Mark Pack

Staying in the loop

By Mark Pack | Thu 6th November 2008 - 12:15 pm

November’s edition of Total Politics carries the following piece from me about finding information on the internet. Here’s a slightly extended version of the piece:

There is no shortage of information out there, but getting what you need, when you need it can be a challenge, particularly when your inbox, mailbag, radio and TV are all thrusting new pieces of information at you all the time. There are though a few simple steps you can take to radically improve and refine the information you find on the internet.

If you want to know what is happening in the world of UK politics, Politics Home (www.politicshome.com) is a great start, as it pulls together the latest content from traditional and online news sources into one regularly-updated front page. For more specialist political news and comment, the various ‘home’ sites focusing on the main parties are a good start: conservativehome.blogs.com, www.labourhome.org and www.libdemvoice.org.

However, one of the major tricks to getting the most out of websites in the most time-efficient manner is to cut back on the amount of time you spend going round checking websites and instead make the websites come to you whenever they have something new – and there’s a special sort of software that can do this for you.

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
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Stephen Tall

Blears on blogging: bad timing and bad analysis?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th November 2008 - 9:48 am

Hazel Blears’ speech to the Hansard Society is attracting a fair amount of attention in the blogosphere today, perhaps not surprisingly given the inclusion of this paragraph:

This brings me to the role of political bloggers. Perhaps because of the nature of the technology, there is a tendency for political blogs to have a Samizdat style. The most popular blogs are rightwing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 9 Comments
Stephen Tall

Is the SNP a shoo-in for Glenrothes? (Or is Labour lowering expectations?)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th November 2008 - 9:38 am

The Daily Mail’s Ben Brogan at least is convinced that Labour are down-and-out in today’s Scottish by-election:

Labour word is that Glenrothes is a lost cause. The SNP will take it by 1500, give or take 500. I don’t detect a Brown Central attempt to prepare a “shock” win. Instead they say that had they had a few days more it might have made a difference, and that without Gordon and Sarah Brown’s personal intervention the result would be far worse. So the good news is that defeat will be masked by the Obama euphoria.

Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged | 9 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Foster: swearing on TV should be toned down

By Alix Mortimer | Thu 6th November 2008 - 9:14 am

The Mirror are apparently running a campaign to, er. Well, it’s not clear. The opening line says it’s a campaign to “stop the swearing on the telly” and claims politicians and commentators of all stripes agree with it.

But all the quotes it provides indicate a milder ambition. Even the Tories culture spokesman Jeremy Hunt only talks about need to avoid “excessive” swearing, and a mini-essay by Lord Duss, former chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, concedes that “swearing…has its place for dramatic effect”. Our own culture spokesman Don Foster is quoted as saying:

Broadcasters

…

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Posted in News | 24 Comments
Richard Huzzey

Obama heads to the West Wing

By Richard Huzzey | Thu 6th November 2008 - 1:12 am

As President-elect Obama picks his cabinet and administration, leaks suggest Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-Ill.) will be his Chief of Staff. After the inspiration for The West Wing’s Matt Santos has tapped the guy Josh Lyman was based on, can it be long before George Stephanopolous (aka Sam Seabourn) is recruited as Emmanuel’s deputy? Probably less likely is McCain (aka Arnie Vinick) being invited to be Secretary of State.

Posted in News | 6 Comments
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The Voice

How many light bulbs does it take to change a President?

By The Voice | Wed 5th November 2008 - 6:16 pm

Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire brings us this gem of a quote from President-elect Obama:

“Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house.”

— Sen. Barack Obama, quoted in Newsweek’s special election issue, during debate preparations on how he wanted to answer if Brian Williams asked him, “What’s a personal thing that you’ve done that’s green.”

If even Barack Obama didn’t feel he could get away with saying that, The Voice guesses there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of Ming Campbell succeeding.

Posted in Humour and LDVUSA | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVUSA: Presidential Prediction competition results (unofficial)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th November 2008 - 6:07 pm

Well, the outcome’s in no doubt, but the actual result is – which means we can’t yet officially announce a winner of our Lib Dem Voice Presidential Prediction competition.

As it stands, we’re still pending the official confirmation of who has gained North Carolina’s 15 electoral college votes. At the moment, it’s narrowly in the Obama fold, in which case the final electoral college vote will be: Obama 364, McCain 174.

If that’s eventually confirmed it will mean Joe (the) Taylor, Lib Dem blogger and councillor, and US electoral expert, will have duly triumphed, with an on-the-nose prediction. In which case, we won’t need to use our tie-breaker, the popular vote, where the current projection is Obama 52%, McCain 46%.

In fact a number of competition entrants came pretty damn close in the end. Here they are in descending order of closeness (assuming that North Carolina vote holds true for Obama):

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Posted in LDVUSA | 13 Comments
Alex Foster

Possible good news from Minnesota

By Alex Foster | Wed 5th November 2008 - 5:44 pm

An outside chance for the Dems last night was to take a Senate seat in Minnesota, with comedian and author Al Franken as the Democratic candidate.  You may know Al from his work on Saturday Night Live, his books Lies, and the lying liars who tell them or Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot – or even his walk on part in Bernard Goldberg’s seminal work 100 People who are Screwing Up America (Al Franken is #37).

All seemed lost for Franken as the race in Minnesota tightened and tightened and eventually it seemed his GOP rival had overtaken. …

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Posted in LDVUSA | 3 Comments
Alix Mortimer

PMQs: Nick tackles Gordon on Obama’s tax cutting policy

By Alix Mortimer | Wed 5th November 2008 - 4:39 pm

Both opposition leaders were able to make play with Obama’s victory at PMQs today. David Cameron compared his “novice” status to that of Obama, and Nick Clegg asked why the Prime Minister – who had minutes earlier compared his own government’s priorities to Obama’s – did not adopt Obama’s policies on cutting tax for lower and middle income earners.

Clegg has an increasingly clear record as the Cato of British politics on the subject of tax cuts. It has been a regular topic for him at PMQs all year, often associated with fuel poverty or food

…

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Posted in News and PMQs | Tagged , , and | 15 Comments
The Voice

Nick Clegg on NHS top-up payments

By The Voice | Wed 5th November 2008 - 3:54 pm

Wiritng for The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog today, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg welcomes Labour’s U-turn on NHS top-up payments:

The rules that forced patients to pay the full cost of their NHS care if they chose to use their own savings for an expensive but life-saving drug were clearly unsustainable. Worse, the rules were inhuman and unjust.

Nobody pretends that it isn’t a difficult issue, but it is unacceptable to continue to deny people the right to top up their care, particularly where they are following their doctor’s advice. …

There must be no fragmentation of care; those who pay

…

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Posted in LibLink and News | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Two surprises of US election night

By Mark Pack | Wed 5th November 2008 - 10:07 am

First – ITV wiped the floor with the BBC in the quality of its election night coverage. A great mix of news, statistics, humour and drama. What has particularly stuck in my mind was a very short, but absolutely on the button, description of what the Virginia result could mean – the home of American slavery helping elect the first black man as President. Informed, concise and moving.

And all done, by the looks of it, on a much lower budget than the BBC’s. Though it pains me to say so – as someone who likes the concept of the BBC, …

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Posted in LDVUSA | 25 Comments
Stephen Tall

Obama’s acceptance speech

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th November 2008 - 9:29 am

If you weren’t up to watch it live at 5am GMT (as the hard-core of LDV readers were), then do take 18 minutes out of your day today to watch President-elect Obama’s acceptance speech, delivered shortly after his stunning election victory over Senator John McCain was confirmed.

The rhetoric is, as ever, dazzlingly revivalist – in many ways I’m an Obama-sceptic, but I defy anyone not to be bestirred by his words. Note, too, the perfect poise of this guy; the immense calm, stillness and assurance he projects. Who knows what kind of President he will make? But it’s hard to imagine a more impressive Presidential candidate.

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Posted in LDVUSA | 7 Comments
The Voice

Clegg welcomes Obama’s election

By The Voice | Wed 5th November 2008 - 9:22 am

The Guardian reports the welcomes from all three main party leaders to the morning’s news that Barack Obama is the President-elect of the USA:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, was more open at his delight in a Democrat victory. “British voters may not have been able to vote in this election, but its outcome is vital to our future,” he said. “Climate change, the global economy, and threats to our collective security now demand a radical new approach by Barack Obama, leaving the Bush era firmly behind.”

Posted in LDVUSA | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

Congratulations President-elect Obama

By Stephen Tall | Wed 5th November 2008 - 4:46 am

Well, who imagined we could ever use that headline? No matter how many times it’s repeated – to the point the cliche becomes stale – this is a truly historic moment, both for President-elect Barack Obama, and for the American people. We at Lib Dem Voice salute you.

If you want to re-live the night through the LDV live-blog, click here. And if you want to see what folk were prepared to predict the result would be before the election, then click here.

Feel free to continue the morning-after-the-night-before discussions here…

Posted in LDVUSA | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

South Norfolk Conservative councillor convicted

By Mark Pack | Wed 5th November 2008 - 2:48 am

Norfolk Blogger has the story and Jon Herbet being conviced of common assault:

Conservative South Norfolk Councillor Jon Herbert has joined two of his council colleagues by being convicted of a criminal offence.

You can read all about the way this Tory Councillor treated Council staff HERE. The Tories campaigned hard in South Norfolk last time on the issue of crime. It seems odd that so many of their councillors have become criminals since being elected.

Read the full story here.

Posted in News | Tagged | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVUSA Election Nite 2008 live-blog

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th November 2008 - 10:50 pm

Well, tonight’s the night when we finally find out: has the USA elected its first black President? Or are the opinion polls wronger than they’ve been in history? Join us tonight, here on LDV, for our election-nite live-blog, and feel free to contribute your comments as we type.

Don’t forget, you can follow what’s happening when, and what to look out for, by using Lib Dem councillor Joe Taylor‘s indispensable cut-out-n-keep download’n’print guide to the American Elections here.

10.52 pm
Well, as you can see (or not) at the moment, CoverItLive seems to have fallen victim to the mass server overload that seems to be bringing down websites left, right and centre. (Not that I check the ones on the right so much). So, for now, I’m afraid for now we’re reliant on steam-powered Internet live-blogging. Sorry, and all that.

10.56 pm
PoliticsHome is feeding us first exit poll data: 62% of voters named the economy as their top issue in deciding who to vote for; Iraq and terrorism trailed with 10% and 9% respectively. This is a domestic, bread ‘n’ butter election.

11.08 pm
Exit poll – with all the caveats – from Virginia via Talking Points Memo blog: “The early exits we’re seeing out of Virginia suggest a close race with an advantage to Obama. The split of the white vote looks similar to what Jim Webb got in 2006, but with blacks making up a substantially larger percentage of the electorate.”

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Posted in LDVUSA | 8 Comments
Alex Foster

Presidential trivia

By Alex Foster | Tue 4th November 2008 - 10:30 pm

A couple of presidential trivia questions whilst we’re all waiting for the Main Event, courtesy of Lord Norton over at the Lords Blog.

When was the last US presidential election which was won by the Republicans in which a Nixon or a Bush was not on the ticket?

and

What is it that Barack Obama and John McCain have in common and which they share with Gerald Ford and his 1976 running-mate Bob Dole? When one of the current candidates enters the White House, he will actually share this feature with most of his recent presidential predecessors – and the chances of most …

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Posted in News | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVUSA – join us here live from 11pm

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th November 2008 - 8:26 pm

The Lib Dem Voice collective will be live-blogging the US election from 11pm tonight, via the magic of CoverItLive. So keep the site open as you watch/listen/browse your way through the twists and turns of a truly historic night. As well as our chat and your comments, we’ll also have a couple of posts from Our Man in Grant Park Chicago, Lib Dem councillor Paul Elgood. See you in just over a couple of hours.

Oh, and by the way, if you see any exit poll leaks on t’intenets, (i) ignore them – they’re probably wrong; and (ii) …

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Posted in LDVUSA | 19 Comments
The Voice

Jenny Randerson AM launches Welsh Lib Dem leadership bid

By The Voice | Tue 4th November 2008 - 2:55 pm

There’s more than one election taking place at the moment, y’know…

Jenny Randerson’s campaign to become the new leader of the Welsh Liberal democrats launched yesterday, and you can find coverage here (BBC) and here (Wales Online). You can find Jenny’s campaign website here.

Kirsty Williams AM, as LDV mentioned last month, is also in the running to become the first female leader within the Lib Dems. You can find Kirsty’s campaign website here.

Posted in Leadership Election and Wales | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

Pupil ‘bonuses’ “totally unjust”, says Laws

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th November 2008 - 2:23 pm

David Laws, the Lib Dems’ shadow secretary of state for schools, has criticised the policy of paying poorer students for, among other things, attending class. The Telegraph reports:

In some cases, students are paid £250 each in taxpayers’ money for attending every class over the course of a year. Middle-class students with the same academic record are ineligible for the payments.

The cash is paid on top of a basic £30-a-week grant handed out to all students from deprived backgrounds to remain in education up to 18 – instead of getting a job. … bonuses worth a record £100.5m were

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Alex Foster

California’s Proposition 8

By Alex Foster | Tue 4th November 2008 - 1:55 pm

Earlier today I wrote about just what is on an American ballot, and explained very briefly about California’s 12 State Propositions and the 22 Local Propositions for San Francisco.

Now here’s a bit more information about Proposition 8, which “Eliminates rights of same-sex couples to marry”. To underline that a bit more – yes, gay couples can currently get married in California – and properly married, not just a domestic partnership.

I’ve been following the debate about this for months, largely thanks to gay New York blogger Joe.My.God.

Same sex marriage in California is incredibly complicated, and has gone through a number of changes of legislative and judicial origin. These include

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Posted in LDVUSA | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Conservatives back themselves into an economic cul-de-sac

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th November 2008 - 1:20 pm

For a decade and more, the Conservative Party has struggled to find popular support for its economic policies. Faced with the twin burdens of the early-1990s recession and public scepticism that their tax and spending plans were not savage cuts to public services in disguise, over the last three general elections the Conservatives failed to find a convincing voice.

Under David Cameron and George Osborne, the party took different tack: sticking extremely closely to Labour’s economic policies and only offering a smidgen of a different approach. Monetary policy was to stay in the independent hands of the Bank of England, spending levels on core public services were to stay the same as under Labour (trying a repeat of the Blair/Brown tactic in the run-up to 1997, where they pledged to stick to the then Conservative government’s spending plans) and tax cuts were to be talked about as little as possible. The one smidgen of difference was to be “sharing the proceeds of growth”; i.e. some of the extra tax revenue generated by economic growth would go in tax cuts and some in extra spending.

But this was always a policy for the good times. Without growth, there are no proceeds to share around, leaving the Conservatives in a double-bind.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Alex Foster

So, just what are they voting on today?

By Alex Foster | Tue 4th November 2008 - 12:29 pm

Most people know that the US election today will select the next President of the United States.  It’s perhaps less widely known that a huge selection of other races are being run today, with citizens facing a huge raft of different candidates at different elections, from federal to state to city.  It’s this complexity that leads to voting machines allowing electors to select a party ticket, which in turn lead to hanging chads.

Here’s a handy round up of US elections happening in 2008:

Federal elections

The presidential race

Senatorial races for 35 senators (terms last 6 years with a third of the …

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Posted in LDVUSA | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Learning lessons from the US elections: four legal differences you need to know

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th November 2008 - 11:20 am

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

With a new US President this week, the following few weeks are likely to see all sorts of prognostications about the lessons UK political parties and campaigners can and should be drawing.

However, many of the differences between American and British election campaigns are not the result of American campaigners having good ideas the British should copy, but rather are the result of four key legal differences between the two countries.

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Posted in LDVUSA and News | Tagged | 8 Comments
Alex Foster

More on mobile phones and polling

By Alex Foster | Tue 4th November 2008 - 10:38 am

Last week, Mark Pack explained the impact that mobile phones have polling.

 

his year’s Presidential election phone pollsters who include mobiles regularly finding a higher level of support for Barack Obama than those who ignore mobiles. The difference in support between these two approaches is large enough to matter in a close election: Obama’s lead is around four percentage points higher when mobile phone only households are included.

As polling day closes in on us, the gap has widened – with some pollsters as many as 13% ahead for Obama when they include cell phone users.  The explanation? Nate Silver at …

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Posted in LDVUSA and Polls | Leave a comment
Richard Huzzey

An Endorsement

By Richard Huzzey | Tue 4th November 2008 - 12:01 am

“He has proved both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a politician. That he has not had more will be no objection to him in the eyes of those who have seen the administration of the experienced public functionary whose term of office is just drawing to a close.”

That’s a quote from a magazine as it endorsed the less experienced candidate, who came from Illinois, in a presidential election – but not this one.

Posted in LDVUSA | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Combating Conservative electoral dirty tricks

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd November 2008 - 11:22 pm

Anthony Hook has the story.

Posted in News | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

Last chance to predict the US Presidential result (and win an LDV mug!)

By Stephen Tall | Mon 3rd November 2008 - 11:18 pm

You have, as I type, just under 10 hours to submit your predictions for the LDVUSA prediction competition: entries must be received by 9 am, Tuesday, to qualify. To find out what you need to do, and to enter your prediction, click here. Winners will receive general acclaim and a limited edition Lib Dem Voice mug – what more incentive could you need?

Posted in LDVUSA | Leave a comment
Alex Foster

“UKIP rejects BNP electoral offer”

By Alex Foster | Mon 3rd November 2008 - 10:36 pm

So says a news headline on the BBC.

 

UKIP says it has “unanimously rejected” an offer from the British National Party for an electoral pact at next year’s European elections.

It says ex-tennis star Buster Mottram, a UKIP member who claimed to represent the BNP, made the “astonishing offer” at a meeting in London on Monday.

Under the deal the BNP would fight seats in the north while UKIP would focus on the south in the elections.

The BNP said a deal made sense. UKIP says it would not work with the BNP.

Read the full article here.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV still doesn’t do statporn, but if we did…

By Stephen Tall | Mon 3rd November 2008 - 7:55 pm

We’d say a big thank you to the 22,628 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in October, our highest total ever, and a whopping 106% increase on a year ago. (For the record, the comparable figure for Iain Dale was 67,674).

Whether you’re a regular here, or an occasional ‘popper-by’, we’re delighted you looked in. And if you enjoy reading LDV, why not try writing for LDV?

* Google’s term: it broadly means people using over 22,000 different computers visited LDV at least once.

Posted in Site news | Tagged | 2 Comments
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