Tag Archives: michael white

The Voice

The tale of Danny Alexander and the Big Raspberry*

By The Voice | Tue 18th November 2014 - 3:50 pm

So, Danny Alexander has been having lunch with some journalists today. The conversation, according to Kevin Maguire, was mature and relevant, discussing the important issues of the day.

You would have to be really sad to type “Danny Alexander fart” into Google, wouldn’t you?

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 14 Comments
Stephen Tall

“Where we work, we win” – will that Lib Dem maxim survive the 2015 test?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 5th January 2013 - 9:50 am

Chris RennardDon’t splutter on your Saturday morning cornflakes, but the Guardian has today published two intelligent articles on the Lib Dems and the strategy which the party is hoping will see us through to the other side of the 2015 election intact.

First, there’s Patrick Wintour‘s analysis — Liberal Democrats bank on ground war to hold on to seats — which uses as its springboard an analysis by Lord (Chris) Rennard, the party’s former chief executive and elections guru:

insists it should not be ground down by low national polls. “The

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , and | 25 Comments
Tom Papworth

Opinion: I’d rather be boring than bonkers

By Tom Papworth | Tue 20th September 2011 - 9:35 am

Monday night’s Channel 4’s coverage of the Liberal Democrat conference ended with Michael Crick interviewing Ann Treneman and Michael White about the general feel amongst Lib Dems.

Among the usual sniping from a reactionary sketch-writer and the doyen of the urban intellectual elite came a lament that the Liberal Democrat conference did not feel like a Liberal Democrat conference. People were too on message, they moaned; there was not enough rebellion; nor enough eccentricity. Michael White in particular bemoaned the absence of beards and sandals. Lib Dem conference, they felt, had become boring.

Too right.

We are not in the 1970s, when …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 23 Comments
Stephen Tall

What Nick can do next…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 18th June 2011 - 2:58 pm

The Guardian’s Michael White poses the tricky question for Liberal Democrats — “Nick Clegg is doing better, but will it be enough?” — on his blog, following Nick’s well-received speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery. As Michael points out, only the sharp jokes were reported in the media, rather than the substance which accompanied them (a charge to which I also plead partially guilty). So let’s add a bit of balance…

had three non-jokey points to make – three you didn’t read in the papers today. One was that, whatever happens at the next election, Britain will not

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

So you want to be a political journalist?

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th April 2011 - 8:55 am

A sister title to Shane Greer’s So you want to be a politician?, Sheila Gunn’s So you want to be a political journalist? is a collection of thrity-two lively short chapters giving an insight into the life of a political journalist.

With an impressive cast of contributors, including Peter Riddell, Carolyn Quinn and Michael White, the book has plenty of insider information, presented usually in the style of lively anecdotal chats. This is not a tedious career advice book nor a studious academic tone but rather something that gives a flavour of what it is like to be a political journalist and how to get there.

MP Adam Holloway’s contribution is the one that turns sour on political journalism, explaining how he became so disillusioned with coverage of himself that he not only ceased writing a column for the local newspaper but also stopped sending out local news releases.

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Posted in Books | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , and | Leave a comment
Stephen Tall

Three reasons Nick Clegg was right to call for the ‘cancellation’ of the Queen’s Speech

By Stephen Tall | Tue 17th November 2009 - 6:15 pm

When I woke up yesterday morning to news reports that Nick Clegg had called for the Queen’s Speech to be cancelled – because with limited time before the general election it would be far better to use the time focusing on reforming Parliament ready for the new batch of MPs – I was impressed.

First, because it was one of the leading news items, and for a Lib Dem leader to be that high up the running order in peace-time is no mean achievement. Secondly, because he was focusing public and media attention once again on a key liberal …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , and | 19 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick’s pick of the greatest Parliamentary speeches in the last century

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th April 2009 - 7:28 pm

A big tip of my hat to Michael White in today’s Guardian for his feature, Greatest speeches in parliament of the past 100 years, 1909-2009, which links to a number of the Hansard transcripts of Parliamentary speeches nominated by ’46 distinguished figures, mostly living peers and MPs, plus a few officials and observers’.

It’s well worth browsing lazily through – as, incidentally, is the Hansard website, which you can access here. You can, for instance, search on speeches by “Jo Grimond”, and read ‘Major Grimond’s’ (as he then was known) maiden speech from March 10, 1950 …

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Posted in Europe / International and Parliament | Also tagged , and | 2 Comments
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  • User AvatarPaul Fisher 15th Aug - 3:18pm
    @Anthony Watts - Spot on. The glaring deficiency is that there is no stated vision and strategy (Do members know what I mean?) I DO...
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    Martin, I’m sure David’s OK. It’s just that he can’t cope with Wales doing rather better than Scotland over this.
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    I am certainly not an expat (too many Tory connotations!), nor do I consider myself an expatriate (which technically I am) but as an immigrant...
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    David Raw: Are you OK? Your comments appear odd. Of course it is significant that Kirsty Williams is on her own; it makes her a...
  • User AvatarChristine Walters 15th Aug - 1:56pm
    Just a short comment. At the next election, please do not allow the leader of the Lib Dems to claim they can be the next...
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    The car was not stopped because it was registered in North Yorkshire (though it was) the car was stopped because after the police mistakenly put...