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Top Lib Dem media tarts: Dec 2007 – Feb 2008

By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 10th April 2008 - 7:45 am

Which Lib Dem MPs received the most media mentions between 1st December 2007 and 29th February, 2008? To find out I trawled Lexis-Nexis’s online database of all UK national newspapers (and a huge number of regional ones), feeding in the names of each of our MPs in turn, and seeing how many returns were generated.

To qualify, the MP must have been mentioned either as a Liberal Democrat or Lib Dem. This will disadvantage those MPs who are working their regional media hard, but whose names do not appear under the party’s banners. Sorry, but them’s the rules.

Anyway, here’s the list in descending order of media mentions (with their Sept-Nov 2007 positions in brackets):

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Posted in News | 4 Comments

Something for the Weekend: Country House

By Will Howells | Published Sun 6th April 2008 - 6:53 pm

There’s snow outside and protesters on the streets, which must mean that it’s time for Something for the Weekend. I have a cold, so apologies for any typos.

Carrying the Something for the Weekend torch today: baggage handlers; overage drinkers; the Egg McMuffin man; taxpayers’ money; and more!

» Good Week

It’s been a good week for me. From the beginning of the new financial year, which is today, I get a small income tax cut. Thanks, Gordon. The biggest winners, though, are those earning around £35k.

It’s been a less good week for those earning under around £18,000, who will see the amount of tax they pay go up in order to fund the tax cuts of people who earn much more. See, Labour do believe in redistribution – just not in the traditional direction…

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Posted in Something for the Weekend | Leave a comment

The latest threat to personal data

By Alex Foster | Published Sat 5th April 2008 - 10:02 am

A new threat is emerging to the privacy of people using the biggest three internet service providers in the country, Virgin Media (formerly NTL), BT and TalkTalk. They have all signed up with a company called “Phorm” which monitors net use so that it can send you adverts on web pages that it thinks you will be interested in.

It’s starting to become clear that BT have been engaged in secret tests of this system as early as last year, and plans to roll it out to thousands of customers over the coming months in a larger scale trial.

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Posted in News | 3 Comments

Today’s PMQs

By Alex Foster | Published Wed 2nd April 2008 - 11:14 pm

My feed reader shows me the latest Iain Dale Daley Dozen in which he points to us and asks why we didn’t cover PMQs today.

Although it may not have been our finest hour, the real reason is that Stephen, who usually covers that for us, is away, and none of the rest of us remembered until we were prompted.

For the sake of completeness, here is the full exchange between Vince Cable, covering for Nick Clegg today, and Hariet Harman, who was in the Prime Minister’s shoes.

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Posted in News, PMQs | Tagged iain dale | 7 Comments

Debating policy at federal conference: give us your views!

By Duncan Brack | Published Wed 2nd April 2008 - 7:45 am

Liberal Democrats are rightly proud of the fact that we remain the only major party to be internally democratic. Party policy can only be decided by the vote of the representatives of the party membership, after debate at the party conference.

Despite this, however, the number of policy motions submitted to conference has steadily fallen over the last ten years or so – down by about half between 1997 and 2007. This makes it more difficult for Federal Conference Committee (FCC) to select an agenda full of topics people actually want to speak about and debate. In addition, we are more …

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Posted in Conference | 11 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #58

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 31st March 2008 - 11:14 pm

Welcome to the 58th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (23rd-30th March), together with a quintet hand-picked by Lib Dem blog readers you might otherwise have missed.

Let’s get straight down to it, in descending order of popularity:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 2 Comments

Lynne the twitterer

By Alex Foster | Published Sat 22nd March 2008 - 5:54 pm

Congratulations to Lynne Featherstone, who has become, she believes, the first British MP to use the Twitter instant messaging system, just slightly less than one year after I first suggested on my blog, and in the forums here (party members only).

Those of you unable or unwilling to read the forums will be unaware that the idea was initially dismissed out of hand by influential party bosses, before they went on to embrace it wholeheartedly. Now the entire Innovations Department is happily twittering away.

Barely a month afterwards, the party used Twitter for a highly successful if under-used

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged iain dale, lynne featherstone, twitter | 21 Comments

Weekly Catchup 10th – 16th March

By Alex Foster | Published Mon 17th March 2008 - 10:20 am

Our weekly round-up of all that’s good on Lib Dem Voice.

We kicked off our week here with a thoughtful piece from Joe Otten about faith schools – and the F word on Voice is a red rag to several of our regular bulls. The piece has had a discussion continuing with over 120 comments to date.

Slightly fewer comments ensued on equally thoughtful pieces about the budget, rebellions, and what turned out to be a restatement of existing policy when Clegg considered taking an axe to nearly a quarter of all MPs. Look out for the …

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Posted in A weekly catchup | Leave a comment

Something for the Weekend: On and on and on

By Will Howells | Published Sun 16th March 2008 - 5:43 pm

Dreary weather outside: check. Nice cup of tea and some biscuits: check. ABBA: The Definitive Collection on random shuffle: check. Then let’s rock and roll.

Loading up on the Something for the Weekend DVD player today: Norman Baker gets musical; MPs bring the pork home; flippertygibbets; a couple of bears; and more!

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Posted in Something for the Weekend | Leave a comment

Opinion: Tories changing? Not at all

By Christopher Leslie | Published Thu 13th March 2008 - 4:47 pm

I was lucky to grow up in a quiet little village. On one side the village is straddled by an air strip and Cranfield University. The Uni is postgraduate and as a result takes in a lot of foreign students – over a third of a 4,000 population. As a result in early years of school especially I met a lot of students from foreign cultures and many have grown up to be close friends. I also had the “pleasure” to grow up in a Conservative safe seat. Following corruption charges the Howard babe Nadine …

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Posted in Op-eds | 19 Comments

Get an extra link for your website

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 13th March 2008 - 10:25 am

Do you display the party’s campaign buttons or Liberal Democrat TV feed on your own website or blog?

If you are displaying them, here’s your chance to advertise your site and get an extra link. We’re going to start listing on www.libdems.org.uk sites which are using the buttons and/or feed, so if they appear on your site drop an email to [email protected] with your web address and whether it is the buttons, TV feed or both that you’re displaying.

(In case you are not familiar with them, details of how to add the buttons and TV feed to your site …

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Posted in Online politics | 3 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #55

By Stephen Tall | Published Tue 11th March 2008 - 7:45 am

Welcome to the 55th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (2nd-8th March), together with a quintet hand-picked by Lib Dem blog readers you might otherwise have missed.

Tempers flared in the Lib Dem blogosphere last week – both between bloggers, and also against the leadership following the party split over a Lisbon Treaty referendum. Fortunately, a successful conference in Liverpool has intervened, with a great speech by Nick Clegg, so perhaps there will be a return to sweetness and light in the coming days.

Anyway, without further ado, here we go in descending order of popularity:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 5 Comments

Nick Harvey introduces… Forces Focus

By Nick Harvey | Published Fri 7th March 2008 - 6:25 pm

Our 2005 Manifesto stated that one of our priorities was to look after our Armed Forces so they can look after us. At a time when our forces are committed to fighting on two fronts, as well as operations around the world, this holds just as true now as it did three years ago.

With continued operations around the world, defence remains at the top of the agenda and it is essential that the Government’s ‘duty of care’ to service personnel is fulfilled.

However, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have proved to be more challenging and more hostile …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged nick harvey | 2 Comments

Future party policies – your chance to shape them

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Published Tue 4th March 2008 - 7:45 am

One of the features which marks out the way in which we Liberal Democrats as a party make our policies is that they are decided by the members, not just by the Leader and Shadow Cabinet.

We often tend to focus on the fact that all policies have to be voted on by Conference.

But in fact there is another way in which all party members – including those who aren’t able to go to Conference – can have what is probably an even greater influence on what our policies are.

And that’s through the process by which every working …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 2 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #54

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 3rd March 2008 - 8:26 pm

Welcome to the 54th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (24th February – 1st March), together with a quintet hand-picked by Lib Dem blog readers you might otherwise have missed.

Here we go, in descending order of popularity:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Tagged lord ashcroft | 18 Comments

LibDemVoice at Lib Dem Conference

By Alex Foster | Published Mon 3rd March 2008 - 12:04 pm

Lib Dem Voice will be providing enhanced coverage of this Spring’s Lib Dem Conference – live from Liverpool.

Voice reporters will be at the Liverpool Arena with all the inside information from the movers and shakers on the conference floor, and up-to-the-minute coverage of the Conference fringe and exhibitions.

Lib Dem Voice has also been granted unique and privileged access to the Federal Conference Committee as they debate the inner workings of Conference.

We’ll be hoping to bring you podcast interviews and an interesting multimedia experience as and when it happens. And whether you’re attending conference in person, or watching from afar, we …

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Posted in Conference | 9 Comments

Weekly Catchup 25th Feb – 2nd Mar

By Alex Foster | Published Mon 3rd March 2008 - 9:33 am

Catchup brings you best of Lib Dem Voice in a helpful package first thing on a Monday morning. You can read it by clicking on the link at the top of the page or get a feed of it here.

It’s been a tougher week to choose than normal, with more posts than either of the previous two weeks. MP Andrew Stunnell talked about his campaign to provide more housing ahead of his conference motion. Mike Smithson no longer believe the Lib Dems are worth a punt – but only because he loves us so much. Elizabeth …

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Posted in A weekly catchup | Leave a comment

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #52

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 17th February 2008 - 7:49 pm

Happy 1st birthday to the Golden Dozen, and welcome to the 52nd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (10th-17th February), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

Here we go, in descending order of popularity:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg in the media: ID cards and crime

By Mark Pack | Published Thu 7th February 2008 - 10:40 am

Nick Clegg’s done an interview with Reuters – ‘Clegg sees ID card vote a decade away’ – and has also got coverage in Bradford for his views on tackling knife and gun crime.

All of which is nicely timed to highlight a new (RSS) feed available from the party:

http://feeds.libdems.org.uk/nickcleggmedia

You can subscribe to this feed in the same was as any other RSS feed, e.g. through a feed reader such as Bloglines or through most web browsers, and you can also display it on your website. It’ll be regularly updated with a selection of the latest media coverage from …

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Posted in News, Online politics | 1 Comment

How balanced is the BBC’s Question Time?

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 4th February 2008 - 8:31 pm

That’s the question LDV posed in last Thursday’s Open Thread on the programme. It was prompted not only by the absence of a Lib Dem on the panel, but also by the appearance of a second Tory-in-all-but-name, Amanda Platell, alongside former Tory chancellor, Ken Clarke (as well as former Tory MP, and now New Labour cabinet minister, Shaun Woodward).

So what?, you might ask. And fair enough, except that this was the fourth consecutive QT in which a Tory-aligned commentator has been signed up to appear alongside the official Tory representative. Ms Platell followed in the stilettos of Sarah Sands …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged bbc question time | 9 Comments

Should the Lib Dems be supporting the ban on patio heaters?

By Stephen Tall | Published Thu 31st January 2008 - 12:36 pm

It’s a big day for patio heater manufacturers, as the European Parliament looks set to approve a Lib Dem-inspired measure which would see the faddish appliances phased out, along with electrical stand-by modes, and minimum standards set for energy efficiency on air-conditioning, television “decoder” boxes and light bulbs.

Lib Dem MEP Fiona Hall is behind the initiative (which has no legal force). You can read her report in full here. Here’s an extract:

Latest scientific evidence suggests that the world has as little as eight years to tackle global warming. If global temperatures rise more than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels, climate

…

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Posted in Europe / International, News | 66 Comments

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #49

By Stephen Tall | Published Tue 29th January 2008 - 11:53 am

Welcome to the 49th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (20th-26th January), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

As next week marks The Golden Dozen’s half-century, it’s time to freshen things up – which means opening up the five personal choice postings selected (numbers 8-12) to LDV readers… So if there’s post which appears/ed on the Aggregator between the 27th January and 3rd Feburary and you think it deserves to be incuded in next week’s Golden Dozen, drop me a line at [email protected]. Self-nominations are allowed – but as there are only five slots available, I can’t guarantee inclusion.

Anyway here are the best-read posts this last week, in descending order:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 4 Comments

Edwards tanks Nevada

By Alex Foster | Published Sat 19th January 2008 - 11:15 pm

Since I (somewhat arbitrarily) declared for John Edwards a few days ago, I’ve been following his press release feed.

What fascinates us Brits about the US elections is that they’re sort of the same as here, but at the same time, completely different.

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Posted in LDVUSA | 3 Comments

Opinion: Labour miss the point on communities

By Baroness Ros Scott | Published Sun 13th January 2008 - 3:49 pm

I spent last week in Westminster, where in the Lords we spent Thursday afternoon debating the Government’s recently published “Action Plan for Community Empowerment”.

It’s hard to know which pair of words is the more depressing “Action Plan” or “Community Empowerment” Their Lordships certainly failed to be either empowered or active. Apart from the mover – my noble Friend Lord Greaves – and the front benches, there were 2 backbench speakers plus one Bishop making his Maiden speech on the subject. There were twice as many speakers for today’s other two debates, on China and on missile defence.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged ros scott | 3 Comments

Nick Clegg TV interview on Sunday

By Mark Pack | Published Sat 5th January 2008 - 3:55 pm

10am, Sunday Live, Sky, 6th January.

(This previous post tells you how you can get advanced warning of such media appearances via the web, email or an RSS feed).

Posted in News | 1 Comment

Will Ming ‘sex up’ his memoirs?

By Stephen Tall | Published Mon 10th December 2007 - 9:50 am

That’s the demand of his publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, according to The Observer’s media diary:

Menzies Campbell has followed a path well trodden by political leaders past, settling down to write his life story, which should hit the shops in 2009. But we hear the first draft has already been sent back by publishers Hodder & Stoughton – because it is too boring. Editors were horrified to discover the former Lib Dem leader failed to reflect on the ousting of predecessor Charles Kennedy or the subsequent knifing Sir Ming himself endured. Since the twin defenestrations are the only newsworthy parts

…

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Posted in Books, News | Tagged charles kennedy, Ming Campbell | 5 Comments

Top Lib Dem media tarts: Sept-Nov 2007

By Stephen Tall | Published Wed 5th December 2007 - 8:20 am

Which Lib Dem MPs received the most media mentions between 1st September 2007 and 30th November, 2007? To find out I trawled Lexis-Nexis’s online database of all UK national newspapers (and a huge number of regional ones), feeding in the names of each of our MPs in turn, and seeing how many returns were generated.

To qualify, the MP must have been mentioned either as a Liberal Democrat or Lib Dem. This will disadvantage those MPs who are working their regional media hard, but whose names do not appear under the party’s banners. Sorry, but them’s the rules.

Anyway, here’s the list in descending order of media mentions (with their 2006-07 positions in brackets):

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Posted in News | 7 Comments

David Whitton MSP dragged into Labour donation scandal

By Mark Pack | Published Mon 3rd December 2007 - 6:32 pm

The number of senior Scottish Labour figures caught up in the Wendy Alexander illegal donation scandal continues to widen, with David Whitton MSP the latest name to feature.

As the Daily Record reports:

A SECRET list of Alexander’s donors has been leaked to a Sunday paper…

The entry for First Group boss Moir Lockhead gives David – David Whitton – as the contact.

A sum of £995 is listed though there is a question mark over whether it had been received. It said no money had been banked.

Under the heading “Name/address for Electoral Commission purposes” the list gives the name of former Labour

…

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Posted in News | 1 Comment

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #41

By Stephen Tall | Published Sun 2nd December 2007 - 9:54 pm

Welcome to the 41st of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (25th November – 1st December), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

Well, Saj Karim’s defection did at least achieve one thing – it knocked the party leadership contest off the Golden Dozen top spot. Here, then, are the top-rated stories in descending order:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | 6 Comments

Opinion: Will you take the ‘Bunker Pledge’?

By Simon Titley | Published Fri 23rd November 2007 - 8:08 am

A recent post on LDV speculated who would be in the new leader’s shadow cabinet. A more interesting question is who will occupy his kitchen cabinet.

Every political leader has one – a group of staff and unpaid advisors acting as an ‘inner circle’. At best, such groups provide leaders with a sounding board and confidential advice from people they can trust. At worst, a bunker mentality develops, with the inner circle isolating the leader and feeding him information selectively.

Ming Campbell was not in the job long enough for this to become a serious problem but all his predecessors, at …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged charles kennedy | 18 Comments