Category Archives: Op-eds

Paul Reynolds

Opinion: It’s not about left or right

By Paul Reynolds | Sun 10th May 2015 - 5:10 pm

About an hour after Nick Clegg resigned I received a long letter by email on behalf of SLF essentially blaming the ‘Orangebookers’ for the poor Lib Dem results.

I would like to suggest that all sections of the party consider the possibility that it was not an issue of left or right. Maybe neither the left or right of the party were to blame, but that, with benefit of hindsight, there were other factors. My top 5. Other views ?

1. Obviously being in Coalition was difficult especially with our more anti-Tory supporters and Labour-facing seats…Tory ‘bedroom tax’ and ‘work-ready’ interviews for the disabled are among the most tricky on the doorstep. LD left & right had failed to counter the obvious opprobrium arising from these & other Tory policies – both in policy adjustment/veto AND in campaigning.

2. The ‘in between the two’ strategy was too negative …”vote for us because we will stop others doing stuff”, rather than what WE wanted to do post-May 2015. This was a hard sell to make pithy. ‘Stopping extremes’ was weak, since most did not see Tory or Labour as extreme.

3. We countered ‘stop Labour/SNP’ with ‘stop Tory/UKIP’ in Tory-facing seats. No-one believed however that UKIP could be coalition partners with one or two seats, on the doorstep. This strategy was a dud and left us vulnerable, and without a more credible response.

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Adam Warner

Opinion: GE2015, where did it all go wrong?

By Adam Warner | Sun 10th May 2015 - 3:30 pm

The 2015 election is certainly not one to remember for the Liberal Democrats. Losing many great MP’s like David Laws and Vince Cable will certainly take a long time to recover from, but what exactly went wrong and why did we do much worse than forecast.

Triumph of fear over hope.

There is no doubt that the Conservative tactics of pitting England against Scotland worked for them. The idea of a Labour-SNP coalition was too much for many centre ground floating voters who voted tactically for them. Instead of defending their record and talking about the real issues the Conservatives instead spent the campaign promoting English nationalism and spreading fear. This tactic did for many of our MPs in Tory-LD marginal in the southern regions of England. Whilst it has worked in the short term it will cause problems for David Cameron over the course of the next parliament as he governs a hugely divided country with little support north of the border.

SNP Success

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Let’s spark some new liberal ideas with a writing competition

By Chris Read | Sun 10th May 2015 - 1:59 pm

Like many Liberal Democrats I’ve been doing a lot of thinking today, and I’ve come up with an idea I’d like to share  – It’s something a bit different  but given the situation some ‘different thinking’ is going to be required.  So I’m sharing my idea here to see if people think it’s a go-er and maybe one or two other places, while the idea is still fresh in my mind.   Then I may write to the Party Presidents office with the idea.

I’d better start by saying that I am a wannabe writer in my spare time and have written short story and have one completed novel and a few new ones on the go!

So here is the idea – A writing competition for members and supporters. My initial idea was for a short story competition, but to open up the idea to members who are not so sure about writing fiction, I would suggest a parallel competition for non-fiction pieces.

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Julian Gregory

Opinion: We need a positive and distinct liberal identity. And then we must burn it into the consciousness of the electorate.

By Julian Gregory | Sun 10th May 2015 - 12:03 pm

Voters have rewarded parties with strong, positive messages and punished those with more equivocal positions.

The two clear winners of the election were the Tories and UKIP, which more than quadrupled its share of the national vote compared to 2010.

Most voters pay very little attention to politics, but even they knew what these two parties stood for.  Vote Tory for an economic plan that is working and to avoid instability under Labour and the SNP.  Vote UKIP to cut immigration and reclaim our national sovereignty.

Labour and the Lib Dems, the two main losers, both had messages that were in some sense equivocal.

Labour spent five years vacillating between the Blairite centre ground and being the party of the Left that Ed Miliband clearly wanted it to be.  And in the pressure of an election campaign, it settled for being an ‘austerity lite’ option, reluctant to confirm that it would spend more than the Tories.

The Lib Dems deliberately chose an equivocal message. We said that we wouldn’t focus only on the economy or on addressing inequality, but rather would do a bit of both.  And we defined ourselves by reference to the two main parties and largely negatively; we aren’t cruel like the Tories, and we won’t trash the economy like Labour.

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Nick T

Lib Dem/Tory waverers wanted continuity, but they voted Conservative to achieve it

By Nick T | Sat 9th May 2015 - 6:59 pm

It was always going to be true that the 30 or so seats where the fight was between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives would end up delivering one of the most important stories of election night 2015. Liberal Democrats hoped, of course, that this would be for the reason that they were the hallmark of the party’s resilience. But they were newsworthy in the end because they were symbols of the Lib Dem defeat, and the vehicles of delivery of a Conservative victory.

That the tens of thousands of voters in those seats who wavered between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives were the most important of this campaign had been known to both governing parties, of course, for months if not years. They were ruthlessly targeted from every angle: leaflets, phone-calls and visit after visit by senior politicians.

And in the end they made their decision, and they made it in David Cameron’s favour. The prime minister’s message, that only a Conservative vote could guarantee continuity and avoid the risk of a Miliband-Sturgeon government, ultimately prevailed.

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George Potter

Opinion: Time for constitutional reform..but not the way you think

By George Potter | Sat 9th May 2015 - 5:28 pm

It’s time for constitutional reform – of the Liberal Democrats. We need to redesign our party structures to make them fit for the challenges we face.

While there has to be a big debate on what needs change and what the best options are, here’s a rundown of options worth considering:

1. Either abolish membership fees or create an associate membership which costs nothing and has some of the privilege of full members. Why should you have to pay to join our movement instead of donating when you wish and are able to?

2. Reduce barriers to participation within the party. This means introducing one member, one vote everywhere in the party and should involve eliminating, or heavily reducing, the period of membership required to be able to vote in internal elections. In the Canadian Liberal’s leadership election the winning campaign signed up over 100,000 new members alone with the incentive of being able to vote for the party leader – why can’t we do something similar?

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Malcolm Bruce

Sir Malcolm Bruce writes.. We need to be a united campaigning force doing what we do best

By Malcolm Bruce | Sat 9th May 2015 - 4:31 pm

February 15th 2003 - Iraq war demo in LondonI sent this to the party’s Chief Executive Tim Gordon and thought that Liberal Democrat Voice readers would be interested in it.

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Phil Reilly

Opinion: The next 5 years will bring a much greater appreciation of what we did in coalition

By Phil Reilly | Sat 9th May 2015 - 3:30 pm

For the last seven years, I have had the privilege of working for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

So I’m sure you can understand that the last 48 hours have been pretty tough. Whatever you think of the party, our politics or the decisions we took, there are currently thousands of individuals who have given blood, sweat and tears in the name of our cause who have been bluntly and brutally rejected at the ballot box.

It is a tragedy for the party and for the political cause we believe in: the belief that Britain is at its best when it is open-minded, open-hearted, tolerant and generous.

My job until Friday morning was to be Nick’s speechwriter. It’s the best job I have ever had and will probably ever have. I cannot begin to express my admiration for a man who did the right thing, took a vicious public lashing for it every day and took it all with good grace, good humour and the conviction to keep going because we had a vital job to do.

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Hamish Mackenzie

Opinion: Where now?

By Hamish Mackenzie | Sat 9th May 2015 - 2:15 pm

Over the last two years I have worked as a campaign organiser with Lib Dem MPs in the Highlands and Islands. However, after last night’s terrible results that is now over for me. I can’t pretend that I am not bitterly disappointed, not merely for myself but because we have lost some of the finest politicians of this generation from the Commons, at a time when experienced level headed liberals are needed most. Many excellent Constituency Organisers, who I have worked with, have now lost their jobs and many wonderful volunteers have given up their time and effort and feel like it has come to nothing in so many places. All of this is through no fault of their own and in spite of running brilliant ground campaigns as Lib Dems so often do. But, hey, that’s democracy.

As Lib Dems we are hurting; every member, activist and supporter should feel hard done by because we went into coalition because it was in the national interest and we’re being punished for it. Our opponents and the media have now written us off as a sideshow or an irrelevance, but I truly believe that we can come back, that we can once again act as a constructive alternative to the “red to blue to red to blue” politics that we’ve all campaigned against for so long.

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Sean Davey

Opinion: Where now for liberalism?

By Sean Davey | Sat 9th May 2015 - 10:43 am

Over the next few days, weeks and months there are a few grim but necessary processes which the Liberal Democrats (not to mention Labour and UKIP also) will have to go through: electing a new leader, debating the purpose and ideology that guides the party, and ultimately regrouping to lick our collective wounds.

Perhaps more important than the theatrics of these things unfolding, is the question well what’s next? The decimation of the party as a parliamentary force – following on from the sustained loss of local government Liberal Democrats over the past five years – has disrupted the status quo, and now more than ever a new generation will need to rise up to carry the torch of Liberalism.

Unlike Labour and the Conservatives with their safe seats even when relegated to the opposition benches this does not simply mean a new leader, a new direction and “rising stars”. For the Liberal Democrats we really are back to building ourselves up as a party of local and national government.

In re-building the party we have a stark choice: change versus more of the same. I suspect  this phrase will be banded about plenty in the ideological and strategic battles for the party’s soul and direction, but change must come in the ‘who’ as much as the ‘what’ and ‘why’.

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Rob Blackie

Opinion: Five quick thoughts on what we do next

By Rob Blackie | Fri 8th May 2015 - 6:58 pm

Firstly we all need to take a few days off. Losing so many of our MPs is incredibly painful – when we know how they were champions of liberalism, as well as great local representatives. It’s easy for us to post-rationalise our problems to fit our existing prejudices, but smarter to take a short break.

Secondly we shouldn’t assume that everything winners do is good, and everything losers do is stupid. There are doubtless many things we did wrong, but not everything we did was wrong. Equally while we may have been hit hard by the other parties, we shouldn’t assume that aping them is the right solution.

Thirdly we should recognise that our problems fighting Labour, the Tories and the SNP may be very different. It is unlikely that there is one message or campaign technique that will allow us to be successful against all of these opponents.

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RIchard Clifton

Opinion: where do we go from here?

By RIchard Clifton | Fri 8th May 2015 - 5:38 pm

I was a member of the Labour Party, but in the nineteen eighties joined the Social Democratic Party when it split away. In 1983 the Labour Party was committed to leaving the European Union. I saw the SDP as having the pro-European, internationalist outlook that the Labour Party had abandoned.

By 1997 I had arrived in the new Liberal Democrat Party after the SDP merged with the Liberals. The Conservative MP for the constituency I was then in, Carshalton and Wallington, produced an interesting leaflet arguing that the Lib Dems were well to the left of “new” Labour. He aimed to deter people from voting for such radicalism, but it strengthened my support for the Lib Dems. When we were the only party opposing the Iraq war, I felt the party was positioned in the right place on the political spectrum, a party espousing liberal, radical and reformist policies, concerned about the environment, the welfare state and the socially excluded, while opposed to militarism. I want us to get back there.

Since 2010 it has been events that have re-positioned the party rather than decisions to re-position ourselves. Given the election outcome in 2010 and the sense of national crisis – a hung Parliament, a failing economy – there was no responsible option but to enter coalition. Undoubtedly we did not say clearly enough that this was an alliance of people with quite different philosophies and outlooks, forged in the national interest, and that coalition means that some things not in your manifesto and not what you would have really wanted would be done.

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Paul Walter

Cameron needs to stop the BS, remember his studies and behave like a statesman/person

By Paul Walter | Thu 7th May 2015 - 10:00 pm

It’s ten o’clock and the polls have just closed all over the country. From St Agnes island hall in the south to North Unst Public Hall in the north, the presiding officers have just locked the doors and are preparing the ballot boxes for transportation to the local counting centre. I can now say what I like!

There has been much dangerous talk in the election campaign. David Cameron has implied that a government with the tacit support of Scottish MPs would somehow be illegitimate. He has accused Ed Miliband of preparing a “con trick” to enter Downing Street with the support of the SNP. Even Nick Clegg has joined in by referring to a “coalition of the losers” – being a possible bloc of MPs led by the leader of the second largest party.

All this sort of talk must now stop.

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Roisin Miller

A strong record in government…why I’m voting Lib Dem

By Roisin Miller | Thu 7th May 2015 - 11:13 am

Throughout polling day, LDV will be running short pieces by readers giving their personal reasons for supporting the Liberal Democrats when they go to the polling station today.

This year, I had to think very hard about this. Despite being a member and campaigning to re-elect Ed Davey, I wasn’t convinced. In a safe seat and subsequently we hear little from any party – my decision therefore had to be made on national lines. None of the parties are trying that hard to bribe single, childless, Twentysomething women so there wasn’t much there to deliberate.

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Kishwer Falkner

Baroness Kishwer Falkner writes… A Lib Dem red line over an EU referendum: Yes or No? The choice is appealingly straightforward isn’t it?

By Kishwer Falkner | Thu 7th May 2015 - 9:58 am

So posits Andrew Duff in his letter to the Guardian warning that ‘If we Lib Dems accept this referendum as part of a new coalition pact, we will bring ruination on ourselves’. Well that’s clear then, isn’t it?

There are two reasons of principle why we should not be seduced by this simple hypothesis, and a third to do with pragmatism.

First, there is the argument that complex issues cannot be dealt with through referendums, and the proposed in/out referendum is somehow alien to our own thinking or political philosophy. The Lib Dems have never subscribed to this Burkean view of the relationship between the electors and the elected. In this period of Government alone we have departed from it three times by holding a referendum on the Alternative Voting system, legislating in the European Union Act 2011 for a referendum should there be a fresh transfer of powers to the EU, and in granting a referendum for a yes/no vote in Scotland. Given that the last issue had the potential to breakup the Union and was the subject of much deliberation, an anti-referendum stance is not one of principle.

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Caron Lindsay

The best UK government of my lifetime

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th May 2015 - 7:55 pm

I kicked off the campaign with this post and I thought I’d re-run it the night before we head to the polls. I wrote a book chapter about the coalition in the shadow of a rollercoaster. That’s how the last five years have felt. There have been moments when I’ve winced and moments when I have been immensely proud of our ministers. All in all, though, Britain is in a much better place than it would have been without us. All that horrible stuff you see in the Tory manifesto about banning non-specified non violent extremism, all the stuff about taking all benefits from young people, all the illiberal, immigrant-bashing, poor-demonising, rich-enriching nonsense wouldn’t in their manifesto. They would already be law. I hope that the government elected tomorrow is a force for economic fairness and stability, transformational political change and has an open and internationalist approach. If there are Liberal Democrats in it, it will tick all of these boxes. Anyway, here are my thoughts from five weeks ago. 

This post will be open to new and infrequent commenters. 

I’m not going to lie, when we went into coalition with the Tories, I did not feel comfortable with it. Working with the party who had destroyed the country I grew up during the 80s  in was never going to be easy. It’s not about comfort or ease, though. It’s about doing good and enacting liberal values. We’ve made mistakes – howlers, even. Who hasn’t? Can you say that you’ve got through the last five years error free? We have much to show for it. For every child who hasn’t had to spend months in Yarl’s Wood, for every disadvantaged child who has new opportunities at school, for those who benefit from reforms to mental health, for those who have workplace pensions, for pensioners benefitting from the triple lock, for those people across the world who benefit from our aid. for those who are now free to marry the people they love, it’s been worth it. Despite all the constraints on us having only 8% of the MPs and a fifth of the government, we have made a very strong, liberal mark.

Despite everything, this coalition has been the best UK government of my lifetime. That’s quite a long time, however much I like to pretend that I’m a young person. Certainly the likes of Blair, Thatcher and Callaghan didn’t set the bar very high, but we’ve achieved a lot. It’s been a roller coaster and I’m far from satisfied with everything it’s done, but I am incredibly proud of Lib Dem ministers, among them:

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Anthony Tuffin

The Independent View: Benefit the nation and the voters

By Anthony Tuffin | Wed 6th May 2015 - 10:40 am

If the Liberal Democrats get about half UKIP’s votes (8% against 14%) but about 10 times as many MPs 20 – 30 against 2 – 3), will the Liberal Democrats stand by their principals and demand electoral reform?  In particular, will they insist on the Single Transferable Vote (STV), which they have always recognized as the best voting system for voters?

The Liberal Democrats have had five years now to learn the hard way what some of us warned in 2010, based on our observations of continental Europe where coalitions are normal; the senior partner takes the credit for popular decisions and blames the junior partner for unpopular ones.

If the Liberal Democrats had got STV for this election as a condition of entering into coalition in 2010, they could now be looking at winning about 52 seats for about 8% of the vote.  Admittedly, UKIP might be expecting about 91 seats but, if that is what voters want, so be it.

The real point of electoral reform is not to benefit this or that party but to benefit the nation and the voters.

With electoral reform for this election, the SNP could expect about half the Scottish seats (30) for about half the Scottish votes instead of all the seats (59) for half the votes and not be in pole position now to hold the UK to ransom.  Please see David Green’s excellent exposition on for more on this.

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Cara Jenkinson

Opinion: Why I would be wary of another coalition with the Conservatives

By Cara Jenkinson | Tue 5th May 2015 - 9:41 am

As the speculation continues on the make-up of the next government, I have been thinking a lot about the prospect of another Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

We went into coalition in 2010 for three main reasons 1) because the country needed a strong, stable government to sort out the economy which was in crisis 2) to stop the Tories from doing nasty, right-wing things, and 3) to get our own great policies, such as pupil premium implemented.

So where are we in 2015? We do not have the same level of economic difficulty as we did in 2010. The deficit is halved, our GDP growth is the highest amongst developed countries and we have record employment. Whilst it’s true that we cannot take the economic recovery for granted, we are not in crisis.

As to being able to stop the Tories’ right wing agenda in 2015, I doubt that we will be able to do that as effectively. It is likely that any Conservative/Lib Dem/DUP coalition will have the smallest of majorities. This will give those ‘swivel-eyed’ right wing conservatives a lot of power. In this parliament, the Coalition had a decent majority and the more extreme Tories could be safely ignored – that won’t be the case this time. And just to get a flavour of some of the policies on offer in the Tory 2015 manifesto – 500 more free schools, removing JSA for 18-21 year olds, requiring 40% turnout for strike action, ending any subsidy for onshore wind,  lowering the benefit cap, capping skilled migration, scrapping the Human Rights Act and introducing the snoopers charter – nice!

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Joe Otten

The real problem with #EdStone is that Miliband cannot be sure he will be able to deliver

By Joe Otten | Mon 4th May 2015 - 1:22 pm

We are all sneering – myself included – at Ed Milliband’s decision to inscribe a monolith with 6 election pledges. Even the Labour-supporting Guardian has likened it to Neil Kinnock’s Sheffield Rally.

Preposterous as this seems, I suspect that the intended message – that they are really serious about these pledges – may nonetheless seep through, while politicians and reporters clutch their aching sides, to the wider public.

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Toby MacDonnell

Opinion: Labour isn’t Keynesian – that’s why Liberal Democrats had to be

By Toby MacDonnell | Mon 4th May 2015 - 12:14 pm

 

When Labour bailed out the financial system, it misapplied Keynesian economics. Keynes writes that stimulus should be used to stimulate a depressed economy that isn’t at full employment: what Labour did was use the stimulus money to stabilise a system that was falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions.

The instant they did that, it committed the UK to paying back the money it had borrowed: it transferred the debt that would have been wiped out by private sector bankruptcy to the state.

While this reduced the loss of value in the economy (public sector debt has prevented private sector bankruptcy to accumulate a negative multiplier effect: the cost of propping up one domino has prevented the others from falling), it means that regardless of who is in charge we need to reduce the deficit to maintain the creditability of the state by which the rest of our economy is guarantored.

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Caron Lindsay

There is no need for Clegg to make an EU Referendum a red line. This does not signify agreement to it

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd May 2015 - 11:50 pm

I have seen some consternation amongst Lib Dems today, both in real life and online, about Nick Clegg’s remarks about an EU referendum not being  a red line for us. Many party members feel very strongly that we should not agree to something which could be very unsettling and destabilising. Having come through three years of the Scottish referendum, I am more in that camp than in the other group of activists who think we should agree to it or we’ll be seen as anti-democratic.

Before we rush to judgment, let’s have a look at what Nick actually said. From the Guardian:

I am happy to insist on my red lines – they are the ones the Liberal Democratshave put on the front page of our manifesto which are much more important than some of the other red lines other parties have chosen.”

He said he disagreed with the Tory position on the EU and said he was still committed to the act of parliament passed by the coalition which would trigger a referendum if further UK sovereignty was ceded to Brussels. But he declined to rule out rejecting Cameron’s demand for a referendum.

“It’s not my responsibility to try and stare into a crystal ball. The way this works is I set out my priorities, David Cameron sets out his, Ed Miliband sets out his. People then choose. How those red lines are or are not compatible with each other is in part dependent on the mandate that the British people give each of those parties.”

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Caron Lindsay

In which I seriously contemplate voting Labour

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd May 2015 - 8:02 pm

You might find this hard to believe. I was a little bit shocked by it myself. You have to understand the situation I am in. I live in a seat which is, to all intents and purposes, a battle between the SNP and Labour. With a poll this week suggesting that the SNP could win every single seat in Scotland, the unthinkable had to be thought. Should I, could I vote Labour tactically  to try to stop that happening? A large group of SNP MPs primarily motivated by narrow nationalist interests is not something that I think would be healthy for our democracy.

I have voted either SDP or Liberal Democrat in every election since I turned 18 bar two. The first was in the 90s when there was no Lib Dem candidate in my council ward. There wasn’t even an independent. My choice was Tory or Labour. There was no way I could ever in a million years vote Tory, so I had to click my heels three times, cross my fingers behind my back and put my cross next to the Labour candidate. The second was the 1997 election when I didn’t vote at all. When I had headed over to Chesterfield on the Friday before polling day, I rather suspected I might get home before 10pm on polling day. It wasn’t to be. I don’t think Mrs Pankhurst would have minded too much, though, because I was working my backside of in one of the most fantastic campaigns I have ever worked on.

The thought of Scotland sending a contingent of 100% of nationalist MPs elected on barely half the vote was something that deeply disturbed me. they would then claim that they spoke for Scotland, dismissing those who didn’t support them. Don’t get me wrong, there are some issues where I have a lot of common ground with them. However, their nationalism and quest for independence aside, they have a strong authoritarian, illiberal streak which goes against all my instincts. If Labour were the only ones likely to be able to beat them, shouldn’t I hold my nose and just vote Labour?

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Caron Lindsay

Caron’s Sunday Selection: Must-read articles from the Sunday papers

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd May 2015 - 8:24 am

sundaypapsOn the last Sunday before the election, here’s a quick selection of the must-reads from the Sunday papers. Five years ago on this Sunday, we woke up to favourable comments in the Observer and Scotland on Sunday. Would anyone recommend voting for us today or would the papers revert tot type?

The Observer, presumably for its own reasons, has a very unbalanced look at coalition options after the election for the Liberal Democrats. The article barely even looks at a deal with Labour and has a number of sitting MPs, including David Ward, saying that the coalition with the Tories might continue. They might have done well to look at my article on the party’s processes so that they didn’t assume that it was all in the MPs’ gift. Oh, and a member of the LDV team gets quoted.

In news that will surprise nobody, the Observer backs Labour. Unlike its sister paper, though, which advised tactical voting for the Lib Dems in places like the South West, the leader ostentatiously ignores us.

Funnily enough, the Sunday Times (£) talks up Liberal Democrats slating the Tories to try to persuade Tory voters not to vote tactically.

Clegg has said he will deal first with the largest party, but in a sign that a repeat of the coalition may be difficult the Lib Dem Tim Farron last night warned that his party should be prepared to “walk away” if it does not get what it wants, branding Conservative instincts as “wicked”.

He said a Tory government without the Lib Dems would be “a horror story”, creating an “uncivilised” country “that we should be ashamed of”.

Farron said his party would inject “compassion and basic humanity and civilisation into an otherwise wicked Tory administration

In news which will surprise nobody, the paper backs the Tories but urges Tory voters in Lib Dem Labour marginals to vote tactically for the Liberal Democrat.

But Peter Kellner finds room to hope for Liberal Democrats, finding strong recovery in key seats.

We find that Conservative support is holding up better in the party’s key marginal seats than in the rest of the country, and also that the Liberal Democrats are recovering strongly, albeit from a low base, in the seats they are defending.

The upshot is that I have increased the number of seats that I expect the Lib Dems to hold, and reduced the number of seats that Labour is likely to gain from the Conservatives.

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Caron Lindsay

Apparently, our future depends on Nick Clegg’s eyebrows…

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 2nd May 2015 - 12:15 pm

 

An article on the Huffngton Post looks at Nick Clegg’s communications skills. It’s all about the eyebrows, apparently:

Nick Clegg faces a virtual mission impossible in this general election campaign – but if anything can save him and his party from electoral oblivion, it’s his eyebrows.

That’s right. His eyebrows. They’re the key to understanding why, despite being a figure of derision, the deputy prime minister’s communication skills remain some of the most polished out there.

Clegg uses his eyebrows better than any of the other party leaders when he wants to use emphasis to make a point. Raising the eyebrows is a very primitive gesture indicating interest in a particular fact or statement. And Clegg always has a slightly raised eyebrow look which opens his face up.

Compare him to David Cameron, whose face is so tense he can barely muster a convincing smile. The prime minister always seems quite severe, whereas Clegg is more open facially and appears more likable as a result.

They look at other aspects of his communication skills:

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David Warren

Opinion: A golden handshake

By David Warren | Sat 2nd May 2015 - 10:45 am

Jonny Smith, the principal character in Stephen King’s ‘The Dead Zone’, awakes from a coma with the power to see into a person’s future by touching them.

It starts in hospital where he forsees a nurse’s house is on fire with her child in it.

His premonition is correct and the child is saved.

He becomes a national celebrity and is able to help the police solve a serious crime in a rural backwater.

However when he turns his attention to politicians, the fun really starts.

The novel was written in the 1970’s, the era of Nixon, Ford and Carter.

Smith encounters candidate Carter on the campaign trail, shakes his hand and sees that the peanut farmer will become President but encounters no feelings of malevolence.

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Holly Matthies

Opinion: To be free from poverty, ignorance and conformity, our society must have robust support for disabled people

By Holly Matthies | Fri 1st May 2015 - 7:20 pm

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day 2015. It’s the tenth annual day for disabled and non-disabled people to blog about their experiences, observations and thoughts about disability discrimination (known as disablism or ableism). It aims to raise awareness of inequality, promote equality and celebrate the progress we’ve made.

An online acquaintance of mine said he was going to write for #BADD2015 in terms of the political parties’ manifestos. Good Lib Dem that I am, I looked forward to hearing some positive stuff about my party. I know there’s lots to talk about.

The Lib Dems have budgeted the £8 billion a year the NHS will need during the next parliament, which is bound to be relevant to the lives of people with disabilities and other long-term conditions, as many of us do seem to see doctors, nurses and specialists often enough to be on a first-name basis with many of them!

The Lib Dems’ unique dedication to improving mental health care is also relevant to many disabled people, both those whose disability is primarily or entirely a matter of mental illness, and those who experience poor mental health as a result of other disabilities. Mental illnesses are some of the most common, and most “invisible,” disabilities in the UK, and at the moment the mental health care many people receive (or fail to) not only doesn’t help them but can actually make their mental health worse.

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Denis Mollison

Opinion: Opportunities for electoral reform in a hung parliament

By Denis Mollison | Fri 1st May 2015 - 4:10 pm

As Simon Kelner says in today’s i newspaper, electoral reform has “played absolutely zero part in this election campaign”, though it “goes to the very essence of our democracy”.

In what has been described as a lottery election, we need to be prepared for any of the diverse opportunities for electoral reform that may open up.  One thing that does seem almost certain is that the result itself will provide strong evidence of the need for change, with hugely varying seat/vote ratios.  Current polls suggest the following: Conservatives and Labour each with only a third of the votes but over 40% of seats; Liberal Democrats with 4% of seats from 8% of the votes while the SNP have the reverse; and UKIP and the Greens with a combined vote of 15-20%, yet less than 1% of seats between them.

What type of negotiations might there be?  A key distinction is between any possible long term agreement – that is, for the duration of the parliament – such as a formal coalition, and a short term agreement that allows a minority government to take office, winning the vote on a Queen’s Speech and any ensuing vote of confidence.

For any formal agreement, STV for local government in England and Wales should be a Liberal Democrat red line.  With the Conservatives, we could agree on further devolved powers for Scotland and Wales, but their other constitutional manifesto aims, “English Votes for English Laws” and “reduce and equalise constituencies”, are much more problematic because we have very different ideas on both issues.  A formal agreement on constitutional reform with Labour should be easier: their constitutional manifesto aims are all ones we can agree with: more devolved powers, a constitutional convention, replacing the House of Lords with an elected senate, and votes for 16 and 17-year olds.

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Joe Otten

My challenge to Ed Miliband – your core message may be a fabrication

By Joe Otten | Fri 1st May 2015 - 11:15 am

Ed,

Yesterday on Question Time, you said, as you have said many times during this campaign:

There are some people who tell you that the way we succeed as a country is as long as a few people at the top do well and large corporations, that’s what powers the economy…

Here’s a good question, which you’ll be glad I asked you: Who are these people who tell us this? Have we heard of any of them? Are they standing for election? Can you give us a direct quote or two?

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Tony Greaves

Lord Tony Greaves writes…Why a new coalition would be a bad idea

By Tony Greaves | Thu 30th April 2015 - 4:42 pm

In my first piece about what happens after May 7th I worked on the basis that the result would be around Con 275, Lab 275, LD 35, SNP 40, UKIP 5, Green 2, Speaker 1, all the Northern Irish 17 (of which the present numbers are DUP 8, SF 5, SDLP 3, All 1). Since then the numbers predicted by the polls have wobbled a bit around these numbers but the only consistent change has been to push up the SNP to perhaps 50 seats. And given the lack of a “late swing” of any size the LD number may be a bit high.

Given the provisions of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act it all still adds up to the likelihood – or the opportunity? – of a minority government (or democratic parliament?) that lasts several years, perhaps for the full five. Yet our official line is still that we want to join another Coalition. Officially we will negotiate with Tories or Labour, starting with the party with most seats (though in practice we will be talking to both simultaneously if that is what the numbers decree). Unofficially our leadership are reported to prefer another coalition with the Tories.

It’s no secret that this idea causes a severe onset of jitters in many parts of the party. With a week to go, the Times’ lead story reports “Lib Dems to revolt over fresh pact with Tories” (£). The story is pretty anecdotal, full of unattributed comments by “senior figures in the party” and the like (only Andrew George breaking cover), in general a typically flimsy piece of tabloid style journalism of the kind we see nowadays in the Times.

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Ruth Bright

Opinion: Politics? It’s child’s play

By Ruth Bright | Thu 30th April 2015 - 12:23 pm

Toys debate politicsPity, poor Tristram Hunt. On the campaign trail the other day he made the classic mistake of asking a young child how he was going to vote.

Child: “UKIP”

Hunt: “Oh why is that then?

Child: “Because they’ll get all the foreigners out of the country”

To adapt the old adage: Never do politics with children and animals!

For a candidate kids are a minefield but as a parent I’ve been struck by how interested my kids (one pre- teen and one mid primary) have been in this their “first” General Election. They even staged their own election debate with toys which of course I enjoyed as much as they did!

There isn’t much help for parents attempting to introduce their kids to politics and political history.

Even really young American children have reading books about the Founding Fathers, Lincoln and the Roosevelts. Imagine the laughing stock a British parent would be if she went into a bookshop and asked for: “Gladstone and Disraeli for toddlers” or “Learn to read with the Tolpuddle Martyrs”

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