Search Results for: feed

Mark Pack

Tory donor, tax affairs, Oakeshott on the case: some things haven’t changed

By Mark Pack | Published Wed 25th August 2010 - 8:11 pm

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott is clearly not put off by coalition from his pursuit of Tory donors and their tax statuses. Today it is Jon Wood, whose tax affairs have been in the papers with Lord Oakeshott saying, “Now is the time to take big money out of British politics”. You can read more here.

Posted in News | Tagged , , | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #183

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 22nd August 2010 - 7:27 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 183rd 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 (15th – 21st 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:

Continue reading »
Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment
Helen Duffett

Have you nominated your Lib Dem Blog of the Year?

By Helen Duffett | Published 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

    • Continue reading »
    Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference | Tagged | Leave a comment
    Alan Belmore

    Opinion: it’s about more than A-levels

    By Alan Belmore | Published 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 …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Council website spending put under scrutiny

    By Mark Pack | Published Mon 16th August 2010 - 1:13 pm

    Today’s Telegraph has a piece looking at the large sums being spent by many councils on new or revamped websites.

    In itself, an expensive website is not necessarily a poor use of funds as good, popular sites often also save costs (e.g. by reducing the number of phonecalls the council has to handle). As a result, Medway Council – one of those picked out in the article – may have a good case for spending £250,000 in revamping its site given that the last major revamp was in 2003. In the last seven years the internet has changed significantly as have …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Local government, News, Online politics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Book review: Blog Theory by Jodi Dean

    By Mark Pack | Published Thu 12th August 2010 - 11:20 am

    Jodi Dean’s analysis of the economic, political and social impacts of blogging (and social networking more generally) covers broad themes that will be familiar to readers of technology authors such as Clay Shirky or media commentators such as Charlie Beckett. However, the particular aspects, the style of argument and even the vocabulary are heavily different – for this is a work of critical literary theory. The lack of overlap in cited sources, points of debate and choice of jargon highlights how even in the interconnected world of online punditry (all three frequently write online) there are many distinct niches and communities who rarely overlap even when the broad subjects of their interest are the same.

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Books, Online politics | Tagged , | 2 Comments
    Mark Pack

    How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

    By Mark Pack | Published Thu 12th August 2010 - 10:20 am

    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 convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

    Just go to our email sign up page to start getting these emails. You can also sign up for a special once-a-week email, bringing you …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Site news | Leave a comment
    Stephen Tall

    Vince: Cameron is “100% behind” my graduate tax proposals

    By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 8th August 2010 - 10:00 am

    Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable is interviewed in the Sunday Telegraph (“in open-neck pink shirt and slippers”, intriguingly).

    The paper chooses to headline it, Vince Cable: ‘I’m not having fun in government’, trying to feed into the narrative that Vince is a semi-detached member of the coalition government, though he’s certainly loyal in all his utterances. Incidentally, the headline quote set in context reads rather more uncontroversially: “People sometimes ask me ‘are you having fun?’ ” he says. ” No! It’s hard work and it’s tough, but it’s important.”

    The paper largely ignores what seems to me a …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (July ’10)

    By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 5th August 2010 - 8:55 pm

    … We’d say a big thank you to the 50,627 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in July.

    That’s 5% up on our June figure of c.48,000, and up some 129% on the equivalent figure for July ’09 of c.22,000.

    This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 Aug 2009 – 31 July 2010) to 608,812, some 84% higher than the equivalent figure for 2008-09 of 330,218.

    The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

    1. Have you seen Zac Goldsmith’s Channel 4 News car-crash interview yet? (75) by Stephen Tall
    2. Opinion: I admit it,

    …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Site news | Tagged | 3 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    How much will coalition change Liberal Democrat conference?

    By Helen Duffett | Published Wed 28th July 2010 - 9:20 am

    Party conference rumour season is well underway, with more special guest speculation than last month’s Glastonbury. But whoever’s doing the briefing, it doesn’t seem to be coming from the Liberal Democrat side.

    The story that David Cameron might address Lib Dem conference seems to have originated from the Independent:

    David Cameron and Nick Clegg are drawing up plans for closer links between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and senior figures from the two parties will address each other’s party conference this autumn.

    The two leaders are keen to cement the coalition and a special meeting of the Cabinet next month will discuss a joint approach to the party conference season, including co-ordinated policy announcements. One option is for Mr Cameron to address the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool and Mr Clegg the Tories in Birmingham. More likely, at present, is that other Cabinet ministers will “change places” and speak at their coalition partner’s event.

    The Guardian also ran a similar story the same day: David Cameron could speak at Liberal Democrat conference.

    – Well, yes he could,* but here are some things to consider:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Conference | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards 2010 – nominations now open

    By Helen Duffett | Published Mon 26th July 2010 - 10:20 am

    BOTY 2
    The Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, run by Lib Dem Voice, are back for their fifth year. As usual, they’ll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony at the party’s autumn conference in Liverpool. (There’s further information on the event over at the Lib Dems’ Flock Together site). Click on the following links to see last year’s Shortlist and the Winners.

    This year’s awards are as follows:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment
    Helen Duffett

    The LDV Friday Five: 23 July 2010

    By Helen Duffett | Published Fri 23rd July 2010 - 9:20 am

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

    5 most-read stories on LDV this week

    1. Have you seen Zac Goldsmith’s Channel 4 News car-crash interview yet? (73) by Stephen Tall
    2. John Pugh MP asks for Lib Dem members’ feedback on health issues (159) by John Pugh
    3. How the Westminster Village media is still struggling with concept of coalition (45) by Stephen Tall
    4. Opinion: Genuine progressives should suggest cuts (121) by George Kendall
    5. Official: 4,500 new Lib Dem members have joined party since election and coalition agreement (79) by Stephen Tall

    5 active LDV Members’ Forum threads

    Academy schools
    Trident
    Zac Goldsmith
    Do We Talk About ‘Industrial Democracy’ Any More?
    Great Policies of the Coalition

    5 from the LDV archive

    1. LibLink … Chris Huhne: Britain must stop locking up innocent children by Newshound, December 2009
    2. Adrian Sanders MP calls for new focus on Community Politics by Adrian Sanders, January 2007
    3. The power of blogs, or the weakness of journalism? by Stephen Tall, October 2007
    4. OPINION: An Elephant’s Voice by Millennium Elephant, August 2007
    5. Opinion: The Air We Breathe by Merlene Emerson, March 2009

    5 top reader search returns to get to LDV

    (excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Friday Five | Leave a comment
    Mark Pack

    Alright, assuming we get an elected second chamber, what can we do before the election that follows?

    By Mark Pack | Published Thu 22nd July 2010 - 11:57 am

    The good news: the Liberal Democrat have secured a commitment to introduce elections by PR for the Upper House. The bad news: the Liberal Democrat record at fighting PR records is decidedly mixed. So what should we do?

    There plenty of campaigning still to be done to ensure that an elected Upper House happens, but that needn’t stop thinking about the elections too.

    As with the AV referendum, one of the most important acts of preparation is upping the number of local election candidates we stand because of the impact that has on the public’s perception of whether or not we are a party that can win things. As I wrote about the AV referendum, if people go to vote in a local election but find no Lib Dem on the ballot paper:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Book review: Talking to a brick wall by Deborah Mattinson

    By Mark Pack | Published Tue 20th July 2010 - 10:20 am

    Deborah Mattinson’s account of what she saw during her time as a leading pollster to the Labour Party certainly doesn’t stint in portraying her own role in what the book calls “Europe’s greatest election winning machine of the modern era”. The fact that Labour won three general elections in a row and yet the fact that, even looking no further than the same country and the same part of the century, the preceding Conservative government did one better and won four general elections in a row, does provide a warning against taking everything in the book – whether from the …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Books | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment
    Stephen Tall

    Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #178

    By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 19th July 2010 - 8:15 pm

    Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 177th 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 (11th – 17th July, 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:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment
    Stephen Tall

    Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #177

    By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 15th July 2010 - 9:55 pm

    Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 176th 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 (4th – 10th July, 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:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment
    The Voice

    Vince Cable’s speech on higher education funding

    By The Voice | Published Thu 15th July 2010 - 6:24 pm

    Vince Cable, Lib Dem secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, today delivered his much-trailed speech on higher education funding. The full text was published on the department’s website, and is reproduced below. A shorter version appears on the Lib Dems’ website here.

    This is my first attempt to set out my views on the university, and wider, HE sector and my aspirations for it. The background is a very sombre and difficult one, financially. Without doubt the most serious within living memory. David Willetts and I are working together to find a way of dealing with it.

    Much

    …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | Tagged , | 12 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Nick Robinson notes Lib Dems’ “important injection of democracy” into Coalition’s NHS plans

    By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 14th July 2010 - 10:10 pm

    Mark Pack yesterday noted Lib Dem health minister Paul Burstow’s hand at work in the NHS White Paper – it’s a theme also picked up today by the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson, who comments on his blog:

    The proposals for a re-organisation of the NHS included a fundamental and little-noticed change from those contained in either the Conservative manifesto or the coalition agreement. The government now plan to give councils a major new strategic health role, examining the purchasing decisions of GPs and fitting them together with their plans for public health and social care. For the Lib

    …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | Tagged , , | 12 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Spending Challenge website opened up to the public

    By Mark Pack | Published Fri 9th July 2010 - 1:04 pm

    Today the Treasury’s Spending Challenge website, which asks for ideas on how to save public money, has been opened up to the public. Last month it was launched to those who work in the public sector but now everyone is being invited to contribute.

    This two-stage launch was a smart move as it helped deal with the issue of quality of submissions that often plagues such online initiatives. By first getting in views of those who work in the public service, the Spending Challenge website has managed to keep to a minimum the number of …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | 16 Comments
    George Kendall

    Opinion: Suggestions for the spending review

    By George Kendall | Published Wed 7th July 2010 - 1:20 pm

    This site gives people inside and outside the party a place to express their views. And what bigger subject than the cuts to be announced in this autumn’s spending review?

    The coalition government have said that there will be consultation on the spending review, but many of us may want to test our thinking on a forum before writing to the government. This post is a place for us to get feedback on our ideas, and to think through the options the government faces.

    It might be helpful to say some of the following:
    – why your idea would save money
    – …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Op-eds | 16 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Want to win an election? Not sure how to use the internet?

    By Mark Pack | Published Tue 6th July 2010 - 11:40 am

    In the early twentieth century, large public meetings and lengthy public speeches were expected of – and needed by – Parliamentary candidates fighting vigorous campaigns. A century on, candidates fighting vigorous campaigns frequently get by without organising any public meetings or giving any public speeches longer than a few minutes of opening remarks at a local organisation’s hustings.

    Yet although these forms of personal, direct contact between candidate and voter have declined sharply over the last century, the opportunities for such contact via the internet have increased sharply in the last few years.

    We are already at the stage where voters find …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Online politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
    Mark Valladares

    If English Council meets and nobody knows, did it really meet?

    By Mark Valladares | Published Mon 5th July 2010 - 2:20 pm

    Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, but whilst most people heading for London were on their way to Pride, or Lords for the cricket, or Wimbledon for the tennis, a few dozen hardy Liberal Democrats were heading towards the St Alban’s Centre near Chancery Lane station for the first of 2010’s two meetings of English Council.

    Unusually, the first item on the agenda was a speech by the Party President, Ros Scott, who talked about the challenges facing the Party in the weeks, months and years ahead, as well as some of the work being done at Federal level to address …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments
    Mark Pack

    The Freedom Bill: this time the consultation is for real, but is it better?

    By Mark Pack | Published Mon 5th July 2010 - 10:20 am

    The Freedom Bill (previously known as the Great Repeal Bill) has been a Liberal Democrat policy for some time and now that we’re in coalition government it’s become the Your Freedom initiative – an online consultation to identify laws to repeal.

    In two respects this is good news – online consultation is becoming more of a habit for government and it’s also becoming a welcome pattern to see long-standing Liberal Democrat demands move towards actual implementation by government.

    But in one respect I think the Your Freedom site does not address a key issue as well as the party did when …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Online politics, Op-eds | Tagged , , | 5 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    LDV doesn’t do statporn, but if we did (June ’10)

    By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 1st July 2010 - 8:45 pm

    … We’d say a big thank you to the 49,916 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in June.

    Though that’s way down on our May 2010 figure of c.136,000, that was an exceptional month – with a general election plus the formation of the new coalition government. In fact, compared with June 2009, Lib Dem Voice’s readership is up by one-third.

    This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 July 2009 – 30 June 2010) to 582,154, over 80% higher than the equivalent figure for 2008-09 of 322,654.

    The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Site news | Tagged | Leave a comment
    Helen Duffett

    Nick Clegg launches “Your Freedom”

    By Helen Duffett | Published Thu 1st July 2010 - 6:13 pm

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | Tagged , | 23 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Opening up data: the experience with election data

    By Mark Pack | Published Wed 30th June 2010 - 2:20 pm

    A review has just been published into the ‘Open Election Data’ project, which was an attempt to make local election results available from councils in a format which would allow others to collate, republish, analyse or otherwise use the data. (At the moment the data is often put online in very inaccessible and inconsistent ways – e.g. one council might have election results in a pdf, another in a graphic file, another as text on the page and so on.)

    The list of lessons learnt from the project casts a wider light on why the public sector so often seems …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | Tagged | 4 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Preparing for the AV referendum: get asking

    By Mark Pack | Published Tue 29th June 2010 - 10:20 am

    With an AV referendum coming (most likely in the spring), there is plenty that local parties can already be doing to help win the referendum. I’ve already talked about the importance of fielding more local election candidates, so today’s post is about starting to ask questions of the public.

    It’s never too early to start gathering voting intention data, even if you don’t yet know the exact candidate line-up, and likewise it’s never too early to start gathering referendum voting intentions, even if we don’t yet know the exact question.

    When it comes to electoral reform, opinion polls show us …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in News | Tagged , | 27 Comments
    Ryan Cullen

    Welcome to the new bloggers…

    By Ryan Cullen | Published Sat 26th June 2010 - 9:41 pm

    Eight blogs have recently joined my Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 1 Comment
    Mark Pack

    30 things every would-be politician should do this summer

    By Mark Pack | Published Tue 22nd June 2010 - 10:20 am

    Inspired by Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer and prompted by Stephen Tall, last summer I ran a list of 30 suggestions for would-be politicians, particularly those new to public office or seeking it in the next few years. As it went down well, here it is back for a new summer and a new Parliament, with a new lick of paint, a few updates along the way and my thanks to those who commented last year:

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 10 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Preparing for the AV referendum: standing more local election candidates

    By Mark Pack | Published Thu 17th June 2010 - 9:50 am

    The connection between standing local election candidates and the AV referendum may not seem obvious at first, so imagine this scenario…

    It’s quite likely that the referendum will be held on the same day as local elections, such as the May 2011 local elections.

    The arguments over electoral reform will attract to the ballot box some people who don’t usually vote in local elections. If the pro-AV campaign goes well (and it starts with a lead) many of those people will be well disposed towards Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

    And what will they find when they get handed another …

    Continue reading »
    Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , | 4 Comments
    Advert

    Recent Comments

    • David Garlick
      Touted as bringing power to people. Power brought down from Govt sounds good but power still not reaching the lowest possible levels in our Communities....
    • Tristan Ward
      @ David Allen "PFI won’t help stop the planet burning" Who said anything about PFI - I didn't. The private money that is building (not enough) house...
    • Joey Vimsante
      I think the EU and UK needs to support not for profit, social media platforms that put the interest of the public, vulnerable people, young people, and nation a...
    • Nick Baird
      With regard to client-side image scanning, the danger of mission creep are real, but I have other concerns. One is whether this is truly a practical and effecti...
    • Tara Foster
      Hi Simon "Has the author not heard of girls sharing pictures with boys who then share with their friends ? of boys and girls tricked in to sharing pictures w...