Stephen Tall

Ed Miliband’s new-found opposition to the Iraq war: what his voting record shows

By Stephen Tall | Wed 29th September 2010 - 9:27 am

Ed Miliband was not an MP in 2003, when Labour and Conservative MPs voted en masse to approve the British invasion of Iraq: so we do not know how he would have voted if he had had the opportunity.

The Ed-supporting New Statesman has been keen to promote his anti-Iraq war credentials — see for example their third-hand hearsay evidence here — but there appears to be nothing on the public record to back up his claim.

We are left, therefore, with Ed Miliband’s voting record in the one full Parliament in which he has served. Take a look at the new Labour leader’s voting record in the House of Commons, as recorded by PublicWhip.org.

As you can see, Mr E. Miliband has a proud 0% voting record on the issue of ‘Iraq Investigation – Necessary’. There were 10 separate votes in the House of Commons in the period in which he has been an MP: in not a single one of these did Mr E. Miliband take the opportunity to make clear, or even hint at, what he now so sincerely believes: that the Iraq war was wrong.

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Helen Duffett

Lib Dem councillor cleared of wrongdoing over Scientology tweet

By Helen Duffett | Wed 29th September 2010 - 8:53 am

Liberal Democrat Councillor John Dixon, from Cardiff, has been cleared of any wrondoing by the council’s Standards and Ethics Committee after calling Scientology “stupid” in a post on Twitter in 2009.

From Wales Online:

Members disagreed with the report of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Peter Tyndall, who said there was likely to have been a breach of the code because the Adamsdown ward member signed off his comments on the website as CllrJohnDixon when he criticised the church.

They concluded he was acting in a private capacity.

Coun Dixon, also executive member for health and social services, said: “I’m hugely relieved.

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Police yet to contact Mike Hancock following newspaper allegations

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th September 2010 - 9:43 pm

Odd story as Paul Walter recounts:

The Portsmouth News carries some more comments concerning the reports of a police “investigation” into alleged/reported allegations concerning Mike Hancock MP. I am somewhat astounded that the police have not actually contacted Mike Hancock concerning this matter, according to his spokesman. You would have thought that, with the papers bandying about words such as “police investigation” and “sex”, the police would have at least contacted the MP.

More over on his blog.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Duwayne Brooks overtakes Lembit Opik on Facebook

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th September 2010 - 7:44 pm

Over the weekend I blogged:

In the London Mayor selection contest, Lewisham councillor Duwayne Brooks has just publicly thrown his hat in the ring. More information on his Facebook page.

The other declared candidate so far is Lembit Opik, who also has his own Facebook page. The number of fans for that latter page has been growing slowly but now there is a direct competitor to judge it against. So far, Lembit is ahead though Duwayne’s page has only very recently appeared.

Matters have moved on quickly since then, with Lembit’s Mayor page continuing to grow slowly (now up to 216 fans) …

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Posted in London and News | Tagged and | 12 Comments
Andrew Reeves

Opinion: What does Stonewall want if it isn’t gay marriage?

By Andrew Reeves | Tue 28th September 2010 - 7:16 pm

I resigned from Stonewall many years ago when I realised that they don’t speak for me or much of the UK’s LGBT community and is too blinkered and led by its own politics, rather than campaigning for what their members want.

Ben Summerskill and Angela Mason before him only appear to do what Labour wanted, when Labour wanted it.

In recent weeks we have seen Stonewall attacked for their silence on the issue of gay marriage, but I want to throw in an extra attack on them before I get onto gay marriage.

If you visit the main Stonewall website …

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Alex Marsh

Opinion: can the Big Society be anything more than BS?

By Alex Marsh | Tue 28th September 2010 - 5:55 pm

When the Big Society entered mainstream political debate a few short months ago the concept was relatively vague. Many people no doubt grasped that it was something to do with what government was or wasn’t going to do. And what we might be expected to do for ourselves or organise at a neighbourhood level. Beyond that things got rather murky.

The process of elaborating the concept continues, but at a practical level things move on apace. The June budget cuts, and the prospect of worse to come, have triggered many local councils to reflect upon their role as service provider …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 12 Comments
Stephen Tall

Should the Lib Dems elect our (shadow) cabinet members?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 28th September 2010 - 4:35 pm

The election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader — despite losing the vote among Labour party members and MPs/MEPs — presented an easy target for the Lib Dems, a party which has always believed in one-member-one-vote, and where the views of our MPs carry equal weight as any other party member.

However, there is another election about to take place within the Labour party: for the 19 places available in their shadow cabinet. All MPs are eligible to stand, and the electorate comprises their colleagues; a separate ballot will decide who will be the Labour chief whip. So far it’s …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | 20 Comments
Stephen Tall

Ed Miliband’s leader’s speech: my first impressions

By Stephen Tall | Tue 28th September 2010 - 4:20 pm

Well, that’s one job done: the new Labour leader (but not the New Labour leader: absolutely not) has got through his first, major task: to deliver his speech to the party conference. It seemed to me to best understood as a ‘detoxifying’ speech. Just as David Cameron’s biggest achievement as Tory leader was to make it almost respectable to vote for his party, so was Ed Miliband attempting to cast off the most illiberal and unpopular aspects of the last Labour government (even though he was a member of its cabinet).

Perhaps inevitably this meant the focus of the speech was …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 60 Comments
Stephen Tall

Ed Miliband’s first conference speech as leader: the LDV live-blog

By Stephen Tall | Tue 28th September 2010 - 2:27 pm

It’s being billed as a huge speech for Ed Miliband, his first chance to place a personal stamp on the Labour party.

2.25 pm
Begins with thanks for advice from all delegates, “some of it unsolicited”, followed by warm tribute to brother David Miliband. Ed dismisses idea he’s more left-wing; David, he says, threatened to nationalise his railway in revenge for Ed stealing his football. Next up on the tribute list is Harriet Harman.

2.27 pm
Then there’s Alistair Darling, praised for “keeping his cool” during the financial crisis; and Jack Straw, for his, well, longevity. Then it’s straight onto the central theme: …

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Posted in News | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Positive coverage in The Sun for anti-airbrushing campaign

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th September 2010 - 1:27 pm

Over the weekend The Sun ran this:

KAYA Cheshire may have only recently turned 18, but she’s got far bigger things to worry about than boyfriends, make-up and A-levels.

The aspiring journalist has turned her compassionate personality and hard working skills to a global issue in the fashion industry – whether airbrushing in magazines is really right.

The student from South Wales used London Fashion Week this week to promote her Natural Beauty: Keeping It Real campaign that she launched via Battlefront, a Channel 4 funded project that helps 14-21-year-olds platform charity campaigns…

She says: “When I started studying media at school, my eyes

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Good news as Electoral Commission decides to preserve local donation records

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th September 2010 - 12:27 pm

The Electoral Commission is plugging a gap in the record of political donations following a decision to change its policy on retaining copies of constituency candidate expense returns.

Donations made direct to a candidate (rather than to their party) are only recorded in these constituency returns and do not appear in the donation records published by the Electoral Commission. However, in previous Parliaments both the local copies of these returns kept by electoral officials and the copies gathered in by the Electoral Commission were destroyed after a handful of years. This meant that even before the next general election was held, …

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Helen Duffett

Do Tweets win seats? – Micro-blogging and politics

By Helen Duffett | Tue 28th September 2010 - 11:37 am

Politicos use Twitter to communicate with voters, activists and the media. It’s sociable and fashionable. It’s useful but it has its limits.

And if this was Twitter I’d stop there, for the paragraph above is a 140-character summary of the popular micro-blogging service and its emerging role in politics. Having the luxury of a whole chapter, rather than a couple of lines, I can expound a bit. But sometimes I relish Twitter’s brevity and the way it gives me both the discipline and the excuse not to write at length.

Twitter was to the 2010 General Election what blogging had been to the previous one: novel, topical, conversational, personal. Blogging, in long and short form, is good for quickly spreading campaign messages, news and rumours and it’s freely accessible for anyone with an internet connection.

When I first subscribed to the service a couple of years ago, few news outlets or political candidates were tweeting, although the three main parties were already using it to link to party information and election results.

Over the past year, Twitter has been increasingly taken up by MPs and councillors, bloggers and journalists, even government departments, but crucially by thousands of people who are none of the above, but want to converse with them on an equal footing.

The parties continue to tweet, but now candidates, MPs and party leaders themselves are using the medium, with varying degrees of skill.

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Mark Pack

In the long-run, it’s governments and not insurgents who win

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th September 2010 - 9:24 am

One of the most commonly made comments about insurgencies such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq, and most famously Vietnam, is that in order to win the insurgents simply need to survive. It’s a piece of conventional wisdom challenged in a thoughtful piece in Foreign Affairs, based on looking at 89 insurgencies over the last fifty years:

Many have assumed that insurgents invariably win by simply holding out. This is incorrect. Historically, governments have won more often than insurgents in the long run. And even wars that seemed to be spiraling inexorably toward defeat, such as Colombia’s against the Revolutionary

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments
The Voice

The Independent View: Political Innovation No.5 – Government information? Get the public to provide it!

By The Voice | Mon 27th September 2010 - 8:28 pm

This is a guest cross-post by Lauren Currie – originally posted on the Political Innovation site here.

For too long, policymaking has been monopolised by civil servants, self-serving pressure groups and sensationalist journalists. We get a vote once every four or five years and we’re expected to be satisfied with that.

Public services are too important to get lost in headline issues, and too big to leave to those who have the time and energy to write letters or sit on committees. The best communication happens when it’s easy to do, and when it’s a conversation, not just a complaint.

For this reason, …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | 2 Comments
Joe Jordan

Opinion: a way forward on Lib Dem diversity

By Joe Jordan | Mon 27th September 2010 - 3:23 pm

The Liberal Democrats have an image problem. We are predominantly a party of middle class members, which I know because I’ve met a lot of members and they nearly all talk like me.

Because of the depressingly predictable socio-economic data, this also means that, since our members are better off, they are more likely to be male, white, and able bodied than your average Briton. The only conventional diversity stream that is not underrepresented purely by means of the economic correlations is LBGT, and this group is well represented in the party which hopefully also has something to do with Liberal …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 28 Comments
Joss Garman

The Independent View: half of Lib Dems say protecting environment should be more of a priority

By Joss Garman | Mon 27th September 2010 - 1:14 pm

The Guardian reported last week that Chris Huhne is having to do battle with the Treasury on a number of policy fronts to save his department from drastic cuts, including to clean energy budgets. According to the newspaper, “When all government departments were asked to model the effect of 40% cuts over the summer, officials at Decc told ministers that cuts of that level to its £3.2bn budget would make it unable to stand alone as a viable entity.”

A Yougov poll, commissioned by Greenpeace, and published here exclusively on Lib Dem Voice, shows that Chris Huhne has his …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Helen Duffett

Blog of the Year Awards: The movie

By Helen Duffett | Mon 27th September 2010 - 12:08 pm

The BOTYs were quite simply the glitteringest event of the whole Liberal Democrat conference last week, and Lib Dem councillor and blogger Jonathan Wallace was there to film them.

If you look carefully, you might just spot the tail feathers of the last flamingo, as it was startled away by popping flashbulbs. Alas, the heat of said flashbulbs also melted the ice sculptures before Jonathan could film those too, but the video’s well worth watching for the great speeches from winners and presenters alike:

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Posted in Best of the blogs and Conference | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Eight lessons from the general election campaign for activities outside politics

By Mark Pack | Mon 27th September 2010 - 10:57 am

This article is appearing in The Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK 2010-2011, which is available from Amazon.

Just as people running political campaigns often learn from other disciplines, those active in other disciplines can learn from political campaigns. Much has been written (including by myself, such as in the Hansard Society report http://scr.bi/hansardsociety) on how social media was used in the 2010 general election campaign; far less common have been pieces looking at the lessons that those outside politics can learn from the deployment of social media in that election.

Lessons are often clearer to see and …

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Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | 5 Comments
Iain Roberts

Labour need to decide whether their “Save the Deficit” campaign should continue

By Iain Roberts | Mon 27th September 2010 - 9:10 am

There are two different economic debates to be had with Labour politicians these days.

One of them is a sensible debate about how fast, and how far, cuts should go. Alistair Darling, just a few months ago, told us that Labour wanted to cut deeper and longer than Thatcher did in the 1980s, with talk of a 25% cut in public spending over seven years and hefty tax rises.

The Coalition Government takes the view that the pain of cuts should be slightly shorter and sharper than Labour had planned – still 25%, but spread over five years rather than …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 44 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #188

By Stephen Tall | Sun 26th September 2010 - 7:55 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 188th 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 (19th – 25th September, 2010), 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 | 4 Comments
Alex Foster

Equal marriage debate features in Pod Delusion

By Alex Foster | Sun 26th September 2010 - 6:34 pm

Agressively secularist podcast the Pod Delusion has, since its inception, carried pieces from contributors and former contributors to Lib Dem Voice. Former LDV editor Will Howells has guest-edited the podcast, and appeared in the first three episodes.

Latterly, I’ve started showing up in the occasional episode, holding forth on leaflets, tesco and polling day.

One time friend of t’Voice and party presidential hopeful Jennie Rigg added her distinctive voice with a rant about teenagers (but in a good way) and an interview with Julian Huppert MP.

And on the first birthday of Pod Delusion, both me and Will Howells appeared on a stage together for the first time – both trying to get a serious point across and make people laugh – at Pod Delusion Live. Much fun was had by all. And there was a most entertaining acronym of “atheist”.

So, to this week’s episode, released in the early hours of Friday morning. I took some of our recording of the Equal Marriage debate at Lib Dem conference and chopped it up and made commentary, almost like a real reporter / journalisty thing. Go me. The resultant reportage is cheek by jowl with reports on “Protest the Pope”, phone hacking and a trolling masterclass.

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Mark Pack

Lessons for future campaigning from the 2010 election

By Mark Pack | Sun 26th September 2010 - 5:25 pm

The Wednesday lunchtime at Liverpool conference saw myself chairing the last of The Voice’s fringe meetings, this one looking at lessons from the 2010 general election.

Our guest speakers were Hilary Stephenson (Director of Campaigns), Duncan Hames (newly elected as MP for Chippenham) and Paul Holmes (former MP for Chesterfield).

Thanks to Alex for sorting out the recording and podcasting wizardry.

Posted in Conference and Podcasts | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Malcolm Bruce

Opinion: violence against women is an issue of national security

By Malcolm Bruce | Sun 26th September 2010 - 4:11 pm

It is a fact that women are living in some of the direst circumstances in situations of conflict. Not only is poverty often most severe in conflict situations, but women are frequently deliberately targeted for violence in order to fuel conflicts and undermine prospects for peace, development and human progress. Without addressing violence against women, we’re not going to get people out of poverty, and we’re not going to end conflicts.

I visited a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is supported by the European commission and also our government. 90% of the work of that hospital was about …

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Posted in Op-eds | 1 Comment
Eric Avebury

Opinion: International Development and the Coalition – so far, so good

By Eric Avebury | Sun 26th September 2010 - 1:36 pm

With the 10 year Millennium Development Goal Review Summit taking place this week, now is a good time to take stock of the Coalition Government’s International Development policy so far.

The Coalition Government promised, in their “Programme for Government”, to commit to the internationally agreed goal of 0.7% of Gross National Income spent on aid by 2013 as well as supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and prioritising “aid spending on programmes to ensure that everyone has access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare and education; to reduce maternal and infant mortality.”

As Joint Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for …

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Posted in Op-eds | 4 Comments
The Voice

Liberal Youth support Farron for Prez

By The Voice | Sun 26th September 2010 - 10:57 am

The Liberal Youth Executive has voted to support Tim Farron in his bid to become the next President of the Liberal Democrats. Tim’s campaign was launched in the wake of the announcement by current President Baroness Ros Scott that she would not be seeking re-election.

Commenting, National Chair Martin Shapland said: ”On behalf of the Liberal Youth Executive I am delighted to declare our support for Tim Farron. He is a first class campaigner, a fantastic public speaker, and is an entirely approachable character. He understands the fundamental importance of youth participation in politics, and has a strong desire to work …

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Posted in News and Party Presidency | Tagged , and | 34 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference: the full-time score

By Mark Pack | Sun 26th September 2010 - 9:20 am

Having blogged ten questions for Liberal Democrat conference, along with a conference half-time update, how do things look now the dust has settled from Liverpool for those ten points?

Party strategy

Love your coalition partner all the time in public: that was the clear line taken by Nick Clegg, reinforced by other senior party figures and not challenged directly in any high profile way during conference (save for one question during the Nick Clegg Q&A). And yet… whether or not the party should let its strong debates with the Conservatives within the coalition show a little more in public was …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , , , and | 9 Comments
Iain Roberts

Mail on Sunday’s shocking Ed Miliband revelations

By Iain Roberts | Sun 26th September 2010 - 8:45 am

Ed Miliband has a big job ahead of him, to bring the Labour Party back to power following their second worst general election result since the second world war.

I wish him well and congratulate him on his victory. Whatever concerns people may have about the way he came second among both MPs and party members, he’s won fair and square by the rules the Labour Party set for the contest.

Personally, I would have problems being in a party that thought that particular setup was a fair and democratic way to run elections, but I’m not in that party and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 44 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo conference edition (4): Paddy, Shirley, Trident and Stride

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th September 2010 - 8:35 pm

Anyone starting to get conference withdrawal symptoms? For those of you who were there, here’s a few videos from the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool to help you catch up with what you missed by, erm, being there. And for those of you who weren’t there and saw it all on telly anyway… well, here’s another chance to enjoy some of the highlights.

(Please note, as most of these are BBC videos it’s not possible to link to them: they will therefore only be visible to readers viewing Lib Dem Voice directly through your web browser.)

Paddy Ashdown interviewed by Andrew Rawnsley


(Also available on the Guardian website here.)

LibDem anger over ‘Cold War’ Trident

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Stephen Tall

First thoughts on Ed Miliband’s election as Labour leader

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th September 2010 - 7:35 pm

Here are some first thoughts on what Ed Miliband’s wafer-thin election victory in the contest to lead Labour might mean…

1. He’s going to have to work hard to prove he’s his own man. There’s no doubt the right-wing press and the Conservatives will do all they can to show Ed Miliband is little more than a puppet of the unions, given he won Labour’s electoral college thanks to the votes of trade unionists, having lost the vote among party members and MPs/MEPs. The pressure will be on for him to show he can stand up to union power or risk …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 56 Comments
Eric Avebury

Opinion: International Development and the Coalition – so far, so good

By Eric Avebury | Sat 25th September 2010 - 6:45 pm

With the 10 year Millennium Development Goal Review Summit having taken place this week, now is a good time to take stock of the Coalition Government’s International Development policy so far.

The Coalition Government promised, in their “Programme for Government”, to commit to the internationally agreed goal of 0.7% of Gross National Income spent on aid by 2013 as well as supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and prioritising “aid spending on programmes to ensure that everyone has access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare and education; to reduce maternal and infant mortality.”

As Joint Chair of the All-Party …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 1 Comment
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