Tag Archives: 2015 general election

Mary Reid

What is happening today, then?

By Mary Reid | Mon 30th March 2015 - 10:29 am

 

At midnight last night Parliament was dissolved. Members of Parliament are expected to clear their desks and retreat to their constituencies, if they are re-standing, or to go and help new candidates.

But the country is not without Government. Ministers will continue to hold their posts right until a new Government is formed after the election, so we have the unusual sight, for Lib Dems, of some of our own remaining in power throughout the short election campaign.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
Anthony Fairclough

The Independent View: Countdown to the Election

By Anthony Fairclough | Mon 30th March 2015 - 9:08 am

Lib Dem Voice has received this article from Matrix Chambers, a law firm that specialises in election law. It offers the opportunity to sign up for weekly briefings during the election period.

It’s trite to say, but we are just weeks away from the most important General Election in a generation – especially for those interested in election law. The culture of fighting elections – and the public’s role within that – has changed in recent years owing to new technology. There is now also new (and untested) legislation restricting the actions of professional third party campaigners.

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Paul Walter

We’re heading for a minority Labour government backed by the SNP

By Paul Walter | Fri 27th March 2015 - 9:54 am

whitehall
The Guardian have a very useful web page called Election 2015: The Guardian poll projection. On it, each day, they update their state-of-the-parties graph with the latest polling data, which then flows into an infographic showing the parliamentary arithmetic and possible government options after May 7th.

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged , , , , and | 130 Comments
Mary Reid

Kate Parminter to join post-election negotiating team

By Mary Reid | Mon 16th March 2015 - 12:27 pm

Kate ParminterAbout  a year ago, Nick Clegg announced that the members of the post-election negotiating team would be Danny Alexander, Steve Webb, Sal Brinton, Lynne Featherstone and David Laws.

As Party President, Sal will be closely involved in any post-election moves so it is appropriate that she should be replaced on the negotiating team itself.

According to Michael Crick, Channel 4’s political correspondent:

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 17 Comments
Mary Reid

Who is standing in your constituency?

By Mary Reid | Mon 9th March 2015 - 1:59 pm

 

Who are the candidates standing in your constituency? Crowd sourcing seems the obvious way to build an online database of PPCs, of all parties and none, across the country, and that is exactly what is happening on YourNextMP.  Please check out your own constituency and submit, or correct, information about the Lib Dem candidate.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Tony Greaves

Tony Greaves writes: What happens if …?

By Tony Greaves | Mon 9th March 2015 - 11:29 am

House of Commons. Crown Copyright applies to this photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/uk_parliament/4642915654/There’s growing talk in Conservative and Labour circles about a minority government. Let’s make an assumption about numbers – not a prediction, just approximate numbers based on current polls: Con 275, Lab 275, LD 35, SNP 40, UKIP 5, Green 2, Speaker 1, all the Northern Irish 17 (of which the present numbers are DUP 8, SF 5, SDLP 3, All 1).

Take out the Speaker and assume that Sinn Fein get five again, and the target for an overall majority is 323. On these numbers a majority Coalition looks hard to achieve – though don’t underestimate the ability of politicians to moderate or even overturn pre-election statements when it comes to getting into government. But add the heightened level of distaste in both Conservatives and Labour for both the concept of coalition and recent practice (at least in Westminster) and the idea of a minority government is not a fantasy.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 95 Comments
The Voice

LibLink: Tim Farron on the general election and afterwards

By The Voice | Mon 2nd March 2015 - 2:31 pm

Over on the Huffington Post, Tim Farron talks about the election campaign from his constituency in Cumbria.

People need to believe they are not just going through the motions. We are not just doing it because we hate the Tories or because we like winning elections or because it’s a way of me getting a job. It’s about the things you can do with power.

He confesses that he would like to be a minister in a future Coalition; it was his role as Party President that precluded that, but also allowed him to emerge from this Parliament with a reputation untainted by proximity to Tories.

He was asked about the reports that claim he wants to be Leader, to which he responded:

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 6 Comments
David Warren

Opinion: Thoughts on some Liberal candidates past and present

By David Warren | Mon 2nd March 2015 - 11:00 am

The first General Election I can remember was in 1979, when as a fifteen year old I was starting to really get interested in politics.

In my village and constituency (Henley) the Tories were well entrenched, but the Liberals had a level of support too.

The Liberal candidate was a chap called Steven Atack and I still remember seeing a poster advertising him as a speaker at a public meeting in the village hall.

I thought they had spelt his name wrong!

My parents who were Liberal voters didn’t go to the meeting, which I suspect was poorly attended and the Tories swept in.

Wind …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Simon Foster

Opinion: What might happen after May 7th

By Simon Foster | Thu 12th February 2015 - 9:25 am

This article appeared earlier as a comment on our “Electoral fruit machine” post and is reproduced here with permission from the author.

(After May 7th) I believe the Lib Dems will have more than 20 seats and less than 40, with many polls and commentators going for somewhere around the 30 mark, at the moment. From all the qualitative data I’ve seen so far that seems a fair estimate in political science. Anything less than 20 would be a shock, as Lord Ashcroft’s polling indicates that this is not going to happen.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 96 Comments
Mary Reid

Sharing a platform with ConHome and LabourList

By Mary Reid | Wed 11th February 2015 - 4:05 pm

nlgn

Yesterday I represented Lib Dem Voice on a panel with Conservative Home and LabourList. It was at the end of a conference organised by the New Local Government Network on the overall theme of localism and devolution to local government.  I was surprised and pleased that so many local government officers resisted the urge to slope off after the teabreak and stayed to hear the bloggers.

I had the huge advantage over my fellow bloggers of being a former councillor. By contrast, the other two had the luxury of being employed full-time as blog managers – although I have to say that I do enjoy being part of the LDV volunteer collective and the way we work as a team.

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Posted in News | 4 Comments
Paul Walter

Our general election campaign in the last week – a strong start?

By Paul Walter | Wed 4th February 2015 - 9:25 am

This post is reserved for new and infrequent commenters. “Infrequent” is defined as having post less than five comments in the last month.

A cursory scan of LDV’s posts over the last week confirms that the general election campaign is firing on all cylinders, both on the ground and “in the air”:

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Posted in For new & infrequent commenters | Also tagged | 1 Comment
The Voice

Electoral forecast puts Lib Dems on 48 seats

By The Voice | Mon 2nd February 2015 - 3:40 pm

Ballot paperThe Guardian reports the predictions of Prof Paul Whiteley of the University of Essex. His study forecasts Labour with 291 seats,  Conservatives 281, Lib Dems 48 and others 30.  The study is based on a model used by the British Election Study which came up with some pretty accurate predictions for 2005 and 2010.

The article explains:

The Essex forecasting model works by combining the number of seats won by parties in the previous election with voting intentions data from polls conducted six months prior to the election.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 46 Comments
Paul Walter

Sal Brinton: “We aren’t dead”

By Paul Walter | Wed 28th January 2015 - 11:55 am

Sal @ Crohns & Colitis Rec _2 CROPPED Nov 13
New Statesman carries an interview with Liberal Democrat President, Sal Brinton. It’s wide-ranging discussion, with Sal in upbeat mood:

The key message is, if I talk to a candidate or other senior people do, make sure that you pass the word on. It’s like handing a torch on to say, ‘actually we aren’t dead, there’s a lot happening, there’s a lot good that we’ve got to talk about in government, and yes there have been things that have been very difficult for us’. But if people only hear about the bad side, and the side that the other parties want you to hear about, we will be missing a real trick.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 17 Comments
Lord William Wallace

Lord William Wallace writes… Make national voter registration day part of your campaign

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 28th January 2015 - 10:49 am

February 5th will be Bite The Ballot‘s 2nd ‘National voter registration day’. Last year this NGO, with a number of companies and schools in support, succeeded in sharply raising the number of young people registering. This year, in the run-up to the general election, they aim to add more than 250,000 to the register. You will find details of what they plan, and how they plan to manage it, here.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Stephen Phillips

Opinion: A good reason to vote LibDem in May

By Stephen Phillips | Wed 28th January 2015 - 9:25 am

This post is reserved for new and infrequent commenters. “Infrequent” is defined as having post less than five comments in the last month.

Following the start of the 100+ day election campaign, I cannot help wondering what it is the Lib Dems need to do to recover what appears to be a significant dip in popular support. The problem is that we do not appear to be benefitting in the opinion polls from our many achievements in government. This is a shame, because there are so many of them; despite some comments on Lib Dem Voice, which could easily have been written by our political opponents in an attempt to demoralise supporters.

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Posted in For new & infrequent commenters, News and Op-eds | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Mike Biden

Opinion: The case for a “Great Reform Pact”

By Mike Biden | Mon 26th January 2015 - 9:19 am

The election draws near and the battle lines are being set -but they are being laid down on the principles of old, whilst the country cries out for change.  More than anything, voters yearn for responsive local Government and not authoritarian diktats from afar in London or Brussels. They want their voices heard. The two party system is broken but our democracy remains in the past.

We need leadership and a vision of a modern democracy that will give people a real say and the freedom to act.

Do Clegg and Milliband have the statesmanship to seize a unique opportunity this May? All the leaders know that in all probability they will have to do a deal after the election if they want to be in or share power.  So why not do a deal now, before the election?  If the Labour, Green and Liberal Democrats come together in an electoral pact there is every chance they will win a clear majority of MPs.

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Posted in Op-eds | 82 Comments
Lord Matthew Oakeshott

The Independent View: Progressive and pro-European voters must unite against Tory-UKIP chaos

By Lord Matthew Oakeshott | Fri 23rd January 2015 - 9:44 am

Britain stands on the edge of a cliff with the General Election only 105 days away.  Will we vote Tory or UKIP for Euroreferendum chaos, lasting two years at least and putting thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and our long term peace and security at risk? Or will Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and all progressive voters come together in the marginal seats that matter to elect a Parliament for progress and reform and a Labour-led Government with Ed Miliband as Prime Minister?  He has stood firm against the clamour for a referendum with considerable courage and nous.  Scotland shows how referenda, even with a 55-45 vote, can settle nothing, just open a can of worms.

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged | 68 Comments
Matthew Campbell

Opinion: Election debates must be based on clear criteria

By Matthew Campbell | Wed 14th January 2015 - 10:52 am

In among much more important events this past week, David Cameron’s statement that the Conservative Party will not participate in UK-wide election TV debates without a Green presence is … interesting. Also stirring the pot are Ofcom, who have announced they do not consider the Greens a ‘major’ party in UK terms.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 30 Comments
Stephen Phillips

Opinion: 120 days to save the country

By Stephen Phillips | Mon 5th January 2015 - 5:28 pm

Like most voters. I dislike negative electioneering. It does nothing but give the impression that politicians behave more like little children who cannot share their toys than like the people in whose hands we should be placing the safety and economic wellbeing of the country.

That said, we can be confident that there will be plenty of negativity about, particularly as the Conservatives try to distance themselves from the steadying effect that the LibDems have had within the coalition. So I wonder if we should take this opportunity to get negativity out of the way now, before we get on with what really needs to be said in the election campaign proper.

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Posted in Op-eds | 22 Comments
Helen Flynn

Opinion: What it will take to win in 2015

By Helen Flynn | Mon 5th January 2015 - 9:31 am

The fact that there are just over four months now until the general election put me into a pensive mood about the state of British politics, what we need to do to change it and what I need to do to win.

The “trends” are:

  • People are increasingly disengaged from politics and have little faith in either politicians or the political process
  • People are increasingly not aligned to individual political parties
  • Young people, in particular, generally struggle to see the relevance of politics to their own lives
  • Because of prolonged austerity and “squeezed” living standards for the majority, populism, the politics of fear and a culture of blame are rallying support for extremist parties such as Ukip.
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Posted in Op-eds | 34 Comments
Stephen Tall

Reasons to be careful about new analysis suggesting Lib Dems “set to lose several more seats than national polls with uniform swing would predict”

By Stephen Tall | Tue 9th December 2014 - 1:13 pm

A new analysis by Oxford academic Stephen Fisher (a member of the team which was behind the scarily accurate BBC/ITN exit poll at the 2010 election) douses the comfort blanket to which many of us Lib Dems have been clinging, suggesting as it does that the Lib Dems are losing more votes in our strongest seats:

The most significant factor affecting party performance at the constituency level is prior Liberal Democrat strength. … the Liberal Democrats are clearly loosing most in the seats where they started strongest and losing least where they started weakest. Partly this is inevitable. There are over 100 seats where the Lib Dems got less than 16% of the vote in 2010 and so their vote share cannot fall by this much. Moreover it is unlikely that the party will fall exactly to zero even where it does very badly. So if the GB polls are right overall, the Liberal Democrats must be falling more where they started stronger, and the BES data suggest the drop is broadly proportional to their prior strength. This mirrors the pattern of change at the local authority level at the European Parliament elections this year, adding confidence that the effect is real. The implications for Liberal Democrat seats are straightforward. If they are indeed losing most heavily in the seats they are defending they are set to lose several more seats than national polls with uniform swing would predict.

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged , , and | 81 Comments
Paul Walter

In 2015, if the Lib Dems hold on to as many seats as latest polling suggests, should we thank NO2AV?

By Paul Walter | Sat 29th November 2014 - 10:54 am

liberal democrat tory conservative logosEarlier in the week, Stephen Tall covered the latest Ashcroft poll of Lib Dem held seats, which was encouraging. Over on Political Betting, our old friend Mike Smithson offers this intriguing thought:

If the LDs hold on to as many seats as the latest polling suggests then Clegg should thank NO2AV.

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Posted in General Election | Also tagged | 92 Comments
Stephen Tall

UPDATED: Full list of Lib Dems standing in our held seats and top 50 targets

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th September 2014 - 12:30 pm

We’re less than 8 months away from the May 2015 election so here’s my latest running check on how candidate selection is going in our held and key target seats…

Lib Dems winning hereI published a first draft of this list a year ago, and asked readers to help me update it. Many thanks to those of you who have helped me keep it updated, including the party’s Candidates Services Office. Here’s the latest version of the list of (re-)selections in our held seats and the top 50 targets for the party.

It’s a snapshot of how the party’s doing in getting people in place in the battleground seats that will determine the extent of Lib Dem influence in the next parliament:

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Posted in News and Selection news | 34 Comments
Stephen Tall

Ashcroft battlegrounds poll: Lib Dems set to lose four marginal seats to Labour

By Stephen Tall | Sun 6th July 2014 - 2:45 pm

lib lab Labour Liberal Democrat logoThe second of Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft’s polls of Lib Dem marginal seats was published this week, focusing on four of our battlegrounds with Labour: Norwich South (held by Simon Wright), Bradford East (David Ward), Brent Central (Sarah Teather standing down, Ibrahim Taguri selected), and Manchester Withington (John Leech). Also included was Brighton Pavilion, which Caroline Lucas won for the Greens from Labour in 2010.

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Posted in News and Polls | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 41 Comments
Newsmoggie

LibLink: Stephen Tall: What Clegg was really up to last week

By Newsmoggie | Wed 26th February 2014 - 8:55 am

In his regular Conservative Home column, Liberal Democrat Voice co-editor Stephen Tall looked at the rationale behind two things that Nick Clegg had done last week, the debate challenge to Farage and his comments on Steve Richards’ programme which were interpreted as showing willing for a coalition with Labour.

So what does Stephen think it’s all about. Firstly, about getting the best deal in 2015 if there’s another hung Parliament:

In part, he’s preparing the ground for what may be. In part, he’s reaching out to those 2010 Lib Dem voters who’ve peeled off to Labour. And in part, he’s laying down

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , , , and | 13 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Telegraph: “Liberal Democrats believe party can oust several Tories”

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 27th December 2013 - 11:25 am

Yesterday’s Telegraph has a report that the Liberal Democrats believe that they can win or win back some seats currently held by the Tories.

The seats mentioned are Oxford West and Abingdon, Winchester and St Albans. These seats have all selected their candidates, Layla Moran, Jackie Porter and Sandy Walkington. I could also add Richmond Park, where Robin Meltzer is working hard, campaigning against Heathrow expansion with the help of two neighbouring cabinet ministers. In Harrogate we have Helen Flynn and in Newton Abbot and Truro and Falmouth, Richard Younger-Ross and Simon Rix are in place. All these candidates are …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 28 Comments
Stephen Tall

Three scenarios for the 2015 election based on current polling: which do you think looks most plausible?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 10th December 2013 - 2:45 pm

In 18 months we’ll know the result of the 2015 general election.

Forecasting is a mug’s game – especially because there are an even greater number of variables this time than usual: a governing coalition of two parties with one established centre-left opposition, Labour, and an insurgent right-wing party, Ukip.

But plenty are having a go at it anyway. Lib Dem MP Sir Nick Harvey reckons Labour has the next election in the bag. Psephologist Lewis Baston thinks we’re headed for a second hung parliament. And pollster Sir Bob Worcester believes the Lib Dems are destined for meltdown.

Here’s my quick ‘n’ dirty analysis based on the polling trends. What I’ve looked at is Labour’s lead over the Conservatives according to the monthly average of opinion polls under three different scenarios.

(Huge caveat straight off: the extent of the polling science on display here is me playing around on an Excel spreadsheet.)

Scenario 1

The Conservatives hit rock bottom in May 2012. The omnishambles budget and its desperate U-turns were followed by a poor set of local election results. There have been dips since then, notably when it looked like the economy might plunge into what was being billed as a triple-dip recession at the start of 2013, but never quite matching that period.

Taking May 2012 as the peak of Labour’s lead, what would happen if the linear trend since then were to continue through to May 2015? This is what:

polling trends 2015 - ST 2

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged , , and | 51 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Stephen Tall – Who could lead the Tories and Lib Dems after 2015?

By Nick T | Thu 7th November 2013 - 10:59 am

Our very own Stephen Tall has been moonlighting again for the lucky people over at Conservative Home. For this edition Stephen has unpacked his crystal ball and programmed it to Spring 2015, where he finds several possible scenarios confronting Messrs Clegg and Cameron.

Here’s a sample:

Conventional wisdom suggests David Cameron will have to win outright to be sure of continuing as Conservative leader. After all, the last Conservative leader to fail to win two successive elections outright – Edward Heath in 1974 – is not a happy precedent. Yet if the Conservatives were to emerge as the largest single party once

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged | 52 Comments
Liz Leffman

Opinion: We need to grab our current luck and champion the Lib Dems

By Liz Leffman | Sun 3rd November 2013 - 10:03 am

Far too often, information about the work our ministers are doing reaches us, and the general public, through a cloud of white noise created by the media. The information that we local activists get from Lib Dem HQ can be drowned out by what we read and hear elsewhere. It’s often difficult to tease out our ministers’ achievements in government from the work of the government as a whole. But in the past few weeks we seem to have found a way of dispersing our uncertainty and showing the public that we stand for something tangibly different from our coalition partners.

The discussion about energy policy offers a way of unlocking the conundrum we have faced for the past two and a half years. How do we remain constructive partners in coalition, while reassuring voters that we are different from the Tories?

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 8 Comments
The Voice

Simon Hughes re-selected for Bermondsey and Old Southwark

By The Voice | Wed 9th October 2013 - 10:53 am

In news which will surprise nobody, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Simon Hughes has been re-selected by his local party in Bermondsey and Old Southwark to fight the 2015 General Election as reported by the London SE1 community website.

Simon said:

Since I was first elected, we’ve been through a lot. Fighting to have tube stations in Bermondsey and Southwark, unemployment dropping from nearly 20 per cent to 7 per cent, regeneration of our high streets, and many things that matter to local people like better housing and schools, and more training and jobs.

But little compares to the work I have been

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
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