The Telegraph is continuing to run through the list of top 50 most influential Lib Dems, as compiled by Iain Dale and four unnamed party sources. Yesterday was numbers 41-50; today it’s 31-40, and three Lib Dem Voice regulars make the cut:
32. Mike Smithson
Founder, PoliticalBetting.com
Smithson has established his website, PoliticalBetting.com as one of the most respected and visited political websites on the net. Never shy about his LibDem history and credentials he is a shrewd observer of the political scene. So successful has he been at political
By Gavin Whenman
| Sun 14th September 2008 - 5:58 pm
To the Marriott Highcliff Hotel for CentreForum and the Fabian Society’s lunchtime fringe: Labour and the Lib Dems: Allies or enemies? Squeezing myself between John Piennar and Rita Chakrabarti, it was standing room only as I watched Stephen Williams, David Lammy, Vince Cable and Charles Clarke argue their respective points.
Nabbing the free orange juice (it’s apparently politer to say “complementary”, but not once did the juice say how nice I’m looking) as I arrived, Stephen Williams was finishing his opening remarks and so I cannot regale you with the nuanced argument he made. Suffice to say, his overwhelming intelligence was …
By Alex Foster
| Sun 14th September 2008 - 12:20 pm
Last night, the hotel bar I was in seemed very unthoughtfully to have an unlimited polypins of quite nice real ale. Tanglefoot, I think. I have vague memories of doing all sorts of things last night, including signing up to nudist sunbathing and promising to write a standing order for some huge amount to some constituency election campaign.
Fortunately no records exist of most of my exploits.
Unfortunately, one of the things I did whilst drunk was interview Iain Dale. No, not that one. The other one. The one that doesn’t need the links.
Iain Dale, bless his cotton socks, has kindly brought The Voice’s attention to his blog posting yesterday, Top Ten Signs You Are About to Defect to the Lib Dems. Would LDV readers care to reciprocate in a suitably light-hearted manner, and come up with some Signs You Are About to Defect to the Tories?
Your suggestions below, please, ladies and gentleman…
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 4th September 2008 - 7:26 pm
This is the fortnight of lists and awards in the political blogosphere. Not only has Iain Dale produced his annual little list, but the Lib Dem Blog of the Year awards are once again upon us. All of which may seem a little self-indulgent. And it probably is. But there’s a serious point to blogging, and one which is of unique relevance to the Lib Dems.
All the main national newspapers employ commentators who write regularly on politics. But cast your eyes down the lists of columnists in the serious press and you will see something missing: a …
Lib Dem Voice has, we notice, come in 15th in Iain Dale’s / Total Politics list of top 100 blogs. More important for the Lib Dem blogosphere is the fact that all the top 10 Lib Dem blogs made it into the top 100, and a further 11 into the top 200.
But you won’t be surprised that the Voice’s attention was grabbed by this prediction from Mr Dale that in the next year:
LibDem Voice will receive a cash injection similar to LabourHome from a rich LibDem donor
I’m sitting by my BlackBerry now, just waiting for it to light …
The Voice extends its congratulations to our own Welsh correspondent, and master blogger Peter Black AM, who topped Iain Dale’s poll of the 40 best Welsh blogs.
Voting in Total Politics / Iain Dale’s Top 100 UK Political Blogs closes at midnight tomorrow (Friday). We’ve discussed the competition before, but if you are intending to vote – hurry up and get your vote in.
We’d probably note that in July we had almost 15,000 ‘absolute unique visitors’*. That’s a little down on June’s record of almost 17,000 – but still our third best month overall. For comparison, Iain Dale received 59,000 absolute unique visitors and Guido Fawkes 113,000.
Thank you to all our readers, whether you visit only occasionally, or pop by often.
Remember, if you’ve got something to say, and you want to say it to thousands of readers, then do consider writing an article for LDV, and email it to [email protected]. We publish some guidance for those wishing to write for the …
I have a confession to make, dear reader. There’s an email I’ve been, erm, sitting on while I try to work out what to do with it. And it’s from Iain Dale.
If you read his blog (what do I mean ‘if’, of course we all do) then you’ll already know what it’s about. If not here’s the copy ‘n’ paste skinny:
In early September TOTAL POLITICS, in association with APCO WORLDWIDE will publish the 2008-9 Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. It will contain articles on blogging by some of Britain’s leading bloggers, together with a directory of
It’s taken all day for me to get over last night’s Doctor Who cliffhanger. So now that’s done, let’s get on with this.
Beanz Meanz Bigotz
Heinz have got themselves lots of free publicity this week by first releasing and then withdrawing this ad:
So the controversy surrounds the footage of a man kissing a man – or, rather, a man kissing a woman played by another man. 207 outraged idiots complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, under the impression that if their kids saw the ad they’d have to explain homosexuality to them. Perhaps they should ask their kids to explain the ad to them as they’d clearly missed the point.
Heinz now face the embarrassment (aka more publicity) of more people complaining about their pulling of the ad than complained about it in the first place. In their attempt to avoid losing business from a minority of vocal homophobes, the food giant risks losing the custom of, well, people with brains.
The decision to withdraw it has not only offended many gay, lesbian, transgender – and straight – people, it also represents a backward step in attempts to combat homophobia in Britain today, not to mention a collective loss of humour.
I am asking you to reverse this decision and reinstate the advert.
Kissing on TV is, of course, a very good way for gay men to draw attention to themselves – so exactly the kind of thing the Home Secretary helpfully recommends to those in Iran.
Responding to a letter from our own Lord Roberts of Llandudno, who has called for a moratorium on deportations to Iran for all who fear execution, Jacqui Smith dismissed the idea that sexuality alone was an issue:
Sometimes I get criticism from Lib Dem activists over the way I operate my site, Politicalbetting.com, and the usual complaint is that I am not operating it in the interests of the party.
Well, I don’t run it to further the Lib Dems or any other faction. It’s moved to its position as the UK’s most-read political website (four times the page down-loads of Iain Dale) because it seeks to provide a dispassionate information service and discussion platform for those who like forecasting and betting on political outcomes.
Occasionally party campaigners have found it useful to …
When I agreed to write this monthly round up of Labour and Tory blogging I said I would aim to “keep a balance between pointing to interesting postings that we Lib Dems may have missed and laughing at the folly of our opponents”.
So here goes.
Labour
There is only one place to begin this time: Crewe.
Let’s visit their candidate’s blog Tamsin Dunwoody – One of Us for a reminder of just how dreadful her campaign in the by-election was. “Don’t be conned by soft on yobs Tory Boy” and so on and on. It’s no wonder that so many voters decided …
A rather unfortunate posting over on Iain Dale’s blog this evening about the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. Iain writes:
It seems to me that the Conservatives should be very careful not fight an aggressive campaign here. They don’t need to launch attacks on the Labour Candidate. They need to be the voice of sweet reason and play up their candidate’s local record – but then go for Gordon Brown’s throat on the 10p tax debacle and other issues. And this is exactly what Edward Timpson seems to be doing. He’s just released this rather interesting letter to the press…
… will kick off at 11.35pm on One this Thursday, and will feature a regular bloggers’ spot on the programme itself and an accompanying minute-by-minute blog of results, news, anecdotes, pictures, groundless speculation and, please god, a few laughs.
Your present correspondent will be in the yellow corner, diametrically opposite to, and equidistant from, Iain Dale and Luke Akehurst. Part of the premise is that we, El Bloggers, are going to try to beat the Beeb on getting results in. Our blogs will be syndicated to the BBC blog and because we don’t have to get
If you’re a keen reader of political blogs you’ve probably noticed the latest bun fight over traffic levels to sites such Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes. One bright spot in amongst the postings and comments of, err…, varying quality on this topic is this one from Ministry for Truth, which casts its eye more widely over the Conservative online presence. It’s not a successful picture that is painted.
My feed reader shows me the latest Iain Dale Daley Dozen in which he points to us and asks why we didn’t cover PMQs today.
Although it may not have been our finest hour, the real reason is that Stephen, who usually covers that for us, is away, and none of the rest of us remembered until we were prompted.
For the sake of completeness, here is the full exchange between Vince Cable, covering for Nick Clegg today, and Hariet Harman, who was in the Prime Minister’s shoes.
When I agreed to write this monthly round up of Labour and Tory blogging I said I would aim to “keep a balance between pointing to interesting postings that we Lib Dems may have missed and laughing at the folly of our opponents”.
So here goes.
Labour
March began with Margaret Hodge attacking the Proms for being elitist. But how does Hodge’s attendance at arts events display her own democratic tastes? Fortunately we have her own blog to tell us. Here she is writing in February of this year:
Since I last posted here, I’ve seen Othello, Swan Lake, Nutcracker (Matthew Bourne’s exuberant
As a moderately inactive Liberal Democrat blogger, I read Lynne Featherstone’s piece on ‘are we making the most of blogging?’ with some interest. Her key point was to compare blogging in our party (largely local, anecdotal, and inward-looking), with political blogging in the US (largely campaigning and outward-looking):
What we seem to be mostly missing are those combative, outward looking souls who spot a story and want to help spread or extend the message or the point or the attack.
Or in other words where are the campaigning bloggers? Where are the people who create a story, link up the stories others have sparked, get the traffic moving to a petition site, and mobilise action on and off the web?
I think there are a number of answers to that question.
The first is that the situation in politics is rarely as bad or as good as it appears to be on the surface. Our bloggers do campaign, and the state of blogging in the US is no campaigning nirvana. Like US television we largely get to read the best, or more usually reports on the best, not experience the long tail of low-impact material that we see more of here, largely because we’re looking for it and indexing it on Lib Dem Blogs.
The second is that blogging is a form of journalism, and campaigning journalism has always been a minority pursuit, or rather one that is best done occasionally rather than all the time. Perpetual invitations to give a damn about some perceived slight or injustice can be hectoring rather than engaging. The Independent for example, produces worthy but dull shock-horror front pages every day of the week and is one of the least read national newspapers. You’re more likely to overhear a friend or colleague discuss the latest celebrity gossip in the Sun or Hello than the Independent issue of the day. Guido Fawkes made much this point in his response to Lynne’s original piece.
But people should care, you might rage. Well maybe. But the kind of campaigns that work well by push communications like face to face engagement on doorsteps or leaflets are not necessarily going to play with pull-media like blogs that people seek of their own accord. With a petition shoved in your face you might well agree you’d like to Save the local Post Office, would you actively seek to read about it though?
Congratulations to Lynne Featherstone, who has become, she believes, the first British MP to use the Twitter instant messaging system, just slightly less than one year after I first suggested on my blog, and in the forums here (party members only).
Those of you unable or unwilling to read the forums will be unaware that the idea was initially dismissed out of hand by influential party bosses, before they went on to embrace it wholeheartedly. Now the entire Innovations Department is happily twittering away.
Barely a month afterwards, the party used Twitter for a highly successful if under-used
A reader has alerted me to an article from the New York Post which seems to allege that the present credit crunch crisis is at least in part due to political correctness on behalf of US legislators. Read the full article HERE and make up your own mind. Here’s an excerpt…
At the crisis’ core are loans that were made with virtually nonexistent underwriting standards – no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant’s ability to make payments; no down payment. Most people instinctively understand that such loans are likely to be unsound. But how did the heavily-regulated banking industry end up able to engage in such foolishness?
I’d certainly agree that at the heart of the problem is the large number of unsuitable loans made by US firms. But why were so many such loans made? The article Iain quotes blames political correctness, claiming that moves to shake out discrimination from financial firms resulted in them having to lend to people who couldn’t afford the loans.
It’s certainly a provocative view, and it’s also wrong. Because the truth is that the dishing out of unsuitable loans left, right and centre was driven by out-of-control firms and sales staff that were indulging in all sorts of dodgy (and often illegal) activities to push loans upon people.
Amongst the weighty matters of political debate on Liberal Democrat blogs at the moment is the question of whether “sclerotic” is too recondite a word for Nick Clegg to have used. Stephen Tall posts a case for the defence, a view echoed by Brian Appleyard:
I would have thought that, since arteriosclerosis is so common, almost everybody would have come in contact with the word … Ignore the knockers, Nick, swallow a thesaurus that we may engorge on your recondite multiloquence.
P.S. A quiz question for Iain Dale: can you guess what word is not only used on the Conservative Party …
Iain Dale, 26 February 2008:
Talking about Nick Clegg’s support for an in/out referendum on Europe: “I could never understand why Nick Clegg didn’t junk this ridiculous policy when he had the chance to.”
Iain Dale, 23 November 2007:
“I suggest that David Cameron looks to the Lib Dems to steal a policy.”
Can you guess what policy that was dear reader?
Oh I think you can…
I was the Liberal Democrat policy for “a referendum on ‘In or Out'”.
So, it is both “ridiculous” and also something Cameron should copy? Hmm…
When I agreed to write this monthly round up of Labour and Tory blogging I said I would aim to “keep a balance between pointing to interesting postings that we Lib Dems may have missed and laughing at the folly of our opponents”.
The Evening Standard reports today that three Conservative associations show in their accounts that they received donations from Lord Ashcroft (the controversial Conservative donor) but that these sums don’t appear in the lists of donations declared to the Electoral Commission.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that an Ashcroft donation to a constituency hasn’t been declared. The previous cases of undeclared donations involved a range of other Conservative local associations, including North Norfolk Conservatives, who received a donation when Iain Dale was their Parliamentary candidate.
All parties rely heavily on volunteer local treasurers, so some mistakes in book-keeping are …
When I agreed to write this monthly round up of Labour and Tory blogging I said I would aim to “keep a balance between pointing to interesting postings that we Lib Dems may have missed and laughing at the folly of our opponents”.
So here goes.
Labour blogs
The Labour blogosphere is a strange place. Tory bloggers may often be barking mad, but there opinionated approach and lack of concern for the party line means that Liberal Democrat bloggers are likely to recognise them as kindred spirits however much we differ on policy.
Labour blogging does not feel like that. It seems that many …
Kira Collins You use the phrase “fiscal federalism” and “financial autonomy” but have not used the phase I had hoped to see that is drawn out of both: fiscal autonom...
Peter Martin @Iain,
"Without financial autonomy, political devolution is incomplete......."
The problem, from a macroeconomic perspective, is that full finan...
Gordon Lishman When I wrote 5.1 in the Constitution, my over-riding intention was to ensure that the mass Party had some rights in relation to overall strategy, which was an i...
Roland @nick Baird - “ or whether it was just a terrible mistake caused by a lack of attention and professionalism by the officers involved.”
I think this is th...
David Murray Typo: I first joined the Liberal Party in November 1966, almost 60 years ago this year !...
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