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

By Stephen Tall | Published Sat 2nd July 2011 - 12:05 pm

… We’d say a big thank you to the 39,604 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in June. This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 July 2010 – 30 June 2011) to 522,590.

The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

Andrew Reeves passes away (38) by Mark Pack
Response: Chair of Federal Conference Committee on increased security measures (153) by Andrew Wiseman
Why Simon Kelner is wrong to defend Johann Hari (27) by Stephen Tall
Opinion: Why you should be taking Lembit Opik seriously (61) by Richard Clare

…

Posted in Site news | Tagged statporn | 2 Comments

What does the Inverclyde result mean for the Scottish Liberal Democrats?

By Caron Lindsay | Published Fri 1st July 2011 - 6:51 pm

As Helen Duffett reported early this morning, the Inverclyde by-election saw Labour holding on to the seat, but with a dramatically reduced majority over the SNP. This was always going to be a tight fight between those two. You would think that Labour would be the likely victor, but the SNP came within 500 votes of unseating them in May’s elections. With the SNP in majority control at Holyrood, how would they fare in this first electoral test?

Scotland has felt very different since the Holyrood elections. The political environment feels a lot darker. In the run up to the …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged alex salmond, inverclyde, sophie bridger | 25 Comments

LDVideo: That Ed Miliband TV interview car crash in full

By Stephen Tall | Published Fri 1st July 2011 - 3:55 pm

Poor Ed Miliband. The Labour leader would have been hoping public attention today would be focused on his his party’s defence of its Inverclyde stronghold — instead, everyone’s watching his car-crash TV interview in which he reformulates a soundbite repeatedly in order to insert the words ‘negotiating table’ and ‘these strikes are wrong’ into every sentence.

The result? A distinctly odd, unnatural, automated interview which fuels the ‘Awkward Ed’ media meme.

Part of me feels a little sorry for Mr Miliband. Clearly he was under the impression that only one line would be extracted from the interview; not unreasonably he was keen to ensure that it was the line which conveyed his key message rather than the news editor’s. Such is the challenge for all politicians in our ‘say it in 7 seconds’ media culture. But, as Iain Duncan Smith found to his cost as Tory leader when he nervously chuckled his way through a Radio 4 Today Programme interview, it’s these kinds of moments which stand out in the public consciousness.

Anyway, enough analysing: just sit back and enjoy.

Posted in YouTube | Tagged ed miliband, Mark Pack | 8 Comments

30 things every would-be politician should do this summer

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 30th June 2011 - 10:53 am

Inspired originally by Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer and prompted by Stephen Tall, it’s become a summer tradition for me to run a list of 30 suggestions for would-be politicians, particularly those new to public office or seeking it in the next few years.

As ever, a new summer brings a new lick of paint for the list, with a few updates here and there and my thanks to those who commented on the previous lists:

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured | 7 Comments

Opinion: The Social Liberal Conference was a major success

By Lee Dargue | Published Mon 20th June 2011 - 9:41 am

The SLF conference was a major success. Yes, it was “full” – David Hall-Mathews careful not to refer to the event as “sold out”. Yes, lots of people debated and tweeted like crazy on subjects ranging from NHS reforms to the history of the American fridge. But it wasn’t the numbers or amount of talking we did which was the most important. It was the fact that there is still a groundswell of progressives alive and well in the Liberal Democrats. In fact, since entering government with the Conservative party, and with a recent “win” (yet to see how it …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged chris huhne, david hall-matthews, ed randall, halina ward, lucy care, matthew sowemino, neal lawson, social liberal forum, vince cable | 17 Comments

Thank you EARS, but the VAN is coming

By Iain Roberts | Published Sun 19th June 2011 - 3:20 pm

Back in March, Mark Pack reported on a momentous move in the Lib Dems: from the EARS election software to Voter Activation Network, or VAN, which is used by Democrats in the US and the Canadian Liberal Party, amongst others.

EARS has done sterling service for the party over the years. I first used the DOS version of the software in the mid-nineties, when it had already been around for a few years. Younger readers may not have encountered the joys of the paper “Shuttleworths” that were used before EARS: sheet after sheet of knock-up lists, laboriously …

Posted in News | Tagged ears, VAN | 54 Comments

LibLink | Danny Alexander: Make no mistake: we will reform public sector pensions

By The Voice | Published Fri 17th June 2011 - 10:22 am

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander writes in the Telegraph today on public sector pensions reform, calling the Government’s offer “by far the best that is likely to be on the table for years to come”:

This debate is often polarised between two extremes. There are some trade unions who seem to believe that pensions for public service workers should not change. Then there are those equally misguided voices who seem to think that the public services should be the front-runner in a race to the bottom.

Between these two, I believe there is an indisputable case for reforming public

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged Danny Alexander, pensions, trade unions, tuc | 53 Comments

How Great Ormond Street’s Jane Collins escaped investigation last year

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 13th June 2011 - 8:32 am

Jane Collins, the Chief Executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital, is facing calls to resign after it was revealed that critical details about the hospital’s role in the death of Baby Peter were withheld from one inquiry into the tragedy and, despite the hospital’s subsequent claims, were also not supplied to the second inquiry.

However, what has been less commented on in the coverage in the last few days is the way Jane Collins escaped being investigated by the General Medical Council last year:

The chief executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital has escaped investigation over the Baby P scandal …

Posted in News | Tagged baby p, dan falchikov, great ormond street hospital, jane collins, jonathan calder, kim holt, lynne featherstone, richard morris | Leave a comment

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

By Helen Duffett | Published Sun 12th June 2011 - 4:53 pm

… We’d say a big thank you to the 56,674 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in May.

This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 June 2010 – 31 May 2011) to 531,005, 5.8% more than the equivalent figure for 2009-10 of 501,773.

The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

Opinion: However unfair it is, Chris Huhne should step down (105 comments) by Simon McGrath
Chris Huhne’s election expenses: once again, nothing to see here, move along (60 comments) by Mark Pack
Black Friday for Lib Dems: it’s worse than we thought

…

Posted in Site news | Tagged statporn | Leave a comment

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 6th June 2011 - 12:54 pm

Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?

Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

Posted in Site news | 1 Comment

Lib Dem donation figures in full (Q1, 2011)

By Stephen Tall | Published Tue 31st May 2011 - 8:45 am

The Electoral Commission has this past week published the latest donation and borrowing figures for the political parties, showing that the Lib Dems raised £810,029 in the first three months of this year.

(At the foot of this post is the full breakdown of cash and non-cash donations received by quarter since 2005, and annually between 2001 and 2004.)

By comparison, the party raised just £219,915 in the first quarter of 2006 (the equivalent stage of the parliamentary cycle), suggesting a far more sustainable level of fundraising success is being achieved; although the party has been hit very hard since …

Posted in News | Tagged donations | 10 Comments

Collette Dunkley appointed as Liberal Democrats’ Marketing Director

By Helen Duffett | Published Thu 26th May 2011 - 1:49 pm

Collette Dunkley is to join the Liberal Democrats next week as Director of Marketing, reporting to Chief Executive Chris Fox.

Collette, who was born in Liverpool, has led marketing and communications in global organisations including General Motors and Vodafone. She has also lectured on these subjects in various universities, advised many large organisations and is an expert and commentator on increasing engagement with women.

The new Marketing Department at Cowley St will bring together internal and external communications. These will include development of our messages and the ways we deliver them, as well as collecting vital feedback. Collette will undertake an …

Posted in News, Party policy and internal matters | Tagged chris fox, collette dunkley | 11 Comments

The Independent View: Where is the promised aid money being spent?

By Joanne Crouch | Published Tue 24th May 2011 - 11:52 am

In the run up to the 2011 G8 summit in Deauville, France, this May, international humanitarian organisation Concern Worldwide is pushing for commitment and clarity on the agricultural aid promises pledged by G8 members in the 2009 G8 summit in L’Aquila.

Back then, the British Government alongside the other G8 countries committed $22 billion in aid to be distributed over three years as part of the L’Aquila Global Food Security Initiative. The British commitment in particular was for £1.1 billion. These numbers may appear substantial, however they pale in comparison to the $30 billion per year that the UN Food …

Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Tagged andrew mitchell, international development | 4 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #221

By The Voice | Published Sun 15th May 2011 - 7:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 221st 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 (8-14 May, 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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment

What you think of Lib Dem Voice’s comments policy… your chance to comment!

By Stephen Tall | Published Sat 14th May 2011 - 8:45 am

In our most recent survey of Lib Dem members signed-up our discussion forum, we asked what folk think of the comments posted by our readers on the public blog.

We’ve tried different approaches to comment moderation on Lib Dem Voice. Initially, we were uber-liberal almost laissez-faire, only moderating comments which we judged were legally risky. Then, at the start of 2010, we decided in response to feedback from readers (including from those who ‘lurk’ but rarely comment) to moderate more actively, declining to accept comments which were at all abusive, or were completely off-topic. Our aim was, and …

Posted in LDV Members poll, Site news | 58 Comments

Independent View: Help residents recognise their councillors

By Matt Boyes | Published Thu 12th May 2011 - 10:48 am

With councillors starting new terms following the local election, now is a great opportunity to review how they communicate and get involved with people in their communities. This is actually quite a challenge. Would you be surprised to hear that over two thirds of voters are unable to identify any of their local government representatives? Worryingly, despite the hours of work and campaigning that councillors invest in their local areas, most people admit that they wouldn’t be able to pick them in a line-up. That’s what we found in our Connecting Communities Report, having surveyed over …

Posted in The Independent View | 7 Comments

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Fri 6th May 2011 - 12:25 pm

Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?

Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in Online politics | Tagged av referendum, facebook, twitter | 2 Comments

Campaigners! Get the new Facebook app #YES2AV #LibDems

By Helen Duffett | Published Fri 15th April 2011 - 9:53 am

Lib Dem Voice have launched a new Facebook app to make it easy for you to let your friends on Facebook and Twitter know what campaigning you’ve been doing.

This is a great way of building up a buzz around our campaigning – and the more someone sees their friends have been campaigning, the more likely they are to join in.

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

Some actions are of the simple “I have done” variety whilst others have the …

Posted in Online politics | Tagged av referendum, facebook, twitter | 2 Comments

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Published Fri 8th April 2011 - 12:28 pm

Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

Clegg a hypocrite? Nick’s critics are “playing the man, not the ball” says BBC’s Mark Easton

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 6th April 2011 - 11:07 pm

The right-wing press was today in full self-righteous cry, accusing Nick Clegg of ‘hypocrisy’ for seeking to ensure fairness on internships when he’s stated in interviews before he benefited from family connections. Their argument is comprehensively refuted by the BBC’s home editor Mark Easton, who points out here quite how spurious such attacks are:

The charge is that he is a hypocrite – trying to deny to others what he enjoyed himself. But does the accusation really hold water? Are we saying that no politician can ever pursue reforms to a system because he or she is a consequence of

…

Posted in News | Tagged charlotte henry, george potter, mark easton, Mark Pack, nick clegg, radar, richard morris | 13 Comments

Pollwatch – State of the Leaders: Clegg -25%, Cameron -6%, Miliband -10% (April 2011)

By Stephen Tall | Published Tue 5th April 2011 - 8:00 am

Yesterday, Pollwatch looked at the current state of the parties; today it’s the turn of the party leaders, Messrs Clegg, Cameron and Miliband.

As with all polls, what follows comes with caveats. Five of the polling companies – YouGov, Ipsos-Mori, ComRes, ICM and Angus Reid – ask questions specifically to find out the public’s views of the party leaders. And each asks variants on the basic question – do you think Clegg/Cameron are doing a good job – to come up with their figures, so comparison ain’t easy. For that reason, I’m taking a 3-month rolling average which isn’t very statistically …

Posted in Polls | Tagged david cameron, ed miliband, nick clegg, pollwatch | 8 Comments

In other news… speed cameras and does online campaigning work?

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 4th April 2011 - 10:28 am

Jonathan Calder reports how Cornish councillor Jeremy Rowe is finding Twitter useful as a way to communicate with residents in his area who are hard to reach through traditional politics. Cllr Rowe’s local experience compliments the message that Google search data gives about people wanting to find politicians on Twitter. (If you are a councillor or local candidate and wondering how to build-up your own local following, see The secret to getting 1,000 ward residents to follow you on Twitter.)

Paul Walter reports …

Posted in News, Online politics | Tagged 38 degrees, getup!, jeremy rowe, jonathan calder, paul walter, speed cameras, twitter | Leave a comment

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

By Stephen Tall | Published 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

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

By David Thorpe | Published 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, …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged iraq, liberal interventionism, libya | 42 Comments

Opinion: the Lib Dems should have have more influence over the environment, food and rural affairs

By Paul Walter | Published Tue 22nd March 2011 - 4:03 pm

Recently, I have started taking an interest in the government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). My MP is one of their ministers. He seems to spend an awful lot of time on marine affairs, coastal defences and the natural environment. So, as a good citizen, I feel I ought to take an interest. For example, recently, I read through all the questions and answers at Thursday’s the DEFRA session in the House of Commons. Well done Andrew George and Duncan Hames for speaking. But, apart from their three queries, it was a Tory controlled zone.

DEFRA is unusual …

Posted in News | Tagged defra | 1 Comment

Weekend voting: not ruled in, not ruled out

By Mark Pack | Published Sat 19th March 2011 - 10:27 am

As part of Parliament’s deliberations over the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, this week the House of Lords debated the possibility of moving to weekend voting.

In The two electoral tests the Coalition should run, I made the point that,

Weekend voting has been once briefly trialled (in Watford a decade ago). It was not a success then, but there are good reasons to try again given the details of how the trial was conducted – especially holding the weekend elections just after the usual national round of local elections, with the result that residents in Watford were seeing in all the national

…

Posted in Election law | Tagged chris rennard, Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, lord (william) wallace, weekend voting | Leave a comment

Independent View: Health Bill doesn’t have to be a poisoned chalice, just put patients first

By Paul Hodgkin | Published Wed 9th March 2011 - 2:45 pm

For all the face time that health secretary Andrew Lansley gets, Lib Dems can’t forget that come election time, they’ll be judged by the success or failure of the NHS reform package too.

This isn’t a reality that many members of the party are warming to. After almost a year of being cast by both the public and media in the role of scapegoat or political cover for their coalition partners, nobody can blame them for being wary.

But the Health and Social Care Bill doesn’t have to be a poisoned chalice. The Lib Dems have succeeded in securing compromises in other …

Posted in The Independent View | 2 Comments

Op-eds

AI at the crossroads: two stories, one warning (Sean Worrell)
Observations of an Expat: The American Vote (Tom Arms)
Burnham has left a gap on tax. We should run through it. (Tom Reeve)
Should the Liberal Democrats support “None of the Above”? (Samuel Jackson)
Extending the school day: A catalyst for economic growth (Edward Marsh)

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Vince Cable writes: The rebirth of council housing

An early win for affordable housing – now let councils build

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

Search Results for: feed

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

What does the Inverclyde result mean for the Scottish Liberal Democrats?

LDVideo: That Ed Miliband TV interview car crash in full

30 things every would-be politician should do this summer

Thank you EARS, but the VAN is coming

LibLink | Danny Alexander: Make no mistake: we will reform public sector pensions

How Great Ormond Street’s Jane Collins escaped investigation last year

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

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

Lib Dem donation figures in full (Q1, 2011)

Collette Dunkley appointed as Liberal Democrats’ Marketing Director

The Independent View: Where is the promised aid money being spent?

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #221

What you think of Lib Dem Voice’s comments policy… your chance to comment!

Independent View: Help residents recognise their councillors

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

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

Campaigners! Get the new Facebook app #YES2AV #LibDems

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

Clegg a hypocrite? Nick’s critics are “playing the man, not the ball” says BBC’s Mark Easton

Pollwatch – State of the Leaders: Clegg -25%, Cameron -6%, Miliband -10% (April 2011)

In other news… speed cameras and does online campaigning work?

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

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

Opinion: the Lib Dems should have have more influence over the environment, food and rural affairs

Weekend voting: not ruled in, not ruled out

Independent View: Health Bill doesn’t have to be a poisoned chalice, just put patients first

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Vince Cable writes: The rebirth of council housing

An early win for affordable housing – now let councils build

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

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