinson.

The Party is going after EU Nationals’ votes and has invested in a series of social media adverts targeted at various nationalities.

Swinson said EU nationals would not be convinced by Labour’s stance. “They are pretty furious at the current government and also not too impressed with Labour’s position because Labour are really letting the government off the hook when it comes to Brexit,” she said.

“In terms of the front benches and the direction

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