If anyone is still interested in mulling over the results of the General Election, this is some analysis that helps to answer two questions: which parties did 2010 voters choose in 2015? And the subtly different question: who had 2015 voters chosen in 2010? I am looking at the proportion of each party’s total vote in each case. (Thanks to David Howarth for pointing me towards the underlying data, following my previous column on this topic).
The W4MP website has news of not one but 3 opportunities to join Tim Farron’s constituency team in a spectacularly beautiful part of the country.
Here are details of the posts:
CASEWORKER FT: To assist with the provision of a confidential casework service to the MP in response to advice surgeries and constituents correspondence, telephone calls and emails.
CONSTITUENCY ASSISTANT FT: To assist the Communications Officer and Casework team and the MP to encouraging active engagement with the people he represents. Engagement will be through media work and communications with constituents that are electronic, written, verbal and activity based
CASEWORK / CAMPAIGNS ASSISTANT FT: See above for casework part of the role. Campaigns Assistant: To assist with the MP’s work throughout the constituency and to assist with the provision of practical campaigns support to the MP and local party including literature production and delivery and media work.
It still feels surreal and wrong to be attending a Charles Kennedy Memorial anything, but on Friday night I headed to Glasgow University Union to see the debate set up in his honour. After a gin and tonic in the beer bar, which, unlike in Charles’ day now plays intrusive music, I headed up to my seat in the gods. The floor of the chamber was filled with people in their bling and black tie who had been lucky enough to get tickets for the dinner which was to follow the proceedings.
The motion was
This House believes that the UK should remain within the European Union:
Speaking in favour were Scottish Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs Fiona Hyslop, our candidate for Edinburgh Western Alex Cole-Hamilton, theatrical Tory MEP Ian Duncan and Alistair, soon to be Lord, Darling. The opposition were made up of businessman John Mills, sociology professor Neil Davidson, Heather Whiteside, a former GUU Debates Convener and Graham Stringer MP.
Ming Campbell, wearing some pretty spectacular tartan trews, was in the chair.
This year conference was the most attended, compared to previous years. I myself attended conference for a day or two. As a student I did find it somewhat grudging to pay nearly £500 for three days to attend. I did however not find it massively damaging to my wallet, this is not the case for many members of the party.
Due to the fact I could afford to go (and as a voting rep) it meant that I as an individual had more of a voice than those who couldn’t travel to Bournemouth. One member one vote passed which is great! But it still means that only those who can afford to take time off work, and the cost, will be able to make use of this. As a democratic party surely conference should be accessible. Why should members not be allowed to use their vote because they can’t afford sky high travel prices or a hotel in a tourist town or even to take time off work?
People have been requesting this clip. Click below for the three minutes of Tim’s conference speech when he spoke about refugees. The video starts when the passage starts. The passage ends at 31’32 with a standing ovation and then the video continues with the rest of the speech if you want to see it.
We can (I suspect mostly) agree that these are good aims for us as a party, and that Lib Dems back in government would work hard to deliver on them. But they all cost money.
With a hat-tip to Mark Pack, here is the result of the internal Liberal Democrat party election to select the order of candidates for our London Assembly list:
I’m on my way o Glasgow to attend a debate to be held in memory of Charles Kennedy. The subject will be one which was very close to his heart – “This house believes that the UK should remain within the European Union.”
The debate takes place in the very Chamber where Charles debated as a student. During his lifelong association with Glasgow University, he served as the Glasgow University Union’s President and, much later, for an unprecedented two terms as the University’s Rector.
From the GUU website:
The Liberal Democrats need a better housing policy. The proposed policy on building many more houses that was (rightly) debated at Conference is not sufficient. The other policies in the Liberal Democrat manifesto had weaknesses.
The housing situation today is the cause of some of the biggest problems we have in delivering on fundamental Liberal Democrat principles of ‘the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals’ and on the ‘just distribution of economic rewards’ – let alone getting ‘value for money’ for the state. Jeremy Corbyn has identified affordable housing as his first priority in his early statements and PMQ’s. However the housing situation is not just unsatisfactory for the far left and the poor: it is unsatisfactory for all (except maybe for the rich and the private landlords). We in the Liberal Democrats should be leading the search for agreed centre left policies to do something about it.
With a move to Hull University looming I’m one of the many who reluctantly had to miss out on Conference this year. However some solace was found in Watford Liberal Democrats organising a “Politics and Pizza” evening, with Home Affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael as a special guest.
Politics and pizza is a fantastic combination of two of my biggest interests and it seemed very popular with the rest of the local party as well. The venue was nearly filled and what a lovely venue it was! It’s the finest mix of library and bar you’ve ever seen. The only downside was having to spot the door to the venue tucked between two larger and far more “shiny” shops. Big thanks to Cllr Peter Taylor playing “Spot the Liberal Democrat” at the door and helping me and a few others who nearly managed to walk past.
As the pizza arrived, people merrily chatted with each other between bites and I was lucky enough to be offered a seat at Alistair’s table. After a brief discussion amongst ourselves at the table where Alistair asked about ourselves – all but one of us at the table were new or at least younger members – it was time for the main event to begin. After a brief introduction from Peter, who had worked for Alistair in the past, Alistair stood up to talk to us.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from my first political conference. I thought maybe I’d go and I’d be on my own all weekend. Perhaps the people who’d been going for years would look down on somebody with less than five months in the party. Or they’d be politically narrow minded, not wanting to discuss views that differed from their own.
I should have had more faith. Within hours, I’d made a group of fantastic new friends. Party members, councillors, even Tim Farron and Paddy Ashdown told us how grateful they were to have us and how the surge in membership had given new life to the party.
I spoke to many people with different views to my own – sometimes absolutely opposing views – but those discussions were all pleasant, rational, and ended with an agree to differ and an offer of a drink. Nobody called me a ‘Tory’ if I said Britain should maintain a nuclear deterrent, or dismissed me as a ‘leftie’ for supporting our EU membership.
If you were travelling home from Conference on Wednesday afternoon, still excited by Tim Farron’s speech, you may have missed his first party political broadcast. He repeated some of the themes from that speech, referring to his childhood and the importance of decent housing in a liberal society.
So here it is:
Currently the need to establish a core vote seems, akin to motherhood and apple pie, to be so obviously a good thing that it cannot be questioned. However, at the risk of upsetting friends and others alike, let me raise some concerns.
Firstly, there is the simple truism that in a First Past the Post system you cannot win by playing to your core vote, even if you have one. That is a lesson Republicans and Democrats in the USA have to relearn from time to time. It is a lesson the Conservatives had to learn after Thatcher when Ian Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and even William Hague pandered to the right. It is a lesson Labour had to all so painfully learn after the Bennite manifesto of 1983 dubbed the ‘longest suicide note in history’. The Corbynistas may have to learn it all over again.
Secondly, how long does it take to ‘build a core vote’? The affluent Conservative core vote has always existed with the addition of a section of the working class following astute action by Disraeli from his passing of the Second Reform Act of 1867 onwards. Labour’s core vote –primarily lower income, urban and unionised- was uniting behind them over a century ago; especially after the Liberal Party collapse left the field entirely clear after 1922. How long would it take the Liberal Democrats to establish the loyalty of a similar core vote and at what cost? Some have suggested we should pursue our core even if it puts off ‘mainstream’ and/or floating voters. Really? We should fight elections not to try and win but to try and build a long term core vote?
I believe in giving praise where praise is due, and so I would like to congratulate all the party staff, companies, businesses, volunteers and particularly the members of Federal Conference Committee (FCC) on their delivering the most enjoyable, welcoming and member friendly conference I have attended in my 27 years in this party.
I particularly liked and would like to see at all future conferences:
From the moment you arrived people explained what was happening and when, FCC and Federal Executive members were available front of house to hear what members wanted to tell them;
In the conference hall every technicality of the debate was clearly explained as it happened so nobody felt out of their depth;
In the fringe meetings every acronym and every bit of jargon was explained, it isn’t just the new members who are helped by that everyone benefits.
On the whole this conference gave us a lot to build on, and here are some of my suggestions for the future:
The winners of the ALDC Campaigner Awards 2015 were presented at the ALDC AGM at Conference by Simon Hughes, celebrating the best campaigning teams from across the Country.
From excellent Focus leaflets to superb online campaigns, the awards giving our excellent local campaigning parties the recognition they deserve.
This year’s awards were handed out to
We gave you the preview yesterday, now here’s the whole thing. The Scottish Liberal Democrats have finally found some production values in a very well produced Party Political Broadcast:
The transcript is below:
The announcement this Summer that Ministers are now seeking to ‘review’ the freedom of information act had a most depressing ring to it.
For a start any fundamental review of freedom of information (FOI) legislation is hardly necessary. Just three years ago the cross party House of Commons Justice Committee, chaired by Alan Beith, carried out an extensive investigation into the operations of the Act. It reported that: “The Freedom of Information Act has been a significant enhancement of our democracy. Overall our witnesses agreed that the Act was working well. The right to access information has improved openness, transparency and accountability.”
Few pieces of legislation get that kind of endorsement.
Indeed the Justice Committee not only defended the Act but also highlighted where it should be strengthened. For example it criticised public authorities that kick requests into the long grass by holding interminable internal reviews.
Jeremy Corbyn’s election has brought speculation about people on the right of the Labour party switching to the Liberal Democrats. Some of those comments make sense, but others don’t.
At its best, there are times when a genuine change of conviction makes a change of party into a home-coming. I think of the authenticity of Jacob Whiten, writing in Liberal Democrat Voice on his move from UKIP to the Liberal Democrats, and the enormous contribution of people like Shirley Williams, who came into the Liberal Democrats by moving from Labour to the SDP.
But defections can backfire, and the language of encouraging them can play badly, as in the case of a recent spoof email from Tim Farron to Chuka Umunna encouraging him to switch, written by Amol Rajan in the Evening Standard.
The Liberal Democrat bird of liberty has never before flown this low. It has been a long 45 years of pride as the only real third party in British politics. Now liberalism has been driven into the wasteland. Politically irrelevant and utterly ignored by the British media. You’d have hardly guessed there’s a new leader with how little has been seen of him.
Back in 2010 the Liberal Democrats stood for three things – The hopes of the young, the distrust of the authoritarian tendencies of the major two parties, and the protest vote. The first they lost in the PR catastrophe that was student tuition fees, the second they lost as a party of power which sided with the Conservatives, the last they lost to the booming popularity of UKIP and the Greens.
I need to be in Cardiff Bay next Thursday morning by 10:00. I don’t drive and I live in West London. You guessed it, I have to get the train. So I look on the National Rail website for train times and prices. The only route for me to go is from Paddington to Cardiff Central, then change at Cardiff Central. Only First Great Western operate the Paddington to Cardiff Central route, so I am at the mercy of their prices and service (I’m not picking on First Great Western, I’m from the North West originally and often get Virgin trains and they are just as bad). If I want to go Thursday I can either pay £26 for a train from Paddington at 05:19 (before the first Tube and I don’t drive remember) or any train later than that, but will still get me into Cardiff before 10:00, will cost £106. And that’s not to mention that I have to pay a minimum extra of £46 for a return if I fancy going home at some point, as well.
Liberals must be on the side of business – ambitious for business – tearing down the barriers that stop businesses from fulfilling their ambitions. It is unambitious for the government to power down the Northern Powerhouse by stalling promises to electrify the Transpennines route. Instead, we say – invest in the best rail links in Europe.
This is the first of a couplet of articles on the subject of the railways this morning.
In August, on a comments thread, I outlined the Liberal Democrat railways policy, in response to a commenter.
I notice that commenters are still asking what our policy is on the railways, so I thought I’d set it out in a post.
First of all, here is a statement from the BBC news magazine from March 2015:
Yesterday I had to work so I couldn’t be at Bournemouth to watch Tim’s speech.
So, through the miracles of the smartphone, the BBC and the car auxiliary connection point, I listened to Tim’s speech on the way to work this morning.
I therefore had a chance to test how the speech came over via audio only on the M4 in Berkshire. Were all these rave reviews coming from people in the hall yesterday mere hype? The result of mass hysteria which would not catch on outside the immediacy of the hall?
Well, no.
It is no surprise that Tim Farron can make a decent speech. It’s what he does. Today, though, he took the tried and tested formula for leaders’ speeches. You know the Rules, where they slag off the other parties, they carefully talk about a few issues considered to be the key interests of the electorate, utter a few platitudes, tell a few jokes and end on a high note.
It’s all a bit contrived sometimes, way too polished, and leaves the listener wanting a bit of genuine discourse and emotion.
Not today. Liberal Democrats are not known for their deference to their leader. It’s impossible to imagine any of us being as devoted to our leader as SNP activists are to Nicola Sturgeon. We don’t always do their bidding and we usually answer back if they do something we don’t like. We are definitely not the sort of people who give people massive standing ovations in the middle of their speeches like we did this afternoon because he spoke so passionately, as we would, for the refugees whose plight is pretty much dismissed by the Government. He was angry and he showed it and he took us with him.
And what we’ve had from David Cameron is a careful calibration of what it will take to manage that story, the minimum effort for the maximum headlines.
And a policy which will not directly help a single one of the hundreds of thousands currently on the move across Europe.
It’s pitiful and embarrassing and makes me so angry.
Because I am proud to be British and I am proud of Britain’s values, so when Mr Cameron turns his back on the needy and turns his back on our neighbours.
I want the world to know, he does not speak for me, he does not speak for us, he does not speak for Britain.
I have just joined the Liberal Democrats. It has been a long time coming, but I finally did it. The final straw was the brilliant Nick Cohen’s piece in The Spectator titled “Why I’ve finally given up on the left”. I agree with Nick, I too have left; I have found my proper political home.
I used to vote Labour and I voted “Yes” in the AV Referendum in May 2011, I am a pro-European and I always identified as slightly centre-left. Then came 2015: the Conservative majority, the SNP landslide in my native Scotland, and the election of the hard left within the Labour Party.
I have always been a liberal, I realised recently. I have always been willing to listen to the most beyond-the-pale viewpoint out of a sense of tolerance. Freedom of speech is something fundamental and core to liberalism, something with which I have a strong affinity.
When I was growing up my school didn’t have a sixth form. I guess that’s because most of us didn’t do A levels. So I went to a separate sixth form college – Runshaw in Leyland – and, in my first week, I joined the Liberal Party.
I also joined a band.
I’m assuming you may have seen the photos.
The only good thing I can say is that because the photos are pre-digital they are so low resolution that you can’t make out the eye-liner.
So tweeted Dr Mark Pack, formerly of this parish:
Wow, that was the best leader's speech I've heard in just under 50 Lib Dem conferences. #ldconf
— Mark Pack 🔶 (@markpack) September 23, 2015
Bold & passionate speech from @timfarron. One of best. Clear statement of our values & invitation to all liberals to join #LibDemFightback
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@caronmlindsay) September 23, 2015
I admit it. I laughed at #piggate. But should I have?
Four years ago, a scandal engulfed the newspaper industry. The News of the World was closed down, and News International reporters were arrested.
Before, all politicians knew, if a major tabloid newspaper targeted them, they had good reason to be afraid.
After, I remember the heady celebration of politicians who compared it to liberation from a police state.
“Don’t worry,” one said, when asked if this kind of threat would return. “It’s like when people stop being afraid of the secret police. If no one is afraid, they lose their power.”
Well, if I …
The right for everyone to have a decent home is emerging as one of the big themes of Tim Farron’s leadership. It is the subject of his first Party Political Broadcast as leader, which you can view below. As well as packing a punch in terms of the theme, it is also a well presented broadcast. Tim is relaxed and seems normal.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The liberalism we need: a platform for people to thrive and live their version of a best life (Josh Matthews)
Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)
Observations of an Expat: West Bank Settler Sanctions (Tom Arms)
Recollections of 9/11 (George Cunningham)
Why we need a Trade NATO (Dominic Sokalski)
John B Grout 
David Evans 
Neil Sandison 
Pawel Urbanski 
Simon Robinson 
The National Health Service (UK)
John Pardoe, Margaret Thatcher and antisemitism in Finchley
Memories of 9-11
Austerity revisited