The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.
Today’s Campaign Corner question: I work in marketing for the day job, where measuring impact and altering our plans as a result is the norm. In the evenings when I become a Lib Dem campaigner however, measuring seems to go out the window and we just do what we always did. Surely we can do better than that?
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 19th February 2012 - 2:10 pm
Time to out myself.
In the last year, three new Lib Dem groups have been launched to an unsuspecting world and to an often-suspicious Lib Dem blogosphere. In chronological order, they are: Social Liberal Forum (SLF), Liberal Left, and Liberal Reform.
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 19th February 2012 - 9:55 am
There’s a must-read column by The Economist’s Bagehot this week focusing on the Lib Dems’ dilemmas, titled The Clegg paradox. It’s a serious and weighty analysis, which asks some uncomfortable questions of the party’s strategy. Here’s it’s conclusion:
At a recent meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party, Tim Farron, an ambitious left-winger and party president, reportedly cheered this anti-Tory success, but bemoaned the fact that unelected peers had led the charge against the NHS reforms and got the credit for it, rather than Lib Dem MPs who need votes. That drew a rebuke from Jeremy Browne, a foreign office
By Chris Davies
| Fri 17th February 2012 - 4:26 pm
Money is tight. The party is far from being flush with cash and there is not enough in the coffers to fund the level of campaigning we need. We rely heavily on voluntary donations, and equity demands that we dust off a recommendation of the 2008 Bones Report – the one calling for Lib Dems at every level of government to give a proportion of their income to support activities that can enhance the effectiveness of the party.
Most councillors already do this, donating 5-10% of their allowances. ALDC even provides model standing orders that require each voting member of a …
Due to an unfortunate computer virus prank, David Cameron was forced to give a speech today using the wrong text. The virus had swapped the words “United Kingdom” for “Scotland” and “Europe” for “United Kingdom” along with a couple of other small edits to muddy the waters. Here is the original text of the speech he meant to give.
I am convinced that for both the United Kingdom, and Europe, our best days lie ahead of us.
And that even though it may be a great historical construct, Europe is actually even more of an inspiring model for the future.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 15th February 2012 - 7:50 am
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 570 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.
70% say Lib Dems on right course, highest figure since July 2010
LDV asked: Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track? (Comparison with December’s figures.)
The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.
Today’s Campaign Corner question: I often get very nervous when speaking in public. Speeches at the Civic Centre may not matter much but I do want to make a good impression at local groups – and at party conference! What do you advise?
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 12th February 2012 - 9:15 am
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 570 party members responded, and we’re publishing the full results.
Majority say referendum should offer straight yes/no choice on independence…
LDV asked: Thinking of the forthcoming referendum in Scotland, some have said the referendum should offer people the straight choice over whether Scotland should remain part of the UK or negotiate independence. Others however say that a third option should be included on the ballot paper, offering people the chance to vote for an …
In December 1976 Paddy Ashdown put to the local party in Yeovil a plan for winning the constituency for which he had been recently selected and where the party was third at almost every election. Thirty-five and a bit years on, it still reads as a pretty good plan.
Yesterday saw the publication by the Institute for Fiscal Studies of its annual ‘Green Budget‘, which looks generally at the global and UK economic picture as well providing a detailed analysis of the UK fiscal position. The document is fascinating in many respects, but one of the parts that particularly caught my eye was its devastating take on Labour’s position on the deficit.
Since the Autumn Statement, when figures for the estimated size of the budget deficit in future years were revised upwards, one of Labour’s main arguments has been that by cutting “too far, too fast” the government has …
In the week of the publication of university application figures, LibDemVoice co-editors Mark Pack and Stephen Tall debate what it means for the Lib Dems’ future policy…
Stephen Tall: The publication of the University application figures for 2012 — the first year of the new £9k maximum fees regime — has something for everyone. Those who have always claimed the prospect of huge debt would deter potential students can point to the headline 8.7% decline in applications. Those who say the new fees repayments system …
Ahead of the preliminary university application figures late last year, I posted five questions by which to judge them when they were published. The gist of all the questions was, “what do the figures really mean if you scratch beneath the surface?”. In particular, the big spike in applications in the last year before the new fee arrangements, coupled with the declining teenage population, means that crude headline number comparisons can be very misleading. As it turned out, the five questions were a pretty good guide to what the university application figures really meant.
No reply. That’s what happens a third of the time if a member of the public contacts a Liberal Democrat local party via the internet according to a ‘mystery shopper’ exercise I carried out earlier this month.
Taking the publicly advertised email addresses for 25 local parties, I tried sending them all a test email from someone asking about joining the party. Just under two-thirds responded within 48 hours, which is a good response time. However, beyond that there were only a couple of further replies and the others have, after more than two weeks, not replied at all.
Remember the last Labour government’s record on post offices? Their numbers fell by more than 7,100, or 38%. But not any more, as a result of Lib Dem action within the Coalition — as Lib Dem Voice first reported here almost 18 months ago.
Earlier in the month I shared my two favourite clips of political canvassing going wrong from TV drama shows. Today it’s the turn of the best spoof interview, courtesy of Australian TV in the 1990s. Enjoy:
The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.
Today’s Campaign Corner question: Aarrgh! There’s just too much information online. How do I cope?
Tempting though the schadenfreude is, I think Lib Dems would be wise not to enjoy too much Labour’s discomfort at Ed Balls’ decision to declare Labour cannot promise to reverse any of the Coalition’s cuts.
It’s a fortnight since we launched our search for the Liberal Voice of the Year with the aim of finding the individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in the past 12 months. This is LibDemVoice’s fifth such annual award, and as is our tradition, we looked beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the liberal who’s most impressed our readers and is not a member of our party.
The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest.
Today’s Campaign Corner question: How do we get more people to our next campaign session?
To mark the start of 2012, last week we ran a series of posts on the main challenges for the Liberal Democrats in 2012. Here in one handy recap is the full list:
Today’s the day we launch our search for the Liberal Voice of 2011 to find the individual or group which has had the biggest impact on liberalism in the past 12 months. This is the fifth annual award, and as is our tradition, we’re looking beyond the ranks of the Lib Dems to find the greatest liberal who’s not a member of our party.
The list of nine nominees appears below. These were sought from Lib Dem members via our most recent survey; 233 nominations were submitted, and each of those short-listed needed to clear a threshold of five.
Even if you were not one person but a superhuman army of fifty you would not be able to do all the things party members and staff are saying they want from the new Chief Executive. As you are but one person (I hold out hope on the superhuman front) you will inevitably have to pass up on many of these demands.
Picking the right priorities will be central to being a successful Chief Executive and so here are the four priorities I think you should pick.
Week by week local by-election results can fluctuate greatly as the luck of the draw over which seats are up adds to the variations in local circumstances to produce a large spread of results. However, aggregated over longer periods the pattern of local by-elections does say something about the state of the parties, which is why I’ve been looking at the trend in Liberal Democrat performances since May 2011.
This following graphs show the change in the Liberal Democrat vote share in by-elections, measured since the seat was previously contested and – to even out for those factors – taken in two month averages.
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 29th December 2011 - 6:50 pm
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 564 party members responded, and we are publishing the full results here over several days.
Vince, Danny and Chris: the Lib Dems’ top trio in government
LDV asked: In your opinion, which Lib Dem government minister has had the best year?
Unusually for our Voice surveys, this question allowed an unprompted, free-text response, which 408 of our respondents rose to. And here’s what you told us:
Nick Clegg’s recent ‘open society’ speech confirmed that increases taxes on wealth in some form is very much on the political agenda. However, the default party policy option – a mansion tax – was highly controversial in the party when it was introduced (which is rather a polite term for the rolling lesson in how to bungle a policy launch, annoy MPs, irritate party members and feed negative stories to the media all in one fell swoop).
In other words – now is a very good time for the party to be debating what form of wealth taxes it favours, especially after the opportunity was missed at the party’s autumn conference. As I wrote at the time in Tax: The missing ingredient from the Liberal Democrat conference agenda,
You can now watch again in full one of the best fringe meetings from the party conference, which saw Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and the then Guardian editorial writer Julian Glover launch a new history of the party and its predecessors, Peace, Reform and Liberation.*
Julian Glover gave a very funny speech about his newspaper’s love/hate relationship with the party – “So there you have it, 150 years from The Guardian and the Manchester Guardian calling on the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats to be brave, radical; praising the party’s policies and then writing it off as irrelevant”.
Shirley Williams turned to the history of America and of the 1930s, drawing lessons for the current economic difficulties, including why American history has made her a supporter of coalition government in the UK.
Paddy Ashdown’s speech included a collection of his favourite liberal quotes and why the lessons contained in them are still highly relevant to contemporary liberal politicians, ending with this exhortation:
The thing that we have in our party title – liberal – goes back thousands of years. You should be proud of that. It should give us strength, and it should make us campaign even harder … Henry Gibson once said, ‘You do not go out to battle for freedom and truth wearing your best trousers’. Sometimes I think our party wears its best trousers too much. This is our heritage and it is also our message today – and we should be proud of it.
Here is the meeting in full to watch, and chances are it is much better than quite a few of those Christmas TV repeats you’ll otherwise find yourself watching…
In his speech yesterday Nick Clegg said, “We want a truly open society, in which every man and woman will be able to go as far as their talent, ambition and effort take them”.
When, earlier this year, David Cameron sanctioned the Conservative-dominated No to AV campaign to attack his until then unfailingly loyal deputy, he precipitated the end of coalition phase one. It had not meant to happen so quickly, but the Liberal Democrat reaction – the strategy of differentiation – soon followed.
The prime minister’s actions in Europe last week are a similar turning point. By pandering to the extremes in his party – by acting as Tory leader rather than prime minister, as Paddy Ashdown put it – David Cameron has forced Nick Clegg to once again rethink the Liberal Democrat approach …
David Evans Let's be honest here. The whole thing is a political carve up, by an instinctively centralising and authoritarian Labour party, emboldened by a huge parliament...
George Thomas Perhaps my most illiberal "opinion" is that automatic freedom of movement for immigrants is possibly a bad thing*. I remember speaking with a recent refugee who...
Chloe 'underlying emotions are fear, resentment and inadequacy relating to their own lives'
Are you saying the residents of Crowborough or Bicester who've protested ...
Andy Daer We're talking about two different things here. The reasons our potential workforce doesn't fit with what the economy and society require are one thing, and the ...
David Raw Nigel Lindsay raises some substantial questions about local democracy and accountability. I hope the parliamentary party will take the matter up as a matter of ...
Stephen Tall: The publication of the 
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Finlay J. Macdonald visits the Flannan Isles and their lighthouse
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Public urged to help complete landmark survey of Welsh chapels
David Evans 
George Thomas 
Chloe 
Andy Daer 
David Raw 