Tag Archives: bournemouth 2009 conference

Mark Pack

Tuesday will be about the applause, not the votes

By Mark Pack | Mon 21st September 2009 - 3:49 pm

Tuesday morning sees the party’s pre-manifesto document, A Fresh Start for Britain, up for debate. It’s been a regular feature of recent Liberal Democrat conferences to have high-profile votes on tax and spend issues, and with the numerous announcements in the last few days, you might have expected the debate to feature another one.

However, this time the tension between different policy outlooks in the party will not be resolved out in the open with a debate and vote. Instead, those who are keenest on protecting levels of public spending as far as possible have cleverly blocked in those who …

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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: Is Nick Clegg right to talk about the need for “savage” cuts?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 21st September 2009 - 10:25 am

For once, the media reporting of what party activists at conference are discussing is accurate – Nick Clegg’s decision to question the affordability of the Lib Dems’ long-held policy of abolishiong university tuition fees, and his talk of the need for the party to be “quite bold, or even savage, on current spending” is the talk of the town.

The Financial Times today quotes some high-level criticism of Nick’s approach:

One MP said Mr Clegg sounded “nastier than the Tories” and that he was “salivating” over the chance to cut the state. Others complained that Mr Clegg and Vince

…

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Posted in Voice polls | Also tagged | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

Media news from Bournemouth – and our media at its very best

By Mark Pack | Mon 21st September 2009 - 10:01 am

A round-up of more media coverage from conference here in Bournemouth:

And finally, something to file in the “It makes you proud to have media like that in our country” corner. The Times runs a serious piece in education in this country and what we might be able to learn from Sweden. …

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Helen Duffett

Blog of the Year Awards 2009: The Winners

By Helen Duffett | Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:41 pm

What’s loosely termed the awards “ceremony” for the 2009 Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards has just drawn to a glittering close. As the last firework fades in Bournemouth’s night sky, I’m delighted to announce the winners:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 11 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Is that what I think it is?

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:00 pm

There was I, all set to wind down from the keyboard, when this inspirational news descends from politicshome:

The Independent says that Nick Clegg plans a new tax on homes worth over £1m in order to fund raising the basic starting-point for income tax.

It’s a wealth tax! A redistribution of taxation burden on to static capital accumulations and away from economically productive activity! Has anyone told Jock?

Woohoo! If the party adopts this, I’ll even overlook all that airbrushing nonsense…

Posted in News | Also tagged | 22 Comments
Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast – Clegg Q&A

By Alex Foster | Sun 20th September 2009 - 5:45 pm

Just over an hour ago, our fearless leader Nick Clegg left the stage to tumultuous applause following a frank Q&A with delegates.

Below is the audio recording made by our intrepid reporter by sitting in the audience with a MP3 recorder. And with access to a loaned MacBook, I’ve been able to process the sound much more quickly.

If you hear whispering and shuffling in the recording it’s because a group of media delegates were chattering to each other all through the recording. How nice, then, that one of them subsequently pronounced positively on Clegg’s performance. (At least, I think …

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Alex Foster

#ldconf podcast: Campaigning after Rennard

By Alex Foster | Sun 20th September 2009 - 4:15 pm


After a day of Linux updates on an incredibly elderly IBM Thinkpad, we can now finally bring you the audio recording of last night’s highly successful fringe meeting with Mark Pack, James Graham, Neil Fawcett and Lynne Featherstone MP.

And most unusually for fringe meetings in general, and definitely a first for an LDV fringe – our meeting got written up in the Guardian’s Comment is Free.

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Alix Mortimer

Sweetly misguided he may be, but…

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 3:29 pm

…top marks for Sunder Katwala of the Fabians for this, reported by James Graham:

When Cameron claims you can’t put a cigarette paper between the Tories and LDs, it makes you wonder what he’s smoking.

Meanwhile, twittery excitement is growing about this afternoon’s debate on civil libs. Richard Dawkins is speaking to his amendment in about half an hour:

@bengoldacre #ldconf there’s also dawkins doing amendment on libel in civil liberties session at 4pm, main hall, we’re going thru his speech now

But never mind the mere intellectual giants and dishy sci-geeks of our age. What could possibly be …

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Stephen Tall

Nick’s conference Q&A, the live-blog

By Stephen Tall | Sun 20th September 2009 - 2:54 pm


Nick has rung the changes for this year’s traditional leader’s Q&A in front of the party conference – out goes the usual interview between Nick and a friendly lefty-liberal journo, and in comes the improvised ‘Town Hall’ format of audience questions.

First up, Nick’s asked if the Lib Dems will take part in political programmes if the BNP are invited to take part by the broadcasters. Yes, we will, he says: quite simply it’s too late to ignore the BNP. Look at what happened in Burnley, he notes – once forecast to be the first BNP council, now a prime Lib …

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Alix Mortimer

Conference: Day 2

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:24 am

The agenda

Reports from the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Diversity and Equality Group this morning, then a Scotland/Wales double-act in the form of the policy mortion on the  Future of Devolution (short version: more of it please!). There’s a presenttation from Kingston’s Lib Dem group (go Mary!), speeches from Norman Lamb and Ed Davey and a policy motion on the paper “Thriving in a Globalised World – A Strategy for Britain”.

And that’s just before lunch.

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Mark Pack

Real Women policy paper debate: live blog #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 2:51 pm

With my technological fingers crossed, here we go…

The votes:

  1. Amendment 1 (female representation): passed overwhelmingly
  2. Amendment 2 (air-brushing): overwhelmingly defeated
  3. Amendment 3 (sport): passed overwhelmingly
  4. Separate vote (on name blank employment): lines overwhelmingly retained
  5. Motion as a whole: passed overwhelmingly

Lynne Featherstone (summating on the motion): concentrates on name-blank employment and on air-brushing. Draws parallel with exam marking where names are removed in order to stop some forms of bias and highlights evidence from Department of Work and Pensions of the impact that name-blanking can have. On air-brushing – it’s about tackling conformity and not accepting the values of global industries. It’s about making the operation …

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged and | 36 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s blogger interviews

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 11:33 am

This morning a group of 10 bloggers interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The questions ranged over a wide area and here are a few selected highlights:

MPs’ expenses: Nick eloquently made the link between safe seats and good behaviour by MPs: “if you want to keep MPs honest, don’t give them safe seats for life … safe seats corrupt public life”. He said his one real regret over how he had handled the issue was not making the point more forcefully that whilst the party was not free of “blemishes”, no Liberal Democrat MP had been involved in the serious …

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Posted in Blogger Interviews | Also tagged , and | 5 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Conference: First pictures

By Alix Mortimer | Sat 19th September 2009 - 10:05 am

It’s that time of year again, folks. Doesn’t it come round quickly? And each year more glorious than the last. Yes it’s:

INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

Arrr. This should make for some interesting speeches from the platform at Bournemouth.

Mark and Alex have already started reporting direct from the Lib Dem Cupboard this morning, which is as luxurious as ever:

cupboard2

I, meanwhile, can’t be in Bournemouth, so I will be your host on the home front, scanning the papers for coverage (with a telescope. Arrr), stealing gossip and …

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Mark Pack

Conference: what to watch out for on Saturday

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:55 am

Running rather against the modern trend of reorganising events to suit the media, this autumn’s Liberal Democrat conference is starting and finishing a day earlier. With a Saturday start and a Wednesday finish, that means one weekday (better for media coverage) has been sacrificed for one extra weekend day (worse for media coverage, but more convenient for party members to attend).

What to expect on this Saturday of conference then?

Highlights are likely to include:

  • The Real Women policy paper debate in the afternoon, which includes proposals related to the airbrushing of women in magazine photos and the like. That particular aspect of

…

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

Official conference twitter feed

By Alex Foster | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:45 am

Just a quick reminder that there will be an official conference twitter feed, available here: www.twitter.com/LibDemConf. Conference staffers and stewards will be updating the account with information as it happens at conference – who’s speaking, when sessions start, and how Conference votes.

If you’re using twitter at conference yourself, don’t forget to liberally sprinkle your updates with the hashtag #ldconf – this will help other people find the messages you send.

And if you want to see those messages for yourself, whether or not you’re a signed up twitter user – click here.

Finally, there’s also Ryan Cullen’s …

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Mark Pack

The Which? survival guide to conference

By Mark Pack | Thu 17th September 2009 - 9:31 pm

An email pings in to The Voice’s inbox to say:

Which? is producing supplements for this year’s party conferences, providing people with a one-stop guide to surviving Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester…

In the build up to the next General Election, it’s important that the consumer voice is heard as each party develops its policies. All 45 million voters are also consumers, so each supplement includes the issues Which? wants to see on the political agenda – from better protection for savings to simpler energy bills and access to good quality dental care.

Michelle Smyth, public affairs manager at Which? says:

“With a general election

…

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Posted in Conference | 1 Comment
Bernard Salmon

Why the Real Women proposals are flawed

By Bernard Salmon | Thu 17th September 2009 - 7:05 pm

ATTENTION: features conference amendment!

The Real Women policy paper which we’ll be discussing on Saturday afternoon at Lib Dem Federal Conference is, on the whole, a very good one. It contains lots of proposals which will help make women’s lives better, covering issues like safety, childcare, health and discrimination.

But there is one significant part of the policy motion which is flawed and that’s in the sections covering body image. Basically, the problem is that it seeks to use state legislation and regulation to tackle issues which can only really be addressed through processes of cultural change. As a result, its proposals …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 72 Comments
Stephen Tall

Coming later today… Lib Dem Blog of the Year shortlists revealed

By Stephen Tall | Tue 15th September 2009 - 9:15 am

Yes, folks, this is a short, teaser post to let you know that the shortlists for this year’s Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year awards 2009 will be published this morning at 11.25 am.

The nine judges – Tom Brake MP, Ryan Cullen, Helen Duffett, Meral Ece OBE, Lynne Featherstone MP, Alix Mortimer, me, Cat Turner and Paul Waugh – have been poring over the entries for the following six categories:

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Carey Oppenheim

The Independent View: the ippr on ‘The future of politics itself’ #ldconf

By Carey Oppenheim | Mon 14th September 2009 - 10:55 am

I’m Carey Oppenheim and I’m Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), the UK’s leading progressive think tank. If you have been to the Liberal Democrat conference before you may have been to one of our events.

The debate dominating the conferences this year is the future of politics itself – ippr is hosting a key event at each of the three main conferences where leading figures will discuss how to renew trust in politics and the crucial issues facing us in the coming general election.

To open up the debate, ippr and Lib Dem Voice are asking party …

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Posted in LDV Members poll, Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Stephen Tall

NEW: pre-conference ’09 LDV members’ survey #ldconf

By Stephen Tall | Sat 12th September 2009 - 6:49 pm

In the lead-up to this year’s Lib Dem autumn conference in Bouremouth, Lib Dem Voice is conducting a survey of our Forum for party members on the recent political and economic crises – asking about what you think, and also your perception of how the party has dealt with them.

The survey has been designed jointly with the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), to tie-in with a conference fringe event on the theme, ‘The end of politics as we know it?‘, (1pm, Tue 22 Sept) with a panel comprising Ming Campbell, Shirley Williams, Charles Clarke and, erm, …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 3 Comments
Prateek Buch

Conference fringe: Defending free speech – keep libel laws out of science

By Prateek Buch | Mon 7th September 2009 - 7:02 pm

With a harsh economic recession continuing to bite, with Westminster politics remaining in the doldrums and with a global climate change summit fast approaching, legal action taken against a science writer may be far down your priority list as party conference season approaches. And yet, the British Chiropractic Association’s attempts to silence Simon Singh’s critical comments reveal fundamental flaws in Britain’s libel law, and threaten to undermine the freedom of expression that insulates us from the very worst consequences of public and private sector failures.

It is in this context that I invite all Lib Dem Voice readers to attend a fringe event I’ve organised at this year’s conference. The event is entitled Defending free speech – keep libel laws out of science, and will take place in the Marriott Highcliff Hotel’s Blandford Syndicate room 3 at 13.00.

We will hear an illustrious panel of speakers discussing how legal threats are being used to suppress scientific debate, and how Britain’s libel laws must be reformed:

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged , , , , , and | 28 Comments
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