Mark Pack

The best comment on those Charles Kennedy stories

By Mark Pack | Sun 22nd August 2010 - 10:54 am

From Nick Barlow on Twitter:

Just heard a rumour that Charles Kennedy will defect to Labour as soon as they find the WMDs in Iraq.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
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Iain Roberts

Charles Kennedy: I’ll go to my grave with my Lib Dem membership card in my pocket

By Iain Roberts | Sun 22nd August 2010 - 7:25 am

Charles Kennedy has set the record straight over rumours of his defection which kept the political tweeters and bloggers buzzing yesterday whilst everyone else sensibly got on with their Saturday. As Scotland on Sunday reports, he made the comments after a meeting with constituents in Dingwall.

It is absolute rubbish, I am not joining the Labour Party and have not had any discussions about it with anyone from the Labour Party.

I will go out of this world feet first with my Lib Dem membership card in my pocket.

Ed Miliband has also agreed that no talks have …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 22 Comments
Stephen Tall

Pollwatch – State of the parties (summer 2010): Reasons to keep calm and carry on

By Stephen Tall | Sat 21st August 2010 - 5:57 pm

There have been a rather astonishing 36 opinion polls in the six weeks since LDV’s last polls round-up at the beginning of July. Thirty of those 36 originate from just one polling company, YouGov.

So let’s bring you up-to-date with July and August’s polls in chronological order of publication:

    Con 40, Lab 36, Lib Dem 16 (YouGov, 4-5 Jul)
    Con 41, Lab 36, Lib Dem 15 (YouGov, 5-6 Jul)
    Con 40, Lab 36, Lib Dem 17 (YouGov, 6-7 Jul)
    Con 42, Lab 35, Lib Dem 16 (YouGov, 7-8 Jul)
    Con 42, Lab 34, Lib Dem 17 (YouGov, 8-9 Jul)
    Con 42, Lab 35, Lib Dem

…

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Posted in Op-eds and Polls | Tagged , , and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV Saturday caption competition: “Kennedy points the way to Clegg” edition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 21st August 2010 - 4:27 pm

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


(Credit: Alex Folkes – see his work at Flickr here.)

Here’s Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg enjoying a friendly conversation with one of his predecessors, Charles Kennedy, during the general election campaign – what do you think they might be saying to each other, or thinking about each other?

The winner of our most recent caption competition, the “Paddy swings to the left” edition – according to The Voice’s judging panel …

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Posted in Caption Comp | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

Book review: Peter Mandelson’s The Third Man – Life at the heart of New Labour

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st August 2010 - 2:20 pm

At the book’s title suggests, Peter Mandelson’s memoirs The Third Man do not hold back from placing himself not only at the heart of New Labour but also at its top, variously using the phrases the three musketeers or the triumvirate to describe himself and the two Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Mandelson is also, alongside Peter Watt and Deborah Mattinson, part of another trio – Labour insiders who have recently published their account of life in New Labour. They all scatter some compliments about Brown through their books, but the overall picture painted of Gordon Brown is a deeply unflattering one. It’s a picture of a once talented politician and strategic thinker who spent over a decade in a sulk at not becoming Labour leader, frequently indulging in highly partisan infighting and repeatedly pushing to one side policy priorities as so many at the top of Labour were consumed with trying to keep the Blair-Brown show from completely imploding. As Mandelson records it, even Gordon Brown (speaking to him in 2008) admitted,

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Posted in Books | Tagged , , , and | 2 Comments
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David Thorpe

Opinion: Coalition’s inaction on ‘profiteering’ betrays liberal principles

By David Thorpe | Sat 21st August 2010 - 12:22 pm

The Coalition’s apparent decision not to hold an enquiry into the Energy Industry, as reported by the Independent , is something which Lib Dems of all stripes should campaign against.

Those who may regard themselves as economic liberals will object to this decision on the grounds that it is an example of a Government refusing to act to free up a market which currently is dominated six major players who control 99% of a market where inflation busting annual profit rises have become the norm, with British Gas reporting a staggering 98% rise in profits last July.

Economic Liberalism is built …

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Posted in Op-eds | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

Clegg backs graduate tax in Telegraph interview

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st August 2010 - 11:10 am

Credit where credit is due, today’s Telegraph interview with Nick Clegg covers a range of substantive policy issues and gives the Deputy Prime Minister the space to give nuanced answers where the question requires them.

The biggest story is Clegg’s clear steer on a graduate tax as the way to square financial demands with the party’s dislike of tuition fees:

While David Willetts, the universities minister, said this week that it was for Lord Browne’s ongoing study to recommend increased tuition fees or a tax, Mr Clegg comes down firmly for the latter. “ children are very intimidated by levels of

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
Alex Foster

LibDemVoice.org at Conference

By Alex Foster | Sat 21st August 2010 - 10:29 am

Once again, Lib Dem Voice have a varied and exciting programme at the Lib Dem federal conference planned for Liverpool next month.

Some of our events are still taking form; others are now so well established they are almost traditional.

And don’t worry if you are unable to join us in person at conference – we will be making recordings of the events and making them available right here on the blog, so that you can get the conference feel coming in your ears wherever you are in the nation.

For your delight and delectation, here are some details.

Blog of the Year Awards

Join …

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Posted in Conference and Events | Tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Iain Roberts

Those Kennedy defection rumours

By Iain Roberts | Sat 21st August 2010 - 9:20 am

We at LDV Towers know nothing more than anyone else about rumours circulated by Ed Miliband’s campaign team yesterday of Charles Kennedy thinking of defecting from the Lib Dems to Labour.

According to Lib Dem sources, Kennedy has personally scotched them.

The most likely explanation would seem to be that tried and tested Labour technique of spreading unfounded stories about others to cover up bad news about themselves.

Whatever the reality, one thing would be very odd indeed were the story to be true: the timing.

The information clearly hasn’t come from Kennedy, but from the Labour Party. Yet if a party …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 38 Comments
Stephen Tall

The LDV Friday Five: 20 August 2010

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th August 2010 - 6:00 pm

It’s Friday, so here’s a fistful of lists that sum up the past week on Liberal Democrat Voice:

5 most-read stories on LDV this week

1. Opinion: why we should wish Labour well (99) by George Kendall
2. Tory MP in Commons sex party “scandal” (14) by The Voice
3. The Miliband campaigning house parties (5) by Mark Pack
4. Opinion: unnatural constituency boundaries – the hidden menace (48) by David Allen
5. LibLink: Nick Clegg – My vision for a new political map and voting system (33) by NewsHound

5 active LDV Members’ Forum threads

1. Tories attack the poor rather than the rich
2. Anyone favour a merger with the Tories?
3. AV again
4. Are members’ newsletters too much trouble now we have email?
5. September conference – How long should I go for?

5 most active groups on ACT

1. Delga: LGBT Lib Dems
2. Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform
3. UK:OK
4. I Agree With Nick
5. West Midlands Liberal Democrats

5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

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Anthony Durham

Opinion: prove you’re in the library or face a bill, students told

By Anthony Durham | Fri 20th August 2010 - 4:33 pm

Officialdom seems to have opened a new front in its battle against those who commit the terrible sin of studying while black.

One of my students has been sent a summons to appear in court for not paying full Council Tax. The problem arises because non-EU students come in on a visa that specifies they must be recorded as being actively taught in college for at least 15 hours per week in college premises.

However, to be exempt from Council Tax a “full-time” student must study for 21 hours per week. Hands up anyone who got a degree …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 18 Comments
Mark Pack

“The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 3:21 pm

So says Nick Clegg in an interview for Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.

His underlying point is a good one – the coalition isn’t a single-issue coalition which is about AV and nothing else. And, as James Graham points out, the Electoral Reform Society isn’t a sort of glorified from of the Liberal Democrats either.

However, Nick Clegg does make the point at some length in the interview – “The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”, “I wouldn’t have stood for the leadership of the Lib Dems if I thought the only sole purpose in …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 36 Comments
Mark Pack

Worth a second outing: Lessons from Gordon Brown’s use of YouTube

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 2:20 pm

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message.

Gordon Brown’s foray during his premiership into YouTube in order to promote his plans for reforming MPs’ expenses was widely panned. So what lessons should be drawn by anyone thinking of using YouTube to strengthen …

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George Kendall

Opinion: the left should back the right on welfare

By George Kendall | Fri 20th August 2010 - 1:40 pm

Iain Duncan Smith is a right-winger. He was one of the first politicians to call for an invasion of Iraq, he is a eurosceptic. So, obviously, anything he’s proposing on welfare reform will be anathema to left-wingers. Right? Well, maybe not.

Under the current welfare system, many claimants aren’t interested in low paid work because they believe they’ll be worse off. This isn’t a guess, I’ve heard it with my own ears. This is outrageous. In the eighties, I was incensed when the Conservatives used to bang on about using …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 51 Comments
Mark Pack

Party finances in the news

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 12:58 pm

For the Conservatives it’s the quitting of their next treasurer, David Rowland, whilst for Labour it’s John Prescott warning of the Labour facing bankrupcy (the context for which you can see in these graphs).

Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Iain Roberts

Clegg on independence and opinion polls

By Iain Roberts | Fri 20th August 2010 - 12:42 pm

Nick Clegg has recorded an interview for the BBC’s Westminster Hour on Sunday about the challenges facing the Lib Dems.

According to the BBC story, Clegg reaffirmed the blindingly obvious – that the Lib Dems are, and will remain, an independent party fighting elections against the Conservatives.

On poll ratings, Clegg says 

“I think it is one of the oldest rules in politics that parties in government… tend to get a dip in their popularity.”

“Do I think we are going to be able to defy those rules of gravity at a time we are taking very difficult decisions on deficit

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 16 Comments
Helen Duffett

Have you nominated your Lib Dem Blog of the Year?

By Helen Duffett | Fri 20th August 2010 - 12:20 pm

Time’s ticking till close of nominations for the Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards, so here’s a reminder of the categories and an exhortation to vote early!

Nominate in any or all of these:

  • Best new Liberal Democrat blog (started since 1st September 2009)
  • Best blog from a Liberal Democrat holding public office (The Tim Garden Award)
  • Best use of blogging / social networking / e-campaigning by a Liberal Democrat
  • Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2009)
  • Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog
  • Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year

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    Posted in Best of the blogs and Conference | Tagged | Leave a comment
    Chris White

    Opinion: heartless talk costs votes

    By Chris White | Fri 20th August 2010 - 10:20 am

    ‘Good News’ people cry, like the tricoteuses of revolutionary France, when another quango head rolls into the basket. Such was the whoop (at least from aficionados) when the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council was given its P45. It seemed an obvious move and one that I had advocated myself.

    I still support it: but, as I have pointed out before, there are potentially unintended consequences.

    The libraries improvement regime can be taken over easily by the LGA. But what about museums? It seems that ‘responsibility’, whatever that may mean, for museums will pass to the Arts Council. So in fact we …

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    Posted in Op-eds | 5 Comments
    Sara Bedford

    Lib Dem wins council seat whilst on his honeymoon!

    By Sara Bedford | Fri 20th August 2010 - 12:45 am

    An interesting mix of results in this week’s by-elections. In the first result of the evening, the Liberal Democrats comfortably held North ward of Seaford  Town Council, which is in Lewes constituency.

    LD Nick Norman: 407
    Con: 319
    Lab: 137
    Ind: 74
    BNP: 20
    The turnout was 23.7%.

    The new councillor is currently away on his honeymoon, with new wife Naomi.

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    Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Simon Hughes states the bleedin’ obvious, sparks news media frenzy

    By Stephen Tall | Thu 19th August 2010 - 7:45 pm

    Well, we’re into the 101st day of the Coalition – and, still, despite the many media sightings of ‘splits’ and ‘tensions’, the Government has yet to founder on the rocks.

    The latest round of media sniping was triggered by Simon Hughes’ comments yesterday, widely – but inaccurately – reported as Lib Dems ‘need backbench veto’. So let’s look at what Simon actually said, as opposed to what the news media chose to paraphrase:

    If the coalition wants to deliver votes, neither party on its own has a majority, so we have to make sure everyone is brought into that. It’s a matter of practical politics, the answer is therefore: yes, the parliamentary party, on behalf of the wider party, on big issues has to say, ‘No, we can’t go down this road.”

    My reading of Simon’s words is this: if big proposals are brought forward by government ministers on behalf of the Coalition then the MPs of both parties are going to have to be satisfied otherwise they won’t vote for them.

    All of which, to me, seems plain, obvious and utterly uncontroversial. Which isn’t good enough for the news media, hence the misleading headlines that Simon is demanding a Lib Dem veto – with rent-a-quote Tories like John Redwood and James Cleverly on hand to take the media’s bait and amp up this non-story a little further.

    The media’s approach to the reporting of the Coalition’s (yawn) ‘splits’ and ‘tensions’ puts me in mind of The Day Today’s Chris Morris inciting two studio guests to declare war on each other by putting ever more inflammatory words in each other’s mouths. See what you think:

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 12 Comments
    Mark Pack

    The developing dynamics of the Lib Dem Parliamentary Party

    By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 6:24 pm

    Just over 100 days into coalition, it’s becoming clearer how the Parliamentary Party (in the Commons) is shaping up and where dissent is likely to come from in future. As I’ve argued previously, overall the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party has been remarkably united over the last few years. (Even the ousting of Charles Kennedy was conducted with a remarkable degree of speed and agreement amongst MPs, especially when compared with the long-running leadership agonies in Labour and, pre-2005, the Conservatives.)

    Coalition is putting that Lib Dem cohesion to the test in new ways and we’re starting to see who the …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 10 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Conservatives forfeit £101,500 in donations

    By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 5:51 pm

    Two illegal donations totalling £101,500 dating back to 2004 and 2006 have been forfeited by the Conservative Party.

    The issue came to light after it was revealed that over £1m in donations taken by the Conservative Party and booked as being from RF Trustee Co Ltd were not in fact donations from the company but from a series of individuals.

    As a result, the Conservative Party re-examined the donations and discovered it had accepted £1,500 in 2004 from an unidentifiable source and £100,000 in 2006 from Mrs Joanna Kate King, who was not on the electoral register at the time.

    Posted in News | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment
    Stephen Tall

    Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #182

    By Stephen Tall | Thu 19th August 2010 - 3:26 pm

    Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 182nd 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 (8th – 14th August, 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 | 1 Comment
    Iain Roberts

    MP banned for driving whilst using her mobile

    By Iain Roberts | Thu 19th August 2010 - 3:19 pm

    The BBC is reporting that Yasmin Qureshi, Labour MP for Bolton South East has been banned from driving for six months and fined £1,250 plus costs for using her mobile phone whilst driving and driving without insurance. Qureshi already had nine points on her licence.

    Qureshi, according to the report, said being uninsured was a mistake and she thought the policy had been renewed.

    Given how many of us do use our mobile phones whilst behind the wheel, at least from time to time, this case should perhaps be more of the “there but for the grace of God…” variety …

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    Posted in News | Tagged | 10 Comments
    Iain Roberts

    Cleverly disrepects Hughes – where will it end?

    By Iain Roberts | Thu 19th August 2010 - 2:18 pm

    If someone publically told you to shut up and called you a “dick” and a “fool”, would you feel that person was treating you with respect?

    Most people would say not, and when it comes to standards boards, the rulings tend to agree. Perfectly OK to say someone’s idea is foolish, but not to call them a fool.

    So how to explain a blog post by James Cleverly, who sits on the London Assembly as a Conservative?

    Titled “Oh do shut up Simon“, Mr Cleverly lays into Simon Hughes who, it’s safe to say, he doesn’t quite see eye to eye …

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    Posted in News | Tagged , and | 23 Comments
    Ed Maxfield

    Opinion: Community politics has had its day – time to move on

    By Ed Maxfield | Thu 19th August 2010 - 1:23 pm

    Move along please, nothing to see here. Just a body of ideas that died a natural death some time in the 1990s.

    I have just read Gordon Lishman’s Federal Executive paper on future party strategy. It is encouragingly clear and geared towards future action and it contains a number of interesting proposals. But is it undermined by its insistence on tying future party strategy to the ideology of community politics?

    Questioning the relevance of community politics in a Lib Dem forum feels a bit like trying to sell Richard Dawkins in a seminary but there are a number of reasons …

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    Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Tagged | 27 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    James Graham on the dangers of Labour’s oppositionalism

    By Stephen Tall | Thu 19th August 2010 - 12:45 pm

    James Graham, Lib Dem blogger and frequent contributor to the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, has a must-read piece today, titled ‘Not dead but…’.

    James co-founded the Lib Dems’ Social Liberal Forum, and has in the past advocated closer relations between the party and Labour as a progressive force to take on the Conservatives, so he is by no means a natural cheerleader for the Lib/Con Coalition, as his blog-post makes clear.

    It’s his take on Labour’s misfiring oppositional tactics, though, which I think are well worth highlighting here:

    My fears that Labour would end up getting

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged and | 20 Comments
    Peter Black

    Opinon: two referendums and an election – Wales and coalitions (part 3)

    By Peter Black | Thu 19th August 2010 - 11:20 am

    The third element of the coalition agreement relates to the powers of the Welsh Assembly. At present we can only pass laws piecemeal. An order passing legislative competence in a specified area of policy is requested by the Assembly, scrutinised by us and by the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and then passed in Cardiff Bay and in both houses of Parliament before receiving royal assent.

    It is a long and expensive process not to mention frustrating. The Housing order for example took three years to be approved. The referendum, which is now scheduled to be held in the spring, will …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | Leave a comment
    Mark Pack

    Alternative Vote or Venetian Vote?

    By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 10:20 am

    Pah, who needs the Alternative Vote when you can go for the Venetian electoral system, as explained by The New Yorker:

    Whenever the time came to elect a new doge of Venice, an official went to pray in St. Mark’s Basilica, grabbed the first boy he could find in the piazza, and took him back to the ducal palace. The boy’s job was to draw lots to choose an electoral college from the members of Venice’s grand families , which was the first step in a performance that has been called tortuous, ridiculous, and profound. Here is how it went,

    …

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    Posted in News | Tagged and | 5 Comments
    Alan Belmore

    Opinion: it’s about more than A-levels

    By Alan Belmore | Thu 19th August 2010 - 9:24 am

    I write as a former chair of Liberal Youth, currently studying at York University who was educated at an independent school. Yet with A-Level results out today, I am backing calls for universities to consider students from state schools who have achieved lower grades than their counterparts from private institutions.

    ‘This is discrimination’ the wealthy middle classes cry. ‘They both sat the same exams’, it is pointed out to me. Yet this faux fairness is exaggerated, a continued belief that seems to run through education that wishes children and young adults to develop in a different system to that which us …

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    Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments
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