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

By Stephen Tall | Published Fri 3rd September 2010 - 3:45 pm

… We’d say a big thank you to the 47,689 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in August.

Though that’s a touch down on our July figure of c.50,000, it’s up some 143% on the equivalent figure for August ’09 of c.20,000.

This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 Sept 2009 – 31 August 2010) to 636,846, some 89% higher than the equivalent figure for 2008-09 of 336,902.

The 5 top-read stories during the month were:

Knowsley Council pays Labour over £250,000 for conference appearances (11) by Mark Pack
Coalition puts

…

Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

Opinion: Can pregnant women stand for Parliament?

By Tam Langley | Published Fri 3rd September 2010 - 2:23 pm

Standing in the crypt of St Mary’s Church Lewisham asking local Lib Dem members to select me as their parliamentary candidate last summer I did wonder if my very pregnant stomach would put them off. During the selection campaign only one had asked me how I was going to do it with a new baby. “With the help of my partner, several doting grandparents and how about you too?”, was my reply.

Having fought an election campaign while pregnant, then through the first eight months of my baby daughter’s life, I want to let other women thinking of doing the same know that it is possible. It even has some advantages provided you get the help you need to do it.

Why should other Lib Dem Voice readers care? Because as Dinti Batstone highlighted in her research for the party into the under-representation of women among our MPs, ‘too many experienced female candidates self-select out just as their male contemporaries are fighting winnable seats’. And the main reason for that is the perceived incompatibility of the task with family life.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged female candidates, lewisham deptford | 12 Comments

Worth a second outing: Blogging – what’s in it for political parties?

By Mark Pack | Published Fri 3rd September 2010 - 10:27 am

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. Today’s is a piece I wrote in 2007 for Iain Dale’s annual blogging guide. Three years and one general election on, my views on the matter are much the same – and in particular the …

Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging | Leave a comment

Half a defence of Paul Staines (aka @guidofawkes)

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 1st September 2010 - 8:50 pm

My Voice colleague Iain Roberts has already blogged about this afternoon’s big political news that William Hague’s special advisor Christopher Myers has quit his post following allegations — vehemently denied by both — that they might be having an affair.

Iain writes: “We at Lib Dem Voice wish both the Hagues and Christopher Myers well,” and I agree 100%. However, there are two further points I’d make.

The questions were fair enough…

Paul Staines blogged about the issue on 24th August, using the Freedom of Information Act to ask three questions inquiring as to the suitability of Mr Myers acting …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged daily mail, daily telegraph, media, paul staines, william hague | 34 Comments

The Independent View: Towards interactive government

By The Voice | Published Wed 1st September 2010 - 5:52 pm

This is a guest cross-post by Tim Davies – originally posted on the Political Innovation site:

The communication revolution that we’ve undergone in recent years has two big impacts:

It changes what’s possible. It makes creating networks between people across organisations easier; it opens new ways for communication between citizens and state; it gives everyone who wants it a platform for global communication; and it makes it possible to discover local online dialogue.
It changes citizen expectations of government. When I can follow news from my neighbour’s blog on my phone, why can’t I get updates on local services on the mobile-web?

…

Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Leave a comment

Tony Blair’s A Journey: 3 reasons I’m impressed without having read a single page

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 1st September 2010 - 4:25 pm

No, I haven’t read Tony Blair’s A Journey yet (though it should be waiting for me at home). I haven’t even had time to read more than a handful of the preview articles, such as The Guardian’s trailer. With that confesion of near-total ignorance of A Journey established, I think there are three points worth making…

1. It’s an Event.

The decision that Mr Blair’s book would not be serialised (apparently modelled on the strategy for Alastair Campbell’s diaries) has made publication day much more of an Event-with-a-capital-E, the political anoraks’ equivalent of a release of a new Harry …

Posted in Books, Op-eds | Tagged tony blair | 6 Comments

The Independent View: Political Innovation

By Paul Evans | Published Wed 1st September 2010 - 2:47 pm

When bloggers meet, I often find that old allegiances (be they left right, or Unionist/Republican often dissolve into a different political spilt. Those of us who imagine that we ‘get’ the read-write web against the political colleagues that we have who, we believe, fail to foresee the possibilities or the threats.

I’ve occasionally witnessed left-right-and-centrist bloggers in (non) violent agreement with each other – not about political direction, but about what is possible in harnessing the power of the web. About how a more effective participative political culture can bring about a range of subtle changes – to reverse the broken politico/media relationship out of some of the cul-de-sacs that it appears to have stuck in.

Today, a few of us have come together to launch a project called ‘Political Innovation’. It’s for anyone who has ever asked themselves ‘why is politics still done like this?’

We’ve put a call out through our personal networks for initial contributions and we’ve already had promises of more than ten essays suggesting serious political innovations that are based upon an understanding of what interactive social media and the web can achieve.

Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Leave a comment

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 conservative party, donations, matthew oakeshott | 3 Comments

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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | 1 Comment

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

Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference | Tagged blog of the year awards | Leave a comment

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 …

Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments

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 …

Posted in Local government, News, Online politics | Tagged daily telegraph, haringey council, medway council | 4 Comments

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.

Posted in Books, Online politics | Tagged blogging, jodi dean | 2 Comments

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 …

Posted in Site news | Leave a comment

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 …

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron, graduate tax, harold macmillan, vince cable | 4 Comments

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:

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

…

Posted in Site news | Tagged statporn | 3 Comments

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:

Posted in Conference | Tagged coalition, david cameron, federal conference committee, glee club, nick clegg, ros scott, samantha cameron, Special Conference May 2010 | 11 Comments

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

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

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:

Posted in Best of the blogs, Conference | Tagged andy williamson, blog of the year awards, costigan quist, featured, helen duffett, Jo Swinson, jonathan calder, lee chalmers, mary reid, prateek buch, ros taylor, ryan cullen | 1 Comment

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 top reader search returns to get to LDV

(excluding Liberal Democrat Voice or its variants)

Posted in Friday Five | Leave a comment

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:

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged constitutional reform, guest editor, house of lords, parliamentary reform | 7 Comments

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 …

Posted in Books | Tagged deborah mattinson, featured, gordon brown, peter watt | 1 Comment

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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

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:

Posted in Best of the blogs | Leave a comment

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

…

Posted in News | Tagged higher education, vince cable | 12 Comments

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

…

Posted in News | Tagged NHS, nick clegg, paul burstow | 12 Comments

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 …

Posted in News | 16 Comments

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
– …

Posted in Op-eds | 16 Comments

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 …

Posted in Online politics | Tagged featured, luke pollard, lynne featherstone, steve beasant | Leave a comment

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 …

Posted in Op-eds, Party policy and internal matters | Tagged andrew stunell, english council, ian horner, jonathan davies, ros scott, sal jarvis | 4 Comments

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 …

Posted in Online politics, Op-eds | Tagged darren lilleker, freedom bill, nigel jackson | 5 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

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