Our place to talk – an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK.

The most-read independent website by and for Lib Dem supporters. Not paid for by trade unions or millionaires.

Advert

Tag Archives: featured

Summary of today’s #cashgordon social media silliness

By Mark Pack | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 4:49 pm

Tories buy campaigning package off the shelf from US company.

Company also does some rather right wing work. This is either outrageous (Right wing? You shock me!) or unsurprising (Americans? Right wing? You surprise me!)

Package as launched by Tories includes unmoderated twitter stream.

Unflattering tweets start appearing.

Site pulled.

Lesson for the day: unmoderated feeds of content on political sites bring tears before bedtime. Those who have been awake for the last decade may not wish to call this “news”.

PS Myself, I’d have been suspicious of a US supplier that advertisers a “one pager” which is actually two …

Continue reading »

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged #cashgordon and conservative party | 8 Comments

The Liberal Democrat general election prospects: what does history say?

By Mark Thompson | Mon 22nd March 2010 - 12:22 pm

I was having a look at data from previous elections recently with a particular focus on the number of seats and percentage of votes gained by the third party in the last few decades.

The first thing that is clear and which I already knew is that in the last three general elections, the Lib Dems have consistently increased their number of seats. The figures are:

1997: 46 (+26)
2001: 52 (+6)
2005: 62 (+10)

The huge leap in 1997 is often put down to our improved targeting campaign techniques championed by Chris Rennard.

There is something else interesting in the figures which I had not …

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and Op-eds | Also tagged chris rennard | 20 Comments

Has Gordon Brown been making up numbers?

By Mark Pack | Thu 18th March 2010 - 7:20 pm

The Full Fact website reports:

For two weeks now Full Fact has been trying to find out the basis of Gordon Brown’s claim that 300,000 businesses in the UK have been provided with direct cash-flow help from the Government.

In a piece published on 4 March, Full Fact examined the claim made by the Prime Minister in a speech to the Welsh Labour party. Despite numerous requests, emails and phone calls neither BIS, HMRC, Downing Street, The Treasury nor the Labour party were able to say where the figures came from.

But with Mr Brown again using the claim during yesterday’s PMQs, Full

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged full fact and gordon brown | 3 Comments

Nick Clegg’s speech delivers on all fronts

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th March 2010 - 4:45 pm

If Nick Clegg sounded a little hoarse from a sore throat throughout his leader’s speech to the Birmingham spring conference then it’s not surprising: he has been omnipresent in the media this week, winning the Lib Dems more coverage than I can remember outside of an election campaign.

The first responsibility of any Lib Dem leader’s speech is to forget that he is talking to the party faithful in the conference hall – they will vote for the party regardless – and to pitch directly to the wider public watching the speech live or on news bulletins.

The second …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference, General Election and Op-eds | Also tagged nick clegg | 12 Comments

LAUNCHED TODAY: new Lib Dem Voice website – How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP?

By The Voice | Fri 12th March 2010 - 7:05 pm

In just under an hour’s time, the Lib Dem Voice spring conference fringe takes place in Birmingham, marking the official launch of our new website: How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP? The site’s web address is http://rank.libdemvoice.org.

(We will be uploading the podcast of the Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting here as soon as possible.)

How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP? has a very simple aim: to provide an easy way for the public to find out online how liberal or authoritarian are the views of their MP according to his or her voting record in parliament.

Here’s …

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged authoritarian, ldv rank and rank | 17 Comments

Nick Clegg’s conference speech: what does it need to do? #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 10:20 am

With the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, Nick Clegg is giving his last conference speech before the general election. Who knows, there may even be two general elections before he gets to give his autumn conference speech…

So what does Nick need to achieve with his Sunday speech?

Conference speeches have two audiences: the external and the internal. For the external one, the job is in the main fairly straightforward: give a speech that has at least one eye-catching section which means it gets more than a nano second of passing media coverage.

The party’s overall messages for the general election …

Continue reading »

Posted in Conference | Also tagged digital economy bill and nick clegg | 6 Comments

Election appeal – can you make a donation to help these 5 Lib Dem candidates today?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 8th March 2010 - 10:50 am

The next general election, if it held as widely expected on 6th May, is less than two months away. In which case, there is less than eight weeks for the Lib Dems to work for every vote we can in order to put an end to Gordon Brown’s disastrous Labour Government, and make sure David Cameron cannot wreak havoc at the helm of the Tories.

No one can be sure what will happen, what the results might be. But one thing’s for certain. Labour and the Tories will have the advantage of being bank-rolled by the unions and big business and folk like Lord Ashcroft. There’s only one way to level the playing field, and that’s for all of us who want the Lib Dems to have the best chance possible to dip into our pockets and give what we can to the party.

That’s why Lib Dem Voice is running an election appeal to promote making a donation to the party. We have identified five Lib Dem candidates standing in five seats, all of them in real need of a helping hand. Any donation you can spare – £10, £100, £250, or any amount inbetween or higher – will make a difference.

To make a donation to the Lib Dem Voice election appeal fund to be shared equally between LDV’s five profiled candidates, please click here.

Here are the five we are asking you to help us get behind:

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged ldv election appeal | 9 Comments

Why vote Liberal Democrat? Book review

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th March 2010 - 7:00 pm

If you go to Amazon searching for “Why vote Liberal Democrat?”, edited by Danny Alexander and just published by Biteback, you may be surprised to find yourself being presented instead with a book of the same title from 1997, written by William Wallace. The new book is misfiled by Amazon under the title “Why vote Lib Dem?” but actually the 1997 volume provides an interesting contrast with the 2010 version.

The 2010 book is one of a series, covering also Labour, Conservatives, SNP, Plaid and the Greens. All the others are single person authored books (with the exception of …

Continue reading »

Posted in Books, General Election and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged brian paddick, charles james fox, colin firth, Danny Alexander, david howarth, duwayne brooks, ed fordham, floella benjamin, gary mckinnon, janis sharpe, ken macdonald, nick clegg, polly mackenzie, vince cable and william wallace | 19 Comments

Digital Economy Bill: Parliamentarians reply to prospective candidates

By Mark Pack | Fri 5th March 2010 - 8:55 am

Yesterday we covered an open letter from 25+ Liberal Democrat prospective Parliamentary candidates (and see also this comment from ex-MP Richard Allan), expressing concerns over the line the party had taken in the House of Lords on a key part of the Digital Economy Bill. The party’s DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) team has now replied in turn with another public letter.

Two things to note when reading it. First, this sort of public exchange of letters is unusual, but very welcome. Although journalists sometimes struggle with the concept of a party that debates policy openly …

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged digital economy bill, google, richard allan and YouTube | 52 Comments

Lord Ashcroft – the three things which strike me

By Stephen Tall | Wed 3rd March 2010 - 8:45 pm

For the third day, the revelation that Lord Ashcroft has dodged paying full UK taxes for a decade with the complicit knowledge of the Tory leadership has been dominating the serious news media. And congratulations are due here to Chris Huhne and his research team for unearthing the estimate that the Tory deputy chairman has saved himself £127m in tax by maintaining his non-dom status despite promising to live in the UK as an ordinary resident.

It’s not been a pretty couple of days for the Tories. Here are three points which have struck me:

1. What does this episode say

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged lord ashcroft | 20 Comments

TV leaders debates: what do the rules signify?

By Mark Pack | Wed 3rd March 2010 - 9:20 am

Despite some alarms along the way, the rules are now set for the first-ever head-to-head general election debates in the UK a mere 46 years after the first suggestion.

(And no, yawn yawn, it isn’t only in the US that such debates take place: the US wasn’t first and the US isn’t a particularly good place to look for lessons, what with not being a Parliamentary democracy unlike many of the other countries which also have TV debates.)

Now the rules are set, what do they tell us about how the debates may play out?

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged david cameron, gordon brown, leaders tv debate and nick clegg | 4 Comments

The Saturday Debate: Freedom of speech should have no limits

By Stephen Tall | Sat 27th February 2010 - 8:15 am

Here’s your starter for ten as we continue our new Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

All liberals will happily sign up to the concept of free speech. But the practise of it often makes us uneasy. JS Mill summed up the dilemma by asserting that while all opinions should be aired, one can’t “shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre”. In other words, freedom of speech must be tempered by individual responsibility. The inevitable question then arises: who should exercise that responsibility: the individual, or should it be regulated by the state in some way?

One of the less contentious areas …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged weekend debate | 20 Comments

NEW POLL: Is it time to end ‘politically restricted’ jobs?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 18th February 2010 - 7:15 pm

Blogging Labour MP Tom Harris has an interesting story today, revealing that Tina Stowell, the BBC’s head of corporate affairs “is not only a wannabe Tory candidate, but still has a live website proclaiming her love of all things Cameron.” But Tom doesn’t point this out in order to fulminate or demand her resignation:

And you know something? I don’t have a problem with this. I would much prefer to know the politics of someone I’m dealing with because at least you know where they’re coming from. She wants to become an MP? Good for her! I hope she

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Voice polls | Also tagged civil service, Local government, politically restricted and tom harris | 16 Comments

What we’ve been saying about the general election

By Mark Pack | Mon 15th February 2010 - 11:50 am

With the general election looking to be heading towards a hung Parliament according to the latest prediction we’ve published from a group of academics, how are things looking for the Liberal Democrats?

We’ve published three previews of the election:

My view: Follow the yellow brick road? The Liberal Democrats’ general election campaign
My other view: The 2010 general election: it’s a game of three halves
Stephen’s view: The Lib Dems and the 2010 general election … ‘The future’s bright, the future’s gold.’

But regardless of what you think of the ability of Stephen and myself with the crystal ball, as Iain …

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and News | Also tagged david cameron, gordon brown and leaders tv debate | Leave a comment

Election Appeal: Help re-elect Willie Rennie – DONATE to his campaign TODAY

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th February 2010 - 10:50 am

Over the next five weeks, Lib Dem Voice is going to be asking all our Lib Dem-supporting readers to consider making a donation to support five candidates standing for the party at the imminent general election.

We know many of you will already be donating to the national party and/or your local party. We know not everyone will be able to afford to make a donation. But we hope that as many of you as are able will spare whatever spare cash you can to support the Lib Dem candidates we will be profiling in the coming weeks.

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election | Also tagged dunfermline & west fife, ldv election appeal and willie rennie | 6 Comments

Liberal Democrats launch green jobs manifesto pledge

By Mark Pack | Thu 11th February 2010 - 9:28 pm

Earlier today Nick Clegg today launched another plank of the party’s green economic policies for the general election, pledging to create 57,000 jobs by investing £400 million in upgrading disused shipyards so that they can produce off-shore wind turbines.

It’s a triple win: boost the economy, help parts of the country which have been hit the hardest and improve Britian’s environmental record.

The party’s news release explains some of the details:

Current plans to expand wind farms in the North and Irish seas could see every one of the 6,400 turbines needed brought in from abroad, as there are currently no turbine manufacturers in the UK.

British ports are ideally located to host turbine manufacturers due to their proximity to the off-shore wind farms; however, they are currently unable to invest due to the lack of appropriate docks with suitable space.

The proposals to invest in physical infrastructure to support a greener economy also include a pledge to invest £100million in training and testing facilities, including at universities with specialist engineering research facilities such as Loughborough, Durham and Newcastle.

Nick Clegg told Left Foot Forward:

Refurbishing seven of the ports will be a shot in the arm to increasing industry and manufacturing that will benefits regions like the North East.

You can watch Nick Clegg talk about the policy in this YouTube clip:

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg | 10 Comments

How can we sell the Single Transferable Vote to the public?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 11th February 2010 - 10:25 am

The last 24 hours’ focus on voting systems – surely every Lib Dem’s dream come true? – have highlighted just how hard it will be to gain acceptance for the party’s preferred proportional voting system, the single transferable vote.

It’s no surprise that almost all MPs from the two establishment parties, Labour and the Tories, are desperate to hold onto the electoral system that secures their cosy hold on power: just five Labour/Tory MPs voted to include STV in any referendum on voting reform.

But it will also be the case that a significant portion of the country will …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged denis mollison, fabian society, james graham, next left, proportional representation and single transferable vote | 42 Comments

Why politics should be about personalities

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th February 2010 - 12:20 pm

Tony Benn’s lament that politics should be about issues, not personalities, is one echoed even by many who would struggle to find any issues on which they agree with him.

But it’s not a view I share. Why? Because the detailed policies of election manifestos or conference speeches frequently get swept aside in power by events. It’s not just the unexpected new event, it’s also the fallibility of forecasts which mean that decision making is often made from a very different perspective from that used to draw up pre-election policy promises.

Take the economy. It’s hard enough to know whether it is …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged charles kennedy and tony benn | 14 Comments

Tories’ policies recalled as economic model proves unroad-worthy

By Stephen Tall | Tue 9th February 2010 - 10:50 am

(With thanks to today’s Guardian).

The Tories were today forced to recall a consignment of hybrid policies following widespread complaints that their economic model failed when it encountered bumpy or slippery surfaces. The party is already facing criticism over the recent recall of many of its other policies, including marriage tax-breaks, which have been affected by the potentially dangerous acceleration towards an election.

The Tory leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne are due to give details of their latest recall today, and on most other days leading up to 6th May. “We’ve tried applying the brakes,” they admitted, “but the …

Continue reading »

Posted in Humour and Op-eds | 5 Comments

+++ Exclusive general election prediction: too close to call

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th February 2010 - 9:20 am

With new polling figures in, the general election prediction model we covered in November and December has churned out a new prediction for the next general election – and it’s a striking one:

New prediction: Conservative lead of 6% but Labour largest party with 299 seats (27 short of an overall majority)

December prediction: Conservative lead of 9% with 315 seats (11 short of an overall majority)
November prediction: Conservative lead of 10% with 322 seats (4 short of an overall majority)

The academic team who have compiled the prediction say,

The race remains too close to call under reasonable scenarios, either favorable to the government or the opposition. The election of a hung Parliament cannot be discarded at this point.

Background to prediction

In November Lib Dem Voice published the first of our exclusive general election predictions, based on the work of a group of academics who have analysed polling data (not just party support levels) in the run up to previous British elections:

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and News | 10 Comments

The Lib Dems and the 2010 general election … ‘The future’s bright, the future’s gold.’

By Stephen Tall | Wed 3rd February 2010 - 6:45 pm

I have an article published in the January edition of the Government Gazette, the monthly magazine of the Centre for Parliamentary Studies, looking at the Lib Dems’ prospects for the coming general election. Here’s what I say …

A missed opportunity. That was the consensus, inside and outside the Liberal Democrats, on the party’s general election results in 2005.

The disappointment was the greater as realisation dawned that the unique set of circumstances of that election – an unpopular government and an even more unpopular opposition – might never again be repeated. What could have been the Lib Dems’ breakthrough …

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and Op-eds | 17 Comments

Ros Scott writes … Party President’s report to members, January ’10

By Baroness Ros Scott | Tue 2nd February 2010 - 8:15 pm

In the two months since my last report, the election campaign has started in all but name.

After a phenomenal amount of work by the manifesto team – led by Danny Alexander, the party’s policy unit headed by Christian Moon, and the Federal Policy Committee – we have now established the broad outlines of our campaign:

Reform of the tax system to create a fairer base,
introducing the pupil premium to give all children a fairer start in life,
creating sustainable housing and jobs and
political reform to bring in a fairer voting system, and

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds and Party Presidency | Also tagged anna werrin, chris fox, christian moon, Danny Alexander, dave hodgson, federal policy committee, john sharkey, jonathan fryer, party reform commission, robert woodthorpe brown and roy thompson | 1 Comment

So, what do you make of this graph about gender and politics?

By Mark Pack | Mon 1st February 2010 - 11:20 am

Here’s the proportion of local election candidates of the three main parties who were female over the last twenty-five years. As you can see, proportions for all three parties grew in the late ’80s and since then have stalled (Lib Dems, Conservatives) or only crept up (Labour), all remaining under 40%.

The dips every four years are due to county council elections having a much lower proportion of female candidates than other local elections.

So, what do you make of this? Does …

Continue reading »

Posted in Local government and News | 33 Comments

Social media’s impact on politics, part one: the groups that face extinction

By Mark Pack | Thu 28th January 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to a two-part series about the real impact social media (or social networking) is having on politics in Britain. In part one I look at the groups which face extinction, whilst in part two I will look at why pundits searching for the impact of social media on politics in 2010 are looking in the wrong place.

What impact has the introduction of cheap colouring printing technology had on British politics? Almost none. Certainly many more leaflets are colour than used to be the case, more target letters contain colour inserts and a generation of amateur designers have had the …

Continue reading »

Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | Also tagged #trafigura, clay shirky, shami chakrabati and social networks | 8 Comments

100 days to work, 100 days to win

By Iain Roberts | Tue 26th January 2010 - 9:05 am

One hundred days until the local elections and the most likely date for the General Election: May 6th.

And, whilst blogs, websites, Facebook and the rest of it will play a supporting role, our real battles will be fought on the ground in Liberal Democrat held and target seats up and down the country. It will be fought with leaflets, target mailings, canvassing, posters, phone calls and getting the vote out on polling day. Even email – extremely effective at reaching local audiences in marginal seats – needs that ground work to build up the list of addresses in the first …

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and Op-eds | 5 Comments

If you want to understand modern government, understand the Office of the Public Guardian

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th January 2010 - 11:20 am

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) neatly encapsulates much of how modern government is run, its weaknesses and the problems our democratic systems face in trying to control or improve bureaucracy.

The Office of the Public Guardian was created for the best of reasons following the 2005 Mental Capacity Act in order to administer a new Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) process by which people can lay down what should happen to them and who can make decisions for them if they lose the ability to decide for themselves.

Giving people more and clear control over their own lives is what government should do. Moreover, the OPG is, in theory, an accountable public body with annual reports, performance standards laid down by the Ministry of Justice and its operations open to questioning in Parliament.

But the reality of how it works also reveals the dark side of modern government.

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged andrew selous, annette brooke, ian taylor, lasting power of attorney, mental capacity act, office of the public guardian, paul burstow and tom brake | 6 Comments

A challenge to the Press Complaints Commission to improve its code

By Mark Pack | Mon 18th January 2010 - 8:32 pm

The Press Complaints Commission is currently reviewing its Editors’ Code of Practice so a group of bloggers, including myself, have got together to propose five changes – and we’re running an online petition which you can sign too.

Amongst any group of people, the exact reasons for supporting the suggestions will vary but for myself they are:

(a) All the suggestions are obvious and easy ones which ask no more of newspapers than to meet the sorts of standards many journalists and editors have long since said they should meet.

(b) They pass the “what if your kids asked…?” test, by which …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged press complaints commission | 12 Comments

It’s “Let’s Make Nice Month”: experimental change to LDV’s comments policy

By Stephen Tall | Mon 18th January 2010 - 7:45 am

The Internet is a fantastic place. It can also be an angry place. Lib Dem Voice has a high quality of passionate-but-reasoned debate in our comment threads, with many of our 30,000+ readers contributing their thoughts and enjoying LDV’s role as “Our place to talk”.

However … it’s not unknown for debate on LDV to get heated, for commenters sometimes to get personal with the authors of articles, or with each other. The editorial collective has generally adopted a laissez faire moderating policy: save a handful of exceptional circumstances, comments are left untouched.

Partly this policy has been driven of …

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds and Site news | Also tagged blogging and internet | 48 Comments

Clegg calls for full gay equality – what will Cameron do?

By The Voice | Wed 13th January 2010 - 8:45 pm

Nick Clegg has taken the opportunity of an interview with The Independent’s Johann Hari for Attitude magazine to lay out a comprehensive range of measures to promote gay equality – and has laid down the gauntlet to the Tory leader David Cameron to justify his ‘liberal Conservatism’ by following suit.

Here’s how the paper summarises Nick’s proposals:

* Force all schools – including faith schools – to implement anti-homophobia bullying policies and teach that homosexuality is “normal and harmless”.

* Change the law to allow gay men and women the same marital rights as straight couples, including the symbolic right to use

…

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Also tagged conservative party, david cameron, equalities, gay rights, johann hari, nick clegg and the independent | 55 Comments