Liberal Democrat Voice

Nick Clegg’s delivery diary

By Helen Duffett | Sun 3rd April 2011 - 1:53 pm

Nick Clegg’s article in the Indy today is a spare, evidential piece, as neatly sliced and lacking in rhetoric as an appointment diary.

But what a diary. Flip back a year, and Gordon was driving to the Palace to call the General Election, as the Liberal Democrats prepared to launch their manifesto.

Now, Nick writes,

…something is happening that, for the Liberal Democrats, is a new experience: the policies we championed during the election are becoming reality. I don’t mean that consultations are being announced, votes held, or papers published. Over the next few days, lives will be changed for

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged electoral reform, featured, general election manifesto, income tax, lib dem achievements, mps expenses, nick clegg, pupil premium and social mobility | 3 Comments

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“Student is Lib Dem candidate”

By Nick T | Sun 3rd April 2011 - 1:25 pm

Under what seems to me a slightly unusual choice of headline, the Kilmarnock Standard has a profile of Robbie Simpson, who will fight the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley seat in the upcoming Scottish Parliamentary elections for the Liberal Democrats.

Here’s an extract:

Mr Simpson attended New Farm and Darvel Primary Schools and Loudoun Academy before going on to study computing science at Glasgow University.

His political track record includes campaigning with Liberal Youth Scotland on such issues as equal marriage, a better deal for students and more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

He is also an active supporter of Yes to Fairer Votes.

Speaking

…

Posted in News | 4 Comments

Two more Conservative councillors switch to Lib Dems in East Hampshire

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd April 2011 - 11:56 am

Must be something in the air at the moment for, in addition to the news from Hinckley & Bosworth Council about a Conservative switching to the Liberal Democrats, two more in East Hampshire have also switched.

East Hampshire councillors Maureen Comber and Eve Hope have joined the Liberal Democrats and will be standing for the party this May.

Cllr Comber said, “There is a nasty atmosphere. Elected councillors are being excluded or browbeaten into following the party whip as dictated by the leader and his inner circle”.

Earlier this year Ian Dowdle also switched from the Conservatives to the Liberal …

Posted in News | Tagged adam carew, east hampshire council, eve hope, ian dowdle and maureen comber | 4 Comments

Electoral Commission launches TV advertising campaign

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd April 2011 - 8:55 am

To coincide with the start of the delivery of its educational booklets, the Electoral Commission has also launched a TV advertising campaign to inform people about the referendum and elections being held in May. This is the first of two planned TV adverts:

Posted in Election law | Tagged av referendum and electoral commission | Leave a comment

Tebbit admits ‘I admire Clegg more than Cameron’

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 5:45 pm

Well, there’s a headline that will cause equal consternation among both Lib Dem and Conservative supporters… and doubtless prompt some no-surprise-there snarks from Labourites too.

But what’s more interesting than the stark headline (prompted by this Telegraph interview) is Norman Tebbit’s reason for admiring Nick Clegg over his own party leader:

He says he is more of a Conservative than David Cameron. The Big Society is just a “buzzword. It’s a logo looking for a product”. He wants to turn the party back to being nationalist and jokes that he would like it to go into coalition with the UK

…

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron, nick clegg and norman tebbit | 16 Comments

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LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (March 2011)

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 4:35 pm

… We’d say a big thank you to the 52,224 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in March.

It’s three months since last the Voice indulged in our statporn, so here’s 2011 figures so far: January (44,998) and February (40,206). This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 April 2010 – 31 March 2011) to 766,283, almost double the equivalent figure for 2009-10 of 395,014.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering why we publish our readership figures — is it show-off vanity, or pedantic statophilia? — I came up with a few reasons at …

Posted in Site news | Tagged statporn | Leave a comment

LDV Saturday caption competition: The “Kennedy AVs it Large” edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 2:25 pm

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…

Posted in Caption Comp | 11 Comments

LibLink: Julian Astle – ‘Lib Dems to change their logo, their name, their direction and their leader.’ Really?

By Nick T | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 12:55 pm

Julian Astle, former Paddy Ashdown adviser, has blogged his reaction to a piece in last week’s Sunday Telegraph which claimed that the Liberal Democrats are planning to change – as Julian puts it – “their logo, their name, their direction and their leader”.

Of these, Julian speculates that there is a possibility that the party’s logo may change in some way during this Parliament. However here’s what Julian has to say about the latter three – as one might expect, he’s pretty sceptical:

The Liberal Democrat party was created by the merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (it

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged julian astle | 5 Comments

Conservative councillor switches to the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 11:24 am

Councillor Groby Martin Cartwright has left the Conservative Party and joined the ruling Liberal Democrat group on Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council.

He is also a parish councillor and has been joined in his switch by fellow parish councillor Ted Hollick. Both will be standing for the Liberal Democrats in May’s elections, boosting the Liberal Democrat campaign to retain control of the council.

Cllr Cartwright said, “There comes a time when an ordinary working bloke has to stand up and be counted. I’ll be better placed to continue my fight to preserve and improve our village from within the ruling group on the …

Posted in News | Tagged hinckley & bosworth council, martin cartwright, stuart bray and ted hollick | 1 Comment

Lords Reform 1911-2011: watch the conference meeting

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 10:27 am

The 1911 Parliament Act, introduced in the wake of the rejection by the House of Lords of Lloyd George’s People’s Budget and the two general elections of 1910, was the first successful reform of the powers of the upper house and gave constitutional supremacy to the elected House of Commons.

One hundred years after the 1911 Parliament Act, the Liberal Democrat History Group’s fringe meeting at Sheffield Conference examined the development of Lords reform since and looked forward to the Coalition’s plans for the most far-reaching changes to the House of Lords since the Liberal governments reforms of 1911 ended the upper houses ability to block legislation:

Posted in News | Tagged constitutional reform, house of lords and liberal democrat history group | Leave a comment

Ivory Coast debated in Parliament; Simon Hughes asks question

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd April 2011 - 8:56 am

Having commented adversely previously about how little attention has been given to the spiralling humanitarian disaster in Ivory Coast by Parliament, it’s only fair to mention that it was the subject of an urgent question in Parliament this week and the previous lack of Parliamentary interest in the issue from Liberal Democrats was broken by Simon Hughes:

Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD): As well as encouraging Ministers to persist in their efforts to resolve the conflict, may I have an assurance that they are keeping in touch with the small but not insignificant community here in order

…

Posted in News | Tagged alassane ouattara, ivory coast, laurent gbagbo, simon hughes and stephen o'brien | 1 Comment

New questions over the police’s relations with the News of the World

By The Voice | Fri 1st April 2011 - 10:53 pm

The Independent reports:

The police chief who headed Scotland Yard’s inquiry into phone-hacking dined with the News of the World at the height of his criminal investigation into the newspaper.

The sensitively timed meeting between then Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman and the NOTW was left off lists of contacts between senior officers and the paper’s owner sent to the Metropolitan Police Authority. Its disclosure in a Freedom of Information request prompted claims that the force had an unduly “cosy relationship” with Rupert Murdoch’s print empire News International (NI)…

Liberal Democrat MPA member Dee Doocey said: “It is extraordinary that when serious allegations about

…

Posted in News | Tagged dee doocey, journalism and news of the world | 1 Comment

Nick Harvey talks up closer nuclear cooperation with the French

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st April 2011 - 2:53 pm

In a speech yesterday Minister for the Armed Forces Nick Harvey both showed how ministers can stake out clearly different ground from the Conservatives and also gave a hint of major debates over nuclear weapons yet to come.

In his speech to the Franco-British Council Defence Co-operation Conference Nick Harvey said,

As you will know, the two parties in the UK coalition Government have a different approach to the renewal of the current Trident system, but we are jointly pledged to maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent…

As a Liberal Democrat Minister in this UK Coalition Government, I have the freedom to explore and argue

…

Posted in News | Tagged nick harvey and trident | 6 Comments

Eight words from Ed Balls on the structural deficit

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st April 2011 - 1:57 pm

Ed Balls on whether there was a structural deficit under Labour:

“I don’t think so” (BBC interview, 30 January)

“Of course there was” (New Statesman interview, 31 March)

Posted in News | Tagged ed balls | 16 Comments

Meet the Lib Dem bloggers: Paul Tyler

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st April 2011 - 12:27 pm

Welcome to the latest in our series giving the human face behind some of the blogs you can find on the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator.

Today it is Liberal Democrat peer (and former MP) Paul Tyler who blogs at www.lordsoftheblog.net.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
Suez, October 29th 1956. Israel with British collusion bombed the Suez Canal on my 15th birthday!

2. When did you start blogging?
About three years ago.

3. Why did you start blogging?
I was invited to do so by the Hansard Society, who set up LordsoftheBlog to try to engage people outside Westminster in the work of the House of Lords.

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Irreverent analysis of anachronistic antics.

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Radical, egalitarian, pragmatic, fundamental liberal.

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
Exit Routes: this post got the most sensible comments but also has been repeated in the media.

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
The excellent analysis of Michael Ashcroft’s polling of, and focus groups with, Liberal Democrat voters: The verdict of Liberal Democrat voters so far.

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
President Obama’s speech at Tucson Memorial:

Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging, lib dem bloggers and paul tyler | Leave a comment

Major changes at Lib Dem Voice

By Lord Ashcroft | Fri 1st April 2011 - 1:04 am

To read this post as it originally appeared on 1st April, 2011, click here.

I am delighted to announce that Lib Dem Voice has secured major investment to develop and expand its in-depth coverage of UK political news.

For many years, Lib Dem Voice has been the only ‘home’ site for a major UK political party to be run totally on a volunteer basis, without any staff, interns or office space. However that is not a sustainable long-run position and in addition there are many new features they would like to add to the site but have not previously been …

Posted in News | 32 Comments

The Prime Ministers who never were

By Mark Pack | Thu 31st March 2011 - 11:55 am

If only one crucial detail in history had turned out differently… such is the premise of many a work of fiction, especially counter-factual histories and time travelling science fiction tales. Yet for all the popularity of the well known piece of verse, “For the want of a nail the shoe was lost…” which culminates in a kingdom being lost, serious counter-factuals by experts in a field are rather rare.

Those who see themselves as proper academics have often looked down on counter-factuals as light entertainment for the not-so-serious, missing that, as The Guardian’s review of this book put it, “It’s …

Posted in Books | Tagged featured, henry purcell and peter cuthbertson | 6 Comments

Ten WordPress plugins to help make your blog shine

By Mark Pack | Thu 31st March 2011 - 10:24 am

Good content produced at the right time is at the heart of any successful blog. Good content often needs a helping hand courtesy of sensible promotion too. All of which is to say that fiddling with the technical details can be a tempting distraction from main business at hand, but it can make a difference even if it isn’t the main factor in success or failure.

One of the reasons I’m sure a fan of WordPress (as used by Lib Dem Voice, on my own blog and also on Lynne Featherstone’s blog, which I helped look after for …

Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging, ryan cullen and wordpress | 6 Comments

Nick Clegg lays down five principles of intervention – but doesn’t explain the Ivory Coast

By Mark Pack | Thu 31st March 2011 - 8:55 am

In a major foreign policy speech in Mexico this week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg laid out five reasons why intervention in Libya was the right course to take and different from Iraq. However, applying those five reasons to the Ivory Coast raises the question why it is being treated so differently from Libya.

In his speech, Clegg said that Libya different from Iraq because:

First, the Libyan action is unambiguously legal. Iraq was not.

Second, there is a clear humanitarian case for intervention in Libya. In Iraq the case rested solely on the danger posed by weapons of mass destruction, a

…

Posted in News | Tagged featured, iraq, ivory coast, libya and nick clegg | 40 Comments

PMQs: Handbags and put-downs

By Paul Walter | Thu 31st March 2011 - 12:01 am

It’s funny how a simple statement of congratulations on a planned wedding can’t be accepted in the Commons without a “handbag moment” (see Reeves/Mortimer) dredging up twenty year-old events. Ed Miliband thanked David Cameron for his congratulations adding “I might have to come to him in the next couple of months for advice, because I know that he knows how to organise memorable stag nights.” Ooooh!

Handbags having been safely stowed, Ed Miliband raised the matter of the stampede of British universities to join the “£9,000 club”. Cameron replied that the Office for Fair Access will decide on which universities can …

Posted in PMQs | 16 Comments

In other news… electoral reform, bribery, sexy IT and paperwork problems

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th March 2011 - 11:08 pm

Will Straw has rightly taken the Conservative Party’s Baroness Warsi to task for not only trying to whip up fake scares about AV benefiting the BNP (who are actually against AV) but also for claiming that AV may make politicians try to appeal to the supporters of extremist parties when in fact her very own election literature did just that.

Ken Clarke is pushing on with implementing the Bribery Act – despite claims from Labour earlier in the year that the government could be about to delay implementing the Act indefinitely.

A Whitehall IT chief has admitted that, “Labour …

Posted in News | Tagged av referendum, bribery act, ken clarke, robin cook, sayeeda warsi and will straw | 2 Comments

Opinion: ‘l’iberalism and ‘L’iberalism

By James Firth | Wed 30th March 2011 - 4:21 pm

Rumours in the Telegraph this weekend of a rebrand, a name change, a leadership challenge? Notwithstanding the dubious origins of a story attempting to rub salt on wounds open since 1988 I mulled over the possibilities. Having debunked 2 assertions in the article I didn’t even bother to consider the prospect of a leadership challenge.

Would we ditch the freedom bird for scales of justice? Considering the People’s Justice Party and more recently the Jury Team used scales, I should hope not.

And renaming the party to include the word “social”? Some members in my local party born after …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged coalition, libby, libel, liberalism and sdlp | 16 Comments

Tories run into a treble spot of Scottish bother

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th March 2011 - 1:54 pm

The Herald reports,

THE Scottish Conservatives were plunged into a fresh crisis last night after a sacked election candidate said he had been denied natural justice by the party’s “dysfunctional” leadership.

Malcolm Macaskill, who was dumped as the leading candidate in Glasgow last week, said his treatment would cost the party £1 million, because his friend, Tom Coakley, a former footballer who made a fortune in property, had now withdrawn a pledge to give the Tories £100,000 a year for a decade.

It has also been reported that a second major Tory donor, John McGlynn, the airport car park magnate, no longer

…

Posted in News | Tagged conservative party, david meikle, iain whyte, john mcglynn, malcolm macaskill and tom coakley | 8 Comments

Electoral Commission imposes voting limits to avoid repeat of polling station queues

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th March 2011 - 11:57 am

A limit on the maximum number of people eligible to vote at a polling station has been imposed by the Electoral Commission under the powers given to its Chief Executive, Jenny Watson, to run the AV referendum in May.

Under the law for referendums, Jenny Watson is the Chief Counting Officer and thereby able to issue instructions as to how the vote should be conducted around the country. Because the referendum is being held on the same day as other elections, many of those instructions in effect also apply to the other elections as well.

One of these is the instruction that …

Posted in Election law | Tagged av referendum, electoral commission and jenny watson | 9 Comments

Party looks to the US for new election database software

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th March 2011 - 10:26 am

Excellent news from the Federal Executive this week with the decision to appoint a preferred supplier for a new election fighting computer database. Voter Activation Network, the US firm which services many Democrat Party candidates, has been selected with a view to signing a multi-year contract shortly.

Amongst the other bidders were the party’s long-running suppliers EARS (though they may still have a role to play as data suppliers, especially given the team’s expertise and experience in dealing with different electoral register formats).

EARS has provided a valuable service to the party for many years, but the old model of individual databases …

Posted in News | Tagged ears, federal executive and VAN | 15 Comments

Government gives £16m to help with Ivory Coast refugee crisis

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th March 2011 - 8:57 am

Some good news from the government on the unfolding international crisis that almost no-one in Britain is interested in, namely the Ivory Coast. The Department for International Development (DfiD) is giving £16m in emergency aid to help deal with the large numbers of people fleeing the violence.

Many of them are crossing the border to Liberia, a country itself struggling to recover from its own violence. As The Guardian reported,

Last week the UN high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres,visited Liberia and warned that the influx of refugees threatened the country’s eight years of peace, following a civil war that left

…

Posted in News | Tagged antonio guterres, department for international development, ellen johnson-sirleaf, international development, ivory coast, liberia, paddy ashdown, unicef and world health organisation | 2 Comments

Time for “No” campaign to disclose its donors

By Helen Duffett | Tue 29th March 2011 - 7:30 pm

Yesterday the Yes to Fairer Votes published its donor list and is calling on all its opponents to do the same.

From the Yes website:

We are campaigning for better politics and as part of that we have decided to declare who is funding our campaign in a spirit of openness and honesty. In doing so, we are giving more details than required by law and we are giving these details far earlier than required.

We are doing this because if people are going to re-connect with politics, then the people seeking their votes must be open and honest. We will update

…

Posted in News | Tagged av referendum and tim farron | 4 Comments

Simon Hughes writes… Educational Maintenance Allowance: a grown-up replacement

By Simon Hughes MP | Tue 29th March 2011 - 4:57 pm

One of the first tasks which the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minster gave me when they appointed me to the job of Advocate for Access to Education was to advise on the replacement for the Educational Maintenance Allowance. Since then I have travelled across the country to listen to young adults in school and further education colleges about how they think students should be supported in education.

The overriding concern that students across the country had was travel. They wanted to know that the money was there to pay for their travel to school or college.

Other important things that students …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged educational maintenance allowance | 8 Comments

Stephen Gilbert writes… “Supporting People Funding” – for the most vulnerable in our society

By Stephen Gilbert MP | Tue 29th March 2011 - 2:53 pm

We are all just a few steps from being homeless. We know that we will get older. Some of us may end up in abusive relationships. All of these things can happen through no fault of our own.

When this happens, surely we deserve a chance to turn our lives around. That is what Supporting People funding has been there for. It provides for local services, delivered by housing providers and community groups, supporting some of our most vulnerable people. It’s helped over one million people live …

Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments

Op-eds

You can’t elect a Community Champion without a community (Elin Kingston)
Words matter, use them carefully! (Leon Duveen)
Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)
Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference (Donna Harris)
Christine Jardine to stand down as MP at next election (The Voice)

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Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference

Christine Jardine to stand down as MP at next election

What does a Lib Dem “trans activist” look like?

Caron’s kitchen table diary

“Student is Lib Dem candidate”

Two more Conservative councillors switch to Lib Dems in East Hampshire

Electoral Commission launches TV advertising campaign

Tebbit admits ‘I admire Clegg more than Cameron’

LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (March 2011)

LDV Saturday caption competition: The “Kennedy AVs it Large” edition

LibLink: Julian Astle – ‘Lib Dems to change their logo, their name, their direction and their leader.’ Really?

Conservative councillor switches to the Liberal Democrats

Lords Reform 1911-2011: watch the conference meeting

Ivory Coast debated in Parliament; Simon Hughes asks question

New questions over the police’s relations with the News of the World

Nick Harvey talks up closer nuclear cooperation with the French

Eight words from Ed Balls on the structural deficit

Meet the Lib Dem bloggers: Paul Tyler

Major changes at Lib Dem Voice

The Prime Ministers who never were

Ten WordPress plugins to help make your blog shine

Nick Clegg lays down five principles of intervention – but doesn’t explain the Ivory Coast

PMQs: Handbags and put-downs

In other news… electoral reform, bribery, sexy IT and paperwork problems

Opinion: ‘l’iberalism and ‘L’iberalism

Tories run into a treble spot of Scottish bother

Electoral Commission imposes voting limits to avoid repeat of polling station queues

Party looks to the US for new election database software

Government gives £16m to help with Ivory Coast refugee crisis

Time for “No” campaign to disclose its donors

Simon Hughes writes… Educational Maintenance Allowance: a grown-up replacement

Stephen Gilbert writes… “Supporting People Funding” – for the most vulnerable in our society

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Lib Dem Women: Amplifying women’s voices at Conference

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