Stephen Tall

LDV survey: What Lib Dem members actually think about a hung Parliament

By Stephen Tall | Mon 21st September 2009 - 1:10 pm

Today’s BBC2 Daily Politics is touting a highly misleading poll by ComRes feigning to know which of the other two main parties – Labour or the Tories – Lib Dem members would wish to shack up with in the event of a hung Parliament where the party holds the balance of power. The Guardian reports it here:

Liberal Democrat activists would overwhelmingly prefer their party to enter a coalition government with Labour rather than the Tories, according to a poll published today. Fewer than one in five said that they would want to see Nick Clegg team up with

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 6 Comments
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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: Is Nick Clegg right to talk about the need for “savage” cuts?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 21st September 2009 - 10:25 am

For once, the media reporting of what party activists at conference are discussing is accurate – Nick Clegg’s decision to question the affordability of the Lib Dems’ long-held policy of abolishiong university tuition fees, and his talk of the need for the party to be “quite bold, or even savage, on current spending” is the talk of the town.

The Financial Times today quotes some high-level criticism of Nick’s approach:

One MP said Mr Clegg sounded “nastier than the Tories” and that he was “salivating” over the chance to cut the state. Others complained that Mr Clegg and Vince

…

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Posted in Voice polls | Tagged and | 21 Comments
Helen Duffett

The most influential Liberal Democrats: 50-26

By Helen Duffett | Mon 21st September 2009 - 10:23 am

The Daily Telegraph is publishing its list of the top 50 most influential Liberal Democrats, starting today with numbers 50-26.

Congratulations are due to Mark Pack, of the LDV parish, for his appearance at No. 42, happily sandwiched between Watford Mayor Dorothy Thornhill (43) and Blog of the Year winner Jo Swinson (41):

42 (-6) Mark Pack

Former head of innovations, LibDem HQ

Mark Pack is a key player in the Lib Dem blogosphere and one of the main contributers to the successful Liberal Democrat Voice blog, on which he plays the part of attack dog, with a constant stream of blogposts

…

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Mark Pack

Media news from Bournemouth – and our media at its very best

By Mark Pack | Mon 21st September 2009 - 10:01 am

A round-up of more media coverage from conference here in Bournemouth:

And finally, something to file in the “It makes you proud to have media like that in our country” corner. The Times runs a serious piece in education in this country and what we might be able to learn from Sweden. …

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Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 21 September 2009

By Stephen Tall | Mon 21st September 2009 - 9:00 am

Welcome to the start of this week’s LDV Daily Views, coming to you today, live, from a hotel room somewhere in Bournemouth …

2 Must-Read Stories

Lib Dem plan for £1m-property tax

As LDV’s Alix Mortimer hinted last night, today will see Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable announce plans to the party conference for a tax on owners of £1m-plus homes, using the proceeds to help low-paid workers. Here’s the BBC report:

Treasury spokesman Vince Cable will announce plans for a 0.5% annual levy on the most expensive homes, raising £1bn, at the party conference later. He told the BBC it would

…

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Helen Duffett

Blog of the Year Awards 2009: The Winners

By Helen Duffett | Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:41 pm

What’s loosely termed the awards “ceremony” for the 2009 Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards has just drawn to a glittering close. As the last firework fades in Bournemouth’s night sky, I’m delighted to announce the winners:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 11 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Is that what I think it is?

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:00 pm

There was I, all set to wind down from the keyboard, when this inspirational news descends from politicshome:

The Independent says that Nick Clegg plans a new tax on homes worth over £1m in order to fund raising the basic starting-point for income tax.

It’s a wealth tax! A redistribution of taxation burden on to static capital accumulations and away from economically productive activity! Has anyone told Jock?

Woohoo! If the party adopts this, I’ll even overlook all that airbrushing nonsense…

Posted in News | Tagged and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

Party Political Broadcasts: Ofcom proposes some tweaks to the rules

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 7:20 pm

You have until 25 November to give Ofcom your views of their proposed amendments to the rules governing Party Political Broadcasts. Ofcom’s rules apply to the commercial outlets that run PPBs – Channels 3, 4 and Five, Classic FM, talkSPORT and Absolute AM. (The BBC and S4C have their own rules.)

Aside from some tidying up and clearer processes, the changes proposed look sensible and are:

  • to provide that the number of PEBs allocated to major parties and other registered parties should be determined having regard

…

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast – Clegg Q&A

By Alex Foster | Sun 20th September 2009 - 5:45 pm

Just over an hour ago, our fearless leader Nick Clegg left the stage to tumultuous applause following a frank Q&A with delegates.

Below is the audio recording made by our intrepid reporter by sitting in the audience with a MP3 recorder. And with access to a loaned MacBook, I’ve been able to process the sound much more quickly.

If you hear whispering and shuffling in the recording it’s because a group of media delegates were chattering to each other all through the recording. How nice, then, that one of them subsequently pronounced positively on Clegg’s performance. (At least, I think …

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Stephen Tall

LDV pre-conference members’ survey (3): how you rated the Lib Dem shadow cabinet

By Stephen Tall | Sun 20th September 2009 - 5:40 pm

Over the last week or so, Lib Dem Voice has invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the c.250 of you who completed it; we’re publishing the results on LDV over the next few days. You can catch up on the results of our exclusive LDV members’ surveys by clicking here.

Today, we turn our attention to the performance of the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet, and a handful of other senior Lib Dems. Reproduced below, in alphabetical order, are the full results of our survey, which shows how effective each MP is felt by members to be, together with a net satisfaction rating (those who think they’re very/fairly effective minus those think they’re very/fairly ineffective).

The list is a long one, so here’s the skinny:

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 3 Comments
Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Campaigning after Rennard

By Alex Foster | Sun 20th September 2009 - 4:15 pm


After a day of Linux updates on an incredibly elderly IBM Thinkpad, we can now finally bring you the audio recording of last night’s highly successful fringe meeting with Mark Pack, James Graham, Neil Fawcett and Lynne Featherstone MP.

And most unusually for fringe meetings in general, and definitely a first for an LDV fringe – our meeting got written up in the Guardian’s Comment is Free.

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Alix Mortimer

Sweetly misguided he may be, but…

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 3:29 pm

…top marks for Sunder Katwala of the Fabians for this, reported by James Graham:

When Cameron claims you can’t put a cigarette paper between the Tories and LDs, it makes you wonder what he’s smoking.

Meanwhile, twittery excitement is growing about this afternoon’s debate on civil libs. Richard Dawkins is speaking to his amendment in about half an hour:

@bengoldacre #ldconf there’s also dawkins doing amendment on libel in civil liberties session at 4pm, main hall, we’re going thru his speech now

But never mind the mere intellectual giants and dishy sci-geeks of our age. What could possibly be …

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Stephen Tall

Nick’s conference Q&A, the live-blog

By Stephen Tall | Sun 20th September 2009 - 2:54 pm


Nick has rung the changes for this year’s traditional leader’s Q&A in front of the party conference – out goes the usual interview between Nick and a friendly lefty-liberal journo, and in comes the improvised ‘Town Hall’ format of audience questions.

First up, Nick’s asked if the Lib Dems will take part in political programmes if the BNP are invited to take part by the broadcasters. Yes, we will, he says: quite simply it’s too late to ignore the BNP. Look at what happened in Burnley, he notes – once forecast to be the first BNP council, now a prime Lib …

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Alix Mortimer

Commentislinked@LDV – bumper edition

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 1:49 pm


I am agog to hear the podcast of last night’s LDV fringe event (hint), but in the meantime, some snippets of news from the jumping-up-and-down-on-the-sidelines school of conference reporting.

First, David Howarth is plugging away the civil liberties message in the Guardian:

…I am still profoundly unconvinced by the Tories’ conversion to the cause of freedom.

First, Tory proposals have a tendency to smack of too little, too late. For instance, its surveillance proposals looked oddly similar to those to be found in the freedom bill. Scrapping ID cards? Getting rid of the ContactPoint database? Reining in councils’ investigatory powers? It’s

…

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Mark Pack

A better politics for less: where Nick Clegg’s axe would fall

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 11:38 am

Nick Clegg has today launched a detailed plan for cutting the costs of government, “A Better Politics for Less”:

Balancing the government books isn’t just the political equivalent of an accountancy exam; Liberal Democrats seek austerity for the purpose of delivering a better Britain. The best way to reduce government expenditure is through significant reform, identifying big ticket items that can be done differently or not done at all. Simply squeezing budgets year-on-year, without identifying how to deliver better for less will just hurt the public services people rely on.

Unlike the previous Conservative proposals, these plans will both save a significant …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Backlash over Conservative Bedford Mayor selection

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 11:12 am

From Bedfordshire on Sunday:

Snubbed tory leader Nicky Attenborough has launched a scathing attack on her party claiming Monday’s open primary to elect a mayoral candidate was ‘hijacked’…

In Mrs Attenborough’s email, copied in to Tory chief David Cameron and leaked to Bedfordshire on Sunday, she says: ‘Exactly why should anyone become a member of the Conservative Party when they can walk off the streets into any selection meeting and choose the most unsuitable candidate, if they want, without knowing anything about them, or go to a meeting with the leader without having to pay £20 for the privilege…

‘What followed was

…

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Alix Mortimer

Conference: Day 2

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:24 am

The agenda

Reports from the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Diversity and Equality Group this morning, then a Scotland/Wales double-act in the form of the policy mortion on the  Future of Devolution (short version: more of it please!). There’s a presenttation from Kingston’s Lib Dem group (go Mary!), speeches from Norman Lamb and Ed Davey and a policy motion on the paper “Thriving in a Globalised World – A Strategy for Britain”.

And that’s just before lunch.

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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 20 September 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with a special Trojan Horse supplement.

2 Big Stories

Obama attempts to revive Middle East peace efforts

So reports the BBC:

Mr Obama will first hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the White House says.

The three men, who will be in New York for the UN General Assembly, will then hold joint discussions.

The move comes after US envoy George Mitchell’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy ended without agreement.

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The Voice

BBC report: “Clegg ‘to axe tuition fee pledge'”

By The Voice | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:01 pm

The BBC is reporting that the party will drop its pledge to axe tuition fees.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg says he may be forced to scrap the party’s flagship policy of abolishing university tuition fees in England and Wales.

Mr Clegg will tell his party’s annual conference he has to be “realistic” about whether it is affordable given the country’s mountain of debt.

His analysis is backed up by the following quotes from Nick:

“I believe tuition fees are wrong, I believe they need to be abolished, I want to do it as soon as possible,” Mr Clegg will tell a rally

…

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Posted in News | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

Real Women policy paper debate: live blog #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 2:51 pm

With my technological fingers crossed, here we go…

The votes:

  1. Amendment 1 (female representation): passed overwhelmingly
  2. Amendment 2 (air-brushing): overwhelmingly defeated
  3. Amendment 3 (sport): passed overwhelmingly
  4. Separate vote (on name blank employment): lines overwhelmingly retained
  5. Motion as a whole: passed overwhelmingly

Lynne Featherstone (summating on the motion): concentrates on name-blank employment and on air-brushing. Draws parallel with exam marking where names are removed in order to stop some forms of bias and highlights evidence from Department of Work and Pensions of the impact that name-blanking can have. On air-brushing – it’s about tackling conformity and not accepting the values of global industries. It’s about making the operation …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | 36 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s blogger interviews

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 11:33 am

This morning a group of 10 bloggers interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The questions ranged over a wide area and here are a few selected highlights:

MPs’ expenses: Nick eloquently made the link between safe seats and good behaviour by MPs: “if you want to keep MPs honest, don’t give them safe seats for life … safe seats corrupt public life”. He said his one real regret over how he had handled the issue was not making the point more forcefully that whilst the party was not free of “blemishes”, no Liberal Democrat MP had been involved in the serious …

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Posted in Blogger Interviews | Tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Please be nice and helpful…

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 11:20 am

… and complete this online survey.

As the blurb says:

This survey is 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.

The first section asks about your background and some general questions about your political activities and interests. The second section explores your views of the site and how you engage with it.

…

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Posted in Online politics | 3 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Conference: First pictures

By Alix Mortimer | Sat 19th September 2009 - 10:05 am

It’s that time of year again, folks. Doesn’t it come round quickly? And each year more glorious than the last. Yes it’s:

INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

Arrr. This should make for some interesting speeches from the platform at Bournemouth.

Mark and Alex have already started reporting direct from the Lib Dem Cupboard this morning, which is as luxurious as ever:

cupboard2

I, meanwhile, can’t be in Bournemouth, so I will be your host on the home front, scanning the papers for coverage (with a telescope. Arrr), stealing gossip and …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference: what to watch out for on Saturday

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:55 am

Running rather against the modern trend of reorganising events to suit the media, this autumn’s Liberal Democrat conference is starting and finishing a day earlier. With a Saturday start and a Wednesday finish, that means one weekday (better for media coverage) has been sacrificed for one extra weekend day (worse for media coverage, but more convenient for party members to attend).

What to expect on this Saturday of conference then?

Highlights are likely to include:

  • The Real Women policy paper debate in the afternoon, which includes proposals related to the airbrushing of women in magazine photos and the like. That particular aspect of

…

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

Official conference twitter feed

By Alex Foster | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:45 am

Just a quick reminder that there will be an official conference twitter feed, available here: www.twitter.com/LibDemConf. Conference staffers and stewards will be updating the account with information as it happens at conference – who’s speaking, when sessions start, and how Conference votes.

If you’re using twitter at conference yourself, don’t forget to liberally sprinkle your updates with the hashtag #ldconf – this will help other people find the messages you send.

And if you want to see those messages for yourself, whether or not you’re a signed up twitter user – click here.

Finally, there’s also Ryan Cullen’s …

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Issan Ghazni

Policy development – mainstreaming equalities!

By Issan Ghazni | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:30 am

If you have been reading your papers for conference, you might have noticed something new. Tucked away at the back of the policy papers is a page headed ‘Policy Equality Impact Assessment’. If you work in the public sector, you may already be familiar with these, as they have been compulsory in schools, hospitals and other public institutions for some time now. As a political party, we are not expected to complete such assessments as a matter of course, but have started to introduce them as a sign of our own commitment to the principles of diversity, equality …

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The Voice

Clegg: Labour insiders have asked us to fall in line

By The Voice | Fri 18th September 2009 - 11:05 pm

More material for Libdemologists, from the Telegraph:

The Lib Dem leader said that members of the Labour Party had approached his party looking for help in preventing the Tories taking power after the next election…

Mr Clegg, whose party begins its annual conference on Saturday in Bournemouth, said he will not take part in any alliance with Labour.

Read the full story here

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Danny Alexander MP

The Tories are not a progressive party

By Danny Alexander MP | Fri 18th September 2009 - 8:56 pm

It’s little wonder Eric Pickles is trying to persuade Liberal Democrats to vote for him; we’ve been winning council seats off the Conservatives in his constituency and he’s obviously rattled.

The Tory Chairman says liberal democracy is “part of the Conservative family”, but I’m certain I’m no part of his family. His flawed view of history is matched only by his arrogance in assuming that he’s got the General Election in the bag and can now order people to vote for him.

Let’s remember, the Conservatives are the party that opposed social welfare in 1909 and the creation of the NHS forty …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
The Voice

Nick Clegg: angry liberal

By The Voice | Fri 18th September 2009 - 7:25 pm

Drama and political passion over at the Jewish Chronicle, where Nick Clegg vows to Martin Bright that he will not silence controverial Lib Dem peer Baroness (Jenny) Tonge, whose outspoken comments on the Israeli-Palestine conflict have in the past landed her in hot water.

Nick Clegg is angry. No, it’s beyond angry. Incandescent almost gets it, but that still doesn’t capture the full fury of the man as he leans forward from his chair in the Liberal Democrat leader’s office in the House of Commons.

The accusation that Mr Clegg had failed to honour his commitment to act against the pro-Palestinian Lib

…

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , , , and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five (ish): 18/9/09

By Stephen Tall | Fri 18th September 2009 - 5:00 pm

What could be simpler: five categories, each with five links. And it’s Friday.

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. Parliamentary candidates can now keep their home addresses secret (8) by Mark Pack
2. Blog of the Year Awards 2009: The Shortlists (14) by Helen Duffett
3. Guardian asks Lib Dems, “When did you stop beating your wife?” (26) by Stephen Tall
4. Gavin Webb quits Lib Dems, joins Libertarian Party (138) by Stephen Tall
5. The MP conference fringe league table (2) by Mark Pack

5 recent #ldconf tweets

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