1. What’s your formative political memory?
Watching Roots when I was nine. I was shocked to the core by the cruelty towards the slaves, the very idea that people could be bought and sold and, I think crucially, by the fact that such abuse can be stopped if good people take action.
2. When did you start blogging?
September 9th 2006.
3. Why did you start blogging?
I never wanted to just write about politics, but I thought I could help the Lib Dem cause during the hours when it would have been rude to deliver leaflets. I felt that there was a need for something which could simply explain liberal ideas to people who had no interest in politics and to be a bit of an antidote to the bile from the right wing tabloid press.
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Random, liberal, eclectic (and this one has been used by Malcolm Harvey in the 2010 Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging), fair and unpredictable.
5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Leftie, liberal, peace loving hippy.
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
2010 was the most emotionally and politically intense year I’ve ever experienced. The potent cocktail of emotions and adrenaline during the General Election and the formation of the Coalition (and since) fuelled some posts I’m quite proud of. I can’t say I really enjoyed writing them, though.
I’m going to pick is the interview I did with Jo Swinson on the day Lib Dem Voice let me loose as guest editor. Rather than have me frantically scribble notes, my son had set things up so I could record the conversation. We ended up having a 20 minute chat on a huge range of topics from how the coalition was going down on the streets of East Dunbartonshire to her recent visit to Nigeria, to her work on allergies, to sport and gender sterotyping. We were both pretty relaxed and it felt like a proper, illuminating, grown up conversation which I wanted to report in pretty much that style.
I spent the rest of the night frenetically writing it up in 3 parts: one, two and three.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
My shortlist for this had a fair few Elephant posts on it, but the one I’ve chosen is one where he describes the workings of the economic cycle. The fluffy one at his educational best.
8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
It has to be Dan and Dan’s Daily Mail Song. I never get tired of listening to it. A brilliant satire on the British right wing tabloid press in general.
Co-founder of the Campaign for Body Confidence and Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson has given the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) details of 172 scientific studies which show that exposure to idealised media images has a negative effect on body image for adults and children.
The portfolio of evidence gives a comprehensive overview of research examining the link between airbrushed media images and people’s dissatisfaction with their own bodies.
The Campaign for Body Confidence is calling on the ASA to amend its codes of conduct for advertisers to require airbrushed images of people to be clearly labelled.
Welcome to the third and final part of my interview with Jo Swinson MP. I hope you don’t mind the fact that it’s so long. I just sometimes think that blog interviews are quite short and sometimes it’s nice to have a more in depth chat. I’ve written it pretty much exactly as she said it so it’s real conversation. Think of this as the Hello multi page spread without the photographs. The plain text is my bit and the italics are her’s.
Not that I’m stalking Jo or anything, but I do have a They Work for You alert for …
As mum of an 11 year old daughter, I’m really worried about the pressures on her to look a certain way, so Jo’s and Lynne Featherstone’s Campaign for Body Confidence is very close to my heart. I asked Jo – what’s happening with it?
Jo: It’s really exciting about this. Lynne and I had always planned to continue it after the election but we hadn’t reckoned on her being Minister for Equalities which is a great boost. We’ve had a steering group meeting and we’ve got Mumsnet, BEAT, the eating disorders charity, Girl Guiding UK, the YMCA who do all sorts …
This afternoon, I had a chat with Jo Swinson, MP for East Dunbartonshire, new Deputy Leader of the Scottish Party. Now that I’m going all high tech, I actually recorded it. Or, at least, my 11 year old daughter set up the voice recorder on the laptop and showed me how to work it. This is a great way to interview someone because you can have a proper chat and don’t have to worry about taking notes. I’d asked Jo for a five minute chat and we actually talked for 21 minutes, covering everything from the vibe on the doorsteps …
The appointments of various LibDem MPs to be PPS to ministers have been rather low-profile, so in case you have missed any here is the complete list:
Gordon Birtwistle – PPS to Danny Alexander
Mike Crockart – PPS to Michael Moore
Duncan Hames – PPS to Sarah Teather
Jo Swinson – PPS to Vince Cable
Jenny Willott – PPS to Chris Huhne
and in addition Norman Lamb as Chief Parliamentary and Political Adviser to Nick Clegg is also his PPS.
By Helen Duffett
| Mon 27th September 2010 - 12:08 pm
The BOTYs were quite simply the glitteringest event of the whole Liberal Democrat conference last week, and Lib Dem councillor and blogger Jonathan Wallace was there to film them.
If you look carefully, you might just spot the tail feathers of the last flamingo, as it was startled away by popping flashbulbs. Alas, the heat of said flashbulbs also melted the ice sculptures before Jonathan could film those too, but the video’s well worth watching for the great speeches from winners and presenters alike:
By Helen Duffett
| Thu 23rd September 2010 - 12:13 pm
Jo Swinson MP has been announced as the new Deputy Leader of the Scottish Lib Dems. Michael Moore MP, now Secretary of State for Scotland, is stepping down after seven years as Deputy Leader.
An email to Lib Dem members, signed by Jo Swinson, is promoting the Lib Dem rally taking place on Saturday evening, with some high-profile guest speakers, as the party gears up for next May’s referendum:
On Saturday, join Nick Clegg, Art Malik, Martin Bell, some surprise special guests and myself as we launch our campaign for a fairer voting system.
As you know , Nick Clegg is leading the fight in Parliament to secure the United Kingdom its first ever referendum on electoral reform.
Fighting for fairer votes will be one of the top priorities for the Liberal Democrats this coming year –
Almost exactly a year ago, Lib Dem MPs Jo Swinson and Lynne Featherstone were among those in the party’s Real Women group leading the campaign to “Ban airbrushing in children’s adverts”, a view later endorsed by an independent Home Office report.
They’ve been joined in their campaign now by Girlguiding UK, which is today launching a petition to introduce compulsory labelling on airbrushed images.
Jo comments:
I am delighted that Girlguiding UK is taking up this issue. I co-founded the Campaign for Body Confidence out of concern that people of all ages are feeling so much pressure
If the BBC is correct there is sufficient opposition within the Coalition to stop a graduate tax seeing the light of day and instead come up with a system that is like fees, but not fees, and retains some kind of link between student and university. On that we will have to wait and see what it is before commenting.
The Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, run by Lib Dem Voice, are back for their fifth year. As usual, they’ll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony at the party’s autumn conference in Liverpool. (There’s further information on the event over at the Lib Dems’ Flock Together site). Click on the following links to see last year’s Shortlist and the Winners.
I had hoped not to write this story immediately after the last, less happy one, but sometimes, them’s the breaks.
Not since Baroness Scott and the Lib Dem’s bureaucrat of choice Mark Valladares changed their facebook statuses to “engaged” has the Lib Dem online world been so charged with romance.
Now Jo Swinson and Duncan Hames used the medium of Twitter to tell the world of their engagement, to cheers of encouragement all round.
Every congratulation and wish for happiness from all your friends at t’Voice.
A LIB-DEM MP has called in cops after an anonymous smear campaign was launched against her. Trouble-makers claiming to represent the East Dunbartonshire Taxpayers’ Alliance have sent letters to hundreds of voters across the region blackening the name of Jo Swinson, who is standing again on May 6. …
Ms Swinson said: “I’ve reported it to the police and they are investigating because the anonymous nature of this makes it illegal. It is clearly designed to damage my chances but I think a lot of people have seen through it.”
2010 marks the fourth year of Jo Swinson’s annual Easter Egg excess packaging report. (You can read LDV’s 2009 posting here). This year’s headline conclusion? “Some Easter egg manufacturers have drastically cut their excess packaging, while others are lagging far behind.”
Consumers are tired of excess packaging – they are tired of paying for it and tired of having to dispose of it. Easter eggs are a prime example – in many cases, the huge boxes contain more air than chocolate.
“Last year we saw Easter egg packaging reduced by a third, and companies such as Nestlé, Cadbury, Green and Black’s and Thorntons have made real efforts to cut packaging and improve recyclability. However, Guylian, Lindt and others are still producing grossly excessive packaging.
“The Government is clearly failing to enforce the law, which requires packaging to be reduced to the minimum necessary.”
You can read Jo’s full 2010 report here – here’s the executive summary:
A ban on broadcasting video clips of the proceedings of the House of Commons on YouTube could come to an end in the coming weeks after months of delicate negotiations between the Palace of Westminster and broadcasters led by the BBC.
Existing rules forbid YouTube or any other website, such as a newspaper’s, from embedding any clips of parliamentary proceedings – meaning that the only way to watch parliament online is via the news clips from the major broadcasters, live on the BBC’s Parliament channel or the Westminster website…
Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Dumbarton East, has long
Tonight it’s Nick Clegg’s turn for a Sunday evening party leader’s interview – with Mary Nightingale on ITV1 at 10:15pm.
Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (Nick’s wife) also appears in the programme. At first I was dismayed that Miriam might be wheeled out as yet another politician’s wife, dreading revelations about socks or other foundation garments…
For today’s women “motherhood, not sexism, is the issue”. So says The Economist (“We Did It”, 30 December 2009), noting that “women who prosper in high-pressure companies in their 20s drop out in dramatic numbers in their 30s and then find it almost impossible to regain earlier momentum”.
Could the same be true in politics?
Nearly 80% of current male Lib Dem MPs first entered Parliament in their 30s and 40s. Yet our female MPs were overwhelmingly elected in their 20s or 50s, and not one was first elected while raising young children. Achieving the same age spread as the men could …
Congratulations to Lib Dem MPs Lynne Featherstone and Jo Swinson for helping to organise a panel debate this afternoon in Parliament – to coincide with International Women’s Day – on measures to tackle the harm caused by pressure to conform to unrealistic and unhealthy body image ideals. The event marked the launch of the Campaign for Body Confidence.
The panel featured Lynne (the party’s shadow equalities minister), Clothes Show presenter Caryn Franklin, psychotherapist Susie Orbach and Dr Helga Dittmar of the University of Sussex. Other attendees included Girlguides, Linda Papadopoulous and the world’s leading body image experts.
The report warns that children are being increasingly exposed to sexual imagery through advertising, music videos, computer games, magazines and some children’s clothing lines.
Unless sexualisation is accepted as harmful, we will miss an important opportunity… to broaden young people’s beliefs about where their values lies,” said Dr Papadopoulos, a psychologist. The report’s 36 recommendations include calling for games consoles, mobile phones and some computers to be sold with parental controls already switched on.”
Other recommendations include banning “sexualised” music videos before the TV watershed, making digital literacy a compulsory part of the curriculum from age 5, and labelling airbrushed images:
Evidence suggests that even brief exposure to airbrushed images can lead to acute body dissatisfaction. To help combat this, efforts to raise levels of media literacy should be accompanied by initiatives aimed at encouraging society to take a more critical and questioning approach to the harmful perpetuation of unrealistic ideals. I therefore recommend the introduction of a system of ratings symbols for photographs to show the extent to which they have been altered. This is particularly critical in magazines targeting teen and pre-teen audiences.
The BBC, in reporting the findings, indulges in a little airbrushing of its own:
From a party news release ahead of Jo Swinson and Lynne Featherstone meeting with representatives of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA):
Commenting on today’s report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists calling for airbrushed images to be ‘kitemarked’, Liberal Democrat MP, Jo Swinson said:
“The Royal College of Psychiatrists makes it crystal clear that airbrushing plays a harmful role when it comes to negative body image and eating disorders.
“Airbrushing has a really damaging impact on people’s self-esteem and that’s why we’ve called for a labelling system.
“Making sure children are taught to be media-savvy and getting ads which feature unrealistic, unattainable images to …
We’ve covered before the campaign by Jo Swinson and others to change the antiquated Parliamentary rules which ban MPs (and in theory other people too) from placing footage from Parliament on YouTube.
Happy birthday to Jo Swinson, Lib Dem MP for East Dunbartonshire!
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
Biometric data
How many people have had theirs taken under the Terrorism Act 2000, and how successful have they been at getting the samples destroyed? Lord Eric Avebury has put down a Parliamentary Question.
Will libertarian bloggers ever grow up?
Jonathan Calder wants libertarian bloggers to widen their repertoire beyond “Get out of my room Mom!”
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
2 Big Stories
Liberal Democrat MEP celebrates French equality win
Since August 2007, French couples in a Pacte Civil de Solidarité (PAC) have enjoyed the same rights in relation to tax and inheritance laws which had previously only applied to married couples. However, due to a legal anomaly, British civil partnerships were not recognised under French law, meaning couples living in France were liable for a 60% inheritance tax and were treated like any other unmarried couple.
Graham Watson pointed out the ridiculous situation that many people faced: “Up until now, the practicality of French law has meant that British civil partners living in France would have to dissolve their partnership and enter into a PAC in order to secure the same rights as French couples. This violated the idea of European citizenship and equality, and something had to be done.”
Watson asked the European Commission to press the French Government on the issue.
Ministers have now announced that British civil partnerships are recognised as equal to PACs, and reimbursements will be made to individuals who have made undue tax payments since August 2007.
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 4th February 2010 - 10:25 pm
A couple of years back, I was moved to write to the BBC complaining about Question Time’s pro-Tory bias, regularly featuring Tory-supporting journalists alongside Tory MPs.
Well, that’ll learn me to be careful what you wish for. Because what do we have to look forward to on tonight’s QT panel? The following: an official Labour representative (Lord Falconer), and two former Labour MPs (Clare Short and George Galloway); and, for balance, an official Tory representative (Theresa May), and professional right-wing agitpropette (Melanie Phillips). Deep joy.
As Love and Liberty’s Alex Wilcock acerbically notes:
Our ‘Britain’s Best MP’ competition has come to a close with Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Harwich, a clear winner. The final results are:
Douglas Carswell 47%
Gisela Stuart 16%
Tom Harris 12%
Lynne Featherstone 9%
Bob Russell 6%
Jo Swinson 6%
David Howarth 2%
Chris Mullin 2%
I appreciate that the results do not make happy reading for visitors to this site and the results of online polls cannot be taken too seriously, but please don’t dismiss this competition just yet.
Whilst acknowledging that our hope of getting people to listen to the MPs answers and then vote for their ‘best MP’ based on what they heard probably …
You may remember that back at the beginning of December we launched our ‘Best MP’ campaign to highlight the fact that not all MPs should be tarred with the same brush as the ‘expenses cheats.’
We asked users of our website – Yoosk – to send in their nominations for Best MP and to send us the questions they would like to put to the nominees. All eight nominated MPs agreed to answer and you can compare what they said on our website now and cast your vote in our Poll, which will be ‘live’ until the 31st December.
Here is a sample of how we edited the answers together to make them easier to compare. This question came from ‘artichelper’ and received most votes from our users:
‘What do you believe is the best change in policy that you, yourself played a significant role in making that change happen?’ And you can view a compilation of the answers below.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled against an Olay advert containing a heavily airbrushed image of the model Twiggy on the grounds that it was misleading following a campaign led by the Liberal Democrats.
The Liberal Democrats have called for airbrushed ads to be clearly labelled, and for airbrushing to be banned in adverts aimed at children.
Commenting, Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who has led the campaign, said:
“I hope this decision marks the first step in really getting airbrushing in advertising under control.
“If advertisers think that someone as beautiful as Twiggy needs to be so heavily airbrushed, …
Well, there has been plenty in the news recently about what makes a ‘bad’ MP so we at Yoosk thought that it might be a good idea to focus for a while on the qualities of a ‘good’ MP. End the year on a positive note.
And that is why we started our ‘Britain’s Best MP’ campaign two weeks ago. We want to find out who the good MPs are and what differentiates them from the rest. We asked our users at Yoosk to nominate their candidates and these are the people they put forward:
By Alex Foster
| Mon 30th November 2009 - 11:15 am
Last Saturday at the Bloggers’ Unconference, our final interview of the day was with Jo Swinson MP – which was particularly kind of her, since she’d flown back from New York the day before, and must have been jet-lagged.
Falling at the end of the day, the discussion we had with Jo was one of the most informal of the day, but was all the better for that. Her enthusiasm for finding new ways of communicating really shone through, and she talked to us about creating the video below. In particular, she was really keen to show us her new Flip video camera, which is extremely portable and can be used by just the one person, without needing fancy lights, an off-camera microphone or an extra person working as camera operator.
Jo used her Flip to make a series of mini videos about the work she was doing at the UN, and quite simply to give some basic impressions of what visiting the UN buildings in New York are like. The buildings are iconic, but not particularly fancy. Working in the main office block is like working in any slightly old fashioned tower block. She also takes time out of her schedule to show us a moving statue rescued from the rubble of Hiroshima – on the face, undamaged and intact; on the rear, scraped raw by the heat and debris of the nuclear explosion.
If you follow LDV’s twitter feed, you may also have seen this message promoting a short audio interview with Helen Duffett asking Jo the questions.
John Reed This is such a disappointing announcement.
We must push to have the present system for pricing all electricity based on the cost of the most expensive, usual...
Peter Hirst I would add caring to bold and relevant. Getting a sympathetic ear at the end of a telephone help line is as important as an extra pound in your pay slip. Under...
Peter Hirst One of the more important issues that the electorate care about is how much political parties understand what matters to them. This varies from person to person...
Peter Hirst Inequality must be seen in the round. I appreciate living in the north-west because it gives me easy access to mountains such as in Snowdonia, The Lakes and Der...
Peter Hirst One of the aims of most societies is some sort of redistribution. So fiscal federalism must have a mechanism for the rich regions giving to the poorer. Without ...
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Brexit and summer holidays
The pine martens of Shropshire
The shame of Liverpool Labour councillors taking their allowances but not turning up to do the work
John Reed 
Peter Hirst 