Subscribe to at least 20 sites using an RSS reader, 10 of which are not party political. Using an RSS (feed) reader is a huge time-saver and an effective way of keeping up with news and information. But there’s no point just being an expert on party politics if you want to be an elected official.
RSS readers are many and various – my favoured one is Google Reader – and having just returned from engaging in another of Mark’s tips, a week …
By Alex Foster | Published Thu 9th July 2009 - 10:22 pm
Question Time this week is the Schools Special – and that brings with it two innovations. Firstly there’s the option to watch it live at 8pm on BBC3 – hence the much earlier appearance of this post than usual; and secondly one of the panellists will be a young person to be announced on the night.
There will also be the following not-quite-so-young people joining in the debate: Andy Burnham MP, Jeremy Hunt MP, Sarah Teather MP, and Shami Chakrabarti.
As last week, we hope to have a magic Facebook window appearing here:
By Mark Pack | Published Wed 8th July 2009 - 4:30 pm
Inspired by Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer post (pointed out to me by Lib Dem Voice’s Stephen Tall), here’s my list of 30 things anyone wanting to become an elected public official should do over the summer.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my Twitter, Facebook and email messages asking for suggestions for inclusion in the list. Whether your idea(s) made it in or didn’t quite make the cut, the final 30 are the better for all that feedback. You can read Part I here, and Part II here.
By Mark Pack | Published Tue 7th July 2009 - 3:30 pm
Inspired by Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer post (pointed out to me by Lib Dem Voice’s Stephen Tall), here’s my list of 30 things anyone wanting to become an elected public official should do over the summer.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my Twitter, Facebook and email messages asking for suggestions for inclusion in the list. Whether your idea(s) made it in or didn’t quite make the cut, the final 30 are the better for all that feedback. You can read Part I here.
Submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. It’s a key
By Mark Pack | Published Mon 6th July 2009 - 12:30 pm
Inspired by Journalism Grads: 30 Things You Should Do This Summer post (pointed out to me by Lib Dem Voice’s Stephen Tall), here’s my list of 30 things anyone wanting to become an elected public official should do over the summer.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my Twitter, Facebook and email messages asking for suggestions for inclusion in the list. Whether your idea(s) made it in or didn’t quite make the cut, the final 30 are the better for all that feedback. Parts II and III follow on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 2nd July 2009 - 10:20 pm
If this week’s weather hasn’t got you all hot ‘n’ bothered, then what better way of remedying that than by watching tonight’s Question Time (BBC1 and online, 10.35 pm)?
David Laws, the Lib Dems’ children, schools and families, will be the party’s representative. The QT website gives his impressive pre-Commons bio: “Before his election to Parliament in 1997, he had a career in economics and business, during which he was vice president of JP Morgan, and head of US Dollar and Sterling Treasuries at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He left in 1994 to take up the role of economic adviser to the Liberal Democrats, and from 1997 to 1999 was the party’s director of policy and research.”
Joining David on the panel will be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the House of Commons Harriet Harman MP, the former leader of the Tory party Iain Duncan Smith MP, the musician and songwriter Jarvis Cocker, and the journalist and columnist Peter Hitchens.
As per last week, we’re continuing to trial a new way of contributing to the open thread, via Facebook’s Live Stream Box, below:
Engage, the Lib Dem Policy Network, is a group who want to encourage more party members to get involved in discussing policy and politics within our party.
Be heard: every member of the party should be able to speak up and contribute: we are considerably more open and democratic than the other major parties, and we want many more members to be heard in our discussions
Talking about politics: Politics is about which ideas and which policies offer the best way forward for our society. We want to encourage more real discussion of policies and politics.
By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 1st July 2009 - 11:00 am
… We’d say a big thank you to the 37,801 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in June, our third highest total ever. That’s a slight dip compared with last month’s 41k+ figure, but is a whopping 125% increase on a year ago.
This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 July 2008 – 30 June 2009) to 286,739, an increase of 110% on the equivalent figure for 2007-08 of 136,301.
The 5 top-read stories during the month were:
1. By-election results: Tories fail against Lib Dems (17th November 2006)
2. Tory claims for astrology CD …
By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 25th June 2009 - 9:50 pm
Yes, it’s that time of the week again – so pour yourself a stiff drink, plump the cushions and settle back in your sofa to enjoy/endure another hour of love it/hate it political debate courtesy of BBC1 Question Time.
Holding up the Lib Dems’ end tonight will be Julia Goldsworthy, MP for Falmouth and Camborne MP, and the party’s shadow communities and local government secretary. And, incidentally, the Lib Dems’ youngest shadow cabinet member (though not, despite her BBC QT profile, “the youngest MP in the House of Commons” – that honour belongs to Jo Swinson).
Joining Julia on the panel will be Labour’s Employment Minister Jim Knight, who achieved some degree of fame last month after he claimed £6.99 for an oven glove; Conservative shadow security minister Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, who the Guardian has reported is in favour of ID cards; Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Member Leanne Wood, famously ordered out of the Welsh Assembly, in 2004, for referring to the Queen as “Mrs Windsor”; and right-wing agit-prop columnist Kelvin McKenzie, who once allegedly characterised the typical Sun reader as “the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he’s afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdos and drug dealers. He doesn’t want to hear about that stuff (serious news).”
As trailed earlier tonight, we’re trialling a new way of contributing to the open thread, via Facebook’s Live Stream Box, below:
In the final session of the day, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Julia Goldsworthy MP joined Cllr Paul Scriven, the leader of Sheffield Council, to reflect on the day and discuss current state of play for local government.
Both talk about the Sustainable Communities Act, its potential and their disappointment in Labour’s implementation of it so far; of …
By Alex Foster | Published Wed 24th June 2009 - 11:00 am
The third of our instalments from ALDC’s local government conference Local Solutions takes the Government’s energy policy for local authorities as its topic.
Today’s instalment is an excellent presentation from Mo Baines, from the Association for Public Service Excellence, talking about how councils will shortly be required to monitor closely just how much energy they are using and reduce it year on year.
By Alex Foster | Published Tue 23rd June 2009 - 11:00 am
This the second in our series of podcasts of recordings made at ALDC’s Local Solutions 2009 conference on Saturday in Sheffield. You can listen to Nick Clegg and Ros Scott in the first instalment.
For the second hour, the leader of Sheffield city council Cllr Paul Scriven gave delegates a detailed explanation of how the Lib Dems won Sheffield – and most importantly of all, what they did with the power once they had it. It’s an inspiring story of decentralisation and empowerment of the local citizenry and is well worth forwarding around any of your colleagues who …
By Alex Foster | Published Mon 22nd June 2009 - 11:00 am
For four mornings this week, LDV will be bringing you audio recordings of the proceedings at ALDC’s Local Solutions conference for Lib Dem councillors. One of the features of this event is to cram in as much as possible – including training sessions clashing with plenary sessions, which means many attendees themselves may not have heard the plenary. First up this morning is Saturday’s early morning session with party leader Nick Clegg MP and party president Baroness Ros Scott.
By The Voice | Published Sat 6th June 2009 - 12:19 pm
Over at the Guardian’s CommentIsLinked blog, Lib Dem blogger James Graham analyses the current situation for the party, asking what the future holds for us, post-Rennard. Here’s an excerpt:
Now the elections are out of the way, Clegg and party president Ros Scott must turn their attention to finding a new chief executive for the party. … it is impossible to over-estimate how he has transformed the Lib Dems’ prospects. Indeed, he has changed our whole political culture by developing and perfecting a method of populist pavement politics that can be applied almost anywhere in the country. His method is so
By Peter Hirst | Published Fri 5th June 2009 - 8:25 pm
Climate change is occurring much quicker than most people thought it would. This is in part due to positive feedback loops one of which is the melting of the ice caps which results in less heat being reflected back into space,
The following is my offering of what the next 20-30 years might bring. It is intended to give a flavour of the situation we might be in. Please ignore any contradictions and accept it as just one possible fictional scenario. I hope it will contain some lessons of what we can avoid.
By Alex Perkins | Published Wed 3rd June 2009 - 11:30 pm
So I’m sitting in front of my laptop desperately trying to think of some new way to campaign that will complement shoving pieces of paper through letter boxes and isn’t just having yet another website.
I’m quite convinced, by the way, that only a limited percentage of even the best leaflets get read on their way to the recycling bin – and many local party websites only get visited by activists anyway.
By The Voice | Published Mon 1st June 2009 - 7:30 pm
Yesterday’s Mail carried Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable’s clarion call for his opposite number at the Treasury, Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, to resign. (He was later joined by Nick Clegg – you can hear the interview with him HERE – who is looking for another scalp after taking Speaker Michael Martin’s a fortnight ago). Here’s an excerpt from Vince’s article:
It’s time to get MPs off the front pages and the economy back on. This cannot happen when key figures in Government (and Opposition) are tainted by scandal themselves and lack moral authority.
By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 1st June 2009 - 6:52 pm
… We’d say a big thank you to the 41,636 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in May, our second highest total ever. That’s up by almost 35% on last month’s figure, and is an 80% increase on a year ago.
This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 June 2008 – 31 May 2009) to 267,369, an increase of 108% on the equivalent figure for 2007-08 of 128,191.
By Mark Pack | Published Fri 29th May 2009 - 6:22 pm
The party’s manifesto for the European elections is also available as an iPhone app. If you have access to an iPhone or iPod touch you can view it. Go to apps store and search for Liberal Democrats. The app is free.
And don’t forget, you can also get the party’s TV broadcasts (PPBs) using our iTunes feed.
By James Graham | Published Sun 24th May 2009 - 1:42 pm
I’ve been very gratified by the entirely positive feedback my articles about the Daily Telegraph and Jo Swinson yesterday have received. This is entirely in keeping with the broadly sympathetic reaction Jo has received on both the blogosphere and on Twitter.
That the story has had such a positive backlash is of course a good thing. The trouble with such stories however is that they often grow in the retelling. I’ve already cited how the BBC and Guardian have contributed to this. What if a candidate opposing Jo in the general election campaign were to base a dirty tricks campaign …
By Stephen Tall | Published Sat 23rd May 2009 - 3:45 pm
A week ago, I wrote an article attacking the Telegraph’s coverage of the MPs’ expenses row under the deliberately provocative headline, What has the Telegraph done for the reputation of journalism? Amidst all the outrageous abuses by MPs that the newspaper has reported, I said, it’s also been guilty of some shoddy reporting, giving equal prominence to stories which simply do not stand up to scrutiny, and deliberately omitting facts which do not fit with its headline allegations.
The main point of the article, though, was to challenge how the rest of the news media was responding to the …
By Alex Foster | Published Thu 21st May 2009 - 10:03 am
What’s up in blogs and news.
In the media
The expenses row continues to rumble with the MP for my ancestral home of Leominster getting scalped by the Telegraph alongside Ruth Kelly and a duck, if the pictures are to be believed.
Meanwhile over the Daily Mail has been working hard to bring you this extreme comparison with Cornish MP Andrew George – they’ve found one of his constituents who commutes to LB Barking & Dagenham, but whose weekday residence is a £30 tent. There’s some grass left in Parliament Square, isn’t there? We could have a tent city for MPs …
By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 20th May 2009 - 6:57 pm
If you haven’t seen it, here’s the moment the outgoing Speaker Michael Martin forgot to call Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg – the man who last Sunday called for him to quit – for his traditional supplementary question at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions:
By Helen Duffett | Published Sun 17th May 2009 - 1:25 pm
The Eurovision Song Contest was last night but, Eurovoting and Eurovisual fans, you can still get your entertainment fix. (You’ll have to bring your own music though):
The European Parliament is treading bravely into the world of social networking in order to get the kids involved in the exciting world of European politics.
Bureaucrats have created profiles on popular social sites including Facebook, MySpace and photo sharing site Flickr. There will also be ad-word campaigns and banner ads on MySpace.
Elections run from 4 to 7 June, and the primary purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of those dates as well as improving young people’s understanding of the European Parliament and the work of MEPs.
The YouTube channel includes a short series of videos called “At the polling station” – these major on the speed and ease of voting, rather than the purpose or politics of the European Parliament. Short and almost non-verbal, they seem to be aiming for viral appeal. The “screaming” one is a bit much, though.
On the other hand, anything featuring both pedals and polling stations gets my vote:
We-the-taxpayer already pay our MPs a salary of at least £60,000 a year, and provide them with an allowance for a second home to cook and eat in.
I don’t think, therefore, there is any justification for a separate allowance for food costs. But if there is, one can anyone explain why one MP can feed themselves on around £100 per month …
Has a £30 subscription to Sky Sports at his second home. Pay attention, football fans, Sky Sports =/= necessary to perform the duties of an MP. Not a huge sum, but still. 2/5
Now, at the time of writing Alan Reid’s page isn’t linked from the Telegraph’s main Lib Dem Expenses feed page, and to be honest I wonder if that’s because they’re bloody ashamed of it. They ought
By Stephen Tall | Published Fri 1st May 2009 - 2:04 pm
… We’d say a big thank you to the 31,063 ‘absolute unique visitors’* who read Liberal Democrat Voice in April, our second highest total ever. That’s up by almost one-fifth on last month’s figure, and a whopping 88% increase on a year ago.
This brings our absolute unique visitor readership for the last year to date (1 May 2008 – 30 April 2009) to 250,339, an increase of 120% on the equivalent figure for 2007-08 of 113,846.
Jana I’m afraid I disagree with Douglas MacDonald and his idea of turning Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen into city-states. I believe a better model is to have a g...
Nonconformistradical "There also seems a reluctance to focus on the effect that AI will have on the distribution of income and wealth."
Quite...
Chris Cory Completely agree. The stress that AI data centres will put on energy and water resources seems rarely mentioned by environmental activists. There also seems a...
George Thomas And the third story of the drought being declared in north and past of mid- Wales. In September of 2025 the "Government Digital Sustainability Alliance’s (GDS...
Peter Davies "Homes must be what local people can genuinely afford" which is not by any stretch of the imagination what is required by the affordable household threshold....
…
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Plans for horse laundry facility at farm approved
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Jana 
Nonconformistradical 
Chris Cory 
George Thomas 
Peter Davies 