Mark Pack

How to blog as a councillor: examples from Ealing and Nottingham

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th March 2011 - 11:55 am

Earlier in the month I talked about how the “little and often” rule is a good approach for candidates and those elected to public office when using the internet to keep in touch with voters. There have been two good recent examples of blog posts from Liberal Democrat councillors that illustrate the different roles blog posts can play in that.

First, Ealing Councillor Gary Malcolm and his short, simple summary of a residents’ association AGM. That sort of quick but very local information often has a ready audience, because even diligent readers of local newspapers rarely get that much information about what is happening day to day with local services.

Second, there is a post from The Voice’s own Alex Foster, who is also a councillor in Nottingham. His post, So What’s Going on at Broad Marsh?, takes a story which has been in the local news but provides the context and explanations which the local media very rarely have the time or space for. Yet for a big issue such as the fate of the centre of a town, again there is very often a ready audience for that sort of background and extended information.

If you are blogging with a local or national audience in mind, building up an audience usually takes time (hence the tortoise wins out over the hare). These seven tips for building up your traffic levels will help. Whether you are a new or experienced blogger yourself, you may also find our compilation of “how to blog” posts useful:

Blogging Guide

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
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George Kendall

Opinion: How to respond to the hate

By George Kendall | Tue 29th March 2011 - 11:30 am

News on the internet can be depressing: protesters chant hate-filled slogans at the party conference, there is violence at anti-cuts demonstrations and a sea of cynical contempt on internet forums.

The raw facts aren’t encouraging either. The most regular opinion pollster, YouGov, gives us rock bottom ratings. Although our share of the vote went up a bit in the Oldham East and Saddlesworth by-election, we did appallingly in Barnsley Central.

But I’m not discouraged, because there’s another way to find out what voters think. Go and ask them.

I’ve canvassed in Oldham East and Saddlesworth, Cambridge, and Barnsley. The response varied, but where …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 36 Comments
Mark Pack

The problem with poll cards, 2011 vintage

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th March 2011 - 10:27 am

Millions of pounds have been spent in total in the UK on testing various forms of electronic voting, in the hope that this might raise turnout in elections. The overall verdict across different technologies – such as voting by SMS or online – has been remarkably consistent: it’s expensive, not very reliable, of dubious security and, above all, has almost no impact on turnout levels.

It’s easy to see how the idea of using modern technology has caught the eye and budget of decision makers. But with the emphasis on the high-tech, boringly old-fashioned items such as paperwork have got much …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Educational Maintenance Allowance: how hard is it for the new policy to be better?

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th March 2011 - 8:55 am

Yesterday Michael Gove, finally, announced the government’s proposals for replacing the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme. As previously trailed, Liberal Democrat pressure has secured more than £100m extra for the plans.

The £180m being spent on the new scheme compares to the £560m cost of the EMA. At first glance, that is a large cut. But if you view the key objective for the funds to be helping more people to take part in post-16 education, then the picture looks very different. That’s because several different studies of EMA concludes that the vast majority of its funds went to people …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

In other news… Son of mansion tax, Tory councillor switches to Lib Dems and more

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th March 2011 - 10:02 pm

Nick Clegg has been telling the Financial Times how he would like to see taxes introduced for the most expensive properties as part of any removal of the temporary 50p top rate of income tax. Son of Mansion Tax here we come…

Jonathan Calder reports on the latest goings on in the lively world of Leicester politics, including Conservative Councillor Nigel Porter resigning from his party and deciding to fight his ward for the Liberal Democrats in May’s elections.

The Yes to Fairer Votes campaign has published details of its donors and challenged the No campaign to show the …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , and | 13 Comments
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Alex Foster

Read LDV on your Amazon Kindle

By Alex Foster | Mon 28th March 2011 - 6:29 pm

Just a quick reminder that you can subscribe to Lib Dem Voice using Amazon’s Kindle service – either on their Kindle device or using their apps for iPhone, Android, Mac or PC.

The link to Lib Dem Voice on Amazon is here. It will set you back a modest £1.99 a month.

Of course, if you think the content we produce here is worth £2 a month, and you don’t have a Kindle, you are more than welcome to cut out the middle-person and donate it to us directly by standing order.

You can also donate money to …

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Jim Killock

Independent View: Website blocking should not be on the cards

By Jim Killock | Mon 28th March 2011 - 3:15 pm

Lib Dems are wisely taking a detailed look at whether website blocking would lead to excessive legal claims and censorship of legitimate material, or if it could be employed to reduce copyright infringement.

Ofcom, too, has been asked to look at whether the policy is “practical”. We at Open Rights Group met them to say: no it isn’t. And the collateral damage to people’s rights is likely to be very high.

As it stands, copyright holders can already go to Court to ask for websites to be blocked, as the result of previous lobbying. But they don’t use this legal

…

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Brooke, Horwood and Huppert join the list of Liberal Democrat co-chairs

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th March 2011 - 12:27 pm

A news release from the party brings the news of the following three appointments:

  • Martin Horwood, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for International Affairs (replacing Tim Farron, who has stood down on becoming President)
  • Julian Huppert, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for Transport
  • Stephen Lloyd, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for Northern Ireland
  • Annette Brooke, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee for Communities and Local Government (covering for Simon Hughes for six months during his tenure as the Government’s Advocate for Access to Education

The full list of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Educational Maintenance Allowance: more details of replacement emerge

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th March 2011 - 10:57 am

It’s been rather a self-inflicted wound by the Coalition Government to leave such a long gap between announcing that it would abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance and publishing details of what will be introduced in its stead. I’m happy to wait until we know what the replacement will be like before judging whether the EMA abolition is a good move or not, but it’s not exactly a surprise that many people have made up their minds knowing only part of the story given that huge gap.

That said, the substance of the issue is an important one and the noises coming …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 47 Comments
Stephen Tall

Would an infinite number of monkeys be able to write an accurate story for the Telegraph?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 28th March 2011 - 9:45 am

To be honest, I’m starting to feel sorry for the Telegraph’s political journalists. It must get quite tricky week after week coming up with new half-truths to try and stretch into a story that even their Coalition-hating editors won’t spike for being too thin.

This weekend brought new ‘revelations’ from the reliably inaccurate Melissa Kite and Patrick Hennessy that the Lib Dems are (in any order you like) about to: change our name; no-con Nick Clegg; install Chris Huhne as leader; trigger a general election; insist Col Gadaffi is brought into the cabinet. Okay, I made that last one …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: Why Mike Tuffrey should be our candidate for Mayor of London

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th March 2011 - 8:55 am

Over the weekend I started up a ‘draft Mike Tuffrey‘ page on Facebook to encourage Mike Tuffrey, one of our London Assembly members, to put his name forward as our candidate for the 2012 Mayor elections.

Imagining your fantasy perfect candidate is always fun (a cross between Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams perhaps?) but as the actual selection is nearing for its second attempt, I’m not won over by the likely choices on offer – and I think Mike has an awful lot to contribute.

Why Mike Tuffrey

As a long-standing member of the London Assembly, and the leader of our group 2006-2010, he’s got a huge knowledge of London’s issues and the track record in power of both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. He’s also regularly gone toe-to-toe with them at events such as Mayor’s Questions at City Hall – and frequently come out on top. He’s also consistently shown a passion for environmental issues which are crucial for London and important to so many Liberal Democrats.

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Posted in London and Op-eds | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Helen Duffett

Dominic Carman withdraws from Lib Dem London Mayoral candidate race

By Helen Duffett | Mon 28th March 2011 - 8:12 am

In a comment on Lib Dem Voice this morning, Dominic Carman has said that he no longer intends to put his name forward as Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor.

Carman, who last week expressed an interest in standing, now plans to back Mike Tuffrey instead, whom members are lobbying to stand.

Dominic’s comment in fulll:

Given other commitments, I have reached the conclusion that I cannot financially afford to run an effective campaign as the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor. Regrettably, I will therefore not be putting my name forward when the selection procedure formally restarts in May. Having spoken

…

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Posted in London and Selection news | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
The Voice

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #214

By The Voice | Sun 27th March 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 214th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (20th -27th, 2011), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

How awful do events have to be in a country before they get attention?

By Mark Pack | Sun 27th March 2011 - 4:55 pm

Here’s a simple question: how bad do events have to get in a country before it appears on the mainstream political agenda in this country?

Is having the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimate that up to half a million people have had to flee their homes as a result of violence enough?

Or is having the UN High Commissioner for Refugees double its estimate in the last few days to a million people having fled (out of a population of 22 million)?

Or is having credible reports of sexual violence, summary execution and people being burnt alive?

Or is the UN saying 400 people …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 22 Comments
Simon Killane

Opinion: We need a more Resilient Energy source

By Simon Killane | Sun 27th March 2011 - 3:57 pm

Resilience is a much abused word. What does it really mean? It is best described as the “capacity of a system to resist external shocks”. So what shocks are out there waiting to pounce on us? The usual suspects are flooding, cold snowy winters, and financial turmoil causing recession, fuel price hikes and pandemics. We have had a taste of these over the last few years. Swine Flu, petrol price hikes, snowy winter months and flooding have all shocked the town to a degree that upset our relatively peaceful existence. …

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Ed Joyce

Lembit4London right to reply

By Ed Joyce | Sun 27th March 2011 - 2:36 pm

At the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference earlier this month Nick Clegg made the following comment.

And of course we’ve even had a Liberal Democrat celebrity flying the Welsh flag in the depths of the Australian jungle! Now that’s one forestry disaster we’re not responsible for!

This comment was then reported as the lead paragraph later in a post by Mark Pack with the following comment :

Nick Clegg’s speech to the party’s Welsh conference contained much in the way of summarising the party’s current official position on politics and government priorities – and also a reference to Lembit Opik. His departure from the Commons was made the subject of a joke rather than a cause of regret ….

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 25 Comments
Mark Pack

Who likes which party? What MORI’s data reveals

By Mark Pack | Sun 27th March 2011 - 8:55 am

The pollsters MORI have recently re-released some of their polling data from January and the question of whether or not people like a party paints a very different picture from the usual voting intention figures.

Overall it shows the Conservatives the least liked party, Labour (despite its voting intention poll ratings at the moment) only marginally in the positive and the Liberal Democrats in the negatives, but with still a very healthy chunk of the population liking the party.

For the Conservatives and Labour these figures reinforce comments often made about them – that the detoxification of the Conservative brand never …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate quits to stand as an independent

By Mark Pack | Sat 26th March 2011 - 10:46 pm

The Press Association reports:

A top Liberal Democrat candidate for Holyrood has resigned from the party.

Hugh O’Donnell was Liberal Democrat MSP for Central Scotland before the start of campaigning earlier this month for the Scottish Parliament elections.

It is understood he was unhappy with the direction of the party in Scotland and the coalition in Westminster.

A Liberal Democrat spokeswoman said: “We have accepted Hugh O’Donnell’s resignation.”

Hugh O’Donnell has been pretty critical of the party for some time, so much so that seeing some of his comments made to posts of mine on Facebook I did a double-take wondering if his Facebook …

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Posted in News and Scotland | Tagged | 22 Comments
The Voice

LDVideo: Earth Hour

By The Voice | Sat 26th March 2011 - 4:11 pm

Further to WWF’s earlier post about Earth Hour, here is their campaign video on the subject.

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wwf

Independent View: Earth Hour 2011 – Sign up and switch off!

By wwf | Sat 26th March 2011 - 2:55 pm

Earth Hour 2011, WWF’s global event is coming up again this Saturday, March 26th.

Across the UK and world people, businesses and iconic buildings will switch off their lights for an hour at 8.30pm local time.

Last year Earth Hour saw hundreds of millions of people across 3,000 cities and towns in 83 countries take part and send a clear message to governments worldwide that climate change needs to be tackled urgently.

But, this will only be possible with enough support and so WWF are calling on everyone to do their part, to get involved and to tell as many …

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Posted in The Independent View | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Chris Nicholson

Who are the heirs of the SDP?

By Chris Nicholson | Sat 26th March 2011 - 12:53 pm

Today (March 26th) is the 30th anniversary of the founding of the SDP. To mark the occasion last Monday CentreForum organised a discussion “the Class of 81: Who are the true heirs of the SDP? with leading former SDP members, Chris Huhne , Greg Clark (Tory Decentralisation Minister) and Andrew Adonis (Labour’s former Transport and Schools Minister) on the panel. In the audience were Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams, members of Roy Jenkins’ family, countless former SDP members as well as a good few ”political anoraks”.

It was an evening of reminiscing, “what ifs”, analysis, historical reflection and a few amusing ironies. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 23 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: Why Lib Dems should reject the doctrine of liberal interventionism

By David Thorpe | Sat 26th March 2011 - 11:46 am

If the regular politics of coalition is a walk in a minefield, the Libya crisis presents Lib Dems with a walk in a minefield while being haunted by a pair of malevolent ghouls.

Those twin ghouls are ghosts of conflicts past, conflicts where Britain intervened and expedited disaster, such as Iraq , and the countries where the UK sat on its hands, and watched disaster unfold, such as in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

There are a number interesting, and from a Lib Dem point of view welcome, feature of the debate concerning the possibility of the western intervention in Libya, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 42 Comments
Qurban Hussain

Lord Qurban Hussain’s maiden speech

By Qurban Hussain | Sat 26th March 2011 - 10:20 am

In recent months, LDV has been bringing its readers copies of our new MPs’ and Peers’ first words in Parliament, so that we can read what is being said and respond. You can find all of the speeches in this category with this link. This week, Baron Hussain, of Luton in the County of Bedfordshire made his maiden speech in the House of Lords during a debate on the promotion of enterprise, growth and fundamental rebalancing of the economy. His words are reproduced below.

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to speak in your Lordships’ House for

…

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The Voice

The weekend debate: Does the Prime Minister’s pay make a useful yardstick?

By The Voice | Sat 26th March 2011 - 8:55 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

The level of the Prime Minister’s pay has become a widely used yardstick for other public sector pay – which suggestions of extra scrutiny for the pay deals of people who are paid more than the PM and counts or complaints about how many people are paid more.

But does the Prime Minister’s pay (or rather salary and pension, for the benefits in kind such as accommodation are rarely factored in) make for a sensible yardstick? And if not, is there an alternative …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 7 Comments
The Voice

The LDV Friday Five: 25 March 2011

By The Voice | Fri 25th March 2011 - 5:00 pm

It’s Friday. It’s five o’clock. Here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

  1. Parmjit Singh Gill withdraws as Lib Dem candidate for Leicester South (7 comments) by Helen Duffett
  2. Nick Clegg on Libya: “This is not Iraq” (57 comments) by Helen Duffett
  3. Parmjit Singh Gill selected for Lib Dems in Leicester South (12 comments) by Helen Duffett
  4. Dominic Carman writes… Why I want to be the Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate for 2012 (63 comments) by Dominic Carman
  5. Opinion: How 295 losers could have been winners (26 comments) by Mark Reckons Thompson

5 sample LDV Members’ Forum threads

  1. Royal wedding mugs
  2. Parmjit to fight Leicester South
  3. Cost of Living
  4. Roads in some trading estates for cutting congestion
  5. Changing education paradigms

5 from the LDV archive

(25th March, 2007-10)

  1. Electioneering the social networking way (3 comments) by Jennie Rigg, from 2010
  2. Guardian readers switching to Lib Dems in droves (11 comments) by Alex Foster, from 2010
  3. LibLink: Steve Webb – There has been no rightward shift by the Liberal Democrats (4 comments) by NewsHound, from 2010
  4. Nick Clegg launches Liberal Youth (21 comments) by Alex Foster, from 2008
  5. Unsubstantiated rumour (6 comments) by The Founding Editor, from 2007

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron writes… One chance: let’s make it count #LibDemYES

By Tim Farron MP | Fri 25th March 2011 - 3:18 pm

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 4 Comments
Helen Duffett

This week’s by-election results: Lewisham and Torfaen

By Helen Duffett | Fri 25th March 2011 - 2:51 pm

Yesterday, Labour held a seat in the London Borough of Lewisham and gained one from the Independent in Pontypool, Torfaen.

Lewisham LBC, Bellingham

Lab 1100 (51.4; +8.3)
Con 340 (15.9; -3.1)
LD Jenni Steele 334 (15.6; -11.1)
Others (12.3; +6.6) Socialist Alternative – Lewisham People Before Profit 264
Green 100 (4.7; -0.8)
Majority 760
Turnout 22%
Lab hold
Percentage change is since May 2010.
(In May 2010 “Others” was an Independent who got 5.8% of the vote)

Torfaen UA, Pontypool

Lab 178 (30.9; +0.3)
Others (57.3; -12.1) Ind 161, Ind 80, Ind 46, Ind 25, Ind 12
PC 50 (8.7; +8.7)
Con 18 (3.1; +3.1)
Majority 17
Turnout 39.5%
Lab gain from Ind
Percentage change is since May 2008.

See the …

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Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Clegg warns against banks that are too big to fail

By Mark Pack | Fri 25th March 2011 - 1:54 pm

Chief Finance Officers World reports:

Nick Clegg has called for widespread reform of Britain’s banking sector in the hope that the country becomes less reliant on what he called “overwhelmingly important” companies.

An interim report on the subject from the Banking Commission is due out next month and Clegg has pre-empted its release with calls for the influence of the banks to be reduced in the interest of the wider economy…

The banking commission will deliver initial findings on April 11th, with a final report due by the end of September.

In an interview with Reuters this month, Lib Dem business minister Vince

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Another 52 killed in the Ivory Coast

By Mark Pack | Fri 25th March 2011 - 12:55 pm

With a depressing predictability, my post at the start of the week about how the Ivory Coast’s violent political tragedy is being largely ignored has been one of the least well read posts on The Voice during this week.

But The Voice’s readers are pretty typical of the wider world in this respect at least. Until the end of yesterday, for example, Libya had got 54 mentions in Parliament so far this year, the Ivory Coast only six.

Yet this week has been another bloody one as defeated President Gbagbo refuses to leave office. The UN says 52 more people were murdered …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Gordon Birtwistle MP

Gordon Birtwistle MP writes… My response to the Budget

By Gordon Birtwistle MP | Fri 25th March 2011 - 11:34 am

For me, this budget goes some way towards rebalancing the economy. The last Government left the country in almost financial ruin and have come up with no credible policies in opposition. The chancellor had very little to play with in his budget but I think the steps he is taking are the right ones.

This was definitely a budget influenced by Lib Dems. It was pleasing to see how many of our policies made an appearance in the budget, particularly the increase in the personal allowance over the next three years.

The budget also provided confirmation of the go ahead of the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 8 Comments
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