Mark Pack

The National Lottery: what do you think of it?

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th November 2009 - 9:20 am

The National Lottery is celebrating its 15th birthday today.

There were many controversies in the run up to its launch. Would it encourage gambling and result in more problems of gambling addiction? Would it be a welcome source of funds for good causes or would it provide an excuse for government to cut its funding? Would the profits for the operators dwarf the money given to good causes? Would it be a welcome new source of revenue for local shops? And so on.

So, fifteen years on: what do you think?

Posted in News | Tagged | 14 Comments
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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 19 November 2009

By Alex Foster | Thu 19th November 2009 - 7:24 am

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View. Today, in 1990, Milli Vanilli were stripped of their Grammy. It’s the birthday of American President and pizza-loving cat James Garfield.

Today is also both International Men’s Day and International Toilet Day.

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.

2 Big Stories

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , , , , and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: overwhelming NO to idea of EU President Blair

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th November 2009 - 7:45 pm

A couple of weeks back, LDV posed the question, Do you support or oppose Tony Blair becoming the first President of the European Union?

There’s no room for doubt about the overwhelming view of readers of this site (who may or may not be representative of Lib Dem supporters more generally) – here’s what you told us:

>> 27% (144 votes): Yes – no matter what you think of Blair, Europe needs his leadership abilities
>> 73% (389): No – he is the wrong person for the job
Total Votes: 533 Poll ran: 28th October – 17th November 2009

I agree with …

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Posted in Europe / International and Voice polls | Tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Mark Valladares

From our Correspondent in Barcelona – the ELDR Congress previewed

By Mark Valladares | Wed 18th November 2009 - 6:55 pm

Yesterday saw the opening of this year’s ELDR (European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party) Congress, which will see a galaxy of European Liberal Prime Ministers, EU Commissioners, party leaders and officials, as well as your correspondent, converge on the Hilton Diagonal Mar hotel in Barcelona.

The theme of the Congress is ‘economic liberalism after the financial crisis’ and it is hoped that this will be an opportunity to develop a wider sense of the key themes of European liberal values and principles. And with Nellie Kroes, the scourge of the UK banking sector and Commissioner for Competition, taking part in …

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Posted in Europe / International | 1 Comment
The Voice

Nick’s response to the Queen’s Speech: ” fantasy Queen’s Speech from a government that has run out of road”

By The Voice | Wed 18th November 2009 - 6:15 pm

So in the end the Queen’s Speech wasn’t cancelled – as the BBC reports:

Clegg, who had called for the speech to be cancelled and the remaining Parliamentary time before an election to be used to clean-up politics, said there was nothing in the proposed legislation to help create jobs, boost bank lending and fix the UK’s “rotten” political system.

And here in full is what Nick said today in response to the government measures announced by HM The Queen:

All the pageantry in the world cannot cover up the fact that this is a fantasy Queen’s Speech from a government that has run out of road in a Parliament that has lost the people’s trust.

This Queen’s Speech won’t give people the help and jobs they need in this recession and it won’t fix our rotten politics.

After 12 long years, in which this government has passed nearly 500 different laws, along with countless thousands of statutory instruments, it is right to stop and ask the question: what is this Queen’s Speech really for?

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Posted in Parliament | Tagged and | Leave a comment
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The Voice

Nick’s Sheffield Hallam opponent quits as Tory candidate after just 10 days

By The Voice | Wed 18th November 2009 - 2:38 pm

Last week, LDV reported the Tories’ embarrassment in Nick Clegg’s seat of Sheffield Hallam, where news had just emerged that the party’s newly selected candidate had been kicked off a town council for failing to attend meetings.

The Tories’ Daniel Gage vowed at the time to fight on, promising a 20-year plan to take the seat from the Lib Dems. Just a few hours later he was ‘resigned’ by the local Tory association.

The Sheffield Telegraph tells all:

Daniel Gage, aged 24, was selected on November 7 as the Conservative representative to challenge Mr Clegg for his Sheffield Hallam seat.

But his campaign

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Alex Ferguson forced to unban BBC

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th November 2009 - 1:10 pm

A follow-up to my post When is it ok to ban a journalist?, about the habit in football of clubs banning journalists who say things they don’t like (can you imagine the uproar if a public sector body tried to do the same?):

Sir Alex Ferguson will have to end his six-year ban on giving interviews to BBC reporters under newly agreed rules coming into force next season.

A motion was passed at a Premier League board meeting last week which made post-match interviews with all media rights holders mandatory for league managers, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Manchester United supremo Ferguson has not

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

LibLink … Vince Cable: Banks should pay for their own protection

By The Voice | Wed 18th November 2009 - 12:35 pm

In today’s Times, Lib Dem deputy leader and shadow chancellor Vince Cable advocates a 10% tax on bank profits to fund a ‘safety net’ until finance houses can be broken up and are no longer too big to fail. Here’s an excerpt:

Some bankers might claim that they are doing God’s work. But the banks all owe their continued existence to the British and American taxpayer.

Some have been supported directly — RBS, Lloyds-HBOS, and the fully nationalised Northern Rock — but all benefit from the guarantee that they will not be allowed to fail. UK banks have received the equivalent of

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Is Colin Byrne right about internet campaigning?

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th November 2009 - 11:50 am

Colin Byrne, CEO of Weber Shandwick and former Labour Party press chief, recently knocked the possible importance of internet campaigning for British elections and suggested Hazel Blears was right with her YouTube jibe.

He wrote in Saturday’s Guardian:

We surveyed 1,000 potential voters at the time of the recent party conferences. They were asked what communications channels would have an influence on deciding how to vote. When a parallel sample of consumers were asked the same question about purchasing decisions, by far the biggest influence was digital and social media (26%). Print and broadcast media ranked second in influence, with only

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 2 Comments
Iain Roberts

Daily View 2×2: 18 November 2009

By Iain Roberts | Wed 18th November 2009 - 7:26 am

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.

2 Big Stories

HRH takes a battering

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Ex-Tory councillor on trial for vote-rigging in election fraud hotspot

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th November 2009 - 10:20 pm

The Halifax Courier reports:

A FORMER Calderdale councillor is set to stand trial for alleged vote rigging.

Mohammed Saghir, 63, of Gibbet Street, Halifax, has denied five charges of rigging proxy votes.

He is alleged to have applied for proxy votes under different names during the local elections in April 2008.

Saghir was elected as a Conservative councillor for St John’s, now Park ward, in 2000.

This is rather a hotspot for election fraud, proved or alleged, for this is what Mohammed Saghir’s opponents were up to in the same election:

TWO cousins of ex-councillor Mohammed Najib voted for him under false names, a court

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Northern Ireland residents back ending donations secrecy

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th November 2009 - 9:59 pm

From the BBC:

“Most people” are in favour of ending the confidentiality surrounding donations to political parties in NI, focus group research has suggested.

It was conducted by the Electoral Commission, which recorded the views of eight groups around NI, each consisting of between six and eight people.

Unlike the rest of the UK, details of political donors are still kept secret in NI, because of security concerns…

This confidentiality clause is due to expire on 31 October 2010.

The Northern Ireland Office is expected to consult the public on whether the clause should end or be extended further before the end of this

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

The Tories and control orders: saying one thing, voting another way

By Stephen Tall | Tue 17th November 2009 - 6:45 pm

Control orders were introduced by Labour in 2005, and give the Home Secretary powers to impose a limitless range of restrictions on any person they suspect of involvement in terrorism.

As the Lib Dems noted in our proposed Freedom Bill, ‘The restrictions imposed by some control orders amount to house arrest and they can include controls on who a person can meet or speak to; when they can leave their house and where they can go. This undermines the freedom not only of those on control orders but of their families as well.’

Lib Dems are, unsurprisingly, opposed to Labour’s …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Three reasons Nick Clegg was right to call for the ‘cancellation’ of the Queen’s Speech

By Stephen Tall | Tue 17th November 2009 - 6:15 pm

When I woke up yesterday morning to news reports that Nick Clegg had called for the Queen’s Speech to be cancelled – because with limited time before the general election it would be far better to use the time focusing on reforming Parliament ready for the new batch of MPs – I was impressed.

First, because it was one of the leading news items, and for a Lib Dem leader to be that high up the running order in peace-time is no mean achievement. Secondly, because he was focusing public and media attention once again on a key liberal …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

Weekend voting: will this be the next trend in trying to raise turnout at elections?

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th November 2009 - 2:10 pm

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

Over the last few years a wide range of attempts have been made to raise turnout at elections in the UK. The broad conclusion is very simple: all-postal ballots raise turnout significantly (albeit at the cost of various drawbacks) and nothing else that has been tried does so. E-voting, early voting, voting by text, and many others: all been tried, all flopped.

However, there are signs that moving to voting at the weekend may be coming back on the electoral administration agenda.

It is easy to see why weekend voting may appeal. Fewer people work at the weekend which could mean people are more likely to have time to go and vote, plus in turn candidates are more likely to be able to get volunteers out campaigning on polling day reminding people to vote.

The main drawbacks are also fairly straight-forward.

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , , and | 13 Comments
Lynne Featherstone

The majority of voters are female, so does it matter that the majority of MPs are men?

By Lynne Featherstone | Tue 17th November 2009 - 11:20 am

Women now have the vote on the same terms as men. With the majority of the electorate female – and indeed the majority of actual voters at the last general election female too – what’s there left to worry about, one might ask?

Well – with only around one in five MPs female, there’s a big difference between what goes in to the electoral system (majority: female) and what comes out (overwhelming majority: male).

So what I want to address in this piece head on why I believe this matters.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 20 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: Who do you least want to be Prime Minister in a year’s time: Gordo or Dave?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 16th November 2009 - 9:00 pm

Oooh, here’s a nasty ‘forced choice’ question to thrust upon LDV’s readers … let’s assume for a moment that, by some quirk of electoral fate, the Lib Dems do not storm to victory at the next general election, and Nick Clegg is not asked by Her Maj to form the next government. A far-fetched scenario, I know, but go with me on this. If those were the circumstances, who would you rather have as Prime Minister: Gordon Brown or David Cameron?

And, yes, those are your only two choices in this poll. We’re not giving you an easy ‘neither of …

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Posted in Op-eds and Voice polls | Tagged , and | 55 Comments
Mark Pack

How The Times has left me worried I’m hallucinating

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th November 2009 - 8:37 pm

Here’s the email I’ve just sent to The Times. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out I’m hallucinating and saw 175 mentions of Christmas where in fact there were none.

I’m really confused.

In your story “Christmas lights switch-on ceremony renamed ‘Winter White Night” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6915007.ece) you report that, “Christmas will not be Christmas in Dundee this year. All references to the religious holiday have been dropped from the switching-on ceremony for the city’s festive lights.”

Yet when I go to look up information about the ceremony online, I find the program at http://www.dundee.com/winter-light-night.html where “Christmas” is mentioned no less than six times.

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #143

By Stephen Tall | Mon 16th November 2009 - 7:55 pm

Welcome to the 143rd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (8th – 14th November 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, partly 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 | Leave a comment
The Voice

LibLink … CK answers Indy readers’ questions

By The Voice | Mon 16th November 2009 - 7:25 pm

It’s a Lib Dem-tastic edition of today’s Independent – in addition to Nick Clegg’s article calling for the Queen’s Speech to be cancelled so that Parliament can focus on the big issue of reforming itself, former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy is the focus of the paper’s ‘You Ask The Questions’ feature, in which readers pose their own often sharp and pointy questions. There’s some straight-talking from Charles, along with some discreet evasion on issues such as:

  • the circumstances of his forced resignation as leader (“I’ve long since moved on and would continue to advise everyone else to

…

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The Voice

Rabi Martins appointed Lib Dem Chief Exec Chris Fox’s diversity adviser

By The Voice | Mon 16th November 2009 - 7:11 pm

Last month, Nick Clegg admitted something that had been glaringly obvious for ages: the Lib Dem parliamentary party is “woefully unrepresentative of modern Britain”. Today Lib Dem interim chief executive Chris Fox signalled his determination to help Nick to get to grips with the problem by appointing a personal Diversity Adviser ahead of the General Election.

Here’s what the party press release has to say:

Rabi Martins, the parliamentary spokesperson for Luton North and past member of the party’s Federal Policy Committee will be the adviser to Liberal Democrat executive on equality issue. He will begin the role on Monday

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Patrick Watt

24,000 children will die today – support our campaign

By Patrick Watt | Mon 16th November 2009 - 12:50 pm

More than 8.8 million children each year – more than the population of Greater London – die before their fifth birthday. That’s 24,000 every single day. Our government, in common with governments around the world, has committed to cut the rate of deaths by two thirds by 2015. But a lack of political will and focus means that we’re well off track for hitting this target. Immediate action is needed to turn this situation around.

A report we have released today shows that ninety nine in every hundred child deaths happen in the world’s poorest developing countries. The changes that are needed to confront this challenge need to come first and foremost from within these countries. Next year, world leaders will gather to review progress on the eight UN ‘Millennium Development Goals’ for tackling poverty and its underlying causes by 2015.

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged | Leave a comment

Opinion: Six months to make the difference in Oxford East and across the UK

By Steve Goddard | Mon 16th November 2009 - 11:00 am

I’m writing this in the wake of Nick Clegg’s 54th Town Hall meeting since he became leader – held in fact in the Wesley Memorial Church in Oxford East. It’s always good to be reminded just how good Nick is when performing in front of an audience of any size: he was articulate, passionate and persuasive.

It was striking, chatting to people afterwards, that Nick was felt to be at his best when speaking with a little bit of passion – when he gets slightly riled, he articulates a liberal approach very effectively indeed. I’m pleased that we can …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 2 Comments
The Voice

LibLink … Nick Clegg: Don’t waste our time… bring forward real reform

By The Voice | Mon 16th November 2009 - 10:30 am

In today’s Independent, Nick Clegg makes a bold pitch – that Parliament should use the few months it has left before the election to try and actually achieve something to solve the big political issue of the year: restoring the public’s trust in Parliament. Here’s an excerpt:

On Wednesday, all the pomp and ceremony that Parliament can muster will be rolled out for the Queen’s Speech, setting out the Government’s list of new laws for the coming year. But the glitz and glamour will be based on a complete fiction. Parliament will find it difficult to pass any of the

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , , and | 14 Comments
Julian Huppert

The DNA Database: Making faking easier

By Julian Huppert | Mon 16th November 2009 - 10:30 am

So, the government has decided that it should keep DNA data for six years on people who have not been convicted of any crime, despite most consultation respondents disagreeing with retention.

Why is this a problem? Is it just that we have some strange out-moded belief that people should be treated as innocent until proven guilty? It’s certainly true that the government’s argument is precisely that people who have been arrested are more likely to offend in the future (‘re-offend’ was the revealing term used on radio). We are therefore saying to people that although they have not been convicted, we …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 16 November 2009

By Stephen Tall | Mon 16th November 2009 - 10:15 am

2 Big Stories


It’s the last Queen’s Speech before the general election

Which can only mean, as The Times reports:

Gordon Brown will begin a six-month election campaign this week with one of the shortest but most deliberately political programmes of recent years. … In a podcast on the Downing Street website, Mr Brown said that Britons wanted world-class public services underpinned by “guarantees not gambles”. He was referring to legislation this week that will enshrine in law the right of NHS patients to get treatment within 18 weeks or to see a cancer specialist within two weeks — or be granted

…

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Iain Roberts

Nick Griffin’s Barking Plan

By Iain Roberts | Sun 15th November 2009 - 7:56 pm

The BNP are holding their party conference – in a gym on the edge of an industrial estate near Wigan, with no journalists allowed – and the big news there is Nick Griffin’s plan to stand for Parliament in Barking next year.

Keen students of geography may notice that Barking is some way from the constituency that Mr Griffin currently represents in the European Parliament – the North West of England.  Clearly, whatever other objectives Nick Griffin might have, actually doing the job he was elected to do in June isn’t one of them.

Could the BNP win Barking?

It’s an odd …

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Posted in General Election | Tagged and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Two converts to Twitter’s political benefits

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th November 2009 - 5:50 pm

Yesterday was London Region’s autumn conference, during which I heard from two recent converts to Twitter.

First, Keith House – leader of Eastleigh Council and probably the person with the best record of election results at both local and national level year in, year out in any council run by the Liberal Democrats.* Perhaps understandably given his record of electoral success, he hasn’t been chomping at the bit to innovate online  – but even Keith has now seen the benefits Twitter can bring and joined himself.

Keith highlighted how much greater the role of the internet would be at the next …

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

Sopel on Sunday: the best bits from the political shows

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th November 2009 - 3:46 pm

Jon Sopel’s selection of the best clips is now up on the BBC website, including an interview with one of the members of the so-called Turnip Taleban.

Posted in News | Tagged | 1 Comment
Fraser Macpherson

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #11: Lessons from Glasgow North East

By Fraser Macpherson | Sun 15th November 2009 - 11:38 am

Labour’s crushing victory in the Glasgow North East By-election was hailed by the victor Willie Bain as a resounding endorsement of Gordon Brown and a “a resounding ‘No’ to David Cameron.” Well, maybe in Glasgow North East, but I suspect extrapolating the Labour victory in this constituency as having huge implications across the UK political scene would be foolish.

The SNP said throughout the Glasgow North East campaign that the by-election was a two horse race and, after the nationalist victory in Glasgow East last year, victory for them was possible. A case of all too predictable SNP hope over reality. Over the years, the SNP has had a bit of a habit of sensing victory where none exists. Remember the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election, so comprehensively won by Willie Rennie? If you’d have believed Alex Salmond a day or so before polling day, SNP victory was certain. In fact, they came a poor third.

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Posted in Op-eds, Parliamentary by-elections and Scotland | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
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