Category Archives: Podcasts

Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Lobby vox pops

By Alex Foster | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 6:35 pm

A number of those present at the conference are not here because they are party members, but because they want to influence those of us who are. When I was wandering around the conference hall finding people to talk to, two of them met that category.

The podcast below hears from Brian Berry, from the Federation of Master Builders; and Guy Aitchison, representing Power 2010.

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Voxpops (including @katygordon)

By Alex Foster | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 4:30 pm

We asked delegates if their constituency was ready for the General election; if Nick Clegg was right on tuition fees; how a mansion tax would go down in their area; and how they were campaigning online.

Answering our questions were Tom Holvey and Chris Wiggin, from York, Katy Gordon for Glasgow North, Alan Bullion from Tunbridge Wells / Sevenoaks and Brendan D’Cruz from St Albans.

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: The BOTY recording

By Alex Foster | Mon 21st September 2009 - 7:45 pm

Whilst the LDV team is out tonight enjoying, in our various abstemious ways, the Liberal Drinks event at Bournemouth’s Goat and Tricycle tonight, we thought we’d bring you the tape of last night’s BOTY ceremony.

Sadly the audio version can not to justice to the range of visual feasts the evening provided. Stephen’s milliner will be most disappointed; the ice sculptors know their art is fleeting; and we have really only just rounded up all the flamingoes.

jgraham

But it was a striking evening for a number of reasons, as we hope the …

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Vince’s speech

By Alex Foster | Mon 21st September 2009 - 6:00 pm

There are now many ways of getting your brain around Vince Cable’s keynote speech. Read it on the party website. Hear our podcast below. See what ePolitix thinks – or the Guardian, for that matter.

vince-speech

There was much that was really important that jumped out at me from the speech – here are my favourite bits:

We should not be taken in by the hysterical nonsense about the country being bankrupt. It isn’t.

The Tories are currently getting a free rein to slash budgets. Tories like …

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast – Clegg Q&A

By Alex Foster | Sun 20th September 2009 - 5:45 pm

Just over an hour ago, our fearless leader Nick Clegg left the stage to tumultuous applause following a frank Q&A with delegates.

Below is the audio recording made by our intrepid reporter by sitting in the audience with a MP3 recorder. And with access to a loaned MacBook, I’ve been able to process the sound much more quickly.

If you hear whispering and shuffling in the recording it’s because a group of media delegates were chattering to each other all through the recording. How nice, then, that one of them subsequently pronounced positively on Clegg’s performance. (At least, I think …

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Campaigning after Rennard

By Alex Foster | Sun 20th September 2009 - 4:15 pm


After a day of Linux updates on an incredibly elderly IBM Thinkpad, we can now finally bring you the audio recording of last night’s highly successful fringe meeting with Mark Pack, James Graham, Neil Fawcett and Lynne Featherstone MP.

And most unusually for fringe meetings in general, and definitely a first for an LDV fringe – our meeting got written up in the Guardian’s Comment is Free.

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Alex Foster

Previous blogs of the year

By Alex Foster | Tue 1st September 2009 - 5:30 pm

Earlier this afternoon, Jonathan Calder unearthed video footage from the first blog awards in 2006, which reminds me that I should plug the still-available recordings of our awards ceremonies in 2008.

Tucked away in our “Podcasts” category are audio recordings of the full round of speeches for 2008 Blog of the Year in which Alix Mortimer was crowned.

And still free-to-hear from this site is the taping of the apparently-one-and-only CGB Blogger Awards from March 2008.

There’s still three days remaining to nominate people for this year’s round of Blog of the Year Awards so feel free to nominate …

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Helen Duffett

Podcast: The foundation of the Liberal Party

By Helen Duffett | Sat 22nd August 2009 - 1:25 pm

150th anniversary

One hundred and fifty years ago, on the 6 June 1859, at Willis Rooms in St James, Westminster, Radical, Peelite and Whig Members of Parliament met to formalise their Parliamentary coalition to oust the Conservative government and finally brought about the formation of the Liberal Party.

To commemorate the compact made at Willis Rooms in 1859 and the consequent founding of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democrat History Group and the National Liberal Club organised a joint event at the Club on 20 July 2009. The evening was …

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Alex Foster

Interview with Durham campaigners

By Alex Foster | Thu 20th August 2009 - 12:27 pm

Last week I was up in Durham on a singing week in the Norman cathedral there. While I was there, I took the opportunity to meet with a group of local Lib Dem campaigners for the latest in our LDV interviews.

In Durham, they’re smarting from local government re-organisation; still proud of what Lib Dems achieved whilst running Durham city council; champing at the bit to build more social housing; and adamant the Lib Dems should not resile from their commitment to abolish tuition fees.

Hear all that and more by clicking play below (or here if you are reading …

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Alex Foster

Interview with Stephen Williams MP

By Alex Foster | Thu 30th July 2009 - 11:00 am

A few weeks ago LDV had a mini-break in Bristol to go and see the Banksy exhibition.

While we were in town we met up with Bristol West MP Stephen Williams and Cllrs Jon Rogers, Anthony Negus and Mark Wright as they held a street stall to gather signatures against the expansion of the local airport.

We taped a couple of interviews – the first was with Stephen Williams, sitting over enormous slices of cake in the Lovely Tart café on the Gloucester Road.

Look out for the councillor interview here on the Voice at the same time tomorrow.

You can listen to …

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Alex Foster

Local Solutions 2009 – Julia Goldsworthy and Paul Scriven

By Alex Foster | Thu 25th June 2009 - 11:30 am

This is the fourth and final instalment of podcasts recorded at the Sheffield Local Solutions 2009 conference organised by ALDC. You can hear the earlier instalments here: Clegg and Scott; Scriven on Sheffield; Carbon Reduction Commitment.

In the final session of the day, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Julia Goldsworthy MP joined Cllr Paul Scriven, the leader of Sheffield Council, to reflect on the day and discuss current state of play for local government.

Both talk about the Sustainable Communities Act, its potential and their disappointment in Labour’s implementation of it so far; of …

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Alex Foster

Local Solutions 2009 – Carbon Reduction Commitment for councils

By Alex Foster | Wed 24th June 2009 - 11:00 am

The third of our instalments from ALDC’s local government conference Local Solutions takes the Government’s energy policy for local authorities as its topic.

You can still hear the first two instalments: Nick Clegg and Ros Scott, and Paul Scriven on Sheffield.

Today’s instalment is an excellent presentation from Mo Baines, from the Association for Public Service Excellence, talking about how councils will shortly be required to monitor closely just how much energy they are using and reduce it year on year.

Sheffield Local Solutions 2009

You can …

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Alex Foster

Local Solutions 2009 – Paul Scriven on the Sheffield story

By Alex Foster | Tue 23rd June 2009 - 11:00 am

This the second in our series of podcasts of recordings made at ALDC’s Local Solutions 2009 conference on Saturday in Sheffield. You can listen to Nick Clegg and Ros Scott in the first instalment.

For the second hour, the leader of Sheffield city council Cllr Paul Scriven gave delegates a detailed explanation of how the Lib Dems won Sheffield – and most importantly of all, what they did with the power once they had it. It’s an inspiring story of decentralisation and empowerment of the local citizenry and is well worth forwarding around any of your colleagues who …

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Alex Foster

Local Solutions 2009 – Nick Clegg and Ros Scott

By Alex Foster | Mon 22nd June 2009 - 11:00 am

For four mornings this week, LDV will be bringing you audio recordings of the proceedings at ALDC’s Local Solutions conference for Lib Dem councillors. One of the features of this event is to cram in as much as possible – including training sessions clashing with plenary sessions, which means many attendees themselves may not have heard the plenary. First up this morning is Saturday’s early morning session with party leader Nick Clegg MP and party president Baroness Ros Scott.

Sheffield Local Solutions 2009

You can listen to …

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Alex Foster

Local Solutions 2009 – first responses

By Alex Foster | Sun 21st June 2009 - 5:15 pm

Yesterday, I was at ALDC’s local government conference in the very heart of Sheffield, in a very contemporary new hotel right next door to the Town Hall. It was a smashing day with many useful lessons to learn, and just the event to spur Lib Dem campaigners onto greater heights when we return home.

The day included an interesting variety of main speakers, and simultaneous fringe meetings, so as a service both those who were there and couldn’t be in two places at once, and to those who couldn’t make it all, I will be podcasting sound recordings of all the …

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Alex Foster

#ldconf Podcast: our Obama fringe in full

By Alex Foster | Sun 8th March 2009 - 5:48 pm

Now that we are home, and have access to slightly more reliably computers than our trusty laptops using the over-subscribed conference centre network, we can poke around a bit more and find out what was stopping us bringing your the recording of our highly successful fringe meeting last night.

If you were following our twitter feed, you may already have seen a series of short messages giving the outline, but we are now very pleased to bring our the full recording.

As our twitter readers will know, we booked a woefully inadequate room for the fringe: all but alone in our …

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Alex Foster

Howard Dean – speech in full

By Alex Foster | Sat 7th March 2009 - 2:11 pm

We are very pleased to bring you in haste a rather bootleg version of Howard Dean’s speech to Lib Dem conference in full, recorded by sitting in the audience with a tape recorder.

As these things often go, the effect of recording it in this way means sometimes the audience members are easier to pick out of the recording than the principle speaker. And I’m bringing this recording to you so quickly that I have not been able to listen all the way through yet.

Twitter came alive during the speech, with many people picking out key phrases and retweeting them. …

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Alex Foster

Chris Davies podcast

By Alex Foster | Thu 5th March 2009 - 10:20 am

Readers in search of interesting audio material will find two excellent interviews with Chris Davies MEP on Andy Carling’s blog, firstly on the situation in Gaza, and secondly on the forthcoming Euro elections.

Chris has been blogging about his visits to Gaza, and speaks about it in the interview. He sees Gaza City as a potential conference city – so perhaps we can schedule that into the currently empty slot for Lib Dem conference in 2011?

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Alex Foster

Charity at Christmas

By Alex Foster | Tue 23rd December 2008 - 4:23 pm

Are you supporting a charity this Christmas? If you’d like to promote their work, why not phone our Podcast Hotline on 020 7617 7221 and tell us all about it?

Phoning the Hotline is exactly like leaving a message on an answerphone, except your message will be shared with the Lib Dem Voice readership. So think for a few moments about what you want to say, maybe even jot a few notes down, shut yourself in a quiet room with a phone and give the service a call.

The messages will be posted between Christmas and New Year.

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Alex Foster

Podcast: Economy Q&A

By Alex Foster | Tue 16th September 2008 - 10:12 pm

The final in our series of Q&A podcasts, this addresses economic issues, with Our Vince on the panel along with Lord Newby, Jeremy Browne and Prof Paul Ekins.

Yesterday’s environment Q&A was asked whether economic growth was sustainable. Today’s panel received a similar question. Listen on to find out whether Vince Cable and Steve Webb agree or not. The tension is palpable.

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Alex Foster

Podcast: Environment Q&A

By Alex Foster | Mon 15th September 2008 - 9:09 pm

Here is the full hour or so of questions and answers about the environment, that happened in a hall that looked empty after being rammed to the rafters for the “Making it Happen” debate that immediately proceeded it.

It’s a really good debate taking in some controversial topics – including planning law after Kingsnorth, economic growth and sustainability and whether incineration can ever be green.

And the panel have some interesting, and some scary ideas in response.

NB The purpose of recording and podcasting these sessions was to close the loop about contributing to conference in absentia. Last week, Duncan Brack

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Alex Foster

Conf Vox Pop II

By Alex Foster | Mon 15th September 2008 - 8:10 pm

While conference delegates are hopefully amassing in the Goat and Tricycle for Liberal Drinks, I asked searching questions about tax cuts, the presidency, weekend conferences and more, of Paul Buchanan, Louise Bloom, Cathy Priddey and Chris Foote Wood.

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Alix Mortimer

Conference: Cleggbites

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 14th September 2008 - 7:30 pm

A couple of gems from Clegg, both scripted and off the cuff, have made me chortle over the last couple of days.

Yesterday there was this from his rally speech:

The best George Osborne can offer is that Gordon has failed to “save for a rainy day”. Apparently George would “fix the roof while the sun is shining”. What is this? Just William? The Secret Seven?

Then this afternoon Clegg was grilled, unprepared, by party members in a Q&A. My personal highlight (the context was Cameron’s belief in trickle-down economics):

I don’t think people deserve to be trickled on

Full podcast can be downloaded or …

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Alex Foster

Iain Dale interview

By Alex Foster | Sun 14th September 2008 - 12:20 pm

Last night, the hotel bar I was in seemed very unthoughtfully to have an unlimited polypins of quite nice real ale.  Tanglefoot, I think. I have vague memories of doing all sorts of things last night, including signing up to nudist sunbathing and promising to write a standing order for some huge amount to some constituency election campaign.

Fortunately no records exist of most of my exploits.

Unfortunately, one of the things I did whilst drunk was interview Iain Dale. No, not that one. The other one.  The one that doesn’t need the links.

He was a guest at our blog …

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Alex Foster

The unexpurgated blog awards

By Alex Foster | Sun 14th September 2008 - 9:24 am

Last night, one of the team hurried home from the bar to bring you the exciting news of the winners of the 2008 Blog of the Year Awards, or “BOTYs”

The 2008 blog awardsNow, in the cold light of day we can bring you much fuller coverage, with a podcast recording of the entire evening, just as earlier in the year we brought you a recording of the Campaign for Gender Balance Blog Awards.

I hope the ceremony makes sense as an audio recording but if any of the …

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Alex Foster

Vox pop amongst delegates

By Alex Foster | Sat 13th September 2008 - 4:54 pm

Whilst waiting for conference to begin this morning, I asked fellow delegates where they were from, what they hoped to gain from conference and what they thought about tax cuts. Four very different answers followed.

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Alex Foster

Building Liberal Communities 3

By Alex Foster | Tue 17th June 2008 - 9:14 am

Continuing our series of podcasts from the ALDC / LGA Lib Dem Group conference last Saturday (part 1 / part 2) we bring you a recording of the final session of the day.

Cllr Sue Anderson, Birmingham City Council cabinet member for health and adult services talks of her work; and Julia Goldsworthy MP lets us know what she’s currently working on in her role as Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

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Alex Foster

Building Liberal Communities 2

By Alex Foster | Mon 16th June 2008 - 9:45 am

As we heard yesterday, the party held a local government conference in Birmingham over the weekend.

Today’s podcast contains the keynote speakers from the lunchtime session. The star-studded panel included Cllr John Commons, Mayor Dorothy Thornhill, Shadow Environment Secretary Prof Steve Webb MP and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne MP.

As you’d imagine, both Steve Webb and Chris Huhne give entertaining and useful accounts of their work recently.  Webb talks about his campaign for 80% and Huhne gives more details about the battle for 42 days, and tells us what he really thinks about David Davis.

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Alex Foster

Building Liberal Communities

By Alex Foster | Sun 15th June 2008 - 9:40 pm

Lib Dem Voice went to the combined ALDC and LGA conference yesterday – and had a marvellous time. It’s a shame the event seems to have gone largely unremarked on the blogs. Maybe our councillor corps are still licking their nibs whilst deciding what to type.

So you can judge for yourself what a time was had by all, LDV is bringing you three podcasts of the event, recorded from the floor in the large hall where the plenary sessions where held. Because of the day’s diary, with many different events scheduled at the same time as the …

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Alex Foster

Another podcast hotline punter

By Alex Foster | Mon 10th March 2008 - 6:57 pm

We’re very grateful to the caller who phoned on Saturday to inform us about Alan Beith’s impending milestone and celebratory ball.

Apart from that only one other person has phoned the podcast hotline 020 7617 7221 and left us a message.

I know that it’s a pranking LDV staffer, even though it sounds like an elderly confused gentleman – if I had thought it was actually an elderly confused gentleman, I’d have drawn a veil over it.

I’m making it public for one reason – to demonstrate the sound quality that can be achieved if you use a land line phone in …

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