Antony Hook

Antony Hook interviews Nick Clegg about Europe

By Antony Hook | Mon 28th September 2009 - 6:22 pm

I recently put questions to Nick Clegg on behalf of the LDEG, the party’s pro-European campaign group. In it, Nick makes clear the importance he attaches to the role of MEPs, responding to a question about whether the party appreciates MEPs:

individual MEPs have far, far more opportunity to actually get laws changed and improved than MPs.”

He very modestly avoided agreeing with me that he had a role in leading Britain’s pro-Europeans, although that is a role he sees for the party as a whole. He described Sharon Bowles MEP’s appointment as Chair of the Parliament’s Economics …

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged and | 2 Comments
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Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV … Vince Cable: I stirred up a hornets’ nest, but my Mansion Tax is fair

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 2:25 pm

The debate has raged now for a week, ever since Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announced his wish that the Lib Dems adopt the so-called ‘mansion tax’, a levy of 0.5% on households living in homes worth more than £1m. (You can vote on the issue over at LDV’s current poll). Was he right, or was he wrong?

Well, Vince has heard both sides of the argument now – including from his Lib Dem shadow cabinet colleagues – and has come out fighting in favour of his ‘mansion tax’, using his regular column in the Daily Mail to make his points. First of all, he points out, no tax is ever popular, but it’s going to be necessary:

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Alex Foster

#ldconf feedback questionnaire

By Alex Foster | Mon 28th September 2009 - 12:57 pm

A message arrives from the Conference people asking for our feedback on all matters Conference.

Conference is important to the Liberal Democrats. Your input, debates and votes are vital in shaping the Party’s policies and campaigns, and ensuring that we remain the only truly democratic party in British politics.

So we want to make sure you come back! Your views are important to us, as they help us improve conference year after year. If you attended autumn conference this year, please take the time to give us your feedback. By clicking on the link below and filling out our online questionnaire, you’ll

…

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

The one who got away: David Lammy and his expenses

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th September 2009 - 11:45 am

David Lammy's second home claimsLondon MP, with a constituency only 28 minutes away by Tube from Parliament, claims £12,041 for a second home. Sounds a straight-forward case in the long line of London MPs who had their expense claims widely publicised and heavily criticised during earlier this year? Except this time, there’s one difference.

The expense claim was published back in October 2004, got a bit of local media coverage and that was that.

Lucky man, that David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham.

From the …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 28 September 2009

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th September 2009 - 9:45 am

2 Big Stories


Germany elects new centre-right government to be led by Angela Merkel

The Financial Times reports:

Germany is on course for its first centre-right government in 11 years after voters gave chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and her Free Democratic allies a majority in parliament.

The victory of the conservative-liberal alliance – which had campaigned for tax cuts and a return to nuclear energy, but also social justice and tougher rules for finance – in Sunday’s poll ends four years of awkward co-operation between the CDU and its rival Social Democratic party in a grand coalition. …

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
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Andrew Reeves

Opinion: Conservatives are complete hypocrites on LGBT issues as Section 28 raises its ugly head again

By Andrew Reeves | Sun 27th September 2009 - 7:45 pm

Do you remember Section 28, Clause 28 or even Section 2A? That awful piece of legislation introduced by the Conservatives back in 1988 prevented the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Thankfully it was repealed in Scotland on 21 June 2000 and then across the rest of the UK on 18 November 2003 – although living in Kent in 2004 was bad enough when the Conservative controlled County Council introduced their own mini-version of Section 28!

To be precise, the Act said; “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 16 Comments
Stephen Tall

That Andrew Marr question: wrong, wrong, wrong

By Stephen Tall | Sun 27th September 2009 - 5:15 pm

It’s a few weeks since I was emailed an article by John Ward (also sent to a number of other blog-sites), subsequently published at notbornyesterday.org, alleging the Prime Minister suffers from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, and that these conditions are being treated with prescription pills.

I decided not to publish, or refer at all to the allegations on Lib Dem Voice. As I explained to John in an email at the time, “without named sources for the story it’s not something we could publish on LDV. I appreciate, given the nature of the story, that having sources on the record is difficult, but still.”

The BBC’s Andrew Marr today felt no such compunction, asking Gordon Brown bluntly: “A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?” To which the Prime Minister would have been quite entitled to reply – though of course he couldn’t, as Mr Marr would have known – “None of your damned business.”

There are two issues here. First, was the BBC right to pose the question (and I’m sure the line of questioning was cleared at a high level within the Corporation)? And, secondly, should it matter to us what the Prime Minister’s reply was?

Was the BBC right? Absolutely not.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , and | 37 Comments
Andrew Lewin

Opinion: Hope and the desire for change is our ally, ‘politics as usual’ is the enemy

By Andrew Lewin | Sun 27th September 2009 - 4:10 pm

After a testing week for the party, I left the BIC on Wednesday feeling uplifted, hopeful and with an extra spring in my step.

I am in no doubt that Nick Clegg’s speech was his best to date. Always an impressive orator, the defining feature of this address was not his style or stage presence, but the fact that under the banner of a ‘A Fresh Start for Britain’, Clegg conveyed a positive vision of how a Liberal Democrat future would look. He did not get bogged down in broadsides against Labour or the Conservatives, but pitched a message …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Highlights from the Sunday political TV shows

By Mark Pack | Sun 27th September 2009 - 2:03 pm

The BBC has started producing a round-up of the best bits of the Sunday political TV shows (BBC and others). You can see today’s round-up over on the BBC website here.

Posted in News | 3 Comments
Lynne Featherstone

Opinion: Where is the British Obama?

By Lynne Featherstone | Sun 27th September 2009 - 10:20 am

Earlier this month Lynne Featherstone gave the Heather Larkin Annual Lecture in Yate:

I am really pleased to be here tonight – yes it is a long trek here and back but worth it to pay tribute to Steve Webb. Steve is a great MP, a great campaigner, a great innovator on the internet – and a great intellectual force. The fact that we often agree on policy may have something to do with that!

But one of the highlights of Parliament is listening to thoughtful and powerful speeches from which you learn and which help shape your own views. Steve’s speeches …

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Posted in LDVUSA and Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 27 September 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 27th September 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with a special sing-a-long political ad that makes current politics look not so bad really.

2 Big Stories

Speedier tests for cancer planned

Skipping past the utterly predictable stories (senior Labour figures aren’t all happy, shock horror and Baroness Scotland didn’t check paperwork properly, shock horror) we get to this from the BBC:

Patients will get key tests within two weeks of seeing their GP, will tell the Labour Party conference on Tuesday.

It will mean faster reassurance for patients and could save thousands of lives by picking up cancers earlier, he is expected to say.

Late diagnosis has been blamed for poorer cancer survival in the UK.

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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: Do you support Vince’s ‘mansion tax’?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th September 2009 - 8:44 pm

Even Vince Cable now admits that his announcement during the party conference that he wants the Lib Dems to adopt a policy of levying a new tax of 0.5% on the value of properties over £1m could have been smoother. His failure to consult shadow cabinet colleagues, let alone the party’s policy committee, dented even Vince’s seemingly unassailable reputation. However, the process muddle is a side issue to the bigger question: is the policy right, and could the party campaign successfully on it?

First, the policy, and here are two alternative, liberal views. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has …

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Posted in Voice polls | 35 Comments
Stephen Tall

Clegg and Cable resign from PoliticsHome panel in protest at Ashcroft takeover

By Stephen Tall | Sat 26th September 2009 - 5:17 pm

A minor media spat broke out this week, following the announcement that Lord (Michael) Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman who bankrolls the party’s target seats while refusing to say if he pays tax in this country, has bought a majority stake in the political news and commentary aggregator site, PoliticsHome.

This triggered the resignation of the site’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Rawnsley, who issued a public statement arguing that:

It was essential for users of the site that they could feel absolute confidence in the political independence of PoliticsHome. I do not believe that can be compatible with being under the ownership

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , , and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

“Lib Dems are leading the way” on Twitter

By Mark Pack | Sat 26th September 2009 - 11:20 am

A report published by the University of Plymouth and Bournemouth University concludes:

Research has revealed that nearly 67% of all tweeting MPs belong to Labour ahead of 18% for the Liberal Democrats, with the Tories relegated into third place with just 12%. When you factor in the proportion of MPs that each party boasts, it is clear that the Lib Dems are leading the way when it comes to embracing the popular social media site.

And yet overall, just 51 of our 645 MPs are classed as regular Twitter users…

MPs tend to use Twitter as a means of promoting their activities in

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 2 Comments
Li-Teck Lau

Opinion: Protesting about policy issues by lay-people is inane sloganeering

By Li-Teck Lau | Sat 26th September 2009 - 11:05 am

I happened to walk past a small protest the other day occurring before the steps of a local town hall. The subject was climate change, and one protestor apparently had the wit to write ‘Gordon Green, not Gordon Brown’ on a large piece of paper. In total, I would guess there were 15-20 people – a local affair in which the protagonists’ children made up some 30-or-so per cent (I’m presuming present to symbolise that the issue is of protecting future generations, as opposed to implying they too believe in the cause).

But wait a moment; who are these people again? I’m …

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Posted in Op-eds | 8 Comments
Bill le Breton

Opinion: The disaster of Bournemouth was avoidable

By Bill le Breton | Sat 26th September 2009 - 10:25 am

This was always going to be a disastrous conference. We have spent our annual opportunity to reach out to people by communicating a confused image. When the country needed hope, vision and leadership we offered it the ‘straight talk of progressive austerity’.

This disaster was foreseeable.

It was made from a dangerous mixture of a wrong political strategy (based on a wrong economic strategy) added to a leadership and a communications team which had very, very little political experience.

Ming Campbell and Vince Cable when they came to conference as leaders had to be stabilisers with a reassuring …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged | 26 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five (ish): 25/9/09

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 6:55 pm

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. Cabinet Office: correspondence chaos (14) by Mark Pack
2. Conference fringe: Defending free speech – keep libel laws out of science (28) by Prateek Buch
3. Nick Clegg’s conference speech, the live-blog #ldconf (10) by Stephen Tall
4. The Independent View: Time to be honest about English matters (31) by David Rickard
5. Blog of the Year Awards 2009: The Winners (6) by Helen Duffett

5 top #ldconf Lib Dem Tweeters

(Hat-tip: Stephen Glenn)

1. Caron Lindsay 86
2. Cllr Daisy Benson 72
3. LibDemConf 70
4. Anna Pascoe 65
5. Stephen …

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Posted in Friday Five | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem shadow cabinet media tarts, #ldconf special

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 3:45 pm

Donning the hat of his day-job, LDV’s Dr Mark Pack has been busy number-crunching to discover which of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet attracted most media coverage, in print and online. (Of course, column inches is no guarantee that the coverage will have been altogether positive).

Here’s the top 10:

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: pay MPs more!

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 2:45 pm

A month ago, Lib Dem Voice set up a new poll for readers asking the simple question, MPs are currently paid £65k per annum. Do you think they should be paid more than this, the same, or less in the future?

Here’s what you told us:

44% (234 votes) – More than £65k
35% (187) – The same as now
21% (115) – Less than £65k
Total Votes: 536. Poll ran 24 Aug – 13 Sept 2009.

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Posted in Voice polls | Tagged and | 3 Comments
The Voice

‘Trial HIV vaccine cuts infection’ – Evan’s response

By The Voice | Fri 25th September 2009 - 12:20 pm

The BBC reports:

An experimental HIV vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of infection, researchers say. The vaccine – a combination of two earlier experimental vaccines – was given to 16,000 people in Thailand, in the largest ever such vaccine trial. Researchers found that it reduced by nearly a third the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that leads to Aids. Speaking at a news conference in Thailand, US ambassador to Thailand, Eric G. John, said the trial has “brought us one step closer to an HIV vaccine”.

Lib Dem shadow science minister Evan Harris has issued the following response:

The field of HIV vaccine research is littered with failures and disappointments. Ideas which look great on paper or in theory end up not giving protection against the virus in the real world. This is the first time that scientists have come close to making that leap, and it’s a real cause for hope.

“However, it would be premature to say this is a turning point.

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Tim Leunig

Opinion: MPs have the power – so how do we involve the members?

By Tim Leunig | Fri 25th September 2009 - 10:20 am

It is 1946, and Labour have just won a landslide under Clement Attlee. Harold Laski, head of Labour’s National Executive Committee, tells Attlee that he must not sign a peace treaty at Potsdam, because it is the NEC, not Attlee or the parliamentary party, which is the sovereign body of the Labour Party. Attlee replied that

You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin . … a period of silence on your part would be welcome.”

Now imagine the Liberal Democrats win the 2010 election. For financial – or other – reasons the party leadership decide to defer or abolish our pledge to abolish tuition fees.

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , , , and | 19 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 25 September 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 25th September 2009 - 10:12 am

Loyal readers, I’d like to start this morning with a quick reminder to complete this online survey – it’s designed to explore the views and activities of the users of four UK Party-related websites – LabourHome, Labour List, ConservativeHome and Lib Dem Voice. The overall goal of the project is “to better understand how and why party members, supporters and voters in general are using the web and blogs to engage with politics and political organisations.”

It’s being conducted by the Hansard Society in association with researchers at the University of Manchester and University of Salford.

To do your good …

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

Nick Clegg on file sharing and illegal downloads

By Mark Pack | Fri 25th September 2009 - 8:55 am

Peter Mandelson’s proposals to introduce harsh penalties for people suspected of making illegal file downloads have come in for much criticism, particularly for the low standard of proof that would be required and for deploying too much stick and not enough carrot in an attempt to change people’s behaviour. So it was the main topic I picked for the bloggers interview with Nick Clegg during party conference.

Here is Nick’s answer:

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Posted in News and YouTube | Tagged , and | 36 Comments
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time – LDV open thread, 24 September 2009 #bbcqt

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 10:20 pm

It’s Thursday, it’s 10.35 pm … it’s BBC1’s Question Time.

The series opens tonight in Bournemouth, setting of this week’s Lib Dem conference. The party’s representative is David Laws, the MP for Yeovil who succeeded Paddy Ashdown. A leading light of the ‘Orange Bookers’, who aroused the hostility of may Lib Dem activists for proposing a social insurance model for healthcare in the lead-up to the 2005 general election, he has gained growing respect even among his critics for his forensic approach to education policy as the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for children, schools and families.

Joining David on …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

The most important campaigning message

By Mark Pack | Thu 24th September 2009 - 8:42 pm

Last week’s Politics Home poll provided another example of what both public and private party research has consistently shown for at least 15 years. The biggest obstacle to persuading people to vote Liberal Democrat isn’t getting them to agree with a particular policy or to like a particular candidate or leader. It’s persuading people that we can win in that constituency or ward.

In last week’s PoliticsHome poll 44% said they would “definitely” or “probably” Liberal Democrat if we had “a serious chance of winning in your constituency”. That finding is nothing new as you can see, for example, from Russell …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

CommentIsLinked@LDV… #ldconf special bumper edition

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 7:35 pm

Alix Mortimer of the LDV parish rounded up some of the best commentary on the Lib Dem conference here on Sunday – let me try and bring the story up-to-date …

First up, James Graham has had an active conference, popping up a couple of times at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog. One was penned jointly with Neal Lawson of Compass – A camp site not a big tent – and made an unabashed pitch for social liberals and liberal socialists – whether they count themselves as Lib Dems, Labour, Greens or even nationalists – to come together in a progressive alliance. Here’s the mission statement:

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

YouTube ‘cos we want to: bumper conference catch-up special edition

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 6:40 pm

Welcome to this very special bumper conference edition of our occasional LDV feature, YouTube ‘cos we want to, featuring some of the most memorable moments from the past week. For those Lib Dems who’ve been isolated inside the ‘Bournemouth bubble’, missing out on all the media coverage I hope this selection of clips gives you a sense of what you missed while you were, erm, there.

From Nick’s leader’s speech to Vince’s dust-up with Paxman on Newsnight, Chris Davies’s rant to the Huhne ‘n’ Pickles show on Radio 4 – it’s all collected here for your viewing/listening pleasure. Enjoy …

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Posted in Conference and YouTube | Tagged , , , , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

The promise and the peril of not being a one-man band

By Mark Pack | Thu 24th September 2009 - 2:20 pm

Ever since the Liberal Democrats were founded, we’ve had the sight of the national media only being interested at most in one figure – the party’s leader – yet also running regular reports about how the party is a one-man band. Cause and effect anyone?

With the rise of Vince Cable to public prominence – and popularity – the party now faces a different challenge: how best to turn the team of Clegg and Cable into votes for the party.

The idea of running tickets in election campaigns is nothing new – Mayor and Deputy Mayor, President and Vice President, and so …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
The Voice

Trouble for Labour in Rochdale as former mayor quits party

By The Voice | Thu 24th September 2009 - 12:20 pm

Rochdale Labour party is in turmoil this week, after seven Labour members were disciplined for bringing the party into disrepute for calling for an investigation into allegations of domestic abuse by their parliamentary candidate, Simon Danczuk. The former mayor of Rochdale, Robin Parker, has now quit the party in protest at what he regards as a miscarriage of justice, describing the position of Mr Danczuk as Labour’s candidate as “untenable”.

Here’s an excerpt from the in-depth report at Rochdale Online:

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

The Lib Dems: ahead of the curve or missing the moment? #ldconf

By Stephen Tall | Thu 24th September 2009 - 10:25 am

The editorials of two newspapers today sum up the alternative ways in which this past week’s Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth has been regarded – both internally by party activists and externally by the media. (Who knows what those members of the non-politically obsessed public thought, if anything, of the whole thing?)

The Times is pretty scathing of the party’s week in its leader column, Missing the Liberal Moment:

This week has been an opportunity lost for the Liberal Democrats. As the week unfolded, the excitement dissipated. With an election on the near horizon, with the Labour Government’s lease on power coming to an end and the Tories not yet commanding enthusiasm, this week has been an object lesson in how not to seize the day. …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | 11 Comments
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