Tag Archives: featured

Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Tax and public support

By Mark Pack | Thu 9th December 2010 - 8:54 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. This time it is a paper from David Brockington (University of Plymouth) and Todd Donovan (Western Washington University) looking at the political impact of increasing taxes.

After reviewing the work of others in this area, they focus in on council tax levels and election results in English local councils, comparing the performance of Labour and Conservative against changes in council tax levels:

We have tested if governments that presided over marginal increases in existing taxes lost vote share and seat share in the subsequent election. We find that

…

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Also tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Chris Davies

Now is the time to help in Oldham East and Saddleworth

By Chris Davies | Sat 4th December 2010 - 10:55 am

As you may have heard on the news, High Court judges have dismissed the appeal by former Labour MP, Phil Woolas, against his conviction for illegal practices in the General Election.

There will now be a by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth with a likely polling day of January 13th.

Last May, Elwyn Watkins lost by just 103 votes because of the lies told by Phil Woolas that have been condemned by the Court.  A couple of days ago I canvassed one couple who told me: “We we’re going to vote Liberal Democrat, but when we read what Labour were saying about your …

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

The politics of windmills

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th November 2010 - 8:56 am

I recently spent a couple of days visiting some of England’s surviving windmills with a couple of friends. Though it was a holiday rather than a deliberate exercise in political education, two political points came out clearly.

One, which I’ve blogged about previously, is how the windmill not only used to be a key part of the English landscape but also, in its horizontal axis / vertical sail form, is an English invention.

So windmills not only are a British (or perhaps more accurately English) tradition, they are also an example of technical inventiveness of which we can be proud. And yet …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

22 Days in May by David Laws – book review

By Mark Pack | Mon 29th November 2010 - 10:27 am

Many insider accounts have already appeared of the events retold in David Laws’s book 22 Days in May: The Birth of the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition. It is therefore one of the book’s strengths that not only is it written in a lively style which gives some freshness to the now familiar sequence of events but it also adds many new insights.

Although only briefly mentioned by Laws himself, perhaps the most important is how much the Liberal Democrats owe to Chris Huhne. In April, just before the second TV debate, I wrote,

It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on

…

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Posted in Books | Also tagged , , , , and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: What is fairness?

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th November 2010 - 8:58 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

In his recently published book, 22 Days in May, David Laws writes,

The coalition needs to redefine what fairness means. Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line, whatever their personal circumstances. Fairness means giving people the educational and employment opportunities to ensure that they are not dependent on an over-mighty state and trapped in dead-end lives.

Agree? Disagree?

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 48 Comments
Mark Pack

Get them more involved!

By Mark Pack | Fri 26th November 2010 - 8:54 am

Since the general election I’ve been to speak at fifteen local party events and two trends have struck me. First, the increase in the party’s headline membership figures comes over on the ground, with new faces turning up at events and new people interested in helping. Second, and less promising, is the heavy reliance on only two questions when someone new pops up: “can you deliver leaflets?” or, if they look really keen, “do you want to be on the local party executive?”

Those are both good questions – and the enthusiasm for getting people directly involved with leafleting is a …

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Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments
Helen Duffett

In Government for all the right reasons: the David Laws interview

By Helen Duffett | Tue 23rd November 2010 - 4:41 pm

Yesterday I interviewed David Laws, on the day his book 22 Days in May was published. I asked him about the book, his views on the Coalition Government, as well as about the focus of his current work, plus his thoughts on the Ireland bailout.

In the introduction to the book, David Laws writes that its purpose is to “inform those who are interested in this important period of British politics, and to make sure that an accurate account is left of what really happened in May 2010, before memories fade, myths grow and evidence is lost.”

Why have you published …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 40 Comments
Helen Duffett

Fifteen new Liberal Democrat Peers appointed

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th November 2010 - 11:33 am

Fifteen new Liberal Democrat working peers have just been announced…

  • Dr Sarah (Sal) Brinton – Executive Director of the Association of Universities in the East of England

  • Dee Doocey OBE – Chair of the London Assembly

  • Qurban Hussain – Deputy Group Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Luton Borough Council

  • Judith Jolly – Chair of Executive Committee of Liberal Democrats in Devon and Cornwall

  • Susan Kramer – former Liberal Democrat MP

  • Raj Loomba – businessman and campaigner for widows’ rights

  • Jonathan Marks – commercial and family law QC with specialist interest in human rights and constitutional reform

  • Monroe Palmer OBE – Liberal

    • …

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    Posted in Parliament | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 77 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Does the alphabet matter when it comes to Liberal Democrat internal elections?

    By Mark Pack | Thu 18th November 2010 - 8:54 am

    There is consistent evidence that in public elections people with names higher up the alphabet, and hence higher up the ballot paper, do slightly better than people lower down. It is not a major effect, though in a marginal seat a small difference can mean you win rather than lose, and seems to be strongest where ballot papers are more complicated, e.g. if all three seats in a council ward are up for election.

    So it is no great surprise that after the Liberal Democrat federal committee and interim peers panel election results were declared on Saturday, several people made comment about how the results looked to benefit people higher up the ballot paper. The large number of candidates means these were just the sort of contest where you might expect an effect to come into play, and with the final few places on committees or panels often decided by small margins, there might be an important prompt here for reform.

    But what does the evidence say?

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    Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 16 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    EXCLUSIVE: How party members rate the performances of leading Lib Dems

    By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th November 2010 - 10:45 am

    Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of a variety of key issues, and what you make of the Lib Dems’ and Government’s performance to date. Almost 600 party members have responded, and we’ve been publishing the full results of our survey over the past few days.

    Today, in the final part of our survey, we focus on the performances of the leading lights of the Liberal Democrats – those of our MPs in the cabinet, those occupying ministerial positions, and other leading Lib Dems:

    How would you rate the performances of the …

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    Posted in LDV Members poll | 23 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition, the Lib Dems’ direction, and Nick Clegg’s leadership

    By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th November 2010 - 4:57 pm

    Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the contest for the party presidency, the Comprehensive Spending Review, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Almost 600 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

    What Lib Dem members think about the party and its leadership


    Do you think, as a whole, the Liberal Democrats are on the right course or on the wrong track?     (Comparison with August’s figures.)

      65% (69%) – The right course
      23% (17%) – The wrong track
      11% (15%) – Don’t know / No

    …

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    Posted in LDV Members poll | 123 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    More results: party committees and interim peers panel

    By Helen Duffett | Sat 13th November 2010 - 1:20 pm

    Liberal Democrat Federal Conference representatives have voted for members of party committees for 2011-2012 and members of the panel from which future Liberal Democrat nominees for the House of Lords will be drawn.

    The results are as follows:

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    Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , , , and | 6 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Lib Dem Presidential Contest: Result

    By Helen Duffett | Sat 13th November 2010 - 12:19 pm

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    Posted in News and Party Presidency | Also tagged and | 26 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    LDV survey: What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition’s economic policies, housing benefit, and the CSR

    By Stephen Tall | Fri 12th November 2010 - 2:28 pm

    Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the contest for the party presidency, the Comprehensive Spending Review, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Almost 600 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results over the next few days.

    What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition’s economic policies

    Which of these statements comes closest to your opinion about how the Coalition should go about reducing the deficit?

      45% – It is important to cut spending quickly even if this means immediate job losses, because it will be better

    …

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    Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , and | 36 Comments
    Hilary Stephenson

    Oldham East & Saddleworth: It’s already on

    By Hilary Stephenson | Wed 10th November 2010 - 7:27 pm

    We currently expect a parliamentary by-election for the Oldham East & Saddleworth constituency to take place well before Christmas. This will be one of the shorter by-election campaigns we have seen but it is important that people in Oldham are not left unrepresented after what has happened there.

    Within 24 hours of Phil Woolas being found guilty of breaking election law last Friday, we had a new campaign HQ up and running. There is an experienced campaign team already in place: veterans of many victories, including the last by-election in this area, Littleborough and Saddleworth in 1995.

    My experience of by-elections (and …

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    Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged and | 14 Comments
    Mark Pack

    How to defeat Al Qaeda

    By Mark Pack | Wed 10th November 2010 - 8:55 am

    The cover of Bruce Riedel’s The Search for Al Qaeda shows a group of armed men working their way up a hillside overlooking a beautiful valley that stretches away to rolling hills. It captures the wonder and the tragedy of Afghanistan in one frame.

    The book itself is similarly crisp, packing a wide-ranging history of Al Qaeda and its key figures into only 150 pages of moderate size print. It is penned by an ex-CIA man of thirty years service who was frequently closely involved with the figures and events painted in the book, but not so closely as to make the reader fear it is more a justification of his career than a fair account of events.

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    Posted in Books and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 3 Comments
    Paul Burstow

    Paul Burstow writes… We are taking radical action to deliver better health and care

    By Paul Burstow | Tue 9th November 2010 - 11:05 am

    Much has been made of the tough choices Liberal Democrats have had to make since we entered government. But not enough has been made of the victories we’ve gained. Unlike the last Labour administration, this coalition is delivering on its promises to reform health and social care for the better.

    Let’s start with social care. The funding of care and support is one of the most urgent of all social policy issues we face as a society. Make no mistake; the way we organise and pay for care for older and disabled people is a broken. That’s why we’re taking action …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 16 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    Why a part of me is cheering on Rupert Murdoch

    By Stephen Tall | Fri 5th November 2010 - 11:57 am

    At face value, the figures released by News International this week showing that The Times and Sunday Times had registered some 105,000 customer sales since its paywall was erected in July sounded like good news. As analysts attempted to decipher the company’s ‘fuzzy numbers‘, doubts began to creep in.

    Understanding those paywall figures

    The reality appears to be that roughly 50,000 individual users have subscribed to gain access to the newspapers’ content, whether online or through the iPad app or the Kindle edition. The other c.50,000 customer sales are for single-use or pay-as-you-go access to the website, and will …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , and | 8 Comments
    Mark Pack

    How the legacy of hereditary political power still shapes our political systems

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

    The Australian Parliament building in Canberra is a gem of democratic political architecture. Australia’s capital city was facing the need to expand and replace its existing Parliament building. But where to put the new one? The old one had deliberately been placed at the foot of the hill in Canberra, so that politicians would not be looking down on the public. Now the only suitable free space left was on top of that hill. The solution was clever: chop the top off the hill, build the new Parliament and then stick the top of the hill back on top of …

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    Posted in Books, Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged and | Leave a comment
    Mark Pack

    Market Research Society rules that it is ethical to poll about false personal allegations

    By Mark Pack | Wed 3rd November 2010 - 8:55 am

    The Market Research Standards Board (MRSB) has cleared YouGov of all the complaints made about its polling of 16-19 April during the general election – but in so doing has raised a big question about what now counts as ‘ethical’ polling. The MRSB’s ruling gives the green light to pollsters asking questions on behalf of their clients which contain false allegations about a person, even if those allegations have not previously been made in public.

    The Market Research Society Code of Conduct (to which YouGov subscribes, along with other British political pollsters), states that “researchers shall be … honest” and …

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    Posted in News and Polls | Also tagged , , , , and | 6 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Kramer versus Farron: what sort of President does the party want?

    By Mark Pack | Tue 2nd November 2010 - 7:27 am

    Party members are unusually lucky with the current contest for President of the Liberal Democrats. It is rare for there to be two credible, high-profile candidates standing at the same time but this time there is a real choice between two such people.

    Some differences between Susan Kramer and Tim Farron were obvious from the start of the campaign and are swaying some voters, depending on their views on matters such as how important (or not) it is for one of the party’s most prominent posts to be held by a woman, whether an MP has enough time to do the job, whether a current MP from outside London or an ex-MP from London is more outside the Westminster bubble and so on.

    However, two further differences between the candidates have come out clearly during the campaign.

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    Posted in Party Presidency | Also tagged and | 18 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Role reversal for the Liberal Democrats

    By Mark Pack | Wed 27th October 2010 - 8:55 am

    Hopi Sen has blogged thoughtfully several times recently about the risk to Labour of slipping into focusing on the tactics without getting the strategy right. In Labour’s case that means, for example, an undue focus on how to next best shout – “those cuts are awful!” rather than working out how to deal with the public mostly blaming Labour for the need to cut in the first place. Tactical triumphs at PMQs only gets you so far; rebuilding a reputation for economic competence is what is needed to win – as William Hague found in his time as Conservative …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 10 Comments
    Helen Duffett

    Making short political videos: three top tips

    By Helen Duffett | Tue 26th October 2010 - 12:18 pm

    Candidates and councillors find videos a real complement to their other campaign methods and, done well, they can be a powerful way for voters to get to know issues and personalities. They’re especially useful in internal party elections where candidates may not be able to meet all of their large electorate in person. They’re also great for campaigners at a local level, where there’s usually a lack of good quality information on hyperlocal matters.

    Recently I’ve noticed a surge of interest from people who are keen to try it themselves, so here are my top tips for making your own short political videos, and they all begin with “V”.

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    Posted in Online politics | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
    Mark Pack

    I agree with Adrian Sanders and 22 Conservative MPs

    By Mark Pack | Tue 26th October 2010 - 10:27 am

    Yesterday in Parliament Adrian Sanders and 22 Conservative MPs voted to reduce the maximum number of ministers allowed in the Commons in line with the forthcoming reduction in the number of MPs:

    If the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom decreases below 650, the limit on the number of holders of Ministerial offices entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons referred to in section 2(1) must be decreased by at least a proportionate amount.

    ParliamentReducing the number of ministers is something I’ve supported …

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    Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged , , , , , , and | 10 Comments

    Opinion: New Labour, New Machiavelli?

    By David Rundle | Sat 23rd October 2010 - 4:55 pm

    What has already become the best-known anecdote in Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli is a snippet of conversation he had with his then master, Tony Blair. Powell asked him how he could put up with having a three-hour conversation with Gordon Brown, to which Blair responded by asking him whether he had ever been in love. ‘“Not with a man”, I replied’ — and we know he was lying. This book is testimony to his devotion to Blair.

    It is, for sure, a curious billet doux -– less like a bunch of roses than a handful of thorns. Comparing, however …

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    Posted in Books and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Our Christmas presents guide

    By Mark Pack | Tue 19th October 2010 - 10:26 am

    Wondering what to get people for Christmas presents? Here’s a selection of what various Liberal Democrat bloggers suggest:

    Jonathan Calder recommends Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young: “Anyone with an interest in folk music will find this book engrossing. Young traces the rise of the genre from Cecil Sharp and other Edwardian song collectors like Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Butterworth, through the post-war radialism of Ewan MacColl and Charles Parker, to its electronic heyday in the hands of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. He finds the visionary spirit living on in unlikely artists such as …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 8 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    “Loathe this government if you will…” – 4 points following on from Julian Glover’s must-read Guardian article

    By Stephen Tall | Mon 18th October 2010 - 7:45 pm

    Julian Glover, writing for The Guardian’s Comment Is Free, puts forward a trenchantly pro-Coalition, pro-Clegg line — one that’s guaranteed to attract the ire both of Guardianistas, and of some Voice readers, too. This excerpt offers the substnance of his argument:

    Loathe this government if you will, but at least acknowledge that neither side in it got all it wanted at the election and that neither has sold out all of its principles. The strangeness of co-operation exposes its component parts to the easiest of attacks: of promising one thing before an election and doing another after it. But as

    …

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    Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 100 Comments
    Stephen Tall

    EXCLUSIVE: What Lib Dem members think about Browne and tuition fees

    By Stephen Tall | Sat 16th October 2010 - 8:15 am

    Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem party members think of the party’s reponse to The Browne Report into higher education funding and student finance in England. Some 567 party members have responded, and we’ll be publishing the full results of our survey this weekend.

    How you want higher education to be funded

    First, we asked: How would you prefer higher education is funded?

    Here’s what you told us:

    • 54% – Through general taxation (as was the case before 1998)
    • 26% – Tuition fees paid by students after they have graduated according to their earnings

    …

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    Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , , and | 41 Comments
    Mark Pack

    General Sir Richard Dannatt’s verdict: more cash, more time please

    By Mark Pack | Fri 15th October 2010 - 10:25 am

    General Sir Richard Dannatt’s memoir of his time in the British army manages somehow to be both fascinating and banal.

    Fascinating because of the detail he provides to back-up his severe criticism of Ministry of Defence civil servants and politicians, Labour ones in particular but Gordon Brown above all, for failing to fund the army sufficiently for the jobs they demanded of it. Banal because, despite his long experience of counter-insurgency and peace-keeping operations starting with Northern Ireland in the 1970s, his repeated message through the book is one of ‘give the army more money, give the army more time’.

    …

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    Posted in Books | Also tagged | 8 Comments
    Mark Pack

    Clegg secures £7 billion extra to fund education for the most disadvantaged – from pre-school through to university

    By Mark Pack | Fri 15th October 2010 - 6:25 am

    Just as plays have a classic three-act structure, so too do tricky political decisions: first you rule out a potentially popular alternative, then you put out the bad news and finally you sweeten the pill as you try to avert people’s worst fears.

    Last weekend saw act one on the tuition fees message, with Vince Cable taking to email to rule out a graduate tax – and trying to pre-empt Labour support for it by emphasising that party’s own previous opposition to the idea. (Given the subsequent news of now Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson’s continued opposition to a …

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    Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 32 Comments
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