Mark Pack

MPs Are Very Good At T’Internet Shocker

By Mark Pack | Tue 24th February 2009 - 11:25 am

Iain Dale has headlined his blog post on today’s Hansard Society / Microsoft report, “MPs Not Very Good At T’Internet Shocker”, but it seems to me you could just as well draw the opposite conclusion.

There’s much that’s good and thoughtful and interesting in the report, but … it still suffers from what most such reports suffer from, which is the chain of assumptions, “The internet is good. Politicians should therefore use the internet more. The more different ways they use the internet the better. If there’s any way they’re not using the internet, that’s bad.”

There is some truth …

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Posted in News and Online politics | Tagged and | 1 Comment
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Alex Foster

Tories: put your money where your mouth is

By Alex Foster | Tue 24th February 2009 - 10:59 am

Cllr Richard Kemp, leader of the Lib Dems in local government, has challenged Tories to take action on their new pledge to push for more mayors in English cities.

We covered this tangentially whilst discussing lovebombing last week, when we also linked to Millennium Elephant’s masterful dismissal of the entire policy:

The proposal to increase accountability will actually DILUTE it; the promise to return power to people will really move power IN to a new centre that is less representative and more remote; the plan to free local government from central government control will, in reality, SHACKLE local councils

…

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Posted in Local government | 2 Comments
Gareth Aubrey

Y Barcud Oren #5

By Gareth Aubrey | Tue 24th February 2009 - 10:31 am

And now on ITV 17, “Welsh Labour Politicians Say The Stupidest Things”…

Excuse Me While I Hate Myself

Our first clip comes courtesy of Rhys Williams, the Labour PPC for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. A strongly Welsh-speaking area, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr is fairly iconic for Plaid; it’s the successor to Gwynfor Evans’ old seat and is now represented by The Next Leader Of Plaid Cymru™ and The Minister For Smoking In The Eli Jenkins. Equally, having been held by Labour so recently, it’s also often identified as vital for Llafur in re-establishing its Welshness.

Nevertheless, Mr Williams went in all guns blazing in a magazine article, chastising the Welsh-speaking community for using the language as a weapon of exclusion. Not that he has any problem with individual Welsh speakers; that would after all be quite difficult as he is one himself…

In a competitive seat, it would indeed have been electoral suicide, but Plaid were already going to open a big can of electoral whupass on Mr Williams anyway, so for him the greatest consequence will likely be a reminder of his idiocy on BBC Wales’ election night coverage. In any case, no-hoper Llafur candidates saying stupid things quickly took a back seat as the professionals got into the game…

L’Etat, C’est Morgan

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Mark Pack

Lord Ashcroft and the Conservative Party: the financial controversies

By Mark Pack | Tue 24th February 2009 - 10:20 am

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

With Michael Ashcroft back in the news over his financial support for the Conservative Party, this post provides a quick recap of the past controversies over Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative Party and political funding.

Ashcroft’s sequence of senior Conservative posts

Under William Hague, Ashcroft was Treasurer of the Conservative Party (1998-2001), becoming a peer and member of the House of Lords in 2000. He was involved in a protracted dispute with The Times, which had been investigating some of the sources of his wealth. A libel action was settled out of court, with both sides paying their own legal costs.

After Hague’s departure, there was a gap of several years before Ashcroft once again held senior office in the Conservative Party, coming back as Deputy Chairman after the 2005 general election. This role, combined with his financial contributions, have given him huge influence over the Conservative Party’s target seats operation.

Ashcroft’s influence on the Conservative Party’s direction

He paid privately for an extensive polling operation during the 2005 campaign, the results of which – along with his book, Smell the coffee: A wake-up call for the Conservative Party – played a significant part in the modernising debates in the Conservative Party.

Tim Montgomerie has commented on ConservativeHome that, “I think his polling operation and Smell The Coffee report did too much to send the Cameron project in an über-modernising direction.”

Ashcroft and the House of Lords

Prior to being made a peer in 2000, Michael Ashcroft promised that he would return to the UK and pay income tax:

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Alix Mortimer

In defence of Chris Grayling

By Alix Mortimer | Tue 24th February 2009 - 7:09 am

No, not his views on policing. His expenses. Obviously, I’m far from Grayling’s biggest fan, but it’s the tabloids’ insistent foaming that gives one pause for thought. “If you thought Jacqui Smith was bad,” they have screamed for the last few mornings, “Look at THIS! With EXTRA ADDED OUTRAGE!” The latest “expose” from the Mirror is hopefully titled:

Fury as three more MPs rake in cash for second homes – Exclusive

The “exclusive” element appears to be the work experience kid looking up the addresses of various Tory and Labour MPs and measuring their distance from Westminster on Google Maps, then pinging off a couple of emails to the Land Registry. All the President’s Men this is not.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 19 Comments
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Mark Pack

When is a council spending £70,000 on supporting public transport a bad thing?

By Mark Pack | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 9:41 pm

Quite possibly when it is £70,000 blown on first class train fares for councillors and senior staff. As the Blackpool Gazette reports of its Conservative-controlled council:

BLACKPOOL Council has spent more than £70,000 on first class rail travel in the past 18 months.

The figure – today slammed by one senior councillor as “astonishing” – was revealed amid claims some councillors and senior officers were wasting taxpayers’ cash on expensive “jollies” to London …

The Gazette highlights the spending today as part of our It’s Your Money campaign to investigate how public cash is spent – and sometimes misspent.

Liberal Democrat councillor and

…

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Stephen Tall

ConHome: ‘Tories ponder “generous outreach to Lib Dems”’ Love-bomb or genuine?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 5:20 pm

ConservativeHome co-editor Tim Montgomerie has authored a piece today in which he outlines a debate he claims is being had by senior Tories concerning ‘the extent of outreach that should be made to the Liberal Democrats in the event of the Conservatives becoming the governing party at the next General Election.’ Here’s the meat of it:

I understand that a group of shadow ministers believe that one of Tony Blair’s bigger strategic mistakes was to row back on co-operation with the Liberal Democrats when he won such a large Commons majority in 1997. These shadow ministers believe that –

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Mark Pack

Has Chris Grayling put his foot in it?

By Mark Pack | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 5:02 pm

The new Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling gave a speech today in which he said,

Labour has had eleven years and they have collectively failed – their musical chairs based system of home secretaries has left Britain a more dangerous, less civilised place to live in.

Now that’s odd. Not only because, as Hopi Sen points out, “Chris Grayling is the third Shadow Home Secretary in the last year” but also because on my calculation, the average term of office of a Labour Home Secretary since 1997 (excluding Jacqui Smith, as she is still in post) has been slightly higher …

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Alex Foster

Clegg Baby photos

By Alex Foster | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 3:13 pm

There has been much cooing at LDV Towers over three photos released through Nick Clegg’s leadership site www.nickclegg.com.

To spread the cooing to a grateful nation, here’s the link.

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Alex Foster

Account suspended – for the final time?

By Alex Foster | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 2:36 pm

Our alert readers will have noticed we had another outage this morning when our site was unavailable for a number of hours.

The reason for this was a traffic spike – and despite the jokes, it could well have been because the van-maker LDV was in the news, and we’re a top-ten search result for the term LDV.

Our current hosting arrangements mean we share a computer with several other websites. When we get a big traffic spike, our performance affects the other users of the computer, and our host sometimes turns us off to make sure the other websites …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Nick Clegg – We need to clean up our act … now!

By The Voice | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 2:09 pm

Over at the Mirror’s website, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has an article (submitted, the Voice assumes, before his paternity leave started!) calling on politicians from all parties ‘to get together and give politics a proper Spring-clean.’ Here’s an excerpt:

Politicians are the least trusted people in the country, and restoring people’s faith will be a big task. So we can’t do it like a succession of governments have always wanted – bit by bit, issue by issue, crisis by crisis. We need to think big on the way politics works.

If we have flimsy rules for expenses, people will always

…

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Merlene Emerson

Opinion: Safe as houses

By Merlene Emerson | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 10:23 am

I agree with Vince Cable MP that cuts in interest rates have reached their limit and that we now need different policies to stimulate the economy .

Despite general support for Keynesian economics (cf the Paradox of Thrift), Vince spoke out in favour of the virtue of saving and pointed out that there are 7 times more savers than mortgage borrowers who are being penalised under the present climate.

The global recession was first brought about by the collapse of the sub-prime housing market in the US. Hence it is back to the US that I …

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Stephen Tall

Congratulations to Nick and Miriam

By Stephen Tall | Mon 23rd February 2009 - 9:07 am

Warmest congratulations and good wishes to Nick Clegg and Miriam Gonzalez Durantez on the birth of their third child, Miguel. Here’s the BBC report:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s wife Mirian has given birth to a son Miguel – their third child. The younger brother for Antonio, seven, and Alberto, four, was born at Kingston Hospital on Sunday. Mother and son are both said to be doing well. …

has said he will take paternity leave, with his deputy Vince Cable to fill in at prime minister’s questions. Mr Clegg’s wife – Miriam Gonzalez Durantez – is a former

…

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Richard Huzzey

Labour renews efforts to undermine UK universities

By Richard Huzzey | Sun 22nd February 2009 - 11:45 pm

Just after students from outside the EU have became the first guinea pigs for Labour’s inane and insane national identity scheme, they have been hit with more red tape from Westminster.

Students pursuing degree programmes in Britain will need to re-apply for a visa every four years, removing a guarantee that they would be permitted to stay for the duration of their course.

At a time when higher education institutions are struggling to compete internationally, this is about as welcome for British universities as Evan Harris at a Daily Mail Christmas party. Diane Warwick of Universities UK warns:

lthough

…

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Mark Pack

Had a busy weekend campaigning or policy making?

By Mark Pack | Sun 22nd February 2009 - 6:50 pm

If so, this website is for you.

Posted in Humour | 2 Comments
Alex Foster

Catchup 22/02/2009

By Alex Foster | Sun 22nd February 2009 - 3:19 pm

Welcome to catchup, featuring only the crumbliest, flakiest posts from the last week, with no Flake wrappers stopping up the plug.

Most read this week: Mark Pack using David Cameron’s own words to prove that David Cameron is cheap, lurching to the left, and not sensible; yet another post about bloody Derek Draper; another wind-up post from the monstrously offensive Laurence Boyce; an excellent piece from Stephen defending Clegg’s piece about fathers in the recession and still more comments on “Just Exactly How Wrong Was Chris Huhne?”

catchup2

Your …

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Posted in A weekly catchup | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Who’d be a Labour or Tory MP right now?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 22nd February 2009 - 1:12 pm

Here’s a short exercise for a Sunday afternoon: if you woke up today and were one of the following, how would you be feeling?

1) a Labour MP
2) a Tory MP

It’s not quite as straightforward as it seems. For sure, Labour MPs’ self-confidence is going to be fragile just now – for the second time in a year, their party’s poll ratings have crashed below the 30% level, conjuring up memories of the ignominy of Michael Foot’s 1983 election defeat. And yet desperate times can also be quite exciting, too. Just think back to the febrile state of John Major’s Tory …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 4 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – Let’s make a virtue out of thrift again

By The Voice | Sun 22nd February 2009 - 12:47 pm

Over at the Mail on Sunday, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable ponders the question he is asked every day: why are profligate borrowers being rewarded by lower interest rates while thrifty savers suffer? Here’s an excerpt:

Interest rate cuts were unavoidable, though they have reached their limit and other policies are now more important – especially getting credit flowing to sound companies. Of course, it is necessary for the economy that people should spend, sensibly, since this also creates production and employment for others. There is a danger that fear is leading many people, and companies, to hoard excessive cash

…

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Mark Pack

Conservative MP Chris Grayling under fire for his expense claims

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st February 2009 - 10:19 pm

The Sunday Mirror is highlighting Conservative MP Chris Grayling’s expense claims for his flat near Parliament:

Top Tory Chris Grayling has claimed £104,183 of taxpayers’ money over six years for a London flat – even though he has a family home just 17 miles away from Westminster.

And neighbours of the Shadow Home Secretary say they “rarely, if ever” see him at the Westminster flat where his postbox is packed with unopened mail.

On the eve of becoming an MP in June 2001, Mr Grayling, 46, paid £127,000 for the one-bedroom flat in a six-storey block, which has views of Westminster Cathedral and is

…

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Mark Pack

Electoral Commission to investigate Ashcroft’s donations to the Tories

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st February 2009 - 8:47 pm

News just breaking on Sky… donations to the Conservative Party made by Bearwood Services are to be investigated by the Electoral Commission.

UPDATE:  The BBC has more.

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

Vince features in the FT’s ‘My first million’

By Stephen Tall | Sat 21st February 2009 - 12:40 pm

Not had your fill of Vince Cable stories this week? In which case, you can read more about the Lib Dem deputy leader in today’s Financial Times, where he answers questions such as:

What is the secret of your success? (“I suppose I was in the right place at the right time.”)

Do you want to carry on till you drop? (“I will stand at the next election but beyond that there are other things I want to do.”)


If you had £1m in cash, where would you invest it? (“I would want to put aside some, say half, for prudent low-risk saving

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Mark Pack

Getting on the Liberal Democrat extranet

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st February 2009 - 12:10 pm

Screenshot of the Lib Dem extranetThe party’s extranet is a resource for party activists, elected representatives (including councillors) and staff and the home for artwork, campaign materials, policy briefings and also resources to accompany the party’s major national campaigns, such as the environment campaign and the 1 million doors challenge.

Access is open to all party councillors, staff (including, for example, those working for council groups), approved Parliamentary candidates, local party Chairs, EARS officers and Membership Secretaries / Membership Development officers, trainers and up to eight other nominated people per local party.

Full access details are …

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Posted in Online politics | 2 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – Why our economy is trapped in a time warp of tribal politics

By The Voice | Sat 21st February 2009 - 11:30 am

Over at the Yorkshire Post, Lib Dem deputy leader and shadow chancellor Vince Cable marks the first anniversary of the nationalisation of Northern Rock with his account of ‘one of the most tumultuous years in the history of the financial sector and the British economy.’ Here’s an excerpt:

Eighteen months into the credit crunch and six months into a recession, the Conservatives and the Labour Party are still rehearsing the same arguments. The Conservatives have one message: “It’s all your fault, Gordon.” The Government, on the other hand, endlessly repeats its claim: “It’s nothing to do with us; it is a

…

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged | 2 Comments
Alex Foster

Exciting news about Lib Dem Conference

By Alex Foster | Sat 21st February 2009 - 8:29 am

Well, firstly we have Howard Dean coming to talk to us in Harrogate next month, at 12.15 on the Saturday.  We’ve already covered this here, and Lynne Featherstone got excited too. Expect the hall to be packed – so take your seat early and listen to the adult education policy debate we’re having immediately before it.

Queuing for conference

Don’t miss Lib Dem Voice’s first fringe meeting!

Secondly, Lib Dem Voice have organised our own fringe meeting at 8pm on Saturday evening in the main conference centre. We’ll take as …

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Posted in Conference | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour, Lewisham and the BNP

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th February 2009 - 9:52 pm

As previously featured on LDV, Duwayne Brooks was running to be a Liberal Democrat councillor in one of yesterday’s by-elections. Duwayne, along with fellow candidate Jenni Clutten, won. Congratulations to them both.

Labour’s campaign was at times, shall we say, unusual, with a heavy emphasis in their leaflets of a plan of their to have the Union Jack* flying over Lewisham Town Hall. As Dave Hill has written over on The Guardian:

How does that work for you? It made me a little queasy. Shouldn’t Labour concentrate on exposing the BNP for what it is rather than pandering to the nationalism

…

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Posted in Conference, Leadership Election and News | Tagged , , and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

What have James Purnell, Geoffrey Howe and Elvis Presley got in common?

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th February 2009 - 9:42 pm

Why, they all feature in the same sentence in the excellent piece from Steve Richards on the Labour leadership rumblings of course.

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Stephen Tall

Is Martin Kettle right – could the Lib Dems eclipse Labour?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th February 2009 - 7:20 pm

LDV has eschewed mention of the past week’s opinion polls, three of which have shown the Lib Dems to be the chief beneficiaries of the recent slump in Labour support. As our regular readers will know, we just don’t believe there’s anything to be gained from looking at any one individual poll in isolation – the media and blogosphere’s slavish fixation on statistically insignificant percentage changes is usually just an easy distraction from discussing substantial issues that actually matter.

But it hasn’t escaped the attention of Guardian columnist Martin Kettle, who today ponders (with all the necessary caveats) …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem housing proposals unveiled

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th February 2009 - 6:50 pm

There was no escaping Lib Dem shadow housing minister Sarah Teather yesterday … not only did she put in a sparkling performance on BBC1’s Question Time, but, more importantly, she launched the party’s new plans to ‘rebuild social housing and rescue the construction industry’ (full details at the party website here). Which, ahem, LDV managed not to cover yesterday 😳 – fortunately, though, the proposals did earn plenty of coverage in the media:

BBC: Lib Dems unveil housing proposals – The Liberal Democrats have unveiled plans to boost the number of low cost homes and reduce repossessions. They say government efforts to do so have had little effect and suspending stamp duty on homes worth below £175,000 was a “waste of money”. They say more empty properties need to be used and firms with empty commercial properties should get incentives to let them out as temporary homes. … 

Launching their plans earlier, the Lib Dems said they would also introduce a “repair and renewal loan scheme” for people who own empty properties which they are prepared to lease for five years to housing associations. The party said the scheme would cost £400m over two years and would be paid for by scrapping Homebuy Direct, a scheme set up by the government to help first-time buyers on to the housing ladder. That would also allow commercial properties being used for housing, to claim commercial property rate relief – also funded by scrapping Homebuy Direct. The party believes young people – rather than families – would be prepared to live in empty commercial property for short periods of time at low rents.

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Norman Baker – It might be legal, but it’s not right

By The Voice | Fri 20th February 2009 - 6:22 pm

Over at the Mirror, crusading Lib Dem MP Norman Baker writes (briefly) about the damage that the ‘drip, drip, drip of stories about MPs’ expenses’ is doing to Parliament. Here’s an excerpt (actually, it’s pretty much the whole piece):

We can’t continue to have revelations that the public find so shocking. Jacqui Smith’s homes are a prime example. It’s not acceptable that she can claim her main home is her sister’s spare room. Saying it is within the rules is not good enough. House of Commons officials must be able to veto MPs’ declarations. They need to ask questions like where

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Stephen Tall

When being called a Liberal Democrat is taken as an insult

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th February 2009 - 6:15 pm

LDV has mentioned previously the tendency of Gordon Brown to attempt (rather pathetically) to rile Liberal Democrats by referring to ‘the Liberal party’ at Prime Minister’s Questions. Well, up in Liverpool, the Liberal party is taking considerable offence at being referred to as Liberal Democrats, as the Liverpool Echo reports:

A CITY leader is at the centre of a standards investigation into claims he was rude to a charity set up to encourage black people into politics. Liberal group leader Cllr Steve Radford is alleged to have breached the members code of conduct in comments he made to Operation

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