To read this post as it originally appeared on 1st April, 2011, click here.
I am delighted to announce that Lib Dem Voice has secured major investment to develop and expand its in-depth coverage of UK political news.
For many years, Lib Dem Voice has been the only ‘home’ site for a major UK political party to be run totally on a volunteer basis, without any staff, interns or office space. However that is not a sustainable long-run position and in addition there are many new features they would like to add to the site but have not previously been able to resource.
Over the coming months they will be moving over to a staffed basis for the site’s core content and adding features including an early morning news email summary, breaking news alerts through the day, an interactive design your own barchart feature for producing Focus barcharts with just a few mouse clicks and a weekly cookery column syndicated from Nigella Lawson. The first will feature her favourite chocolate cake recipe.
They will also be adding a customisable home page so that users can choose how much prominence should be given on their home page to our different strands of content, such as op-ed pieces, news from the party and local councillor round-ups. Their coverage of local council misdemeanours will be extended to include parish councils.
To improve the debate in the comments they are looking at working with leading players in the biometrics field to use web cameras allowing you to prove your identity and no longer will the site need to require adverts to help fund it.
In order to resource this, they have accepted a substantial cash investment from my company Political Investments Ltd. They will also be moving into shared office space alongside ConservativeHome, helping to both minimise their overhead costs and also benefit from the synergies in covering the work of the government.
Lib Dem Voice takes great pride in its complete editorial independence but in reflection of these changes they are rebranding to LibDemHome.
Rest assured, however, that changes to the editorial line of the site and the comments moderation policy will only be minimal.
I am grateful that Mark Pack and Stephen Tall have have agreed to move to the new home of LibDemHome in Central America and I’m sure we can all see that Belize is the ideal location for keeping a finger on the pulse of British politics
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32 Comments
Like it. And I love chocolate cake. Cant help feeling that my calendar is trying to tell me something though……..
Wonderful – LibDemHome to join ConservativeHome in that well known tax haven called Believe sorry BeliZE.
Truly it is April 1st. Reminds me of Fairo Poll saying that we must change our emblem.
dammit, you had me for a minute there!
Excellent. I always thought Lord Ashcroft would turn out to be a good egg.
Haha! Excellent.
Though, I have no doubt some people might even take this as inevitable… 😉
“The cake is a lie!”
But, but, the cake was real!
Thank you Mr Ashcroft, and may I say that I never believed what that lying Guardian so-called “newspaper” and its leftie broadcast arm the “BBC” kept saying about you not paying any UK tax, bullying the residents of Belize and generally being a pain in the arse. It is now clear you are indeed a fine chap.
Nice, but the best of these things have an air of plausibility:-).
No mention of what becomes of the Divine Miss Duffett, though. Does she become our Tim Montgomerie?
Helen to be our new Tim Montgomerie? I think not. The face of the bew LibDem Home rolling news internet television station seems more appropriate…
Even changing the URL! That takes determination….
I actually like the new design . . . !!!
@Grammar Police
I agree with you – I like the fresher design too. Wish some of this investment was true (though perhaps not from Lord Ashcroft!)
Maria – guess why the DONATE link in the menu is highlighted in red….
What jolly fun it all is.
First they start with the parlimentary party and now they are taking over LibDem Pravda – why the surprise!
@Colin “Truly it is April 1st. Reminds me of Fairo Poll saying that we must change our emblem.”
Even funnier was the pile of letters that came in the following week complaining that the party was going to be wasting money on it 🙂
(We got some flak too, not for the article for but for running a pic of CK with a drink in his hand to accompany it 😉 )
Extremely well done!
Excellent. (Though another vote here for the cookery column.)
I read this on my phone and completely missed the name of the author – so you had me convinced up to the cake recipe. Disappointing that some of these developments won’t happen.
Now I’ve looked at it on the PC I have to agree with some of the comments above that the masthead and theme actually work well (apart from the ConservativeHome shields logo, of course). It feels quite clean and fresh. Even the title/logo works pretty well.
I like the detailed touches – the subtle change to the text under the search box. Great effort.
I think the birdie at the top left should be in aqua.
The members forum seems to be down but I’ll survive until after lunch
Ha ha!
If there’s a wittier spoof anywhere all day, I’ll eat my framed photo of Lord Ashcroft.
While I agree with Cris this is a fine spoof. However I fear the Shetland Times means he’ll be munching on M’Lordship’s image…
http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2011/04/01/revealed-ambitious-plan-for-six-line-isles-wide-underground-rail-network
Nice one! Although the site is playing havoc with my AV software as it is warning me that it iz a “Phishing Site” containing “malicious” software!
A great spoof story. However isn’t the new layout of the home page actually quite a big improvement, in terms of how it looks?
Its great to see LDV/H moving into the real world , hopefully the rest of the Party will soon follow.
Im sure the Team will love Belize, lots of interesting ruins up in the hills, Temples & Tombs & so on.
The sad thing is, that given how right wing the Liberal Democrats are, this could be true. I thought that the Lib Dems had finally admitted their Toryism.
This is great, I think I broke into a cold sweat when I saw his photograph was on the site.
Great April Fools – real horror movie stuff!
April Fool!!!!!!!
You could have fooled me….
While the layout of Lib Dem Home in contrast appears a contrast I think I’ll stick with the excellent Lib Dem Voice *grin*
Missed this one – S U P E R B ! ! Now Nigella – that would be fun!!