Iain Roberts

+++ BREAKING: Freedom, Creativity & the Internet motion passed overwhelmingly

By Iain Roberts | Sun 14th March 2010 - 10:01 am

The last morning of conference has a traditional feel to it. Sore-headed delegates drag themselves wearily out of bed, stagger to the nearest coffee emporium, point themselves in the general direction of the conference venue and start walking, hopeful that some residual memory of that first, non-hungover, visit will get them there.

The venue opened at 8.30am and by 9 o’clock the small trickle of Lib Dem activists has turned into a slightly larger trickle.

Whether through abstinence and early night or impressive force of will, some travellers seem a little less weary.

Julian Huppert, one of …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged | 6 Comments
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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 14 March – featuring exciting bollards and Mandelson saying “Vote Lib Dem”

By Mark Pack | Sun 14th March 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for photographs of bollards, 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:

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

Sarkozy faces heavy loss in French regional poll

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Iain Roberts

Can conference exhibitors find a little sparkle?

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 8:10 pm

The exhibition hall is an important part of conference, along with the debates in the main hall, fringe events, training and, of course, the conference bar.

So why are so many of the stands so dull?

Exhibition, Lib Dem Spring Conference 2010, Birmingham
(not necessarily these ones, I hasten to add).

I know it’s not easy to come up with a novel and interesting stand, especially on a limited budget, and I’ll certainly plead guilty to being as unimaginative as the next man (probably more). But conference after conference the stands look much …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged | 9 Comments
Helen Duffett

Teachers, Thatcher, tax and troops: Nick Clegg Q&A

By Helen Duffett | Sat 13th March 2010 - 7:26 pm

Nick Clegg answers questions at Spring Conference, Birmingham

In this afternoon’s Q&A from the Conference hall, Nick Clegg tackled questions from the floor with a relaxed and confident manner that bodes well for the upcoming TV Leaders’ Debates.

He took questions from party members in the hall, before taking supplementaries.

First up was education and whether schools should use the Pupil Premium to reduce class sizes. Nick said that the Pupil Premium seeks to give back trust to teachers and headteachers. Smaller class sizes are important for instilling a sense of self-confidence and …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , , , , and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Digital Economy Bill debate: what’s set to happen tomorrow?

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 7:21 pm

The story so far:

  • Emergency motion on the Digital Economy Bill submitted (see full text on Bridget Fox’s blog)
  • Federal Conference Committee treat it fairly generously – as emergency motions do not normally get into the territory of drawing up significant new party policy (because, by their nature, the wording is only published at the last moment and so people have little time to debate over it, draw up alternatives etc.).
  • There are two emergency motions but only a slot to debate one of them – so conference voted this morning on which to debate tomorrow. Digital Economy Bill motion wins that

…

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

Live blogging: Reports of the Federal Executive and the Federal Finance and Administration Committee

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 5:43 pm

Federal Executive (FE) report moved by Ros Scott – “I hope it is a sign that you are all fairly happy with the party that the room is emptying so rapidly.” Explains FE meetings always start with a session with Nick Clegg and also gets regular updates on the general and local election campaigns.

Explains how FE has changed more to a scrutiny model (cf House of Commons select committees) and has paid particular attention to party membership/recruitment and to IT.

Update on the Bones Commission report – those within the FE’s remit have now mostly been carried out. Creation of the …

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Mark Pack

Parliamentary Parties report back to conference

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 2:47 pm

Party business sessions are usually fairly thinly attended at party conference, except back in the days of disaster and near bankrupcy immiediately after the merger which formed the Liberal Democrats.

They can however play an important role, particularly where well chosen questions tease out information or get commitments on the record. James Graham’s question this morning about the Digital Economy Bill was a good example of this (and would have been even more cruicial has the emergency motions ballot not decided to debate the topic on Sunday morning).

And so, here I am back in the conference hall for part two of …

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Iain Roberts

No ring-fencing for cuts as Vince feels the love

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 1:16 pm

When the main hall is packed at a Spring Conference, you can be sure it isn’t because everyone wants to debate the third clause of the Federal Conference Committee’s report, or even (as we heard this morning) discuss the rights and wrongs of holding a conference that clashes with Mothers’ Day.

No, it’s because St. Vince of Twickenham is taking to the stage. The halo may have slipped slightly on occasion, most notably the hastily-revised Mansion Tax proposals made at Bournemouth last September, but for the party faithful it’s still Vince who can heal the sick and, if weather conditions …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

PODCAST: Authoritarianism fringe

By Alex Foster | Sat 13th March 2010 - 12:48 pm

Last night a good crowd turned out to hear Paul Burstow MP, Mark Pack, Alex Wilcock and Bridget Fox talk about our new online project, Authoritarianism vs Liberalism and to talk more generally about their work and current campaigns.

Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting: Make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box

As ever, I was there with my trusty Zoom H2 so that we can share the fringe meeting with our listeners at home. …

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Posted in Conference and Podcasts | Tagged | 1 Comment
Iain Roberts

The Clegg coalition line emerges

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 11:52 am

Very sneakily, Clegg’s team have found a neat way to turn questions about hung parliaments into a positive message about Lib Dem policy. We saw it on the news today, and I’m sure we’ll see it wheeled out again – and again, and again, probably until journalists get bored of asking the question.

When asked what the Lib Dems would do in the event of a hung parliament, Nick’s strategy is to say what the Lib Dems would want to get from any sort of deal, which mysteriously matches closely with the four key themes. Nick says we would …

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Posted in Conference and General Election | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

“If you want change, vote for the only party that will bring about change”

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 11:24 am

That was the message of Danny Alexander’s speech to the Liberal Democrat spring conference this morning. Change – but not just any sort of change:

Two ideas will dominate this election campaign: change and fairness. Only one party is arguing at this election for both fairness and change: the Liberal Democrats.

Change: because business as usual is not the answer to the economic, political, and environmental crises that we face.

Fairness: because too many people in our society are still held back because of the circumstances of their birth, their sex or their parent’s bank balance.

He repeated a now often said promise to …

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Iain Roberts

+++ BREAKING: Lib Dems to debate Freedom, Creativity and the Internet tomorrow

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 11:17 am

In a close vote in the conference hall, Lib Dem conference delegates decided to debate “Freedom, Creativity and the Internet” as the single emergency motion to be considered tomorrow.

The alternative NHS motion was narrowly edged out.

Promoters of the Freedom, Creativity and the Internet motion hope that it will send a clear signal of the Lib Dems both understanding and supporting a liberal position on enforcement of copyright laws online.

Posted in Conference and News | Tagged | 4 Comments
Iain Roberts

Paddy Ashdown in existential shock at rally

By Iain Roberts | Sat 13th March 2010 - 10:47 am

A good conference rally is fun to attend and tricky to report on, simply because there should be nothing new. The audience ideally leaves reminded of the key messages and enthused to fight the good fight – there’s plenty of time for controversy over the rest of the weekend.

As in Bournemouth, the rally took on a glitzy feel: dry ice, bright lights, (relatively) slick presentation.

Lorely Burt opened procedings with a few jokes, and promise of holding her seat in Solihull, where the Lib Dems overturned a 9,400 Tory majority last time round.

Then a selection of …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , , , and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Danny Alexander commits party to seeking further changes to Digital Economy Bill

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 9:34 am

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat spring conference this morning, Danny Alexander MP (Vice Chair of the Federal Policy Committee and chair of the party’s General Election Manifesto Group) said the party will seek to make further changes to the Digital Economy Bill when it comes to the Commons.

The Bill, currently passing through the Lords, has been the subject of much debate (such as here and here) and yesterday Liberal Democrat peers announced plans to table further amendments to the bill.

This morning Danny Alexander committed the party to supporting further changes to the Digital Economy Bill, saying:

There is

…

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Posted in Conference and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 18 Comments
NewsHound

Stephen Tall and Mark Pack on the launch of ‘How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP?’ website

By NewsHound | Sat 13th March 2010 - 9:25 am

To co-incide with the launch yesterday by Lib Dem Voice of our new ‘How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP?’ website – http://rank.libdemvoice.org – two articles apeared in the media …

Meanwhile Stephen Tall penned an article for The Guardian’s Comment Is …

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Mark Pack

How to get your picture to appear next to your comments on Lib Dem Voice

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 9:10 am

It’s been a while since we last reminded readers about this, so now seems a good time to publish the information again. You may have noticed that next to some people’s comments is a small picture of themselves, such as:

If you want a picture to appear next to your comments you need to do two things.

  1. Visit Gravatar.com, create an account

…

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Posted in Site news | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Why Rory Bremner won’t impersonate Nick Clegg

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 8:50 am

The Birmingham Mail reports:

He’s recently been touted as a Lib Dem supporter after attending one of their parties at the House of Commons, but Rory admits that, professionally speaking, he doesn’t want them to do well in the general election – because he can’t take off Nick Clegg.

“I struggle with David Cameron, but I find Clegg particularly difficult to master,” confesses the impressionist and satirical comic, who is about to embark on his first tour in five years.

“I imagined meeting him at the party and him asking ‘Can you do me?’ I was going to say ‘No, can you?’.

“I don’t

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

A little fact Iain Dale didn’t mention

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 8:11 am

If you’ve read Iain’s post about Anna Arrowsmith “The LibDem Candidate Who Supports Labour” there’s one little detail you won’t have seen. The shocking piece of text saying that Anna Arrrowsmith supports Labour is … six years old. Yes verily, it’s shocking news that the party has selected as a candidate someone who was a Labour supporter six years ago 🙂

Hat-tip and further details: this comment from Alex Macfie

Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
The Voice

LAUNCHED TODAY: new Lib Dem Voice website – How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP?

By The Voice | Fri 12th March 2010 - 7:05 pm

In just under an hour’s time, the Lib Dem Voice spring conference fringe takes place in Birmingham, marking the official launch of our new website: How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP? The site’s web address is http://rank.libdemvoice.org.

(We will be uploading the podcast of the Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting here as soon as possible.)

How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP? has a very simple aim: to provide an easy way for the public to find out online how liberal or authoritarian are the views of their MP according to his or her voting record in parliament.

Here’s …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 17 Comments
Helen Duffett

The LDV Friday Five: 12 March 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 12th 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 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. Lord Clement-Jones on the Digital Economy Bill: web blocking amendment (231) by Tim Clement-Jones.
2. Digital Economy Bill: Parliamentarians reply to prospective candidates (44) by Mark Pack.
3. BNP announce Parliamentary Candidate for Buckingham (8) by Helen Duffett.
4. 5 reasons Nick Clegg should rule out a coalition now (23) by Stephen Tall.
5. Lib Dems select Nick Griffin’s biographer to fight BNP in Barking (3) by Helen Duffett

5 active LDV Members’ Forum threads

Emergency motion – Freedom, creativity & the internet
Death taxes
Purdah
Mock Election Packs
David Laws agrees with the case to reduce inequality of outcome

5 most active groups on ACT

1. Say No to Trident
2. Act Creative
3. Lib Dems for some decent IT Policy
4. Approved Candidates
5. Liberal Youth Action Network

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Mark Pack

Female MPs: how’s the party doing?

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 4:54 pm

We’ve twice covered the question of gender balance in (Westminster) politics in recent days with the challenge from the Fawcett Society What about women? and Dinti Batstone’s call to Make politics fit women’s lives, not vice-versa.

With party conference in Birmingham about to start, we now have the latest figures on how the party is doing at getting a less male-dominated Parliamentary party. The Campaign for Gender Balance reports:

  • Winnable seats: approximately 40% of our most winnable seats have women PPCs.
  • Held seats: 4 out of the 8 seats that have MPs standing down have selected women.

The last point is particularly important as, …

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Alex Foster

+++ BREAKING: Conservative MEP defects to Liberal Democrats

By Alex Foster | Fri 12th March 2010 - 3:41 pm

Exciting news live from the LDV Broom Cupboard in Birmingham’s ICC.

News reaches us that Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has defected to the Liberal Democrats and will be joining us here at party conference.

The MEP said today: “I have been around the higher circles of the Conservative party for long enough to fear that on Europe Cameron says one thing in opposition and will do another in government.

“I have long fought against totalitarianism and the extremism and religious persecution it brings. It was wrong of Cameron to associate with MEPs who have extremist pasts in his new European alliance.”

I guess …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 28 Comments
Mark Pack

What happens to MPs’ websites when Parliament is dissolved?

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 2:50 pm

There was a little flurry of interest last year as to whether MPs with “MP” in their Twitter name would face a problem after Parliament is officially dissolved for the general election. That’s because after that point technically no-one is an MP and you’re not allowed to call yourself an MP if you aren’t one. That story was rather over-played though it did spur me to dig out quite what the sanctions would be, which in turns out isn’t that simple a question to answer.

But what about MPs’ websites and text on them saying they are an MP? That is potentially …

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Posted in Online politics and Parliament | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Tom Baldwin and the “triple lock”: you could have read it here Tom

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 2:12 pm

Today Tom Baldwin in The Times reports on its exciting persistent investigative journalism into the party’s “triple lock” rule for deals with other parties:

The exact wording of this rule, disclosed only after repeated inquiries to Liberal Democrats headquarters this week, sets a high bar for clearing “any substantial proposal which could affect the party’s independence of political action”.

A pedant would point out that it was “disclosed” here back in November. Then it was Steve Richards I took to task (for calling the rule – which was debated in public at party conference – “secret”).

Perhaps you should add us …

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Dinti Batstone

Opinion: Make politics fit women’s lives, not vice-versa

By Dinti Batstone | Fri 12th March 2010 - 1:50 pm

For today’s women “motherhood, not sexism, is the issue”. So says The Economist (“We Did It”, 30 December 2009), noting that “women who prosper in high-pressure companies in their 20s drop out in dramatic numbers in their 30s and then find it almost impossible to regain earlier momentum”.

Could the same be true in politics?

Nearly 80% of current male Lib Dem MPs first entered Parliament in their 30s and 40s. Yet our female MPs were overwhelmingly elected in their 20s or 50s, and not one was first elected while raising young children. Achieving the same age spread as the men could …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 9 Comments
Iain Roberts

Lib Dem Lords offer concessions on Digital Economy amendments

By Iain Roberts | Fri 12th March 2010 - 12:10 pm

Following a barage of criticism over amendments to the Digital Economy Bill, the backers of the amendment are to make concessions which, they hope, will answer many of the objections.

As the FT reports :

The Liberal Democrats will publish changes on Friday to their original amendment, of which the Conservatives said they were “broadly supportive”.

Under the new proposals, which will be put to the vote on Monday at the bill’s third reading in the Lords, a judge could order copyright owners to pay legal costs and other compensation for asking a service provider to block

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Dominic Carman

‘Why I’m standing against Nick Griffin’ – Dominic Carman

By Dominic Carman | Fri 12th March 2010 - 11:50 am

There are many different reasons why I’m standing as a Liberal Democrat against Nick Griffin in Barking.

Here is just one of them.

My bus stop on the way home is outside Brixton station, next to Iceland supermarket. Waiting there, I recall what the BNP’s message of hatred can bring. For it was exactly at this spot on Saturday April 17th 1999 that the London nail bomber David Copeland planted his first bomb. The following Saturday, he planted another bomb in Brick Lane. A week later, his final bomb exploded inside a Soho pub, killing three people. Altogether 129 people were injured. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s conference speech: what does it need to do? #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 10:20 am

With the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, Nick Clegg is giving his last conference speech before the general election. Who knows, there may even be two general elections before he gets to give his autumn conference speech…

So what does Nick need to achieve with his Sunday speech?

Conference speeches have two audiences: the external and the internal. For the external one, the job is in the main fairly straightforward: give a speech that has at least one eye-catching section which means it gets more than a nano second of passing media coverage.

The party’s overall messages for the general election …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 12 March 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 12th March 2010 - 7:00 am

Welcome to Friday – and Lib Dem Voice is already in Birmingham for the Liberal Democrats Spring Conference 2010.

If you’re coming too, make sure you join us for the Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting:

I’ll be chairing the discussion on how to Make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box, and we’ll be unveiling our new website which will help to do just that.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

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

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Helen Duffett

By-election results: 11 March 2010 – Tory holds weakening

By Helen Duffett | Fri 12th March 2010 - 12:45 am

Two by-election results just in – both saw a reduction in the Conservative vote and increases in the Liberal Democrat vote:

Dacorum BC, Adeyfield West ward:
Con 486 (32.8%; -8.6%)
Lab 429 (29%; -13.3%)
LD Steve Wilson 362 (24.5%; +8.1%)
BNP 203 (13.7% +13.7%)
Turnout 35.8%
Con HOLD

Wellingborough BC, Redwell West ward:
Con 570 (58.2%; -0.8%)
Lab 169 (17.2%; +2.2%)
BNP 84 (8.6%; -7.1%)
LD Penny Wilkins 72 (7.3%; +3.8%)
Eng Dem 62 (6.3%; +6.3%)
Green 23 (2.3%; -0.9%)
Turnout 37.7% (-5.6%)
Con HOLD
Last fought: 2008 by-election

Thanks to Lloyd Harris and Chris Nelson for providing the results, and congratulations to both teams for their hard work and increased vote!

For full by-election analysis every week, …

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Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged , , , , and | 2 Comments
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