Tag Archives: andrew grice

Lib Dems need to take every opportunity to get our message out there

Megaphone, some rights reserved by garrykinghtI’ve made no secret of my view that a change in leadership is likely to do little to revive Liberal Democrat fortunes at the polls given the rather more structural reasons for the decline in support for the party.

But I also recognise that to continue doing and saying the same things over and over again and expecting a different result is not only the definition of insanity but is unlikely to lead to an electoral revival:

We should not simply keep calm and carry on, but nor should we lose our heads either. The long-term success of the party is best served by

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , and | 94 Comments

Setting the Independent straight on candidate’s defection

The Independent’s Andrew Grice has spiced up the story of a Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate’s defection to Labour with the help of some figures – which turn out to be incorrect.

Andrew Lewin, who stood in Hertford and Stortford in May, has switched to Labour “in protest at his leader’s acceptance of Conservative policies and abandonment of key elements of his party’s programme.”

The article refers to Lewin:

at 23 the youngest Lib Dem candidate in England at the May election

when in fact the youngest Liberal Democrat candidate was Alan Belmore, who was aged 20 on polling day, when he …

Posted in News | Also tagged and | 44 Comments

Opinion: Who can trust Cameron?

In June 2006 Professor John Curtice, commenting on opinion polls and shifts in the UK political environment said: “It looks as though we may have entered a new political era”. Andrew Grice, The Independent on Sunday’s Political Editor, observed that the Independent’s ‘poll of polls’ showed “David Cameron’s rejuvenated Conservative Party a seven-point lead over Labour.”

The focus of their political analysis was the impact of a recently elected Conservative Party leader on UK party politics. Here was a leader who had set out to detoxify the Tory brand, and he and his party appeared to be making significant headway.

David Cameron had, according to Andrew Grice, called on …

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

NEW POLL: will the TV debates make any difference to the Lib Dems?

We now know the UK will see its first ever televised debates between the leaders of the three major UK-wide parties in the run-up to the 2010 general election. The consenus is there have been two winners: Sky News, which, with brilliant audacity, put the issue front and centre, and by so doing ensured that (i) the debates will happen, and (ii) it muscled in on the act, instead of being excluded by the BBC and ITV. (There’s a lesson there for Channel 4, which had been comprehensively outmanoeuvred).

The second winner, according to the commentariat, is Nick Clegg. Here’s Andrew …

Posted in Voice polls | Also tagged , , , and | 12 Comments
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