Tag Archives: humour

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

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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Newspuppy

It’s the knitwear election in Edinburgh West

By Newspuppy | Sun 3rd May 2015 - 1:45 pm

People say that the election in Scotland is pretty hostile. They are right a lot of the time, but in Edinburgh West, where Mike Crockart’s campaign HQ is next door to the SNP base, things are much more civilised, as this Twitter exchange between Mike’s campaign manager and the SNP candidate Michelle Thompson shows:

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Newspuppy

The news story of the day

By Newspuppy | Sat 2nd May 2015 - 7:48 pm

Prince William and Nick Clegg have chosen very similar attire today. Quite uncanny.

Nick Clegg Sheffield

 

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 24 Comments
Newspuppy

Lib Dems react quickly to Cameron’s “brain fade” West Ham moment

By Newspuppy | Sat 25th April 2015 - 1:40 pm

David Cameron had one of those moments on the campaign trail this morning. This is what happens when you are too used to reading your speeches off an autocue, I guess. He was talking about how he wanted to see Britain at ease with multiple identities.

From the Guardian:

Where you can support Man Utd, the Windies and Team GB all at the same time.

Of course, I’d rather you supported West Ham.”

Asked to clarify his loyalties after his speech, which he read from an autocue, Cameron replied: “I had what Natalie Bennett described as a brain fade.

I’m a Villa fan … I must have been overcome by something … this morning.

But there we are, these things sometimes happen when you are on the stump.

It’s the sort of gaffe that anyone could make and it’ll make us all laugh for 30 seconds and move on. Although I do wonder if Conservative peer Karren Brady, who’s vice-chairman of West Ham, had anything to do with it.

Those digital geniuses at Lib Dem HQ have reacted quickly though to give that amusing moment a little extra traction. They’ve done a few amusing “page not found” jokes before. Here is today’s:

David Cameron Aston Villa

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Newspuppy

The lighter side of the election

By Newspuppy | Tue 21st April 2015 - 10:15 pm

There is a bumper crop of funny election related things today. I hope that this cheers you up as you come in, tired, from the campaign trail.

Bizarre headline of the day

Clown seen running off with Liberal Democrat poster from the Telegraph:

In a Stroud Life article, Adrian Walker-Smith, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for the Stroud constituency, said: “Our supporter was hanging out her washing in the garden when she heard a crack and saw a young man wearing clown trousers dashing along the street with the board.

I think Adrian may have been a little harsh with his suggested penalty, though:

We will replace the poster and will not be troubling the police, but if the culprit is identified we suggest the use of the historic Bisley lock-up.

Fancy turning Ed Davey into a scottie dog?

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Newspuppy

Lib Dems on 48% in poll… really!

By Newspuppy | Tue 21st April 2015 - 11:35 am

The Liberal Democrats are on 48% in a poll with the closest rival, the Greens,  trailing in our wake with just a third of that total.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to change anyone’s vote. It’s in the Big Beard Poll on Keith Flett’s blog. Keith runs the Beard Liberation Front which earlier this year announced our Julian Huppert as the Parliamentary Beard of the Year.

The campaign says that it is entirely up to voters to decide but a key criteria is how Parties are prepared to go in signing up to the BLF Beard Friendly Britain Manifesto (below)

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, “Of course the LibDem leadership is as clean shaven and suited as other parties but the LibDems still do retain some of their traditional hirsute following. The LibDem candidate for Cambridge Julian Huppert, for example, is a former winner of the Parliamentary Beard of the Year Award.”

The Beard Liberation Front manifesto is as follows:

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Newsmoggie

Paddy and the hen party…

By Newsmoggie | Sat 18th April 2015 - 3:55 pm

Over at the Staggers blog, Kevin Maguire recounts an encounter between Paddy Ashdown and a hen party on a London bound train after the first leaders’ debate:

…the former Royal Marine met his match on a train to London after the 2 April TV debate. Outgunned and outnumbered, the Lib Dem peer was forced to surrender to a Yorkshire hen party in fancy dress. On this occasion, a radar-lugged snout was settling down to hear Ashdown discussing campaign strategy on his phone when the carriage filled up with shrieking lasses. Captain Paddy hastily terminated the call with a giggly: “Save me! Save me!”

And that was before he was recognised:

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Newspuppy

Is this really news? The strange things that make the headlines during an election

By Newspuppy | Wed 15th April 2015 - 8:15 pm

It’s amazing what passes for news during an election campaign. Here are some of the best “non-stories” of the campaign:

You know, buses break down sometimes. It happens and nobody goes and asks rival companies for comments. Except during an election, as the Standard writes about the Lib Dem bus breaking down in Brixton:

Party officials said the vehicle developed an electrical fault as it made the trip back to central London following a campaign visit to East Sussex.

Political rivals had little sympathy for the Lib Dems’ plight, with the Conservative press office tweeting: “So it’s true … Lib Dems’ campaign

…

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Newspuppy

Well that’s different! Boyband broadcasts and Nick Clegg going ape

By Newspuppy | Wed 8th April 2015 - 10:21 pm

So what do you make of the Greens boy-band broadcast?

I love the idea. It’s something a bit different. However, it is not fair to put the Liberal Democrats in the same group as Nigel Farage and UKIP. I really object to that. I don’t like being lumped into the establishment with Tories and Labour, but Farage is going too far. Lumping any of us in with a party whose leader thinks demonising people with HIV as part of his “be shocking and awful” strategy is really unfair.

We can be sure that everyone’s going to watch it. I suspect there will be many people who hadn’t realised what an old-fashioned socialist bunch this lot were. Nationalise the railways? How much is that going to cost?

It’s interesting that they’ve done a broadcast that doesn’t even have their leader in it.

It’s all a bit unconventional.

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Simon Foster

Opinion: We don’t duck things in OxWAb

By Simon Foster | Wed 8th April 2015 - 8:55 am

duckFollowing on from our April Fool’s Day prank a large yellow Duck has appeared in the Abingdon HQ for the Oxford West and Abingdon Liberal Democrat Campaign.  Already he has become a big hit with the activists.

Typically for Lib Dems, a discussion ensued as to what to call the duck.  A quick internet poll was held, and we now have the results:

Duck a L’Orange (write in suggestion from Neil Fawcett): 69%

Shirley Williams: 15%

Paddy Ashdown: 8%

Evan Harris: 8%

Lembit Opik: 0%

Result: Duck a L’Orange gain.  Majority: 54%

On hearing the news, the newly elected Duck said:

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Caron Lindsay

The cuteness of the lambs….

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 6th April 2015 - 3:49 pm

Everyone’s arguing today about who is responsible for the raising of the tax threshold, a policy the Conservatives railed against at every opportunity but are now trying to claim as their own. This has been around as a Liberal/Liberal Democrat idea for a very long time. Malcolm Bruce told me last year that he had introduced it as a policy way back in 1997. Its current incarnation came to fruition in 2009 thanks to Liberal Democrat member and (then) Women Liberal Democrats Executive member Lizzie Jewkes who persuaded the leadership to adopt it as policy. It was passed at Conference in 2009.

But the Mirror has this afternoon revealed another instance where the Tories have snaffled our idea and passed it off as their own in the most dastardly fashion. Remember these pictures of David Cameron down some lamb snuggling over the weekend? Well, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie had done that four days before.

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The Voice

Something to keep you giggling on the campaign trail

By The Voice | Sat 4th April 2015 - 9:15 am

Possibly not if you are going canvassing though. You can just imagine knocking an a door and then an image of Sky News’ mash up of Clegg, Miliband, Cameron and Farage singing Boyzone’s I Swear pops into your mind unbidden. By the time the voter opens the door, you are giggling, and possibly drooling. Not the best way to win votes.

The thing about this is that after Thursday night, it seems so dated with just the four of them.

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Lib Dem declared winner of April Fool’s Day

By Raif Pollo | Wed 1st April 2015 - 8:09 pm

Will & Tim friends againAn intern working in Catherine Bearder MEP’s office has been declared the ‘winner’ of April Fools’ Day by the Huffington Post website.

Intern Tim Reynard cooked up the prank over breakfast, and texted Oxford West & Abingdon Organiser Will Griffiths the following message:

Will, really sorry to do this, I’ve been working for Nicola (Blackwood, the Conservative MP) since leaving Odeon, and the opportunity of an internship with the Lib Dems to compare parties was too good not to apply for.  Wish u all the best but I’m a Tory at heart and am due back in Nicola’s office today.  Sorry for such short notice, Tim.

Will’s instincts kicked in and, fearing that the Lib Dem campaign had been compromised, Will set to deleting all Tim’s access to databases, email etc.

He then rang Campaign Manager Neil Fawcett to tell him the news.  Neil, who had just said good morning to Tim in the office, took the news calmly, and asked Will to get himself straight in to the office.

By the time Will arrived, the rest of the office were in on the joke, and were busy pretending to be checking that nothing had been taken, and that emails had not been forwarded to the Tories.

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Caron Lindsay

Everyone’s talking about Clegg’s Great Funk Up

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 25th March 2015 - 7:29 pm

I manage to pretend most of the time that I’m a young person, but last night I wondered if I was in fact approaching middle age when I saw this:

Was I becoming an old fuddy duddy or was this genuinely an acquired taste?

Well, it seemed that proper young people weren’t overly impressed either. One wrote on my Facebook that it had “broken my brain.” That was, I have to say, one of the kinder things I heard said about it. Others liked it though.

To be fair, if you compare it to the original Uptown Funk video, there are bits of it that are quite clever. Where it suffers is that it just doesn’t have a decent hook.

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Newspuppy

Jo Swinson saddles up her feminist high horse…

By Newspuppy | Sat 14th March 2015 - 6:17 pm

Two pictures you might like. First, Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Jo Swinson:

Jo Swinson

And now, a feminist high horse.

See what I did there?

Jo Swinson has been going for the Daily Mail readers’ vote. She can certainly speak the paper’s language, as you can see from this parody press release from her office. Will editors get the joke?

Mother of one, Jo Swinson gave a speech today wearing a shocking pink dress and a new pair of heels.

While looking desperately in need of a ‘calming down dear’, Swinson railed against the established privilege of men in power and their unconscious inability to experience what discrimination was really like.

She did not say that government should determine what editors can publish. But it could have been what she meant really.

Swinson suggested that the Tories were too afraid to back a ‘feminazi’ clampdown on Fleet Street’s dinosaurs.

Swinson who last year abandoned her Ministerial post for six months on maternity leave, has persistently shown herself to be the possessor of radically liberal ideas as well as a feminist high horse.

If you want to see what she actually said in her speech, it’s all here.

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Posted in Conference and News | Also tagged , , and | 11 Comments
Newspuppy

Well, I’d never have guessed THAT about Ming Campbell

By Newspuppy | Wed 4th March 2015 - 2:50 pm

Those Buzzfeed UK politics people noticed this today. A definite contender for unfortunate headline of the week.

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Newspuppy

Could this be the classiest political fundraising auction prize ever?

By Newspuppy | Thu 12th February 2015 - 7:48 pm

Maybe not.

Labour Students are having a dinner tonight. Their brochure is not quite as glossy as the Tories’ one from the other day. Nor is it filled with such jet set items as a bronze statuette of Margaret Thatcher that went for £210,000.

They do, however, stand to make over 1% of the price of the statuette with this auspicious item:

It’s good that the New Statesman is looking out to protect Balls’ interests:

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Newsmoggie

Liberal Democrats winning here……or at least….erm….purring here

By Newsmoggie | Wed 28th January 2015 - 2:25 pm

Billy 1

This is the real Billy. The Purr Minister! Ah! What a cutie!

Fantastic news straight from Battersea Dogs and Cats home!:

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Posted in Humour and News | Also tagged | 4 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Is there any chance you might have noticed that there’s 100 days till the General Election?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 27th January 2015 - 10:34 pm

So far today, the election themed correspondence and social media from the Liberal Democrats has involved 3 separate emails, a poster on social media, a silly but scarily compelling and satisfying game and a fabulous video.

One thing in all of that that the party has missed is that this whole 100 days to go thing is a bit novel. We’ve known the date of this election since late 2010 when fixed term parliaments were introduced. Before then it was up to the Prime Minister to pick the date, usually at the time of maximum political benefit to their party unless, like Gordon Brown, they simply ran out of time – although, to be fair, he could have nabbed another month or so in No 10. It was the one piece of useful political reform that we managed to get through.

We’ve already brought you the lovely poster that was released this morning. I’ve had emails from the Scottish Party, Malcolm Bruce on behalf of Christine Jardine and LDHQ. My favourite was the last simply because of the fantastic video tour of our Party’s Central London HQ, chatting away to the staff. They seriously only filmed it yesterday. It was great seeing people like the excellent Wassim from Member and Supporter Development, Robert the fantastic guy on reception who never fails to make me smile (ask him about the litter of puppies on Eastleigh polling day) and digital whizz Bess Mayhew. If you haven’t watched it, do so now.

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Caron Lindsay

Friday fun: what’s your pet hate?

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 16th January 2015 - 10:18 am

I woke up this morning to see two grown men griping and groaning about, wait for it, Comic Sans, on social media. Really, font geekery before breakfast is going too far. If that makes me not a proper Lib Dem for saying that, then so be it. I will not be enslaved by this conformity.

I have to say I don’t really get the problem with Comic Sans, particularly as it’s supposed to be good for people with Dyslexia to read. Clearly I am not the cool kid on the block as my Teenager also has severe issues with that font.

Getting wound up about fonts when there are misplaced apostrophes and your/you’re and its/it’s mix-ups in the world is just silly.

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Posted in Op-eds | 37 Comments
Newspuppy

The tale of Taylor Swift, Twitter and the Liberal Democrat MP

By Newspuppy | Tue 6th January 2015 - 11:20 pm

 

This has to be the strangest Twitter conversation involving a Liberal Democrat MP this year.

Lib Dem conference rally and party political broadcast superstar Kavya Kaushik asked Jeremy Browne on Twitter:

Hi @JeremyBrowneMP do you like Taylor Swift? Do you like Libertarian Fans of Taylor Swift on Facebook? Did you create the movement?

His reply:

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Caron Lindsay

The LDV Festive Fashion Parade

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 30th December 2014 - 10:54 am

The members of the LDV team are in a relaxed state at the moment, replete with the joys, food and drink of the season.

Some of us have been showing off our best Christmas fashion and I thought you’d like to have a look over your morning coffee.

We’ll start with the tasteful. Mary Reid’s wonderful green coat. I bumped into her at LDHQ the other week and I can promise that it feels amazingly soft. I don’t really care that much about clothes, but I like this coat.

Mary Reid's coat

I guess Joe Otten’s new funky Christmas shirt could be described as tasteful, too. It’s kind of like the duvet I had as a teenager.

Joe Otten's shirt

 

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The Voice

Willie Rennie excluded on profanity grounds

By The Voice | Thu 4th December 2014 - 4:28 pm

Well, sort of.

He tried to sign up to a news website the other night and this is what happened:

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Caron Lindsay

Danny Alexander’s stroll on the Grassy Knoll and other great #dannyswalks

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 17th October 2014 - 6:37 pm

Twitter is evil. We all knew that, right?

And it can be very funny.

And even evilly funny.

Out of the most innocent and an assuming of gestures, it can make a Big Internet Thing.

And so it was when all that Danny Alexander did was change his cover photo. He picked an image of him walking alongside Loch Morlich, near Aviemore in the heart of his Highland constituency.  In the shadow of Cairngorm mountain itself, he strolled, casually dressed.

And then Hannah Thompson, who you may remember is the woman whose brilliant campaign against revenge porn is about to change the law to make it an offence, casually mused:

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Caron Lindsay

Wednesday in the Park with Ed

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 24th September 2014 - 9:34 pm

Ed Miliband park photo by ARCHIVE depart,ent of energy and climate changeBefore anyone says anything in the comments, yes, I know what follows is a little childish, but it is fun. I also know that all political leaders share personal stories in their speeches, but they do tend to do it with less clumsiness than Ed Miliband did it yesterday and there’s usually more substance from their speech to write about.

My mission to the world, or at least my friends on Facebook and Twitter this morning was simple. If you met Ed Miliband in a park, what would he say about you in his next Conference speech? the creative minds of social media went for it in style. Here are just a few of the replies.

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The Voice

Clegg picks Farron and Farron picks Clegg

By The Voice | Mon 16th June 2014 - 5:15 pm

We hear there’s some football tournament going on at the moment.

Yesterday’s Sunday Politics had a fairly puerile political sticker item yesterday. I really think there are better uses of Adam Fleming’s talents. Anyway, it was quite amusing to see how Nick Clegg and Tim Farron reacted to the stunt.

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Caron Lindsay

In which a Liberal Democrat Voice editor gets parodied

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 16th November 2013 - 2:52 pm

From Och aye the news:

carrion londonsay

 

Parody is supposed to make you wince and laugh at the same time. Sadly, this one fails to live up to that. It’s more congealed porridge than biting wit.

We’re asking for trouble, here, I know, but if you can do any better…

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Caron Lindsay

The Liberal Democrat Voice Pumpkin Parade

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 31st October 2013 - 8:58 pm

So, it’s Hallowe’en. I thought we should join in with the fun, especially as I’m at home with a full-on dose of Empty Nest Syndrome as the Teenager, for the first time, bails for a party with her friends.

Nick Clegg has been at a party too, today.  He tweeted from the event at Great Ormond St Hospital.

Liberal Democrats have been busy carving pumpkins, too and I thought you ought to see some of …

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David Allen

Gideon Keynes – The Memoirs

By David Allen | Tue 30th July 2013 - 11:42 am

I got all my best lines from comedians and opponents.  It began on Oleg’s yacht, when I bet the Prince of Darkness a grand he couldn’t invent me a policy more blatantly bogus than “Neo-Classical Endogenous Growth Theory”.  After a few vodkas, Peter came up trumps.  “Expansionary Fiscal Contraction!” he spluttered, between giggles.  I cunningly insisted on sole rights to the phrase, and paid up.

Next – gulp – we won.  We were in The Thick of It – you remember, that comedy Tony wrote under an Italian pseudonym, which he kept secret until his trial at The Hague in 2022.  …

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