Liberal Democrat Voice

Daily View 2×2: 22 March 2010

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 10:05 am

Happy Monday, everyone. And happy birthday to actress Reese Witherspoon (34), author James Patterson (63) and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (62). Now let’s find out what’s happening in the world …

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Budget 2010: Giles Wilkes guides us through what to expect of Labour’s (last?) budget.
Anna was porn for the job: so says Lembit Opik in his political column for the Daily Sport (with thanks to James Graham for bringing us Lembit’s NSFW insights.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Overseas Stories

Obama wins key health reform vote

Posted in Daily View | 1 Comment

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Word of mouth election? That’s so 1997

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st March 2010 - 10:16 pm

Douglas Alexander’s soundbite about wanting to make 2010 the “word of mouth” election has got a fair amount of coverage in the last few days, such as in this mostly thoughtful piece by Andrew Rawnsley.

Why do I only say “mostly thoughtful”?

That’s because it’s a good piece, but also displays a weakness so common in contemporary British political commentary. It’s the feeling that it’s more important to talk about what an American did a couple of years ago than how the British political system has worked over the last few elections.

Because if you want “word of mouth”, and you know …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged andrew rawnsley and douglas alexander | 2 Comments

The Leaders’ Wives obsession: why it’s missing the point

By Helen Duffett | Sun 21st March 2010 - 9:23 pm

Tonight it’s Nick Clegg’s turn for a Sunday evening party leader’s interview – with Mary Nightingale on ITV1 at 10:15pm.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (Nick’s wife) also appears in the programme. At first I was dismayed that Miriam might be wheeled out as yet another politician’s wife, dreading revelations about socks or other foundation garments…

Until I watched her in this extract :

I don’t like that name: “political wife”. I’m the wife of a politician… I don’t have a role. I’m just married to him…

…It’s a personal choice and I think it’s perfectly possible to have a normal life

…

Posted in Lib Dem TV and Op-eds | Tagged Jo Swinson, lynne featherstone, mary nightingale, miriam gonzalez durantez, nick clegg and ros scott | 14 Comments

Were there two YouGov polls for the Sunday Times?

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st March 2010 - 7:04 pm

I only ask, you see, because in the newspaper online I read of the unions:

Their intransigence is beginning to hurt the government’s standing, as the YouGov/Sunday Times poll shows today.

But in the full polling tables up on the The Times website I read:

Will the strikes, and the prospects of disruption for BA’s passengers, change the way you vote in the election?

Yes, it will make me less likely to vote Labour: 4%
Yes, it will make me more likely to vote Labour: 1%
No difference: 80%
Don’t know: 15%

That’s about as tepid a finding as you could get: a measly net +3%.

A …

Posted in Polls | Tagged journalism, sunday times and yougov | 3 Comments

Postal voting: police to get tough over Code of Conduct

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st March 2010 - 5:50 pm

Police forces across England and Wales are teaming up with local councils in a welcome move to encourage agents and candidates to abide by the Postal Voting Code of Conduct. They will be sending letters to agents and candidates asking them to personally sign up to the Code of Conduct.

In previous years the Code has been a national agreement negotiated by the Electoral Commission with, on the one hand, electoral administrators and, on the other, the main political parties. The involvement of both parties and administrators means the Postal Voting Code of Conduct strikes a balance between recognising the genuine …

Posted in Election law | Tagged postal voting | 3 Comments

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Pollwatch – State of the Parties: Lib Dems 18%, Labour 31%, Tories 38% (Mar. 2010 so far)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st March 2010 - 4:45 pm

With 15 polls already published so far in March, it’s time for a mid-month reality check on the state of the parties. Some parts of the media watch the polls with breathless excitement, investing even the smallest fluctuations with a significance well beyond what they can bear: a bad-tempered PMQs, a 24-hour Westminster Village row, an ad campaign – any and all of these are sometimes said to have affected the polls.

Well, maybe. But most poll movements are within the margin of error, so it is only looked at over a reasonable period of time that you can detect whether there has really been any significant movements between the parties. So let’s look at the polls published in March to date, in chronological order of publication, to see if we can detect any trends:

Posted in Op-eds and Polls | 6 Comments

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe confirms: “I’ll be voting Lib Dem”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st March 2010 - 3:15 pm

It was last summer that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe first indicated he would be backing the Lib Dems at the election, coming out as a party supporter in an interview in Attitude magazine.

Now, it seems, Daniel’s endorsement is official according to the Daily ~~Prophet~~ Mail:

In next month’s US edition of Vogue, Radcliffe – who will be able to vote for the first time at the General Election – discusses his affiliation to the party. ‘I’ll be voting Lib Dem, without a shadow of a doubt,’ he said. ‘Nick Clegg rang me and we had a good

…

Posted in News | Tagged daniel radcliffe, harry potter and nick clegg | 3 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #161

By Stephen Tall | Sun 21st March 2010 - 2:15 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 161st weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (14th – 20th March, 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment

The Independent View: A new electoral system

By Robert Draper | Sun 21st March 2010 - 12:50 pm

We all understand the disproportionate effects of first past the post (FPTP), but what about the distance it puts between voters and politicians?

The size of constituencies used in FPTP, and the even larger ones used in STV, mean that politicians can’t hear the voices of individual communities clearly. The link between voters and MP gets weaker the larger the size of the constituency they are elected in.

There is only one electoral system that will make the gap smaller and deliver proportional results, non-contiguous first past the post. For an explanation on how this works, click here.

…

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | 19 Comments

Kids today, eh!

By Iain Roberts | Sun 21st March 2010 - 11:52 am

You know how kids these days are all out of control, and in the good old days there was rarely any bad behaviour at all?

Here’s a first person account from a 1949 Manchester police officer, having been summoned a school where trouble was afoot. Did the police deal with it in the best way? You decide.

There were boys everywhere. As our lady informant had quite rightly said, there were hundreds of the little sods. Some were balancing on the railings, some were ripping slates off the shelter roof, windows were being broken and stones flying about.

…

Posted in News | Tagged history and The way we were | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: Jenga special

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st March 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for jenga, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

A failure of scrutiny on digital bill: Peter Black blogs about the letter signed by, amongst others, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidates Bridget Fox and Julian Huppert. Danger of Parliament rushing through legislation without proper debate? Who would have thought it.
Elementary errors: Giles Wilkes on the important difference between a stock and a flow. More interesting and useful than I’ve made it sound.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

BA fights to limit the impact of cabin crew strike

Posted in Daily View | Tagged benjamin netanyahu, bridget fox, british airways, canada, digital economy bill, israel, jenga, julian huppert and UNITE | 1 Comment

Tory tangle over non-white candidates

By The Voice | Sun 21st March 2010 - 8:20 am

The Observer today carries a story about the curious lack of photos of the Conservatives’ black and asian candidates in Barking and Dagenham.

The candidates exist (to the Tories’ credit) and their names and contact numbers are on the leaflets, but the photos are all white.

The Conservatives denied that the move amounted to deliberate “airbrushing” of ethnic minority candidates. They insisted that the lack of photographs of their non-white candidates on all campaign calendars dropped through letter boxes was because their list of candidates had not been completed when the material was published. But they could

…

Posted in News | Tagged bnp and conservative party | Leave a comment

Vince in talks with Treasury, ready to serve as Chancellor

By Iain Roberts | Sun 21st March 2010 - 7:10 am

In what’s believed to be unprecedented in recent times, Vince Cable has held talks with Nicholas Macpherson, the big cheese at the Treasury, about Lib Dems economic policies and what might happen in the event of a hung/ balanced parliament.

Cable was unaware of such meetings having taken place with Lib Dem shadow chancellors before previous general elections. The talks were a sign that the Treasury was “taking seriously” the prospect of his party playing a leading role in economic policy in what could be the first hung parliament since 1974.

Vince has also declared himself ready …

Posted in News | Tagged george osborne, hung parliament and vince cable | 3 Comments

The Straight Choice needs your help

By Iain Roberts | Sat 20th March 2010 - 7:40 pm

The Straight Choice is an online collection of election literature from across the country, aiming “to create a live visualization of the flood of party political leaflets as they are delivered across the country during an election campaign”.

Whilst the origins of the name may grate with those Lib Dems who don’t wholly accept Peter Tatchell’s account of the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, the idea is an excellent one from the people who brought you sites like They Work for You, Public Whip, Planning Alerts and What do they know? (the last allowing …

Posted in News | Tagged straight choice | 9 Comments

Watch Nick Clegg on the BBC Politics Show tomorrow

By Helen Duffett | Sat 20th March 2010 - 3:50 pm

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will take part in a special Politics Show debate this Sunday, meeting undecided voters and trying to win them over for the Lib Dems.

Wonders the BBC website:

Will they be won over or continue to waver?

And once he has answered the questions that the people want to ask, will they prove to be the answers they want to hear?

Watch Nick on the Politics Show at noon, Sunday 21st March, BBC ONE.

Posted in Lib Dem TV and News | Tagged nick clegg and politics show | 3 Comments

Kitty Ussher: unrepentant over expenses

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th March 2010 - 12:50 pm

By way of introduction, a sample of what Kitty Ussher (Labour MP for Burnley) had done:

Kitty Ussher used allowances for £20,000 house make-over
The records reveal that Miss Ussher, the MP for Burnley, contacted the Commons fees office within 12 months of being elected, with a detailed programme of work for the property she had already lived in for five years.

Kitty Ussher sacked from government over her claims
Move comes in the face of evidence that Treasury minister ‘flipped’ her homes to avoid paying capital gains tax.

So, when interviewed by Channel 4, what did she say?

Q. Is there anything you did that you feel you ought to say sorry for? The choices you made? The decisions you made?

A. No. Because I haven’t done anything that anybody else in my position wouldn’t be perfectly able and valid to do.

The exchange comes around 8 minutes 15 seconds in to this report:

Posted in News | Tagged burnley, gordon birtwistle, kitty ussher and mps expenses | 2 Comments

LibLink: Could Nick Clegg be next Imperial Commander?

By NewsHound | Sat 20th March 2010 - 10:45 am

The Guardian leader column notes that yesterday’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, billed as a two horse race, was won by a promising outsider when the two favourites both faltered; and wonders if the same might happen on May 6th.

Imperial Commander was always a true, in-form, thoroughbred contender…Can Nick Clegg be the two-legged equivalent of Imperial Commander? In a good year anything is possible – even under first past the post.

Posted in General Election and LibLink | Tagged nick clegg | 2 Comments

Four Lib Dem MPs censured over second home allowances

By Iain Roberts | Sat 20th March 2010 - 10:20 am

Lib Dem MPs Richard Younger-Ross, John Barrett, Sandra Gidley and Paul Holmes have been ordered to apologise and repay a total £16,500 in the latest twist of the long-running expenses saga.

The four were among a larger number of MPs who were paid a lump sum in return for paying higher rent at the Dolphin Square apartments near to parliament. The MPs personally received the lump sum, whilst the taxpayer paid the higher rent.

Two of the MPs have been ordered to repay half the lump sum they received, the other two to repay a quarter.

Overall, Lib Dem MPs have had a …

Posted in News | Tagged mps expenses | 37 Comments

Book review: The new extremism in 21st century Britain

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th March 2010 - 9:20 am

The new extremism in 21st century Britain, edited by Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin considers both far-right and Islamic extremism, their causes and possible responses. It is unusual for a study to look at both these forms of extremism, and as the books editors explain that is not just a publishing phenomena; academics and experts predominantly focus on one or the other with as a result relatively little opportunity to learn from comparing and contrasting different extremist movements.

Posted in Books | Tagged bnp and matthew goodwin | Leave a comment

The 62 most liberal non-Lib Dem MPs

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th March 2010 - 8:37 am

Lib Dem Voice launched our new website – How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP? – at the party’s spring conference last weekend.

LDV has identified 10 key votes from the 2005-10 Parliament – ranging from ID cards and freedom of speech to freedom of information and trial without jury – in order to rank all MPs according to how liberal or authoritarian their record is. All MPs are marked out of 100: the higher their score the more authoritarian they are. The lower their score the more liberal is their voting record.

Over two-thirds of Lib Dem MPs recorded a score of 3/100 or fewer, meaning they had voted on the liberal side of the argument in at least 9 of the 10 Commons debates we looked at. So 3/100 is the cut-off point I’ve used to see who qualifies as liberal in terms of their voting record.

57 of those who qualified are Tory MPs (a little under one-third of their total MPs), along with two Independent MPs, Richard Taylor and Dai Davies, and John Mason of the SNP. Especial credit, though, should go to those two Labour MPs – John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn – for defying their whips in order to vote on the liberal side of the argument (though neither are likely to be too afeared of their party’s whips).

Here is the roll-call of those non-Lib Dem MPs who have voted in a liberal way most of the time:

Posted in News | Tagged ldv rank | 9 Comments

Donna Boffa RIP

By The Voice | Fri 19th March 2010 - 6:10 pm

Sad news has reached us here at Lib Dem Voice that Islington Councillor Donna Boffa died today after a long illness.

From the Islington Tribune:

Cllr Boffa, 43, was first elected to represent Bunhill ward in 2003, in a by-election following the death of Lib Dem Cllr Rose Wooding. She leaves behind five children.

Islington Council leader Lib Dem Cllr Terry Stacy said: “Donna was a fighter right through to the end. From the day she was elected a councillor, Donna never forgot where she came from or who she was there to represent. Donna was all about helping the people without

…

Posted in Obituaries | Tagged donna boffa, islington council and terry stacy | Leave a comment

The LDV Friday Five: 19 March 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th March 2010 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Thinking the unthinkable

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th March 2010 - 2:50 pm

Imagine the following scenario.

Labour (or the Conservatives) lose the general election.

Gordon Brown (or David Cameron) resigns as party leader.

With much of the rest of their frontbench team also discredited, the party elects a non-MP – the (ex) Mayor of London – as its leader.

A sitting MP then resigns so the new party leader can stand in a by-election for Parliament.

With me so far?

Now imagine that in the by-election the other main parties do not put up candidates but rather give the new party leader a free pass into Parliament.

Pretty unthinkable, isn’t it?

Yet curiously that’s just what political tradition in Canada …

Posted in Parliament | Tagged canada | 3 Comments

Lib Dem gain in Taverham North, Broadland DC

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th March 2010 - 2:11 pm

Congratulations to Councillor Nich Starling (aka Norfolk Blogger) who gained a seat yesterday from the Tories on Broadland District Council.

The result, courtesy of ALDC:

Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged broadland, chloe smith, nich starling and norwich north | 5 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 19 March 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th March 2010 - 1:18 pm

It’s 19th March and LDV Towers will shortly be taking delivery of an enormous cake for Co-editor Stephen Tall’s birthday. Rumour has it he will be leaping out of said cake, and if he does, we’ll be first with the news and photos.

In the meantime…

2 Big Stories

Clarke fails to toe line on party pledge

David Cameron last night overruled Ken Clarke, after the shadow business secretary appeared to backtrack on a Tory commitment to spell out details of a core tax policy ahead of the general election.

The Conservative leader acted after Mr Clarke told a London event that the party could not decide until it was in power whether it would reverse the one percentage point rise in national insurance that is due to take effect in April.

The Tory former chancellor said the party needed to have “the reins of power” before it could make Budget decisions such as the potential tax reversal. “We will only know if we can afford it in the 50-day Budget,” he told a business audience. “The Budget is not just something you knock off for a TV programme.”

Posted in Daily View | Tagged caron lindsay, daily mail, david cameron, jackie pearcey, kenneth clarke, rmt and stephen tall | 5 Comments

Welcome to the new bloggers…

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th March 2010 - 12:50 pm

Six blogs have recently joined Ryan’s Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Janet Nunn – http://allaboutbartonleclay.blogspot.com – ultra-local blogging from Bedfordshire covering the sorts of issues the media rarely touch these days.
John Leech MP – http://johnleechmp.wordpress.com – he’s been blogging since November, but is new on the aggregator.
LibDemTV – http://libdemtv.blogspot.com – existing Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson goes multimedia.
Mathew Hulbert – http://mylibdemlife.wordpress.com – a new member chronicles life in the party.
Tom King – http://eachwishresigned.blogspot.com – music, politics, religion and a rather nifty banner graphic.
James Taylor – http://liberalthought.wordpress.com – back blogging after a seven month pause.

Good luck to all the new bloggers, and why not take a moment to pop over to their blogs, take a read and post a comment?

Whether you are a new or experience blogger yourself, you may also find our compilation of “how to blog” posts useful:

Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging | Leave a comment

My favourite campaign gaffe of the year so far

By Mark Pack | Fri 19th March 2010 - 10:50 am

Hebrides News reports:

The prospective Tory general election candidate for the Western Isles has made a hugely embarrassing gaffe by backing a spoof harbour in a landlocked village.

Conservative hopeful Sheena Norquay confusingly insists that developing the fictional port at Achmore in the middle of the barren Lewis moor is a top priority.

The 22-year-old hopeful unexpectedly stressed one of the main island issues is “the building of the harbour wall at Achmore.”

However, the policy is a complete nonsense as no such harbour exists.

Achmore is a dry land village is located in the centre of Lewis, surrounded by hills and moor, and is

…

Posted in News | Tagged sheena norquay and western isles | 9 Comments

The Independent View: A Lib-Con coalition? Don’t hold your breath

By Julian Astle | Fri 19th March 2010 - 9:20 am

In the past week, the Conservatives have been talking up their chances of doing a deal with the Liberal Democrats if the forthcoming general election fails to deliver them a working majority. Conservative shadow business secretary Ken Clarke has even suggested that “Nick Clegg is a conservative”. David Cameron meanwhile regularly describes himself as a “liberal Conservative” and has claimed that on a range of policy issues, “there’s barely a cigarette paper between us”.

But in a new report from CentreForum, the liberal think tank, we argue that the two parties’ similarities …

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged centreforum, david cameron, ken clarke and nick clegg | 5 Comments

How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP: how the parties compare

By Stephen Tall | Fri 19th March 2010 - 8:35 am

Lib Dem Voice launched our new website – How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP? – at the party’s spring conference last weekend.

On Wednesday, Lib Dem blogger James Graham posed the question, “Have you calculated what the average score for each party is?” Well, today, James, your luck is in. Here are the mean scores for all the political parties represented in the 2005-10 Parliament:

Posted in News | Tagged ldv rank | 12 Comments

Has Gordon Brown been making up numbers?

By Mark Pack | Thu 18th March 2010 - 7:20 pm

The Full Fact website reports:

For two weeks now Full Fact has been trying to find out the basis of Gordon Brown’s claim that 300,000 businesses in the UK have been provided with direct cash-flow help from the Government.

In a piece published on 4 March, Full Fact examined the claim made by the Prime Minister in a speech to the Welsh Labour party. Despite numerous requests, emails and phone calls neither BIS, HMRC, Downing Street, The Treasury nor the Labour party were able to say where the figures came from.

But with Mr Brown again using the claim during yesterday’s PMQs, Full

…

Posted in News | Tagged featured, full fact and gordon brown | 3 Comments

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