Mark Pack

Would you invite a man who says “let me be a Hitler tenfold” to a special event?

By Mark Pack | Sun 1st May 2011 - 8:45 am

I’ve blogged several times this year about reasons for optimism as the international reach of justice extends to catch more and more people accused of horrific widespread human rights abuses in countries around the world.

But then there are events like this:

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe landed in Rome on Saturday to attend the beatification of late pope John Paul II at the Vatican …  obtained a special exemption from a European Union travel ban.

Nothing quite like marking the beatification of someone by making special arrangements to let a dictator responsible for widespread murders, torture of journalists who have …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 17 Comments
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Nick T

LibLink: Veronica German – A healthier option

By Nick T | Sat 30th April 2011 - 6:55 pm

Over on the Wales Home website, Veronica German, Assembly Member for South Wales East up to the recent dissolution of the Assembly and candidate for that seat, has written a piece setting out the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ policies for the NHS.

Here’s an excerpt:

We need a modern NHS, that is worthy of our time – which is cost-effective, efficient and delivers better services. The more money we save by cutting inefficiencies, the more we can spend on delivering the best possible services for you and your family.

Welsh Liberal Democrats will cut waiting times by investigating claims of ineffective spending in

…

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Julie Horten

Elizabeth Sidney passes away

By Julie Horten | Sat 30th April 2011 - 4:55 pm

Elizabeth Sidney OBE (née Mudford) died on Saturday 16th April aged 87. She was an inspirational figure for many Liberal Democrats and for many women across the world.

Elizabeth possessed a stellar intellect. She was also elegant, charming, great fun and always optimistic. She believed in the imagination and ingenuity of the human race, particularly the female half of it, and was always hugely annoyed when women were described as ‘minorities’. Elizabeth recently joined the Humanist Association and will have a Green, Humanist funeral.

Elizabeth was awarded a scholarship to Oxford at 16, she completed her English degree in …

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Posted in Obituaries | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members say: AV referendum result irrelevant to Coalition’s future

By Stephen Tall | Sat 30th April 2011 - 2:35 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 530 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

69% say AV referendum result irrelevant to Coalition’s future

LDV asked: Imagine the NO campaign wins the referendum; if this happened do you think the Liberal Democrats should leave the coalition?

    8% – The Liberal Democrats should leave the coalition if the NO campaign win
    22% – The Liberal Democrats should stay in the coalition if the NO campaign win
    69% –

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Hey ho, it’s another Parliamentary election by AV coming our way

By Mark Pack | Sat 30th April 2011 - 11:27 am

Clearly tis the season to do elections by AV because in addition to a new member of the Lords being elected by the alternative vote at the moment (postal ballot papers went out during the week), there is now another AV election on its way.

Baroness Hayman has announced she will be stepping down as Speaker in the Lords in July. Her replacement will be elected by the alternative vote, just as she was in 2006. The Lords isn’t unusual in using preferential or multi-round elections in this respect, because the Speaker in the Commons is elected over multiple rounds …

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Stephen Tall

How Lib Dem members describe their political identity: ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’ and ‘social liberal’ top the bill

By Stephen Tall | Sat 30th April 2011 - 10:55 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 530 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

LDV asked: Please tick any or all of the descriptions below that you would be happy for someone else to use to describe you:

    87% – Liberal
    65% – Progressive
    64% – Social liberal
    60% – Internationalist
    55% – Pragmatic
    52% – Reformer
    45% – Centre-left
    44% – Civil libertarian
    44% – Radical
    41% – Green
    35% – Economic liberal
    34% – Social democrat
    33% – Moderate
    30%

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | 31 Comments
Helen Duffett

Use the new Facebook app while campaigning this weekend #YES2AV #LibDems

By Helen Duffett | Sat 30th April 2011 - 9:43 am

When you’re out campaigning this weekend for the elections and Fairer Votes referendum, make sure you let your friends on Facebook and Twitter know what you’ve been up to.

Hundreds of people are already using Lib Dem Voice’s new Facebook app to do just this. It’s a great way of building up a buzz around our campaigning – and the more someone sees their friends have been campaigning, the more likely they are to join in.

You get a list of actions – select one and publish it to your …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? The voters want local candidates

By Mark Pack | Sat 30th April 2011 - 8:56 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – the repeated finding that voters like local candidates:

Surveys have consistently found ‘localness’ to be one of the main criteria voters say they want in an election candidate. In each of five surveys between 1983 and 2005, voters ranked ‘to be from the local area’ or ‘to have been brought up in the area he or she represents’ (the precise question wording differed from survey to survey) as either the most important or the second most important characteristic that they were looking for in their

…

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Inside Syria’s torture chambers

By Mark Pack | Fri 29th April 2011 - 6:26 pm

The Guardian reports:

Adnan, a young Syrian professional in his thirties, tells of his experience as one of hundreds detained in President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent…

The whole experience is built around humiliation. We were blindfolded. We were shouted at. We were only allowed to the toilet once a day, for three seconds. We had to strip down to our underwear and someone would stand outside the door counting. If you didn’t finish within three seconds you were beaten. I often didn’t go; I was too worried. We were given water and food, but you don’t want to drink when

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour councillor quits in Leicester a few days before elections

By Mark Pack | Fri 29th April 2011 - 4:53 pm

The Leicester Mercury reports:

A councillor has quit the Labour party and told the Mercury that the Leicester group is riven by splits and factions.

A few days ago, local Labour councillor Ramila Shah did something she had been longing to do for two years. She cancelled her Labour Party membership.

It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she says. Finally, she felt, no more sniping. No more splits. No more bitching and backbiting.

This is a story of politics in Leicester – of a Labour group with such a large ruling majority that, according to Coun Shah, it is riven by

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: The Social Liberal Forum conference, Saturday June 18th

By Geoffrey Payne | Fri 29th April 2011 - 3:24 pm

One of the dominant forces at the last federal conference of the Liberal Democrats was the Social Liberal Forum (SLF). In particular the SLF were responsible for the amendment to the NHS motion which the leadership of the party decided to support and has led to a rethink of the government policy on NHS reform. Not only was this a victory for the SLF, it demonstrated that ordinary party members can go to conference and have a direct say in the policy of our government – for the first time since the 1920s.

So who are we? Our members cover …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Economic statistic of the week: who has the bulk of savings?

By Mark Pack | Fri 29th April 2011 - 11:24 am

Today’s statistic is courtesy of the Office of National Statistics and their video podcasts (a rather unpublicised source of information given its clarity, relevance and yet low viewership figures).

This graph looks at pension savings for the age group 54 – 64 held by households and sorts households into deciles based on how much savings they have (not, as is often the case with similar graphs, by income or expenditure). As you can see the 10% of households with the most household saving actually have almost half of all household savings:

ONS savings graph

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Ed Miliband’s close advisor turned by-election candidate snubs Yes2AV campaign

By Mark Pack | Fri 29th April 2011 - 10:16 am

Jon Ashworth, Labour candidate for the Leicester South by-election (and, as Jonathan Ashworth, Labour leader Ed Miliband’s Head of Party Relations) is not exactly trying hard to back his ex-boss’s attempts to win over the Labour Party to AV. Asked whether or not he backed AV he told a public meeting:

Frankly, I don’t really care – I’ve got more important things to think about.

There are some good and genuine electoral reform campaigners in the Labour Party, but this dismissive comment from someone who – if there had been no by-election – would after all have been Head of …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Earl Grey

By Mark Pack | Fri 29th April 2011 - 9:24 am

Nick Robinson has returned to the radio for a second series of his short portraits of British Prime Ministers and in the list this time is Earl (Charles) Grey, one of the figures I’ve previously highlighted as a forgotten Liberal hero.

Robinson’s piece is history as light entertainment – so it starts off with the connection between Grey and the tea that we now know as Earl Grey and then moves on to his high profile affair before getting stuck into the more serious aspects of his record. But as a quick canter through his life in a style that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 5 Comments
Helen Duffett

Referendum explainer for kittehs (a reference for the rest of us)

By Helen Duffett | Fri 29th April 2011 - 8:53 am

Is your Cat confused about the referendum on the voting system on the 5th May?

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Posted in YouTube | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Stephen Tall

What Lib Dem members will be doing to celebrate the Royal Wedding. (Mostly delivering leaflets, it seems.)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 28th April 2011 - 3:55 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 530 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

Bank Holiday? If you’re a Lib Dem it’s just another Leaflet Delivery Day…

With Royal Wedding obsession reaching fever-picth in some parts of the media, LDV asked: Which, if any, of the following are you planning to do for the Royal Wedding later this month?

    5% – Attend a street party
    1% – Watch the wedding procession in London
    25% –

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Alex Foster in the Pod Delusion

By Mark Pack | Thu 28th April 2011 - 2:55 pm

The Voice’s bursar and hashtag taxonomy expert, Alex Foster also has a sideline in guest appearances on the Pod Delusion podcast.

As Alex puts it on his own blog:

I’ve been talking on the Pod Delusion again this week, this time about some of the processes involved in standing for election to your local council. It’s more complicated than some people realise, and my process piece explains some of the intricacies.

The full podcast is available here.

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Chris White

Chris White writes: Will the Coalition end with a commercial?

By Chris White | Thu 28th April 2011 - 12:47 pm

It is always slightly too easy to exaggerate the importance of Prime Minister’s Question Time. To the uninitiated (and there are some, mainly in more genteel democracies) it is a form of reality TV in which a normally dignified man or woman, with much on their mind and better things to do with their time, is forced to stand up for half an hour on live TV and be accurate, well-informed, witty and, well, abusive.

One slip and he/she reads about it in all the papers for the rest of the week.

The latest contestant (let us call him Mr Bullingdon) discovered …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 16 Comments
Stephen Tall

Why I’ll be voting Yes to AV on 5th May: it’s all about choice

By Stephen Tall | Thu 28th April 2011 - 10:45 am

I will be voting ‘Yes’ to the alternative vote in the referendum on the 5th May. Here’s why.

For me, this referendum is all about choice. The ‘Yes’ campaign stands for giving voters greater choice — the choice to rank candidates standing for election according to our individual preference.

But, in fact, the ‘Yes’ campaign stands for more choice than just that. If you prefer, you don’t have to rank your candidates by preference. That’s right, under the alternative vote, you can express as much preference, or as little preference, as you choose:

  • If you love only one party —

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 43 Comments
The Voice

Dee Doocey slams Merton Council for buying VIP Olympics tickets

By The Voice | Thu 28th April 2011 - 9:26 am

The Evening Standard reports,

Council bosses came under fire today for taking £4,000 of VIP Olympic tickets at taxpayers’ expense.

Merton Council asked for two tickets – for the Mayor and a companion – for each of the opening and closing ceremonies at a total cost of £3,980.

At £995 a time, they are the most expensive of the tickets offered to London boroughs, which are each entitled to buy 100 prime seats worth £50,000 from Games organisers. Details of Merton’s move comes just weeks after the borough ordered…

Lib-Dem London Assembly member Dee Doocey said: “I am astonished that Merton council plans

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? The science of bar charts

By Mark Pack | Thu 28th April 2011 - 7:55 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – bar charts. Or, more precisely: why bar charts? Not, why push tactical voting and ‘we can win here’ messages, but why bar charts rather than pie charts, line graphs, scatter graphs or any of the myriad of other graphical devices available?

Pie charts make an occasional appearance in political leaflets but bar charts are so much the dominant form that the idea of switching to pie charts was the concept behind one of Liberal Democrat Voice’s April 1st spoof postings a few years back. …

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Paul Walter

PMQs: Calm down dear, Lansley’s going through the slow shredder

By Paul Walter | Thu 28th April 2011 - 12:25 am

During an answer on the NHS, David Cameron made his now infamous “Calm down, dear” remark to Angela Eagle (available via Channel4News on YouTube). He followed it up with the words “Calm down” repeated several times, including to “the most annoying man in politics” (Cameron’s words), Ed Balls. It was a relatively inconsequential, if ill-advised, remark. However, I don’t get the “it’s a joke from an ad” defence here. The full catchphrase is “Calm down dear – it’s a commercial”. “Calm down, dear” on its own is only half a catchphrase.

The reason why the remark is, quite rightly, causing …

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Posted in PMQs | 19 Comments
Helen Duffett

LDVideo: Tavish Scott in Scottish Lib Dems’ latest election broadcast

By Helen Duffett | Wed 27th April 2011 - 6:47 pm

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Stephen Tall

Eric Pickles wins Talking Rubbish prize

By Stephen Tall | Wed 27th April 2011 - 5:55 pm

A few weeks ago, the Voice highlighted that three Tory ministers — Eric Pickles, Carloline Spelman and Bob Neill — were up for a very special gong: the Friends of the Earth Talking Rubbish Award to help debunk the myths peddled by right-wing newspapers and some Tory ministers who ‘like to trash recycling’.

Well, after 1,000 online votes were cast, there is now a winner: yes, that jolly, red-faced Communities secretary Mr Pickles is the victor for peddling the myth that recycling means everyone is terrified of the ‘bin police’. “The iron fist of the municipal state has come down on people for the most minor of bin breaches,” he spluttered.

Announcing Mr Pickles’ huge win, Friends of the Earth’s waste campaigner Julian Kirby commented:

“Government Ministers have been keen to trash recycling when in reality it’s more popular and successful than ever. Eric Pickles in particular has been at war with councils when he should be supporting them to cut the amount we needlessly throw away. David Cameron needs to take control of his hysterical, squabbling Ministers and set a goal to halve the nation’s black bag waste by 2020.”

You can find out more about the Friends’ Talking half as much rubbish campaign here.

In the meantime, to celebrate his award let’s take the opportunity once again to re-live one of Mr Pickles’ best-loved TV appearances:

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The Voice

LibLink: Nick Clegg… AV got the Mayor elected – now he’s voting against it

By The Voice | Wed 27th April 2011 - 3:28 pm

Nick Clegg wrote an article for the Evening Standard yesterday aimed at London voters, who’ll only be voting in the AV referendum on May 5th as London does not have council elections* this year.

As well as outlining the reasons for voting Yes to Fairer Votes, “I believe most Londoners want a new way of electing MPs that cleans up politics, makes MPs work harder and makes every vote count,” Nick busts the myths about AV: “vote-counting machines that don’t exist and won’t be needed. Claims that the alternative vote is too complex for the British people to understand, as …

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Posted in London and News | Tagged , , , , , , and | 24 Comments
Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members survey: majority back nuclear power as part of UK’s energy mix

By Stephen Tall | Wed 27th April 2011 - 12:55 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 530 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results this week.

Almost 60% of Lib Dem members back nuclear power

LDV asked: Do you believe that nuclear power, alongside oil and gas and renewable sources, should be part of the UK’s energy mix?

    58% – Yes, nuclear should be part of the mix
    36% – No, nuclear power should play no part in the UK’s energy mix
    5% – Don’t know

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

How to use politicians to get what you want

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th April 2011 - 11:58 am

Scott Colvin’s book has a delightful title and does a good job of living up to the high expectations it sets. Though there are plenty of books about politics in general and also about organising community campaigns, what Colvin’s book tries to do is carve out a niche by looking specifically at how to influence politicians and (despite their omission from the title) businesses. Whether it’s saving a local Post Office or dealing with a customer service disaster from an airline, his book sets out how to go about getting the result you want.

Helped by his own background in …

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Nick T

John Kampfner: “How punchbag Clegg can fight back”

By Nick T | Wed 27th April 2011 - 10:55 am

Earlier this week, chief executive of Index on Censorship and former New Statesman editor (and Lib Dem supporter), John Kampfner, penned a piece for the Financial Times expressing his view as to how Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats can fight back after a what have been a difficult few months. Whilst he acknowledges that it’s going to remain tough for the Lib Dems, his view – and it’s one I share – is that with a big push on some core Liberal Democrat policies and a change in tone and strategy from the Leader’s office, the medium-term …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Mother left 10 children starving and lice-ridden in same borough where Baby P and Victoria died

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th April 2011 - 8:55 am

That’s the Evening Standard headline about the latest tragedy in the London Borough of Haringey, home already to two of the most shocking and notorious failures in child protection in recent years:

A mother has been jailed for the abuse of 10 children in her care in Haringey, the borough at the centre of the Baby P scandal.

She left the children starving, smelly, crawling with head lice and covered in ingrained dirt.

One child was so hungry that when a foster carer fed her she pressed the milk bottle hard against her mouth, leaving a red mark. The skin beneath her

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Jack Holroyde

Opinion: The liberal case for super-injunctions, and protecting the human right of privacy

By Jack Holroyde | Tue 26th April 2011 - 6:25 pm

Today, a certain Mr Andrew Marr has confirmed the oldest rumour in the book – that he obtained a super injunction several years ago, to protect his family against allegations that he had an affair.

Personally, I couldn’t care less what he does in the bedroom, providing that it doesn’t impact on his professional life and his ability to be politically neutral (ho, ho, ho!).

I’m going to come out with it straight: I’m a Liberal, and I fully support both the superinjunction, and Andrew Marr’s application for one in 2008.

I feel that the press has gone too far, on many …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 26 Comments
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