NewsHound

LibLink: James Graham – Digital economy bill exposes broken system #DEbill

By NewsHound | Thu 8th April 2010 - 7:50 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Lib Dem blogger James Graham argues that it was the UK’s broken Parliament – an antiquated Lords, a whipped Commons – which got us into the legislative mess of Labour’s Digital Economy Bill. The only way to fix it, says James, is to vote for a new politics. Here’s an excerpt:

The real lesson from this experience is that we need a more representative and responsive political system. Digital rights will always be one of those Cinderella issues while the voting system focuses politicians’ attention solely on a handful of swing voters in

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 1 Comment
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Mark Pack

Test your knowledge of health policies

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th April 2010 - 6:50 pm

The Kings Fund has a fun little online quiz to test how well you know the health policies of the different parties. Good for a few minutes of relief from campaigning: www.kingsfund.org.uk/generalelection2010

Posted in Online politics | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Ed Randall

Opinion: Osborne and Cameron – proving they are unfit to govern

By Ed Randall | Thu 8th April 2010 - 5:10 pm

George Osborne and David Cameron are given to policy stunts which they should know by now will come back to haunt them. I’ve written about it before  on Lib Dem Voice.

And this time they really have messed up big time. Should they win the election they will undoubtedly live to regret their foolishness on National Insurance and, most especially, the public sector savings they have cavalierly claimed can easily pay for it.

The people who know about these things – not company bosses who are quite understandably interested in reducing their company tax bills – have come out against Osborne and Cameron’s electoral cynicism and imprudence.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Online campaigning: confirmation of email’s importance

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

I previously covered the Brunel study into how much campaigning is going on around the country, coming to the conclusion that it was “mediocre news for democracy, good news for the Lib Dems”.

Looking at more details of the poll (and thanks to the team for providing them), it’s striking by how widespread email campaigning is.

Of the people who said they were contacted by at least one campaign in February 2010, “mail” (probably including leaflets through the letterbox in the absence of a specific option for that) came out top:

92% received at least one item from Lib Dems, 89% from …

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Gareth Aubrey

Y Barcud Oren #14

By Gareth Aubrey | Thu 8th April 2010 - 3:20 pm

Well the lawyers have released me (the academic ones, things haven’t got that bad!) to fill you in on how things are developing in Wales. After all, there’s only an election on…

I Want You To Pull My Trigger

Whatever the result at Westminster, the first item in the new Secretary of State for Wales’s in-tray will be the referendum on extending the powers of the Welsh Assembly. With the final potential roadblock to a referendum removed when David Cameron announced that a Tory government in London wouldn’t block it, all should have been set fair for the …

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Posted in Wales | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
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RichardWilson

The Independent View: The Skeptical Voter

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

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

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

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

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Posted in General Election, Op-eds and The Independent View | Leave a comment

Opinion: how the internet can turn nice people nasty

By Alec Macpherson | Thu 8th April 2010 - 11:50 am

The Internet can be a nasty place at times, either with jabbering monomaniacs of Comment is Free threatening to collapse in on themselves and create a pit of nihilistic despair which will consume the Earth long before the Large Hadron Collider ever does; to minor local disputes or questionable professional decisions which flash around the world quicker, and generating more anger than reports of Frankenstein’s monster lurching towards the village.

Secure behind our computer screens, we can descend into an accentuated form of road-rage safe in the knowledge that we do not even have to worry about our opponents …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 15 Comments
Richard Flowers

The ‘Digital Economy Bill Saints’: the MPs who voted against Labour’s internet freedom clampdown #DEbill

By Richard Flowers | Thu 8th April 2010 - 11:15 am

The House of Commons voted last night to push through Labour’s latest bit of legislative authoritarianism, the Digital Economy Bill. The Lib Dems were united in opposing it, but Labour brooked no opposition, while the Tories supported it with vague words of change, later, maybe. The Bill was passed by 189 votes to 47.

Alix Mortimer has tallied the scores of how the parties voted:

Of the 189 Aye votes, I make it 185 Labour and 4 Conservatives. Plus the two tellers were Labour.

Of the 47 Noe votes, I make it 23 Labour rebels, 16 Lib Dems, 5 Conservatives and 3 others (DUP, PC, Ind). Plus the two tellers were Lib Dem.

In total 240 MPs took part in the vote: 98% of MPs who voted for the Digital Economy Bill were Labour MPs.

The opposition to the Bill comprised 49 MPs (including the two tellers). As a percentage of the major parties’ representation in the House of Commons that means:

  • 29% of all Lib Dem MPs voted against the Bill (100% of those present);
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Posted in News | Tagged | 52 Comments
Mark Pack

Trident: what’s the Lib Dem alternative?

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th April 2010 - 10:50 am

Scrapping the Government’s plans for a “like for like” replacement for Trident is one of the most frequently mentioned examples of savings Vince Cable and the Liberal Democrats would make. But what would the party do instead?

Nick Clegg addressed that in his Radio 4 interview yesterday:

What we’re saying is there are a number of options that you could explore in the future… you could equip the Astute submarine. What we’ve done is, I asked Menzies Campbell to look at the range of options and he’s published a number of options simply to make the point which the other parties won’t

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Clegg reveals Tories’ £13bn VAT bombshell

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

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

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

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Posted in General Election | Tagged , , , and | 21 Comments
Stephen Tall

3 to see: Lib Dem #GE2010 campaign coverage

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

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

Nick Clegg launching Scottish Lib Dem election campaign (BBC)

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

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

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

…

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Posted in General Election | Tagged , , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Sara Bedford

Daily View 2×2: 8 April 2010

By Sara Bedford | Thu 8th April 2010 - 8:47 am

Welcome to this morning’s Daily View. We’ll be changing the format of this a little over the next four weeks, in order to better reflect the way the general and local elections campaigns are progressing, so here are my thoughts  four weeks out from polling day.

2 big political stories

Digital Economy Bill forced through by Labservatives
We’ve all heard the news, but those interested to see exactly how the #debill progressed through the Commons last night, the Guardian live blog makes interesting, if ultimately depressing reading .

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NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall – Where’s George Osborne? I’m curious

By NewsHound | Thu 8th April 2010 - 7:50 am

Over at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall poses the question, Where’s George?, and suggests the Tories have shunted the unpopular shadow chancellor into the sidings. Here’s an excerpt:

As the three major parties launched their respective campaigns yesterday, the omnipresent St Vince appeared to have been welded to Nick Clegg’s side, a perpetual reminder of the Lib Dems’ twin leadership ticket. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown surrounded himself with his entire cabinet, including Darling. … And where was George? Well, according to my spies, he was sighted at Luton airport, accompanied by one reporter.

You can read Stephen’s …

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

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

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

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

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

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

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Mark Pack

General election: what have we learnt today?

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in General Election | Tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

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

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

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

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

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


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

  • Stop Whinging, Big Business (The Futility Monster)

    • Deeply

…

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Posted in Best of the blogs and General Election | 1 Comment
NewsHound

LibLink: Simon Hughes – The Lib Dems can keep the lights on

By NewsHound | Wed 7th April 2010 - 8:35 pm

Over at the New Statesman, Simon Hughes, the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change, mounts a passionate defence of the party’s call for an independent inquiry into nuclear power – a call which led pro-nuclear environmental campaigner Mark Lynas to far-fetchedly claim the lights could go out in the event of a hung parliament.

First, Simon points out the need for an independent inquiry into the “justification” for nuclear power:

“Justification” is the process of assessment of the health effects of nuclear power and is a legal requirement before any new nuclear plant can operate in

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Gordon Brown’s election pledge: I will not make the tax system fairer

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th April 2010 - 7:25 pm

Gordon Brown has today announced one of his election pledges: Labour has no plans to make our tax system fairer. Or has he put it: Labour will hold the basic income tax rate at 20 pence in the pound.

Lib Dems, too, are committed to keeping the basic rate of income tax at 20p. But, unlike Labour, the party would make a priority of lifting the personal tax allowance to £10,000, ensuring millions of low-earners and pensioners will stop paying taxes altogether.

As Danny Alexander emphasised in an article for Left Foot Forward last week, this would cut …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Mark Pack – Five tips to make sense of the polls

By NewsHound | Wed 7th April 2010 - 6:40 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, Lib Dem Voice Co-Editor Mark Pack has some wise words of advice for those who are going to spend the next four weeks poll-watching obsessively: track trends over time, and beware random fluctuations that ‘plunge’, ‘soar’ or ‘collapse’ in a headline. Here’s rule number one:

Rule one: carrying out an opinion poll is like flipping a coin. Flip a coin 10 times. Then do it another 10 times. And again. Chances are the number of heads each time will vary. But that doesn’t mean someone’s swapped the coin for a loaded one in

…

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Stephen Tall

The Vince Factor: economic credibility and the Lib Dems

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th April 2010 - 4:45 pm

Cross-posted from the International Business Times.

It’s a question that’s been playing on the minds of Lib Dems for some time: how can the party translate the popularity of the party’s deputy leader and shadow chancellor Vince Cable into votes for the Liberal Democrats?

Of Vince’s popularity there is no doubt. Two recent opinion polls (one for PoliticsHome.com, the other by Ipsos Mori) showed him well in front of his Labour and Tory rivals for the Treasury post, Alastair Darling and George Osborne.

And it’s not just members of the public. Just this week, a group of non-Lib …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments
Chris White

Opinion: Travels in hyperreality

By Chris White | Wed 7th April 2010 - 3:55 pm

Only a week ago I was at the LGA’s Culture Conference, hearing praise and promises of eternal co-operation from political spokespeople and quangos alike. Yesterday I was attending Nick Clegg’s campaign launch in Watford (I was one of the big Sal Brinton placards at the back). Campaigning is a great leveller and hurrah for that.

But there is more to this transition than a move from day job to unpaid postal worker. What is said at conferences to the conference hosts differs starkly from the reality on the ground. The current government is unlikely to last and so the limited promises …

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Mark Pack

The Liberal Democrat plans for the NHS

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 2:50 pm

A few days ago Liberal Democrat spokesman Norman Lamb  (aka the man who beat Iain Dale by 10,606 votes in 2005) kindly gave up some time to be interviewed about the party’s plans for the NHS.

Having previously pointed out that the party’s “four steps to a fairer Britain” doesn’t include how we will improve public services, I started by asking him how the Liberal Democrats would improve the NHS.

He explained that whilst the four steps are a plan to transform Britain, for the NHS the priority over the next few years would be “making sure it doesn’t get destroyed” …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Well fancy that! A poll finding you won’t have seen reported

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 2:02 pm

I’ve commented before on some of the poll findings that papers pay for but then don’t report (all for reasons of space you understand; never because they don’t meet the desired editorial line; not at all; no way).

Here’s another one, courtesy of The Sunday Times and YouGov:

A group of 23 business leaders have written to the Daily Telegraph newspaper backing the Conservative announcement that they will shelve part of next year’s rise in National Insurance. Do you think that the business leaders are…

Speaking out in the country’s interest 18%
Speaking out in their own interest 50%
Both 22%
Don’t know 11%

Pretty …

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Posted in News and Polls | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Paul Walter

The last PMQs before the election

By Paul Walter | Wed 7th April 2010 - 1:00 pm

Even before it started, one was expecting a 9-9 score-draw – you know the sort of thing, arguments posited which pass each like ships in the night at a distance of one full nautical mile, angrily blasting their fog-horns at each other but not actually coming close enough for any meaningful interchange via Aldis lamp or semaphore.

Also, before it started, a guess as to the first question from Cameron? Could it just be on National insurance perchance?

A friendly Labour MP spiked the guns of Cameron by asking about the “£6 billion gap” first of all. So Brown could fire off …

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Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: Support the Equality Pledge

By Geoffrey Payne | Wed 7th April 2010 - 11:50 am

For many years the researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have been investigating the relationship between wealth, inequality, and measurements of a good society. The measurements of a good society would be low levels of crime, low levels of teenage pregnancy, good health in terms of long life expectancy, low levels of obesity – and many other measures besides.

During their research they have published books on this, and finally they published the book “The Spirit Level“, which has had the biggest impact of all.

There are many countries that are poor, and clearly they need economic growth in order to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Labour’s hypocrisy on political reform: kill it off then claim you’ll resuscitate it later, maybe

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th April 2010 - 10:40 am

General election campaigns are, perhaps, the worst possible time to judge politicians: they’re frantic, break-neck affairs when serious thought takes a back-seat.

But, still, you really do have to wonder at the sheer breath-taking effrontery of Gordon Brown’s decision to trumpet his political reformist credentials on the very same day as his government kills off measures to improve our democracy.

Compare and contrast. Here’s today Guardian:

Gordon Brown tonight sanctioned the abandonment of measures on constitutional reform including the alternative vote, reforms to phase out hereditary peers, and plans to give the backbenches powers over the parliamentary agenda.

And here’s today’s

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Posted in News | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

3 to see: Lib Dem #ge2010 campaign coverage

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

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

Nick Clegg spearheads election strategy of ‘northern offence, southern defence’ (Guardian)

Highlighting the launch of the party’s campaign in Watford, where the Lib Dems’ Sal Brinton is aiming to oust Labour. (You can donate to her campaign here).

The Guardian cannot resist a journalistic stand-by cliche, though, claiming the launch was “overshadowed” by Nick and Chris Huhne appearing “to suggest they had conditions for who they would support should there be a hung parliament.” Overshadowed is journalese for: this is the story …

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Posted in News | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Televised Prime Ministerial debates: how to ask a question

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

From the joint BBC / ITV / Sky news release:

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

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

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

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Posted in General Election | Tagged | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in General Election and Polls | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

How do the media election websites compare? (UPDATED)

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

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

BBC:

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

…

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Posted in General Election and Online politics | Tagged and | 4 Comments
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