Sara Bedford

Daily View 2×2: 2 February 2010

By Sara Bedford | Tue 2nd February 2010 - 9:38 am

Today is Groundhog Day, but I’ve resisted the temptation to simply give you yesterday’s Daily View again. It’s also the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc, which symbolises the turning point of winter towards spring.

Twenty years ago today President FW de Klerk began to dismantle apartheid in South Africa, announcing that he had lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress, the Pan African Congress and the South African Communist Party. De Klerk also committed to release jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, who was freed nine days later. Commenting on the news, Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: “He has taken …

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Stephen Tall

Huhne: AV “small step in right direction” BUT not proportional

By Stephen Tall | Tue 2nd February 2010 - 9:32 am

What is it about Labour? Why are they waiting til the dying days of their last government for X years to propose anything new and radical? Yesterday, LDV posted the news that Labour has, eventually, U-turned on non-doms, and agreed to Lib Dem proposals that they will no longer be able to sit in Parliament.

And then later last night came the news that Labour will put to the Parliamentary vote next week proposals for a referendum to be staged as a step towards replacing the ‘first past the post’ system.

Chris Huhne, the Lib Dems’ shadow home secretary, …

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Mark Pack

Chaos engulfs Conservative position on Regional Development Agencies

By Mark Pack | Tue 2nd February 2010 - 8:55 am

Back in December I reported how Caroline Spelman had dropped the Conservative Party’s policy of abolishing Regional Development Agencies. Then last week Ken Clarke was reported as ordering a review of the nine English RDAs to decide what to do with them, but now the Conservative Party has denied there’s a review. So there’s going to abolish them, but not and going to review them, but not. All clear I trust?

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Jenny Watson warns Friday Returning Officers to get it right

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st February 2010 - 10:19 pm

Speaking to the conference of the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission’s Jenny Watson warned those planning to hold general election counts on Friday rather than Thursday night that,

There may not be a lot of sympathy for a count that declares the next day and doesn’t appear to be run efficiently.

Jenny Watson did also highlight the need to ensure accuracy saying,

It is entirely appropriate for returning officers to decide to hold the count the next day – if they are clear that this is necessary to ensure an accurate result.

But as I’ve previously pointed out, the evidence from past …

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Mark Pack

Forthcoming Parliamentary selections

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st February 2010 - 10:10 pm

No listing this month as there are no selections currently planned to close during February (except for one which closed at 5pm today).

    But for further details on how you could become a Liberal Democrat prospective candidate see http://libdems4parliament.org.uk.

    Posted in Selection news | 2 Comments
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    Stephen Tall

    Labour U-turns on non-doms as Lib Dem’s Oakeshott wins battle

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 1st February 2010 - 6:55 pm

    Glad tidings from the House of Lords today, where Labour has – at long, long last – bowed to Lib Dem pressure and announced that non-doms will no longer be able to sit in Parliament.

    The party’s terrier-like Treasury spokesman Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott has welcomed the Government’s announcement:

    I have introduced 4 bills over the last 5 years to ban non-doms from the House of Lords with no support from the Government and with serious obstruction from the Conservatives.

    “Now, with an election looming, I am delighted that the Government has had this last-minute conversion and adopted my Bill almost to the letter in their amendment.

    “It’s outrageous if people who sit in our Parliament do not pay full British taxes like everyone else. They must pay up or pack up.”

    The Government, in the person of the almost-tautologically named Baroness Royall, has sent a letter to all peers today explaining how the new law will affect them:

    20100102 All Peers Letter

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    Stephen Tall

    LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (Jan. ‘10)

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 1st February 2010 - 6:25 pm

    … We’d say a big thank you to the 38,593 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in January.

    That’s a big jump, unsurprisingly, compared to our December ’09 figure of c.28,000 – and is up some 60% on the equivalent figure for January ‘09 of c.24,000.

    This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 Feb 2009 – 31 Jan 2010) to 309,123, over 40% higher than the equivalent figure for 2008-09 of 218,360.

    The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

    1. Revealed: the Lib-Con pact election poster (34) by Stephen Tall
    2.

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    Stephen Tall

    Vince: “Labour and the Tories are accusing each other of being confused and contradictory on the economy, and they’re both right.”

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 1st February 2010 - 2:35 pm

    Attack is the best form of defence, I guess, so it’s no surprise that the Tories – seriously on the back-foot since it became clear that David Cameron and George Osborne haven’t got a clue what they plan to do about the deficit – have launched a broadside against Labour. With Peter Mandelson using a press conference this morning to accuse the Tories of “confusion and disarray”, the Tories have accused Labour of being “in chaos”.

    So far, so yawn. Or as Vince Cable put it today:

    Labour and the Tories are accusing each other of being confused and contradictory on the economy, and they’re both right. The fact that they insist on this political bun fight shows they have failed to understand that the British public and the markets want a clear picture of what the next Government will do.

    “The Liberal Democrats are the only party that has had a consistent approach.

    “We’ve been very open about the scale of cuts required and setting out where our priorities would be, while recognising that the timing must be decided by the strength of the economy. That is why we have set out five tests for when and how we start to cut.”

    And here’s a reminder of those five tests to form an objective judgement of when it’s safe for the British government – whether gold, red or blue – to start cutting public spending:

    • evidence of sustained economic growth;
    • employment growth;
    • overseas demand (especially in the EU);
    • monetary and credit conditions in the UK; and
    • the market cost of government borrowing.

    And in case you’ve not had your fill of Vince’s common-sense, here’s a 30-second video pointing out the Tories’ economic muddle:

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    Mark Pack

    How do the Lib Dem MPs compare on Twitter?

    By Mark Pack | Mon 1st February 2010 - 1:50 pm

    Although as I’ve said before I’m very sceptical of lists which rate users of Twitter by the number of followers they have, there is some merit in some of the more complex Twitter rating schemes. A good example of these is TweetLevel which, as you can see from the details on its site, includes factors such as how well people are using Twitter and how much other people on Twitter respond to them.

    So for a bit of mildly instructive fun, I’ve plugged all the Liberal Democrat MPs on Twitter into the tool to see how they rate. …

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    Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 8 Comments
    Mark Pack

    So, what do you make of this graph about gender and politics?

    By Mark Pack | Mon 1st February 2010 - 11:20 am

    Here’s the proportion of local election candidates of the three main parties who were female over the last twenty-five years. As you can see, proportions for all three parties grew in the late ’80s and since then have stalled (Lib Dems, Conservatives) or only crept up (Labour), all remaining under 40%.

    The dips every four years are due to county council elections having a much lower proportion of female candidates than other local elections.

    Gender of local election candidates

    So, what do you make of this? Does …

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    Posted in Local government and News | Tagged | 33 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Ashcroft’s tax status: Tory leadership “evasive and obfuscatory”

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 1st February 2010 - 9:45 am

    Today’s Guardian reports:

    The Conservative leadership is today accused of being “evasive and obfuscatory” over the tax status of Lord Ashcroft, the party’s deputy chairman and biggest donor, in a ruling by the information commissioner that sharply criticises the secrecy over where he is resident for tax purposes.

    The Cabinet Office has been ordered to reveal within 35 days the nature of the undertaking Ashcroft made to become domiciled in the UK when he became a peer in 2000. … Ashcroft made a promise to become a permanent resident of the UK as a condition of his ennoblement in 2000, a

    …

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    Stephen Tall

    Daily View 2×2: 1 February 2010

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 1st February 2010 - 9:30 am

    Happy Monday morning, everyone. And, yes, January really is over: hurrah! So let’s salute the first day of February by recalling that this is the day (in 1884) when the Oxford English Dictionary was born; as were Clarke Gable (1901) and Boris Yeltsin (1931). Sadly the world lost Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; but that was 159 years ago, so hopefully everyone’s over it by now.

    2 Must-Read Blog Posts

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

    …

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    Posted in News | 1 Comment
    The Voice

    Three Lib Dem MPs fighting Legg’s expenses judgement

    By The Voice | Sun 31st January 2010 - 10:20 pm

    Three Lib Dems are among the 70 MPs who lodged appeals after being told to pay back some of their taxpayer-funded Commons expenses by Sir Thomas Legg, reports today’s Telegraph:

    At least 35 Labour MPs and former Labour MPs have appealed against Sir Thomas’s findings, as well as 30 Conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and two independents. Among them are MPs who made some of the highest-profile claims exposed by the Telegraph investigation, including £1,645 for a duck house.

    Sir Thomas’s 30-page report is thought to identify more than 300 MPs — nearly half of those in Parliament — whom he found

    …

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    Stephen Tall

    Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #154

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 31st January 2010 - 9:35 pm

    Welcome to the 154th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (24th – 30th January 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, usually courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

    Don’t forget, by the way, 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:

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    Posted in Best of the blogs | 2 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Book review: How grassroots activists saved the Liberal Party

    By Mark Pack | Sun 31st January 2010 - 4:20 pm

    Mark Egan’s book Coming into Focus: The Transformation of the Liberal Party 1945-64 examines how and why the Liberal Party survived its bleakest decades and survived a run of dismal general election results. He’s not the first to look at this question but the book takes a unique approach, being based on an extensive set of interviews carried out in the 1990s with Liberal activists from 1945-64. These are supplemented by an analysis of how local party structures fared during this twenty year span.

    Whilst other studies have concentrated on issues of national policies, personalities and politics, Mark Egan draws out how the party survived thanks to its grassroots activists (and often despite the national policies, personalities and politics). He also adds a twist to the usual history of community politics:

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    Posted in Books | Tagged and | 7 Comments
    Mark Pack

    YourThurrock.com talks to PPC Geoff Williams

    By Mark Pack | Sun 31st January 2010 - 3:50 pm

    An email arrives from the editor of YourThurrock.com pointing us to a YouTube interview they’ve done with local PPC Geoff Williams (South Basildon and East Thurrock):

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    Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Two-thirds of key helicopters for Afghanistan unavailable

    By Mark Pack | Sun 31st January 2010 - 11:33 am

    A news release from the party pings into my inbox:

    Almost 2/3rd of the RAF’s Merlin helicopters, which the Government has hailed as a key part of increasing capacity and ‘ideally suited’ to Afghanistan, are incapable of carrying out their planned missions, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

    Answers to Parliamentary Questions have shown that of the 19 RAF Merlins in the ‘Forward Fleet’ (those aircraft which frontline commands are meant to be able to use), just seven – or 37% – are classed as ‘available’ (defined as ‘considered capable of carrying out their planned missions on a given

    …

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    Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
    Iain Roberts

    Life expectancy of 13? That’s Victorian values for you.

    By Iain Roberts | Sun 31st January 2010 - 11:14 am

    Several hundred people in the UK have died from swine flu since May 2009. As a historical note, this text from 1942 puts our modern health problems in some perspective.

    In the England of 1840 the average age of death was twenty-nine, today it is fifty-eight. …the babies of 1840 suffered an appalling mortality. To-day one child in seventeen dies before it is a year old, but in 1840 the figure was about one in six, and about a third of the children born died before the age of five….Infants died of convulsions, diarroea, and atrophy, the latter

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged and | 9 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Daily View 2×2: 31 January 2009, presenting RISO: The Movie

    By Mark Pack | Sun 31st January 2010 - 9:00 am

    It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for RISO: The Movie, but first the news.

    2 Must-Read Blog Posts

    What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s 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.

    It’s nearly time for RISO: The Movie. Nearly, but not quite…

    2 Big Stories

    India keeps Copenhagen pledge on emission cuts

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    Posted in Daily View | Tagged , , , , and | 3 Comments
    Huw Dawson

    The second biggest fight in Wales: Ceredigion

    By Huw Dawson | Sat 30th January 2010 - 4:50 pm

    The Liberal Democrats have four seats in Wales. Everyone’s heard of Lembit Opik, MP for Montgomeryshire. Then you have Jenny Willott, MP for Cardiff Central. Roger Williams is the MP for Brecon & Radnorshire and Mark Williams is the MP for Ceredigion. Most people in Britain wouldn’t be able to find these places on a map, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m only going to talk about one – Ceredigion.

    Mark Williams won a victory in 2005 that, quite frankly, was a complete surprise. You might have caught Kirsty Williams AM (Who is totally unrelated, I hasten to clarify) bursting into …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 9 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Crikey, I appear to know more about Liverpool than the new Labour candidate

    By Mark Pack | Sat 30th January 2010 - 1:50 pm

    A few days ago I blogged about the infighting in Liverpool Labour over the selection of Luciana Berger to be their Liverpool Wavertree candidate (majority: 2,911 over the Lib Dems) with Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle attacking her.

    As the Liverpool Daily Post pointed out, some in Labour have complained that Luciana Berger is a “young southerner”. In fact, until selection in Liverpool she was one of the candidates for the Camden council elections in London.

    So perhaps no surprise that another Liverpool paper, the Liverpool Echo, decided to put her to the test by …

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    Posted in News | Tagged and | 11 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Another Cameron gaffe: Tories in a tangle over public spending

    By Stephen Tall | Sat 30th January 2010 - 12:00 pm

    A moment of sympathy, please, for Tory leader David Cameron as he tries to steer a middle ground as the UK falteringly exits recession.

    On the one hand, he needs to keep happy his shadow chancellor George Osborne and the die-hard right-wingers at ConservativeHome who are desperate to start cutting public spending now:

    Spending cuts need to be extensive and immediate. … We also need to get the pain out of the way as quickly as possible. Waiting until Years 2 or 3 of any Conservative government to cut spending will harm the chances of re-election.

    And on the other hand, …

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    Posted in News | 12 Comments
    Rob Blackie

    Fancy a new deliverer?

    By Rob Blackie | Sat 30th January 2010 - 10:45 am

    All of us who spend time running local campaigns face a common constraint. We don’t have enough supporters who deliver leaflets for us.

    Well I’m pleased to say that I have a quick, simple, free solution that will get you one or two new deliverers today.

      1. Gather together any email address that you have for people in the relevant ward, assuming that you think they’ll be happy to hear from you. Even the odd email from surveys, casework, members, supporters and indeed supporters of other parties will do. Spend 15 minutes doing this and you should have at least 50 email

    …

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    Posted in News | 6 Comments
    Mark Pack

    The Saturday debate: it’s no longer about market versus state

    By Mark Pack | Sat 30th January 2010 - 8:50 am

    Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

    For the last hundred years the big organizational question has been whether any given task was best taken on by the state, directing the effort in a planned way, or by businesses competing in a market. This debate was based on the universal and unspoken supposition that people couldn’t simply self-assemble; the choice between markets and managed effort assumed there was no third alternative. Now there is. Our electronic networks are enabling novel forms of collective action, enabling the creation of collaborative groups that

    …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 12 Comments
    John Bridges

    By-election news: Great start to the New Year

    By John Bridges | Fri 29th January 2010 - 7:02 pm

    There were two principal council elections held on the 28th January. The Lib Dems held one seat and gained one from the Tories. In the only Town and Parish Council results reported to ALDC the Tories held the seat.

    The Great Bowden and Arden Ward of Harborough District Council in Leicestershire saw this year’s first by-election gain, at the expense of the Conservatives. Tory attacks fell flat when faced with candidate Phil Knowles’ wide experience of local issues and hard-working reputation established during his previous …

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    Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged , , , , , , and | Leave a comment
    Helen Duffett

    The LDV Friday Five: 29 January 2010

    By Helen Duffett | Fri 29th January 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. EXCLUSIVE: Standards Commissioner rules four journalists broke Parliament’s rules (4) by Mark Pack
    2. Oaten reduced to tears in new Channel 4 documentary (29) by The Voice
    3. Opinion: UK Border Agency plunges colleges into crisis (15) by the Head of a private college
    4. What the pollsters think will happen at the general election (7) by Stephen Tall
    5. Liberal Democrat Mayor suspended over benefits investigation (12) by Mark Pack

    5 new Liberal Democrat blogs

    Burning …

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    Posted in Friday Five | 2 Comments
    Paul Walter

    Opinion: The Equality Bill & religious faith – Church v State? Not so much.

    By Paul Walter | Fri 29th January 2010 - 2:42 pm

    This has been, for me, a very sad and confusing week. Last weekend I received an email asking me to sign a petition about amendments to the Equality Bill “which potentially will take away the right of every citizen to live according to their religious faiths and consciences.” The email contained the phrase: “By not signing the petition you are inviting your own oppression” – aimed at church-goers.

    Naturally I was very alarmed by this email and commenced research on this subject.

    Demurring from signing the petition, I watched the relevant House of Lords debate very closely.

    Quite frankly I am still confused …

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

    Reminder: an easy way for by-election candidates to communicate with voters

    By Mark Pack | Fri 29th January 2010 - 11:50 am

    votewise.co.uk is an independent website which lists forthcoming by-elections and candidates. It geto a decent audience, making it well worth using – but not all by-election campaigns make use of it.

    The site displays page view figures on the biography pages for each by-election candidate and the numbers (even allowing for being page views rather than absolute unique visitors) are generally impressive, with a candidate’s page typically viewed several hundred times. This traffic is driven from respectable and relevant sources, such as the Electoral Commission and search traffic from people hunting for by-election information.

    Given the number of votes it takes …

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    Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

    The Independent View: Why Lib Dem, Labour and Green progressives must work together

    By Anneliese Midgley | Fri 29th January 2010 - 10:20 am

    Anneliese Midgley of Progressive London argues that 2010 is a crucial year for all progressives, regardless of party label, to stand up to the right.

    Given the sheer scale of the issues facing our society – from the worst global economic crisis since the second world war through to the enormous challenge of climate change – it is essential if we are to move forward that we discuss those issues where we can forge a common progressive agenda.

    In London our different electoral systems for the mayoralty and the London Assembly have already driven a debate about the …

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    Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | 47 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Déjà vu all over again: what the 1974 Liberal Party manifesto said

    By Stephen Tall | Fri 29th January 2010 - 9:30 am

    This election will make or break Britain. It is already certain that the government that takes office after the election will face the greatest peace-time crisis we have known since the dark days of 1931… Before any government can begin to get to grips with the economic situation, it must regain the confidence and respect of the electorate.

    A big tip of LDV’s hat to Rudolf Fara, co-director of Voting Power and Procedures (VPP) at the LSE (via Politics.co.uk) for pointing out the similarity.

    Mr Fara, who was speaking ahead of a lecture last night by Vince Cable setting out his …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 7 Comments
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