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Tag Archives: john prescott

Which member of the LDV team gets a mention in today’s national press?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 4th May 2014 - 11:52 am

Step forward…..

If you follow our Nick on Twitter, you’ll know he loves interesting use of language, whether it be puns, silly signs or malapropisms.

Some time ago, he suggested to John Rentoul that it would be a good idea to do a feature on the Top Ten Malapropisms. And so, here in today’s Independent on Sunday, it came to pass. “This one is Nick Thornsby’s idea.” says the first sentence.

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Posted in News | Also tagged independent, john rentoul and nick thornsby | 1 Comment

A confession: I’m a Lib Dem and I support elected police commissioners

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd October 2012 - 9:00 pm

Here’s the thing: I don’t have a problem with elected police commissioners. I know they were a Tory manifesto idea and that the Lib Dems are opposed to them (while reluctantly agreeing to vote for them as part of the Coalition Agreement). But I’m just fine with them. My support for directly elected police commissioners is paralleled by my support for directly elected mayors:

For too long, city council politics have been in the hands of amateur part-time leaders: some have been very good, some not so

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged elected police commissioners, featured and jersey | 57 Comments

LibLink: Mark Pack advises the party to be more like John Prescott

By NewsHound | Thu 22nd September 2011 - 9:50 am

Writing for the New Statesman, The Voice’s Mark Pack has picked an unusual role model for the Liberal Democrats:

What Prescott managed to do very successfully as a backbencher in the last years of the Labour government was both be a member of a party in power and also be consistently anti-establishment, especially in his attacks on some in the financial sector – and his mobilising of public support behind his campaigns.

For a party such as the Liberal Democrats who have such a strong tradition of anti-establishment ideology and campaigning, pulling off that combination now is all the more important. Or

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged Mark Pack | 2 Comments

The Independent View: The bigger picture on privacy

By James Baker | Sat 16th July 2011 - 1:35 pm

Amongst the frenzy of the phone hacking scandal Philip Virgo has recalled operation Motorman. This investigation by the Information Commissioner and follow-up report What Price Privacy Now studies and provides details of the illegal trade in personal private information. Rather than being limited to the phone hacking scandal, the report suggests this trade was widespread between newspapers, private investigators and corrupt officials.

This report was presented to the previous government that failed to act upon it and halt the illegal trade in personal information. It is with unfortunate irony that members of that previous government including Lord Prescott …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged database state, david leigh, gordon brown, information commissioner, nick davies, no2id and philip virgo | 1 Comment

Forgotten Liberal heroes: Nancy Seear

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd March 2011 - 10:25 am

Listen to Liberal Democrats make speeches and there are frequent references to historical figures, but drawn from a small cast. Just the quartet of John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, David Penhaligon corner almost all of the market, especially since Bob Maclennan stopped making speeches to party conference. Some of the forgotten figures deserve their obscurity but others do not. Charles James Fox’s defence of civil liberties against a dominating government during wartime or Earl Grey’s leading of the party back into power and major constitutional reform are good examples of mostly forgotten figures who could …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged baroness barker, david rendel, featured, forgotten liberal heroes, history, nancy seear, olly grender and roy jenkins | 10 Comments

The Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011: using members and supporters as a campaigning resource

By Mark Pack | Fri 24th December 2010 - 10:25 am

Over the festive season we’re running a series of posts on the main Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011. You can find all the posts as they appear here.

Looking back through the emails I have received from the party centrally since the formation of the coalition, very few have asked me to do anything. Some have asked for money, requested I come to conference or suggested I go and help in elections – but even those, whilst being good stuff, have been drawn from a very narrow conception of what members and supporters can do. When it comes to policy areas, campaigning …

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Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | Also tagged gordon lishman, lib dem challenges 2011 and nick clegg | 4 Comments

Party finances in the news

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 12:58 pm

For the Conservatives it’s the quitting of their next treasurer, David Rowland, whilst for Labour it’s John Prescott warning of the Labour facing bankrupcy (the context for which you can see in these graphs).

Posted in News | Also tagged conservative party, david rowland and labour party | 5 Comments

100 Days: the Coalition is still enjoying a honeymoon

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th August 2010 - 2:15 pm

Last month, YouGov’s Peter Kellner penned a rather premature post, which stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. I took him to task at the time, and stand by my view that the Coalition is still regarded generally favourably by a plurality of the public.

It’s been interesting, then, to read some of the barrage of opinion polling which has greeted the Coalition’s first 100 days. Perhaps most significant is this article in The Guardian – Coalition winning argument on economy – detailing ICM polling which shows 44% believe the coalition is doing a good job in securing economic …

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Posted in Op-eds and Polls | Also tagged economy and Polls | 13 Comments

Opinion: John Prescott and the unions, voices of Labour’s rapid decline

By Daniel Furr | Sun 11th July 2010 - 9:20 am

Labour is not taking to opposition very well. Partisan points of orders, revisionist attitudes to the fiscal situation and demanding the coalition praises their formers leaders. And now we see Labour figures demanding voters to see a referendum, on the principle of a fairer voting system, as a “confidence vote on the coalition.”

By asking the public for their ideas and recommendations for public sector cuts, the Coalition Government has intelligently put the Labour party in an uncomfortable place. The unions are threatening general strikes and the average voter recognises the ideological and partisan attitude of the union movement. The “union …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed miliband and harriet harman | 39 Comments

Missteps on the online campaign trail

By Mark Pack | Sat 10th April 2010 - 9:50 am

Although I’m an enthusiast for the possibilities for sensible use of the online world in political campaigning, it doesn’t always go right for people:

John Prescott’s botched attempt to encourage ‘click fraud’ on Conservative adverts – unlikely to have cost the Conservatives much, if any, money but certainly earned him a round of bad publicity for Labour.
The Conservative Party has slashed its online fundraising targets, reinforcing the general message that whilst talking up the marvels of

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Posted in General Election, News and Online politics | Also tagged lynne featherstone, stephen timms, stuart maclennan and twitter | Leave a comment

How YouTube is being used on the ground in the general election

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 5:20 pm

Richard Osley as an entertaining piece on his blog titled, “The You Tube War: Hornsey and Wood Green”.

I’m not quite sure what Lynne Featherstone will make of the description of her as an “old aunt” 🙂 Not very gallant of you Richard, but the full description is friendly:

One of the reasons, Featherstone has been a hit locally, it seems, is her obvious knowledge of the area and her apparent interest in even the smallest of issues. She is the interfering old aunt that the fragile Labour council in Haringey must be sick to the back teeth of. Featherstone has after

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Posted in Online politics | Also tagged hornsey & wood green, karen jennings, lynne featherstone, richard osley, whittington hospital and YouTube | 1 Comment

Daily View 2×2: 11 February 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 11th February 2010 - 8:11 am

Well, let’s see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. Then it was February 11th and time for Daily View, on this, Canadian actor Leslie Nielson’s birthday.

He shares the date with the Beast of Bolsover, Dennis Skinner, and Caribou Barbie, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Other notable occurrences today include the death of Sylvia Plath in 1963 and the début of Julia Child’s US TV show The French Chef in 1963. If you’ve never seen it before, go see Julia making omelettes.

2 Cheerful Stories

British Retail’s “irreversible downward spiral”

The Guardian has news that some British towns and cities have so many empty shops they may never recover:

Many of Britain’s towns and cities are suffering from such huge shop vacancy rates that they risk becoming ghost towns, wiping hundreds of millions of pounds off property values, a study revealed yesterday.

Cities such as Wolverhampton and Bradford, where nearly a quarter of shops lie empty, could be on an irreversible downward spiral as a result of the financial crisis. The research by the Local Data Company shows retail vacancy rates across Britain rose 2% in the past six months of last year to 12%, with some towns seeing as much as 24% of its shops lying empty.

“As much as 24%” ? What’s wrong with “Almost a quarter” ?

Oh, and NB, the photo in the story is my home city Nottingham. I’m not sure where it was taken, but it’s not really typical of the city.

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged andrew reeves, beast of bolsover, dennis skinner, eric avebury, inequality, julia childs, leslie nielson, nottingham, retail, retirement, sarah palin, taylor dayne and uganda | Leave a comment

Indy bigs up Mark Pack but exposes Twitter’s weakness

By Iain Roberts | Mon 11th January 2010 - 1:30 pm

The Independent today asks “Could the next election finally provide a reason for the microblogging service?”

There are many reasons for Twitter, some better than others, but if today’s Independent article is anything to go by, the General Election won’t be one of them.

“It’s Twitter that will make this election unique.”, the Indy proclaims, before going on to show why that claim is almost certainly not true.

The paper lists the political twitterati, a mixture – it turns out – of established figures doing a bit of tweeting and political bloggers.

Most excitingly for us at Lib Dem Voice, our …

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Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | Also tagged alastair campbell, lynne featherstone, Mark Pack, tim montgomerie and vince cable | 10 Comments

What does the future hold for British political blogging?

By Mark Pack | Mon 12th October 2009 - 12:20 pm

Predictions that the next general election will be the one in which the internet will make a huge impact have regularly come and gone. Post-Obama ready yourself for another such clutch of predictions, but underneath this punditry froth the internet has got on with quietly shifting the way politics works. It’s been more at the unglamorous organisational end (imagine trying to organise a campaign without email) than at the eye-catching systems-shattering dramatic end beloved of pundits, but it’s been a major change nonetheless.

Following in the footsteps of email, blogging has also established a firm place in the logistics of politics, even if its impact on the overall style and conduct of politics is less clear and less dramatic. Blogs have become a key news medium for people involved in or significantly interested in politics, they have become a key part of the flow of news to and from journalists and for some MPs and candidates they reach local audiences large enough to be a significant factor in their election efforts.

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Posted in Online politics | Also tagged alastair campbell, blogging, ConservativeHome, featured, guido fawkes, iain dale, LabourList, london reconnections, mike smithson, nick robinson, norfolk blogger, paul waugh, politicalbetting.com and uk polling report | 5 Comments

Lib Dem Jeremy Wilcock selected to fight Prescott seat

By The Voice | Wed 8th July 2009 - 7:12 pm

The trips-off-your-tongue ThisIsHullandEastRiding.co.uk reports:

LIBERAL Democrat campaigner Jeremy Wilcock has been chosen to contest John Prescott’s seat at the next General Election. The former Deputy Prime Minister is retiring from the House of Commons at the next election after representing Hull East since 1970.

In the 2005 election vote Mr Prescott won with a reduced majority of 11,747 – down almost 3,600 on the previous General Election. Four years ago, the Lib Dems finished second with their candidate Andy Sloan increasing his party’s share of the vote. …

However, since 2005 the Lib Dems have established a comfortable overall majority on

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Posted in Selection news | Also tagged hull and jeremy wilcock | 7 Comments

Gordon Brown and expenses: he has a bit of form

By Mark Pack | Wed 3rd June 2009 - 4:40 pm

From The Times:

It’s the sort of pratfall performed so entertainingly by John Prescott. But who would have expected that acme of prudence, Gordon Brown, to become embroiled in an embarrassing court action over his failure to declare expenses …

has admitted in legal documents to the error – an offence under the Representation of the People Act carrying a maximum penalty of £5,000 or a prison sentence. However, the Scottish judge hearing the case is expected to take a lenient view of Brown’s behaviour.

(Oh ok, this story is from February 19, 2006. The judge was indeed lenient.)

Posted in Humour and News | Also tagged gordon brown | 3 Comments

Join the campaign to Shred John Prescott’s £1.5m Pension

By Stephen Tall | Sun 1st March 2009 - 7:40 pm

Today the Government, in the person of Harriet Harman, announced it would legislate retrospectively to terminate Sir Fred Goodwin’s £650,000 a year pension, five months after Labour business minister Lord Myners agreed to the deal. I don’t always agree with the Telegraph’s Jeff Randall, but I think he’s bang-on-the-money with this judgement, written even before Ms Harman’s latest desperate attempts to extricate Labour from the hole into which they’ve dug themselves:

Once we set off down the road to annulling pension contracts, who knows where the journey will end. Nobody, to my knowledge, is claiming that Sir Fred had

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Posted in LDV campaigns, News and Op-eds | Also tagged facebook and fred goodwin | 25 Comments

John Prescott vs Iain Dale

By Mark Pack | Wed 4th February 2009 - 2:49 pm

Earlier this week, Iain Dale doubted whether or not John Prescott really pens his blog. John Prescott has taken to YouTube to make his case:

Iain seems to have taken it all in good heart.

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged iain dale | 2 Comments