Tag Archives: general election 2015

Paul Walter

Whatever happened to the class of 2015? (1)

By Paul Walter | Sat 4th January 2020 - 1:32 pm


Embed from Getty Images

I suppose that it is very easy to get into the mindset that politics is everything in life. But it turns out that there is life outside of Westminster.

I read the other day that former Labour Deputy Leader, Tom Watson, is training to become a gym instructor.

That started me thinking about what had happened to our vast number of MPs from before the election in 2015.

Stephen Gilbert, former MP for St Austell and Newquay, for example. Whatever happened to him after he posted a “Gone Surfing” post-it note on his Twitter account in 2015? Well, it turns out he’s a teacher.

I then thought I’d better find about some of the others and, before I knew it, I was launching a vast spreadsheet and had started a huge task.

Anyway, here is the first part of my researches, starting in alphabetical order. If you spot any omissions or errors, please let me know in the comments below:

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Posted in Liberal History | 15 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Farron: We have a right to know terms of deal with the DUP

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 9th June 2017 - 6:09 pm

Tim Farron says that the British people have a right to know the terms of any deal made between the DUP and the Conservatives.

It is clear that the Prime Minister has done a deal with the DUP. She must now make clear what the terms of that deal are. The British people have a right to know.

The sort of government she forms will have profound implications for the Brexit negotiations and the future of the country, especially if it means she is taking sides in the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Theresa May has taken the British people

…

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NewsHound

Election expenses: Nine of the Tory MPs being investigated named

By NewsHound | Mon 9th May 2016 - 10:07 pm

Channel 4 News have now named nine of the Tory MPs being investigated by the police in connection with allegations of expenses irregularities:

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NewsHound

Devon & Cornwall police call in another force to investigate Tory election expense allegations

By NewsHound | Mon 9th May 2016 - 7:26 pm

The BBC reports:

A newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) is facing calls to “stand aside” while she is investigated by police.

Officers are examining Alison Hernandez’s role in submitting expenses for Tory MP Kevin Foster in 2015.

Conservative, Ms Hernandez, was elected as Devon and Cornwall’s PCC on Friday.

Her political opponents say there is a “conflict of interest”, but Ms Hernandez says she will have no contact with officers investigating expenses.

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James Gurling

Report into the 2015 General Election

By James Gurling | Fri 19th February 2016 - 10:30 am

General Election Review coverIn the aftermath of the May 2015 election, the FE tasked the Campaigns and Communications Committee with conducting a review. Today we are publishing our report and you can read it here.

Made up of myself, Sal Brinton, Candy Piercy, Martin Tod, Neil Fawcett, Tim Razzall, Jo Foster, and David Green, the review group received feedback from over 7500 party members.

In addition we conducted interviews with a wide range of people from MPs and former MPs to senior staff, PPCs, field organisers, agents and members of the House of Lords.

The size of the response was overwhelming, and despite the difficult subject matter, we witnessed a huge amount of optimism, hope, and belief in the capacity of the Party to sustain and rebuild itself in the months and years to come.

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Caron Lindsay

What do you do when you see a disastrous exit poll? Eat your hat, of course

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 19th January 2016 - 9:00 pm

Paddy Ashdown has been talking to the Guardian about that moment when he first saw the exit poll on Election Night.

rally paddy 01

To be honest I saw the poll at the bottom of the screen about 10 seconds before Andrew Neil turned to me and I thought to myself ‘oh shit’,” he said.

“Then I had an option. I could either say ‘that’s very interesting and wouldn’t it be troublesome for us’, in which case the entire Liberal Democrat night would fall apart from thereon … or I could brave it out and say ‘I’ll eat my hat’.

“I have in fact eaten five hats altogether , including one that was a proper hat, although pretty miniature, the rest made of more edible substances, which people keep presenting me with.

He discussed the impact of the polls and suggested that they had a big impact on the result of the election.

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Caron Lindsay

Jo Swinson: Tories preferred SNP MPs to Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 4th October 2015 - 8:47 am

The most successful parties in the UK at the moment are the Conservatives and the SNP, parties which are supposedly totally opposed in terms of values but who seem to be fuelling each others’ gains.

We know that Alex Salmond helped give oxygen to the Tories’ increasingly incredible and hyperbolic claims during the general election by hinting at demands he’d make of Ed Miliband. We know that the Tories spent a small fortune in seats they couldn’t win in Scotland in a strategy that could only have had the effect of ensuring that the SNP won.

There is a school of thought in this party that puts our atrocious result down to the Tory’s scaremongering about the SNP and Labour in coalition. Others say that this is a smokescreen and that actually our poor messaging was at fault. Actually, I think both were pretty strong factors and I think that we legitimised what the Tories were doing by running scared of it rather than calling it out for the nonsense it was.

The Herald reports Jo Swinson’s comments about the impact of the Tory campaign in her seat and others:

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Caron Lindsay

The article you must read on the General Election…or is it?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 8th September 2015 - 8:14 pm

I was tagged on Facebook today and told that I really should share this article from on the Liberal Democrats’ General Election campaign on this site. It was talked up by a fair few people whose judgement I respect but I have to say that when I read it, I was underwhelmed. There was much that I agreed with – the total inadequacy of our general election messaging for a start, but most of it seemed to me to be a mixture of stating the bleedin’ obvious, lazy assumptions and, to be honest, not much that we didn’t know already.

There were, of course some parts that made my blood boil. It bought heavily into the idea that we were a party of protest, for a start. For me, that is a ridiculous notion. We have always been about getting into government wherever we can, in councils, at national level and at UK level. We spent 8 years keeping Labour honest at Holyrood.

That successful coalition is mentioned in the article almost accusingly, as something we should have achieved at Westminster without any analysis of why such a comparison is a false one. For a start, the Holyrood coalition governed at a time of prosperity. There was stacks of cash around and we were able to do radical things with it. Taking over the economic reins during the worst economic crisis in 80 years is an entirely different challenge. Secondly, the electorate in Scotland largely gets the Parliament it asks for. At Westminster this is not the case. If we had a proportionate number of seats, we’d have had 140 MPs, not 57 and a much bigger voice in government. 

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Ed Moisson

Opinion: General election 2015 – The rise of UKIP and the Tory decapitation strategy

By Ed Moisson | Thu 2nd July 2015 - 9:16 am

Looking across the change in vote share at the General Election (analysing data from here) reveals that the Liberal Democrat vote was down 15.3 percentage points (pps) on average, but down slightly more in constituencies where the Lib Dems won in 2010 (15.7 pps). Excluding Scotland from these latter figures shows the Libs Dems were down by 16.8 percentage points.

The biggest winner was UKIP, both in England and Wales (up 10.9 pps) and in former Lib Dem constituencies (up 7.6 pps). The Liberal Democrats need to understand why so many previous voters switched to UKIP.

The Conservatives were up 1.1 pps overall, but actually down 0.5 pps in Lib Dem seats. However, in England and Wales this turns into a gain, albeit just 0.7 pps and again lower than their overall improvement. The Conservatives gained most ground against the Lib Dems in the South West, up 3.8 pps overall, and up 4.3 pps in seats the Lib Dems had previously won.

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David Thorpe

Opinion: The twin intellectual conceits that damned the Liberal Democrats’ election hopes in 2015

By David Thorpe | Mon 29th June 2015 - 11:13 am

 

History has the delightful habit of rendering as fools those who propagate the consensus view of a contemporary event, not because the consensus is ever totally wrong, but because it is comfortable and provides comfortable answers to snuggle up to, rather than looking deeper into the harsh eyes of reality and the bigger truths that are revealed.

And so it is with the Liberal Democrat post election postmortem. The consensus view huddles around the notion that it was only tuition fees and anger about the coalition that lost it, but we knew about those from a long way out and still felt we would get more than twenty seats. Two slivers of reality that the Lib Dems could not bring themselves to acknowledge drove our total of seats down further.

The first of these conceits, and the one that is both the least contentious and the most uncomfortable, is that we were too blasé in believing that our traditional campaign tactic of talking up the local and ignoring the national would work. It has of course been effective in the past, but it was hugely conceited to assume that rival parties would not be working on ways to crack that particular code. Of course the coalition made it easier for it to happen, but we signalled what we were to do, with rhetoric in the national media about our ’57 by-elections strategy’, signposting the direction of our campaign to all.

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Caron Lindsay

Guardian revelations about Clegg, Cable and the Lib Dem election catastrophe

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th June 2015 - 11:05 pm

Well, as the ballot papers get sent out in the leadership election, the Guardian publishes a series of revelations tonight about the last year of the coalition and the aftermath of the European elections.

Apparently Nick Clegg was ready to resign in the wake of the European elections and was talked out of it by, among others, Paddy Ashdown and Tim Farron. Certainly at the time, the feedback that Federal Executive members gave at our post Euro disaster meeting was that there was no appetite in the wider party for a leadership election, but they did want things to change.

Vince Cable, it transpires, did know about the Oakeshott polls.

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Caron Lindsay

Two points about the Guardian’s analysis of Labour’s campaign

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 7th June 2015 - 8:43 am

Patrick Wintour has written a long analysis of Labour’s General Election campaign. It outlines strategic misjudgements, disagreements and errors by Ed Miliband and makes a very interesting read. Before anyone says it for me, a similar account for the Liberal Democrats would also be enlightening. Most of us could write it ourselves and I suspect that there would be remarkable unanimity about the ineffectiveness of our national messaging, our positioning as a “none of the above” party and the very odd “stability, unity and decency” message of the last few days.

Two things particularly strike me about Wintour’s article. The first is that women are pretty much invisible. Lucy Powell, Labour’s campaign chair, is mentioned only because of a letter she wrote to the BBC complaining about coverage during the election. Harriet Harman, the Deputy Leader, only seems to come in to the picture when she’s waiting for some shred of good news in studios on election night. All the key players seem to have been men. This is exactly the same as it was during the Brown era when Harriet Harman was treated pretty much as an irrelevance. I’m not saying that they would have won the election had they listened to the women, because there is no indication that the women were getting it either. Of course, the ease with which Yvette Cooper seems to be distancing herself from everything Labour said during the election campaign is interesting. Did she put her views forward during it and have them rejected by the cabal at the centre of the campaign?

Similarly in our campaign, men seem to have dominated the decision making. Olly Grender was certainly there doing great practical ground war stuff, but it did seem sometimes as if Clegg, Alexander and Laws were just making stuff up on the bus as the campaign went along and the rest of the operation was playing catch-up.

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Ed Fordham

Opinion: On being beaten

By Ed Fordham | Thu 14th May 2015 - 7:35 pm

After hours of counting on the morning on Friday 7th May 2010 it was announced for the world to see that Glenda Jackson was re-elected elected as the Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Kilburn.  Hidden beneath this was my own result where I lost by 842.  A close result, except that I was in third place – in 2010 the best placed third placed loser in Britain I’m told.

In most of the accounts of the 2010 General Election H&K as it was dubbed, is listed as the seat the LD’s hoped to win – Nick Clegg had launch his campaign there.  I was cited as a close friend (one paper even said I was his best man – I wasn’t!).

Indeed I remember at the count when the Conservative candidate went back to his team – he said “She’s won”. One of his campaign asked hastily – “and Fordham?” – “he’s third came the reply” – “Yes” they cheered.

But for me as I walked home and for the days afterwards it was more than losing.  I’m a Liberal Democrat – I’m used to losing counts.  But losing as a candidate it is highly personal.

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Nicola Wilson

Opinion: Dear Nick…

By Nicola Wilson | Sun 10th May 2015 - 8:33 pm

Dear Nick

Can I start by saying that possibly unlike the rest of the party right now, I actually feel a surge of optimism.

I have been a LibDem voter since the last election and an active supporter for all of 18 months.

I started off sceptically. My husband had found a party that mirrored his values and so had divorced Labour and set his sights on the LibDems.

I was a little overwhelmed.  I hadn’t been indoctrinated at my mother’s knee so felt something of an outsider who didn’t know the history, in jokes, culture, or people.

However when I attended conference and actually experienced policy making first hand things started to change.  Here was genuine debate, all angles considered and joy of joys voted on by party members!  I had a voice!

So I supported my husband when he took the decision to stand against George Osborne, despite him already having a demanding full time job, 3 hour commute and not a hope in hell of winning!    

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Lauren Jones

Opinion: My post election promise

By Lauren Jones | Sun 10th May 2015 - 6:40 pm

We’re really struggling right now, and I know that. Even the sorry few who managed to keep their seats are looking at a pretty rough time over the next 5 years. 2015 has been a bad year for us, as liberals, so what can we do to fix that?

One of the best things about the Lib Dems is that we know we can bounce back in the face of adversity. Yes, it’s not been as tough as this in a long time, but we’re made of sterner stuff. We’re not going to roll over and let this be it.

I spent far too many hours out on doorsteps recently, in the gorgeous sunshine and the pouring rain, chapping on doors and persuading lovely people to vote for us. And I learned a lot. I learned that there are some die-hard supporters out there – some who will not change their vote, the vote that their fathers and even grandfathers made all their lives. And sometimes that works in our favour (yay – a life-long Lib Dem) and sometimes it doesn’t (“I’ll vote Labour like my father before me”, a favourite line from my grandmother of all people). These people are never going to change, although my gran has reliably informed me that she would vote for me if I ever stood as a candidate, even as a  liberal!

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Paul Reynolds

Opinion: It’s not about left or right

By Paul Reynolds | Sun 10th May 2015 - 5:10 pm

About an hour after Nick Clegg resigned I received a long letter by email on behalf of SLF essentially blaming the ‘Orangebookers’ for the poor Lib Dem results.

I would like to suggest that all sections of the party consider the possibility that it was not an issue of left or right. Maybe neither the left or right of the party were to blame, but that, with benefit of hindsight, there were other factors. My top 5. Other views ?

1. Obviously being in Coalition was difficult especially with our more anti-Tory supporters and Labour-facing seats…Tory ‘bedroom tax’ and ‘work-ready’ interviews for the disabled are among the most tricky on the doorstep. LD left & right had failed to counter the obvious opprobrium arising from these & other Tory policies – both in policy adjustment/veto AND in campaigning.

2. The ‘in between the two’ strategy was too negative …”vote for us because we will stop others doing stuff”, rather than what WE wanted to do post-May 2015. This was a hard sell to make pithy. ‘Stopping extremes’ was weak, since most did not see Tory or Labour as extreme.

3. We countered ‘stop Labour/SNP’ with ‘stop Tory/UKIP’ in Tory-facing seats. No-one believed however that UKIP could be coalition partners with one or two seats, on the doorstep. This strategy was a dud and left us vulnerable, and without a more credible response.

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Phil Reilly

Opinion: The next 5 years will bring a much greater appreciation of what we did in coalition

By Phil Reilly | Sat 9th May 2015 - 3:30 pm

For the last seven years, I have had the privilege of working for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

So I’m sure you can understand that the last 48 hours have been pretty tough. Whatever you think of the party, our politics or the decisions we took, there are currently thousands of individuals who have given blood, sweat and tears in the name of our cause who have been bluntly and brutally rejected at the ballot box.

It is a tragedy for the party and for the political cause we believe in: the belief that Britain is at its best when it is open-minded, open-hearted, tolerant and generous.

My job until Friday morning was to be Nick’s speechwriter. It’s the best job I have ever had and will probably ever have. I cannot begin to express my admiration for a man who did the right thing, took a vicious public lashing for it every day and took it all with good grace, good humour and the conviction to keep going because we had a vital job to do.

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg resigns as leader

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th May 2015 - 12:22 pm

Nick Clegg has said that he needs to take responsibility for the “crushing” election result for the Liberal Democrats and he resigned with great dignity.

He said that the election had been crushing, much more so than he expected and he had to take responsibility for that. He then went on to quote Edinburgh Western candidate Alex Cole Hamilton’s tweet after the 2011 Scottish election. Alex said that if the price of his defeat was that no child would spend a night in an immigration detention centre again, then he accepted it with all his heart. Nick gave a passionate defence of the good things we’d done in government and said that he thought history would judge us more kindly than last night.

He then talked passionately about the need for British liberalism. He acknowledged it wasn’t faring well against identity politics and the politics of fear but it was really needed.

Fear and grievance have won. Liberalism has lost. But it is more precious than ever and we must keep fighting for it.

It is easy to imagine there is no road back. There is.

This is a very dark hour for our party but we cannot and will not allow decent liberal values to be extinguished overnight.

We’ll update this post with reaction to Nick’s resignation. I’ll write at greater length about his leadership when I’ve had some sleep, but I have huge admiration for the man. He has borne the difficulties of the last five years with dignity, good grace, humour and resilience. He has been ridiculed by vested interests from left and right. You could argue that any Liberal Democrat leader in such a position would have faced exactly the same. He’s made mistakes, from the Rose Garden to secret courts to the bedroom tax to the one that everyone associates with him. Here’s his statement in full.

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Caron Lindsay

9 am update: Where are we now?

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th May 2015 - 9:19 am

There  are just two seats with Liberal Democrat interest left to declare and I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we thougth we were going to get anywhere with either of them. Tessa Munt’s Wells and Andrew George’s St Ives look like they will fall to the Tories.

Update: actually 3 – I forgot Berwick. There may be a possibility there, which would be great but I’m not overly hopeful, it has to be said.

So, our parliamentary party is:

Nick Clegg

Tim Farron

Norman Lamb

Greg Mulholland

Tom Brake

John Pugh

Mark Williams

Alistair Carmichael

The psychological effects of the loss of our heartlands will affect us for some time to come.

We will, of ocurse, need to evaaluate what went wrong, how we change and refresh our campaigning style and make ourselves relevant in a very difficult and challenging political environment.

The worst thing that could have happened has happened – a Tory overall majority. People who think the last five years have been a Tory government will soon see what they are like, particularly with their right wing unleashed to cause havoc. There will be a great need for liberalism as they seek to strip our human rights laws back to nothing and isolate us internationally.

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The Voice

Jo Swinson’s SNP rival has row with Lib Dem on Twitter – then complains to their employer

By The Voice | Wed 6th May 2015 - 9:59 pm

So, you have a row with someone on Twitter. Most of us would just shrug it off and get on with our lives. Not John Nicolson, the SNP candidate up against Jo Swinson.

After a Twitter exchange with Federal Policy Committee member Belinda Brooks-Gordon, he blocked her and then took the unusual step of writing to her employer.

The Daily Record has the story:

East Dunbartonshire hopeful John Nicolson sent a bizarre email to the master of Birbeck College in London after the fiery Twitter exchange with Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon.

The lecturer in forensic psychology is standing for the Lib Dems in the Cities of London and Westminster seat and had voiced her support for Nicolson’s opponent Jo Swinson.

Brooks-Gordon had referred to former BBC journalist Nicolson’s property portfolio in London and suggested he could return to the city and questioned his credentials as a local candidate.

Nicolson joined the Twitter exchange to rubbish the claim.

But he did not let the matter rest there and decided to send off an email to Brooks-Gordon’s boss at the college, which is part of the University of London.

Belinda made a very good point, asking what he would do if a constituent disagreed with him or criticised him. Would he be complaining to their boss, too?

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Caron Lindsay

The best UK government of my lifetime

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th May 2015 - 7:55 pm

I kicked off the campaign with this post and I thought I’d re-run it the night before we head to the polls. I wrote a book chapter about the coalition in the shadow of a rollercoaster. That’s how the last five years have felt. There have been moments when I’ve winced and moments when I have been immensely proud of our ministers. All in all, though, Britain is in a much better place than it would have been without us. All that horrible stuff you see in the Tory manifesto about banning non-specified non violent extremism, all the stuff about taking all benefits from young people, all the illiberal, immigrant-bashing, poor-demonising, rich-enriching nonsense wouldn’t in their manifesto. They would already be law. I hope that the government elected tomorrow is a force for economic fairness and stability, transformational political change and has an open and internationalist approach. If there are Liberal Democrats in it, it will tick all of these boxes. Anyway, here are my thoughts from five weeks ago. 

This post will be open to new and infrequent commenters. 

I’m not going to lie, when we went into coalition with the Tories, I did not feel comfortable with it. Working with the party who had destroyed the country I grew up during the 80s  in was never going to be easy. It’s not about comfort or ease, though. It’s about doing good and enacting liberal values. We’ve made mistakes – howlers, even. Who hasn’t? Can you say that you’ve got through the last five years error free? We have much to show for it. For every child who hasn’t had to spend months in Yarl’s Wood, for every disadvantaged child who has new opportunities at school, for those who benefit from reforms to mental health, for those who have workplace pensions, for pensioners benefitting from the triple lock, for those people across the world who benefit from our aid. for those who are now free to marry the people they love, it’s been worth it. Despite all the constraints on us having only 8% of the MPs and a fifth of the government, we have made a very strong, liberal mark.

Despite everything, this coalition has been the best UK government of my lifetime. That’s quite a long time, however much I like to pretend that I’m a young person. Certainly the likes of Blair, Thatcher and Callaghan didn’t set the bar very high, but we’ve achieved a lot. It’s been a roller coaster and I’m far from satisfied with everything it’s done, but I am incredibly proud of Lib Dem ministers, among them:

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The Voice

The final Liberal Democrat party election broadcast – all 3 versions: It’s decision time between self-interest and grievance or Lib Dem fairness, tolerance and decency

By The Voice | Wed 6th May 2015 - 6:32 pm

Here’s the party’s final party election broadcast, It’s decision time now for all the people we’ve met in the series. The film argues that Liberal Democrats have brought compassion and fairness, built on consensus and co-operation, to Britain.

Your vote will be the difference between a government of self-interest and grievance or a coalition of tolerance and decency.

Here’s the Scottish version and listen to who is voicing it. There’s more emphasis on what we stopped the Tories doing.

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The Voice

Manatee needs your help!

By The Voice | Wed 6th May 2015 - 4:56 pm

Look at this beautiful manatee! Isn’t he adorable?

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NewsHound

LibLink: Stephen Tall: Two signs which show the Tories think they will fail (again)

By NewsHound | Wed 6th May 2015 - 2:41 pm

Stephen Tall has been writing for the Times’ Red Box blog. He reckons that it’s been clear all along that the Tories have known perfectly well they won’t get a majority, for two reasons:

The first piece of evidence is the Conservative manifesto itself, an unfunded wish-list which vows to turn the budget deficit into a surplus, while simultaneously promising tax-cuts for everyone, more money for the NHS, freezing rail fares — all to be paid for by unspecified welfare cuts and, fingers crossed, economic growth. How else to explain this unsquareable circle other than as a bartering tactic for future coalition negotiations?

And the endorsement of the Tory press for us? It’s not a coincidence:

The second piece of evidence is the endorsement of the Lib Dems by usually Conservative-leaning newspapers in their traditional “If we had a vote” leader columns. Given the battering meted out to the party by the press these past five years, most of us had written off these write-ups. Instead, The Times, The Sunday Times, the FT, the Economist, and, yes, even The Sun, have all called on their readers to consider voting tactically for the Lib Dems where the party’s fighting Labour.

It’d be naïve to think they’ve been won over by our policy “red lines” or Clegg’s distinctly upbeat campaign – they’re making nice because they think it’s the most likely route to the continuation of some form of Conservative-led government.

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Opinion: What have the Liberal Democrats done for us and can we afford to put our trust in them again?

By Ruth Mallon | Wed 6th May 2015 - 11:55 am

Like so many past Liberal Democrat voters, I have found this election campaign frustrating and demoralising. At the last election our party managed to get into a seat of power but didn’t they just throw it all away when they broke their pledge on tuition fees? What is the point in voting if our wishes are cast aside at the first hurdle?

But the right to vote has been hard fought and is a fundamental responsibility for all citizens. I have been seriously contemplating writing ‘none of the above’ on my voting slip. But no, voting is such an important responsibility. A choice needs to be made.

Watching the televised broadcasts and following the campaign on the radio and television has not been helpful. Politics is so muddied with spin. I needed to cut the crap and ditch the spin. We all know how the Liberal Democrats have failed us but I decided to research the Liberal Democrat Manifesto from 2010 to see what they have actually succeeded in achieving…

Increase the income tax threshold to £10,000. This is huge! It is a much better way of boosting the economy and supporting lower income families than having a higher minimum wage or putting up benefits.

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The Voice

Former OxWAb Green candidate backs Lib Dem Layla Moran

By The Voice | Wed 6th May 2015 - 8:45 am

Good news for the Lib Dem’s Layla Moran in Oxford West and Abingdon. The Green candidate from 2010 has endorsed her. The Cherwell has the story. 

Chris Goodall, who ran as the Green candidate for the area in the 2010 General Election, has written to residents urging them to vote for Layla Moran of the Liberal Democrats, rather than the Greens’ Larry Sanders.

In the letter, he explained, “If the UK had proportional representation, I’d have no hesitation giving Green candidate Larry Sanders my vote this time. But we don’t.”

He went on to call the seat “ultra-marginal”, saying that no one except that Conservatives and the Lib Dems “stands the remotest chance of winning”.

He continued, “Those of us who want to see a fairer, more tolerant and more equal society have to vote for Layla even if it is against our party loyalties.”

Despite the tactical nature of his endorsement, however, he also had high praise for Moran herself, calling her “a thoughtful and energetic individual”, and opining, “Parliament needs far more people like her with a background in science. And her experience of living in different countries would help reduce the extraordinary insularity we often see in the House of Commons.”

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg wants to turn Britain into a cycling nation – and earns praise from Chris Boardman

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 5th May 2015 - 5:25 pm

I found out about this not because it came in in a Google alert but because a family member, who has nothing to do with politics, shared it on Facebook. That family member lives in a  key Liberal Democrat seat so I hope he’s going to do the right thing and vote for Danny on Thursday. It’s the only thing to do in Inverness if you really don’t want an SNP MP as I know he doesn’t.

This family member is a really hardcore cyclist. Ten days ago he took part in the Mallorca 312. That’s where people cycle all the way round the island of Mallorca. The first thing they encounter is a flipping great mountain range that goes down almost the entire west coast. He did the whole thing in under 14 hors, too, which was incredible, especially when you think he’s even more middle aged (by 2 months and 13 days) than I am.

Anyway, suffice to say he was impressed with Nick’s plans as revealed in Cycling Weekly and praised by none other than Chris Boardman:

The network asked parties to allocate five per cent of Britain’s transport budget to cycling and set a target for cycling to account for 10 per cent of all trips.

The Liberal Democrats are the only party to nail their colours to the mast and pledge to implement everything the network is asking for,” said Boardman, British Cycling’s policy advisor after Clegg confirmed he is ‘very keen’ to implement the recommendations.

It’s encouraging to hear that Nick Clegg is passionate about Britain becoming a cycling nation to rival our European neighbours.

The difference is that he is actually bold enough to put some numbers and targets against this aim with measures that could have a colossal impact on how people get around.

If the Liberal Democrats form part of a new coalition we will certainly be pressing them to ensure that these ambitions form a central part of the government’s transport strategy.”

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Caron Lindsay

As if Scottish Labour weren’t in enough trouble….

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 5th May 2015 - 4:15 pm

This is what popped into my inbox at 13:34 this afternoon:

Labour 72 hours email

 

72 hours? That’s Friday! A bit late for those few Labour voters who remain to get to the polls. 

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The Voice

Watch: Paddy’s Team Talk for the final few days: Where we need to win, we’re winning and what’s more the Tories know it…

By The Voice | Tue 5th May 2015 - 3:07 pm

As activists all over the country pull up their hoods to protect them from the torrential rain, Paddy pops up to say thanks, to remind us to keep going till 1o pm on Thursday and reminds us why we are doing it – for stability, decency and unity in our country.

He also reminds us that the Tories know that we are winning where we need to be and points out that at this stage in the last election they said they only had to win 14 seats, this time they are saying it’s 23 but we know it’s more.

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The Voice

Norman Baker’s genius response to David Cameron: David, I need you to stop sending dishonest and patronising letters

By The Voice | Tue 5th May 2015 - 12:16 pm

Norman Baker by Liberal DemocratsThe Tories don’t seem to have got the hang of excluding the opposition from their target mailings. This may be a good thing as we wouldn’t have had the joy of reading our Norman Baker’s fantastic and hilarious response to a missive he received from David Cameron, in whose government he served until last November.

Here’s the Prime Minister’s letter:

David Cameron Letter

And here, in full, is Norman’s pithy response. Enjoy.

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