So writes The Independent:
David Cameron’s charm offensive has failed to attract new members to the Tories – or keep hold of tens of thousands of people who were already in the party when he arrived.
Local Conservative parties have lost almost a quarter of their rank-and-file members since Mr Cameron took over in late 2005…
The total membership in more than 200 constituency associations – barely a third of the overall number
…
Just a quick reminder that all the main documents relating to Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth – now less than fortnight away – are now available directly from the party’s website.
These include the main hall agenda, the policy papers to be debated and fringe and training guides.
Find them all at this handy link.
It’s also worth noting and commending that the information is available in a variety of formats, from the printed books, the PDFs of those, and also simply as plain text – which is good and accessible for those with disabilities and also very handy for PDAs, phones …
Martin Kettle’s article in The Guardian – suggesting that the week beginning 12th October is make-or-break week for those Labour MPs who’d like to oust Gordon Brown – has sparked a fresh bout of Labour leadership speculation. The Economist’s Bagehot is having none of it:
Labour MPs have had their chance. And it wasn’t in June 2009 or in October 2008. It was in 2007, when almost all of them lined up, baa-ing, to endorse Mr Brown. They were too numbed by more than a decade of unthinking obedience and by cowardice to do anything else. That is a
…
Praise for Lembit Opik’s role in Britain’s rural communities comes with Country Life’s list of 100 most influential people. As the Evening Standard reported:
The Lib Dem MP, more famed for his love life than political achievements, has been included in Country Life’s list of the 100 people who wield the most power over the countryside. “ often unintentionally adds gaiety to the nation for his romantic adventures, but is actually the Liberal Democrat MP with the most genuine, considered understanding for the countryside.” At number 44 he beats the likes of, Peter Florence, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sir David Attenborough and
…
What better way to start the day than with Liberal Democrat Voice appearing in your inbox? (Well, discovering you have won a free lifetime’s supply of chocolate possibly, but that aside…)
You can sign up to our daily email news service, which contains the headlines from the latest stories on the site, along with links you can click on to read those which catch your fancy. You can also see which posts have attracted the most comments, and also get handy links to find us on Facebook and Twitter.
We also have a special once-a-week email you can …
There is a report in the E-Government Bulletin about the campaign organisation WebThrift’s claim that councils are wasting money on web services.
Peter Barton at Lincolnshire County Council turns WebThrift’s claim on its head. He estimates the cost impact of turning the web OFF at the council: click here for details.
What is WebThrift’s real agenda? Who could possibly benefit by the isolation of people from local government?
* Simon Titley is a Liberal Democrat activist who helps to write and produce Liberator magazine.
Welcome to the Sunday edition of The Voice’s Daily View. And as it’s a Sunday, it’s also time for a multimedia chocolate extra. But first…
Straw admits Lockerbie trade link
Trade and oil played a part in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer deal, Jack Straw has admitted.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the UK justice secretary said trade was “a very big part” of the 2007 talks that led to the prisoner deal with Libya.
However, Mr Straw’s spokesman accused the press of “outrageous” innuendo. (BBC)
G20 papers over cracks on bank capital, pay
The G20 made progress on Saturday in toughening up financial rules but vague compromises over bank capital and pay curbs indicate that fundamental issues remain unresolved.
The crash of Lehman Bros that brought the world’s financial system to its knees last September was uppermost in minds at the April G20 meeting, which adopted pledges to make it harder for banks to mess up economies in future.
Translating pledges into concrete action is proving to be more painstaking as vested national interests emerge and economic recovery takes the heat out of pressures to reform.
Still, the mood music at Saturday’s meeting contrasted with the tense summit five months ago when fear stalked the corridors of governments and banks were on tenterhooks as to their fate.
(Reuters)
(Both of these posts have been selected from those which appeared on Lib Dem Blogs on Saturday. To read more from other Liberal Democrat blogs, take a look at the Lib Dem Blogs website and to see what Lib Dems have been saying on Twitter, take a look at Liberal Tweets.)
Men eating chocolate. It’s what YouTube was invented for.
The Guardian has the story:
The 10:10 campaign to encourage Britons – and Britain – to cut carbon emissions reached the seat of governmenttoday, with a public call on the Palace of Westminster to sign up. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat energy and climate change spokesman, wrote to John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, to ask for his support.
The paper quotes from Simon’s letter (which I can’t find online at the party’s website):
The Mirror has the story:
Gardeners are so furious with their council they feel like throwing in their trowels. The growers have been banned from using barbed wire to deter allotment vandals – in case they hurt themselves.
Property at the Muddy Bottom East Allotment is being damaged up to three times a week. In one attack 15 sheds were smashed, water butts were overturned and taps were left running.
But when allotment holders asked Southampton council to put up the wire, it said no for fear of being sued. … Lib Dem environment spokesman Tim Farron said the decision was “ridiculous”.
Bizarrely,
…
Yesterday saw Gordon Brown’s statement on the UK’s continuing involvement in Afghanistan, in which he defended the government’s strategy, and maintained its goals were “realistic and achievable”. It earned short shrift from Nick Clegg:
The situation in Afghanistan is on a knife-edge. Yet today we have heard little in the way of fresh, new thinking from Gordon Brown. After pursuing an overambitious and under-resourced strategy for eight years it’s hard to believe that increasing the training of the Afghan police and army will now do the trick. We need a bolder change of strategy to turn things around. When it comes to Afghanistan, we need to do things properly or not at all.
If there was an Olympics for graffiti reporting, I’d rather fancy my chances in the final (137 items reported so far this year to Islington Council; let’s not get started with Haringey, Westminster or Hackney Councils). But despite my enthusiasm for getting graffiti cleaned away, there’s some I regularly pass that I’ve never reported. It’s the graffiti that really counts as art.
Banksy is by far the most famous example of someone who paints items that add to the location rather than detract from it. His paintings are inventive, humorous, famous and widely praised. His Bristol exhibition this year has resulted in …
There’s been plenty of interesting Lib Dem internet chatter asking whether – now Ukip’s soon-to-be-ex-leader Nigel Farage is breaching normal convention and standing against the incumbent Speaker, Tory MP John Bercow, in Buckingham – the Lib Dems should follow suit.
Opinion is divided. Some say we absolutely shouldn’t – here, for instance, is Stephen Glenn:
… while the ‘convention’ for not standing against a sitting speaker is not as set in stone as some people may have you believe, it is none the less a precedent symbolising the apolitical nature of the role. Indeed it seems to be one, that even if contested, the constituents seem to back up as not one speaker seeking election since 1969 has polled less than 50% of the vote.
And here’s the Wit and Wisdom blog:
Liberal Democrats wanting to be taken seriously should give the Speaker a clear run at the next election as is the convention.
Meanwhile Mark Littlewood at Liberal Vision is more open to the idea that the Lib Dems should stand a candidate to oppose Speaker Bercow and Mr Farage:
A few years ago, a group of us decided to organise a Liberal Drinks at federal conference in Brighton. We were building on James Graham’s simple but successful model: nominate a pub, decide a date, publicise it; then have convivial chats with whoever turns up. In Brighton, we followed the same model, deciding on that nice-but-tiny real-ale place near the station. We arrived, a small but respectable number of people turned up, chatted the night away, and at some point moved on to a Chinese restaurant in the vicinity before winding up back at the conference …
Hamas condemned the United Nations Sunday, saying it planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust … the movement’s Popular Committees for Refugees said: “We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists.”
Hat-tip: Matthew Harris
Seems that the Mayor of London has a talent for picking the “wonderful”, “brilliant” and scandal-prone when it comes to expenses.
The BBC reports that Boris Johnson claimed on his MP expenses for a website which promoted his mayoral campaign and the sale of his books:
Mr Johnson claimed the £500 from his MP’s communications allowance for redesigning his website homepage in December 2007.
In a letter obtained by BBC London under the Freedom of Information Act, a parliamentary official told Mr Johnson that his claim was rejected because his website fell “significantly outside” the allowance guidelines.
The House of Commons guidance on the Communications Allowance couldn’t be any clearer –
Last week the Conservatives produced a video about their history and “greatest achievements.”
Now the Liberal Democrats have rebutted their “progressive” claims with: “Don’t let the Tories airbrush history” – pointing out a few things they missed.
Two new Liberal Democrat Councillors were elected yesterday in the new Chippenham constituency:
Ian Clement, one of Boris Johnson’s former Deputy Mayors, has been charged with five counts of fraud “in connection with alleged misuse of expenses.”
Clement was forced to resign in June over allegations that he used his City Hall corporate credit card to pay for private meals and groceries.
Adam Bienkov at Tory Troll has the full story, including the statement issued by the Metropolitan Police, and a statement from Clement’s lawyer in the Bexley Times who accuses the Crown Prosecution Service of “political expediency” for deciding to prosecute.
Peter Mandelson’s desire to introduce stringent penalties for internet piracy look to be heading for deep trouble, with heavy criticism coming from senior businessmen, internet service providers and key parts of the music industry.
First there’s this from paidContent:UK:
The government’s revised, tougher plans to tackle online piracy have been dismissed as “grossly unfair” and “misconceived” by the leaders of ISPs and consumer groups, who warn against creating an “extrajudicial kangaroo court” to cut off persistent P2P offenders.
The CEOs of BT and TalkTalk (the UK’s two biggest ISPs) as well as Orange UK, the Open Rights Group, Which? and Consumer Focus are signatories to a letter in The Times on Thursday which calls for re-think on the plans. It reads: “We are concerned that the Government’s latest proposals on the ‘how’ to reduce illegal filesharing are misconceived and threaten broadband consumers’ rights and the development of new attractive services.”
The industry heavyweights warn of the way the plans threaten freedom of speech: “usually, constraints to freedom of expression are imposed only as the result of custodial sentences, or incitement to racial hatred, or libel.”
Lib Dem peer Shirley Williams has a letter in today’s Times looking at the role of Democratic senator Edward Kennedy – and herself – in promoting a national minimum wage in the UK:
I knew Ted Kennedy well as the chairman of the Senior Advisory Committee of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government … In 1989 and 1990 I was acting director of the institute. … The Senator and his staff had done a good deal of research into the minimum wage, research that showed conclusively that in the US it had not damaged employment
…
Alex pointed out yesterday the Taxpayers’ Alliance opposition to the public sector using Web 2.o technologies:
Taxpayers don’t want more Web2.0. They want an end to wasteful spending.
Now, if you think that spending money on Web 2.0 is necessarily wasteful (and that was the full depth of the Taxpayers’ Alliance – no nuanced point about some Web 2.0 technologies, or some projects – it was just this blanket opposition), you’d have thought the Taxpayers’ Alliance would apply the same standards to themselves?
In which case, they really had better shop themselves to their funders for wasting money as, er…, their own website is build on Web2.o technologies. As Simon Dickson points out:
Today I went to Wikipedia to see what happened today in history, and saw that it’s the birthday of the composer Edvard Grieg. Quick as a flash, the Kit and the Widow song “hundreds of Norwegians on the London Underground” to the tune of the Hall of the Mountain King rises unbidden in my mind – and with it, memories of the Brent East by-election, and Ed Fordham’s uncanny rendition of “Can you tell me please – where can Dollis Hill be found?” For many of you, this will mean nothing, but I’m hoping a significant number of …
So runs the rather foolish quote from the Taxpayers’ Alliance in a story from the Daily Express expressing outrage at a job ad for a Director of Digital Engagement.
The Government should have better things to spend money on than a pointless deputy Twittercrat. The public sector as a whole should be tightening its belt during times of economic hardship, and this job would be a scandalous waste even during good economic times.
Taxpayers don’t want more Web2.0. They want an end to wasteful spending.
Neither the TPA nor the Conservative Party can see the point, instead frothing at the mouth …
Six years on from receiving a recommendation from the Electoral Commission that existing legal powers should be used to clarify how the rules regarding election imprints apply to internet campaigning, the Government has still failed to act. This is despite the Government acknowledging in its official response to the recommendation the “importance” of getting this right. But it has decided that due to it being a “fast-evolving” area doing nothing for six years is the right response.
The Sun says: “Every August poll carried out before a spring election since 1996 has predicted the result to within one per cent.”
Reality says: MORI 24 August 2001 2000 – Con 29% (out by 4%), Lab 51% (out by 9%), lead 22% (out by 9%)
Although this is the most striking example, overall for example eight out of the 12 August polls since 1996 had the Labour lead out by more than 1%. Similarly, only three got the Labour share to within 1%.
Not exactly a case of “every”.
UPDATE: Himmelgarten Cafe points out that the graphic accompanying the Sun story isn’t …
Good morning, on this fine morning – Charlie Sheen’s birthday, and one of Nottingham Lib Dem’s “delivery days.” Here’s hoping for no rain for me and for Charlie.
Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the Tories have carried out a coup:
Tories claim: we have seized control of Scotland Yard
The Conservatives have wrested control of Scotland Yard from the Home Office and now have its top officers working to their agenda, a senior aide to the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has told the Guardian.
Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor for policing, has declared that he and Johnson “have our
…
It’s been a busy day for Nick… speaking out on the Prime Minister’s contortions over the release of Mr Al Megrahi, confirming his intention to accept Sky News’s invitation to a televised leaders’ debate, as well as launching a new Lib Dem campaign, this one aimed at increasing the pay of the lowest-paid troops by £6,000 a year.
Here’s the summary of the new proposals:
The proposals, which would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy or RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level firefighter, would be funded within the
…
As LDV noted this morning Sky News has decided to lay down the gauntlet, and formally invite the major party leaders to particpate in a televised debate during the general election campaign. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has formally accepted his invitation, issuing the following statement on his website:
Many thanks for your letter of yesterday. It is great to hear that Sky News are taking this important initiative and I would be delighted to accept your invitation.
At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, we must
…
Nick Clegg, who has publicly opposed the Scottish executive’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi, today responded to the news that Gordon Brown – who has remained silent about the case until today – let it be known to the Libyan authorities via his foreign office ministers that the Prime Minister did not want Mr Al Megrahi to die in prison:
The Foreign Secretary has now admitted that the British Government made its position on Megrahi’s release clear to the Libyans.
“It is now clear that Gordon Brown felt able to share his feelings with a power-crazed
…
The reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15% quickly condemned and rightly so, by Vince Cable, as expensive and ineffective is one of this government’s more costly errors. The one year only cut will cost us the incredible sum of £12.5 billion pounds and has done little to stimulate consumer spending, simply because despite the enormous cost it still seems so meaningless at the till.
Indeed, it may will come with a sting in the tail, as when it comes to an end and VAT goes back to 17.5% it will come with a sharp inflationary jolt which may well trim back some of those ‘green shoots’ that Labour will being telling us about this winter.
The French, as usual, have shown a little bit more imagination.
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