Ever since the Liberal Democrats were founded, we’ve had the sight of the national media only being interested at most in one figure – the party’s leader – yet also running regular reports about how the party is a one-man band. Cause and effect anyone?
With the rise of Vince Cable to public prominence – and popularity – the party now faces a different challenge: how best to turn the team of Clegg and Cable into votes for the party.
The idea of running tickets in election campaigns is nothing new – Mayor and Deputy Mayor, President and Vice President, and so …
There’s a lot of expectation heaped on Nick Clegg’s shoulders ahead of his speech to the Lib Dem autumn conference in Bournemouth this afternoon. The media coverage has been less-than-glowing, fuelled by murmurs of discontent among party activists following Nick’s talk of the need for “savage” cuts, the row over the de-prioritising of the abolition of tuition fees, and Vince’s surprise announcment of a ‘mansion tax’.
So Nick will be looking to unite the conference hall this afternoon with a passionate statement explaining why the Lib Dems deserve the votes of the British public at the next election. Nick is, of course, an accomplished – seemingly nerve-less – public speaker, always at ease on the conference podium, and I don’t expect this afternoon to be any different. I’ll be live-blogging the speech as it proceeds, as well as keeping an eye on any Twitter reactions at libdemvoice.org/tweets. Join me at 3pm …
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 23rd September 2009 - 10:55 am
I’m not, by any means, a party conference veteran – Bournemouth ’09 was in fact only my fourth. But it has been distinctive for one thing in particular: it’s been the first year when the media coverage of conference has genuinely reflected what folk (at least those I’ve met) have been talking about at conference.
In previous years, we have been continually told that Lib Dem delegates were chattering about the fate of our leaders – when actually we were quite contentedly chewing the fat of meaty policy issues. This year, there has, as ever at a Lib Dem conference, been plenty of meaty policy debate, but there’s also been more than a little discussion, and not a little grumbling, about the style of the party leadership, both Nick and Vince. And it seems to me – as I blogged here yesterday – that these grumblings are fair.
By Alex Foster
| Tue 22nd September 2009 - 4:30 pm
We asked delegates if their constituency was ready for the General election; if Nick Clegg was right on tuition fees; how a mansion tax would go down in their area; and how they were campaigning online.
Answering our questions were Tom Holvey and Chris Wiggin, from York, Katy Gordon for Glasgow North, Alan Bullion from Tunbridge Wells / Sevenoaks and Brendan D’Cruz from St Albans.
Here are the three main lines promoted by the party from conference to the media in the last 24 hours:
Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference unveils plans to increase the pay of Britain’s lowest-earning troops by £6,000, improve the condition of forces’ housing, and ensure proper medical provision for all personnel. The proposals, which would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy or RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level firefighter, would be funded within the MoD’s existing budget.
Liberal Democrat Conference has demanded an independent, public inquiry into allegations of British Government complicity in
By Stephen Tall
| Mon 21st September 2009 - 5:15 pm
Evening Standard blogger Paul Waugh has the story:
Work and Pensions spokesman Steve Webb has indeed put his foot down to kill off Nick Clegg’s suggestion (floated in the Guardian on Saturday) that the party could means-test child benefit.
Webb made plain his feelings at a Fabian fringe event.
And finally, something to file in the “It makes you proud to have media like that in our country” corner. The Times runs a serious piece in education in this country and what we might be able to learn from Sweden. …
By Alix Mortimer
| Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:00 pm
There was I, all set to wind down from the keyboard, when this inspirational news descends from politicshome:
The Independent says that Nick Clegg plans a new tax on homes worth over £1m in order to fund raising the basic starting-point for income tax.
It’s a wealth tax! A redistribution of taxation burden on to static capital accumulations and away from economically productive activity! Has anyone told Jock?
Woohoo! If the party adopts this, I’ll even overlook all that airbrushing nonsense…
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 20th September 2009 - 2:54 pm
Nick has rung the changes for this year’s traditional leader’s Q&A in front of the party conference – out goes the usual interview between Nick and a friendly lefty-liberal journo, and in comes the improvised ‘Town Hall’ format of audience questions.
First up, Nick’s asked if the Lib Dems will take part in political programmes if the BNP are invited to take part by the broadcasters. Yes, we will, he says: quite simply it’s too late to ignore the BNP. Look at what happened in Burnley, he notes – once forecast to be the first BNP council, now a prime Lib …
Nick Clegg has today launched a detailed plan for cutting the costs of government, “A Better Politics for Less”:
Balancing the government books isn’t just the political equivalent of an accountancy exam; Liberal Democrats seek austerity for the purpose of delivering a better Britain. The best way to reduce government expenditure is through significant reform, identifying big ticket items that can be done differently or not done at all. Simply squeezing budgets year-on-year, without identifying how to deliver better for less will just hurt the public services people rely on.
Unlike the previous Conservative proposals, these plans will both save a significant …
By Alix Mortimer
| Sun 20th September 2009 - 10:24 am
The agenda
Reports from the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Diversity and Equality Group this morning, then a Scotland/Wales double-act in the form of the policy mortion on the Future of Devolution (short version: more of it please!). There’s a presenttation from Kingston’s Lib Dem group (go Mary!), speeches from Norman Lamb and Ed Davey and a policy motion on the paper “Thriving in a Globalised World – A Strategy for Britain”.
This morning a group of 10 bloggers interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The questions ranged over a wide area and here are a few selected highlights:
MPs’ expenses: Nick eloquently made the link between safe seats and good behaviour by MPs: “if you want to keep MPs honest, don’t give them safe seats for life … safe seats corrupt public life”. He said his one real regret over how he had handled the issue was not making the point more forcefully that whilst the party was not free of “blemishes”, no Liberal Democrat MP had been involved in the serious …
More material for Libdemologists, from the Telegraph:
The Lib Dem leader said that members of the Labour Party had approached his party looking for help in preventing the Tories taking power after the next election…
Mr Clegg, whose party begins its annual conference on Saturday in Bournemouth, said he will not take part in any alliance with Labour.
Drama and political passion over at the Jewish Chronicle, where Nick Clegg vows to Martin Bright that he will not silence controverial Lib Dem peer Baroness (Jenny) Tonge, whose outspoken comments on the Israeli-Palestine conflict have in the past landed her in hot water.
Nick Clegg is angry. No, it’s beyond angry. Incandescent almost gets it, but that still doesn’t capture the full fury of the man as he leans forward from his chair in the Liberal Democrat leader’s office in the House of Commons.
The accusation that Mr Clegg had failed to honour his commitment to act against the pro-Palestinian Lib
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 17th September 2009 - 9:55 am
Today saw the publication of Nick Clegg’s Demos pamphlet, The Liberal Moment, outlining his thoughts on progressive politics over the past century, moving forward to the future.
The party’s media office made the trusting (and canny) move to give a group of Lib Dem bloggers advance sight of the document, which means there’s already been a vigorous response around the blogosphere. In chronological order, here are the posts to date (we’ll add others as they appear):
By Stephen Tall
| Thu 17th September 2009 - 9:35 am
You can tell it’s a pre-conference week… on Monday, the Lib Dems’ deputy leader Vince Cable launched the party’s response to the fiscal crisis, while today Nick Clegg has published a major pamphlet with think-tank Demos outlining his thoughts on progressive politics. Titled The Liberal Moment it’s available for download as a PDF dcument here.
Nick also has an article in today’s Times setting out his ambiton for the Lib Dems to replace Labour as the progressive party at a national level. Here’s an excerpt:
Today I am publishing a pamphlet, The Liberal Moment, in which I make a simple argument: in the same way that Labour eclipsed a tired Liberal Party almost a century ago, the Liberal Democrats now offer a new rallying point for a resurgent progressive movement in Britain, replacing Labour as the dominant force of progressive politics.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 16th September 2009 - 2:40 pm
Over the last week or so, Lib Dem Voice has invited the members of our private forum (open to all Lib Dem members) inviting them to take part in a survey, conducted via Liberty Research, asking a number of questions about the party and the current state of British politics. Many thanks to the c.250 of you who completed it; we’re publishing the results on LDV over the next few days. You can catch up on the results of our exclusive LDV members’ surveys by clicking here.
First up, LDV asked: What is your view of Nick Clegg’s performance as Lib Dem leader?
Here’s what you told us (with April’s figures – the last time we asked this question – in brackets):
Over at Scotland on Sunday, Nick Clegg has an article arguing that “It’s the Liberal Democrats who have the record, the strength and the vision to change politics for good”. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s liberals who invented the state pension and the NHS, liberals who were first to campaign to protect the environment and liberals who first put concern for human rights into our foreign affairs. The Liberal Democrats are a pioneering party – the party of Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell, who stood up against jeers and derision to campaign against the illegal invasion of Iraq. We led calls for
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 13th September 2009 - 10:05 am
Welcome to the Sunday edition of LDV’s Daily View. And as Mark Pack of this e-parish is (apparently) forraging for chocolate in Bristol, it falls to me to bring you today’s supplement with extra multimedia entertainment.
2 Big Stories
NSPCC and Nick criticise new Government regulations for parent helpers
Ministers are under intense pressure to scale back plans for a “big brother” child protection database which will force millions of parents to undergo paedophile and criminal checks. In a major blow for the Government, Britain’s largest children’s charity, the NSPCC, criticised the regulations for parent helpers which it said threatened “perfectly safe and normal activities” and risked alienating the public.
The paper also quotes Nick Clegg’s condemnation of Labour’s proposals:
This scheme is wildly over the top. How are we supposed to create a country fit for our children if we regard every adult looking after children as a potential threat?”
Independent broadcasters will be allowed to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows. The change is intended to bring in extra funds for commercial broadcasters. Experts believe it could raise up to £100m a year.
There are currently strict rules against product placement and this ban would remain in place on BBC shows. Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is expected to announce a three-month consultation on the changes in a speech to the Royal Television Society next week.
The move will not apply to the BBC, and children’s programmes will remain product-placement free. A long-overdue acceptance of commercial reality? Or a retrogade intrusion into public broadcasting space?
After about an hour or so of having my knuckles scraped by ridiculously snappy letterboxes, and falling over on uneven paths, and generally feeling pretty battered and bruised and grumpy, I got to a house where a skinhead with no shirt on and a BNP tattoo set his dog on me. … I suspect that this is a big part of the reason political parties are haemorrhaging membership. The expectation that people risk their own personal safety for nothing on a regular basis is not a rewarding experience for the activist.
… the whole point of blogging is that it is interactive, or it is nothing. If most committee members don’t blog, don’t engage with the blogosphere, in short, have lives, and do not respond immediately, or even at all, will they be criticised? You bet they will and, like I did, would probably withdraw back into their collective shells.
Sunday Bonus track
You may have noticed a chap called Derren on the telly this week attracting a lot of attention. Here’s a reminder of him at his best:
By Stephen Tall
| Sat 12th September 2009 - 1:55 pm
Was The Guardian’s Martin Kettle right yesterday to argue, as per his article’s headline, The biggest problem for the Liberal Democrats is illiberal Britain. It was a long, thoughtful piece – and, hey, it’s much better to be talked about than not, especially if you’re a Lib Dem – but, still, it was at best a partial explanation.
Let’s start with the positive stuff. First of all, Mr Kettle acknowledges the various ways in which the party has “been right on so many issues”:
By so many yardsticks, the Lib Dems deserve to be higher in the polls than they are. Michael Meadowcroft, intermittent party loyalist and former MP for Leeds West, listed several of them in a typically forceful Guardian letter today: the economy, Europe, ID cards, Iraq and localism. On all of them, as he says, the Lib Dems have been consistently right. One can add others to the list that Meadowcroft omitted: climate change, police powers, tax, electoral reform. All big subjects on which the Lib Dems have been right most of the time in ways that put the other parties to shame.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. But then there’s the problem of the current opinion polls: the Lib Dems have been tracking in the high-teens, occasionally breaking the 20% barrier.
The BBC reports that Nick Clegg has renewed his call for the government’s cut on VAT – from 17.5% to 15% – to be scrapped. He suggests instead thousands of new apprenticeships:
In an interview with the BBC’s Chris Brierley, he said youth unemployment should be the government’s “top priority”.
He added: “We’re proposing to give young people the hope that they can stay active, stay in study, stay in work, stay in training, rather than find themselves put on a course towards long-term unemployment.
“This recession is, in my view, creating the real risk of a jobless generation and that’s an
Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has been unfairly treated for saying in public what a large number of other people are confiding in private. … the doubts Mr Clegg has expressed about the strategy, resources and prospects of the Afghan campaign are shared by many others.
By Tim Connolly
| Wed 9th September 2009 - 2:30 pm
Youth justice has risen, zombie-like, from the place unloved political issues go to die. In July, the Government published an interim report on The Youth Crime Action Plan, its “comprehensive, cross-government analysis of what the government is going to do to tackle youth crime.”
This prompted vigorous activity from the think-tanks and NGOs, and a predictable silence from the dead who may live again, aka the Conservative Party.
Last week, the Liberal Democrats published data showing that the number of 10 to 12 year olds convicted of a criminal offence rose by 87.2% between 1997 and 2007. Nick Clegg, remarking on the figures, argued that:
It is a disgrace the Government spends eleven times more locking up our young people than it does on backing projects to stop them getting involved in crime in the first place.”
Unless you happen to be keen on nineteenth century penal philosophy, Nick’s comment seems to make excellent sense. I would suggest, however, that it is, at best, carelessly imprecise. At worst, it indicates a refusal to challenge the prevailing conservative narrative on youth crime. Given recent reporting of events in Doncaster, a measured rebuttal is more critical than ever.
Yesterday saw Gordon Brown’s statement on the UK’s continuing involvement in Afghanistan, in which he defended the government’s strategy, and maintained its goals were “realistic and achievable”. It earned short shrift from Nick Clegg:
The situation in Afghanistan is on a knife-edge. Yet today we have heard little in the way of fresh, new thinking from Gordon Brown. After pursuing an overambitious and under-resourced strategy for eight years it’s hard to believe that increasing the training of the Afghan police and army will now do the trick. We need a bolder change of strategy to turn things around. When it comes to Afghanistan, we need to do things properly or not at all.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 2nd September 2009 - 11:50 pm
It’s been a busy day for Nick… speaking out on the Prime Minister’s contortions over the release of Mr Al Megrahi, confirming his intention to accept Sky News’s invitation to a televised leaders’ debate, as well as launching a new Lib Dem campaign, this one aimed at increasing the pay of the lowest-paid troops by £6,000 a year.
Here’s the summary of the new proposals:
The proposals, which would mean that no service personnel in the Army, Navy or RAF would receive less basic annual pay than a new-entrant police constable or development-level firefighter, would be funded within the
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 2nd September 2009 - 11:40 pm
As LDV noted this morning Sky News has decided to lay down the gauntlet, and formally invite the major party leaders to particpate in a televised debate during the general election campaign. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has formally accepted his invitation, issuing the following statement on his website:
Many thanks for your letter of yesterday. It is great to hear that Sky News are taking this important initiative and I would be delighted to accept your invitation.
At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, we must
Nick Clegg, who has publicly opposed the Scottish executive’s decision to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi, today responded to the news that Gordon Brown – who has remained silent about the case until today – let it be known to the Libyan authorities via his foreign office ministers that the Prime Minister did not want Mr Al Megrahi to die in prison:
The Foreign Secretary has now admitted that the British Government made its position on Megrahi’s release clear to the Libyans.
“It is now clear that Gordon Brown felt able to share his feelings with a power-crazed
Tom Reeve I always feel smarter after reading one of your columns! Informative, polemical, pointed. Thank you.
The biggest question we face as a society (after climat...
Nonconformistradical "It’s ONLY a game of football.."
Quite - writing as one who has no intention of watching any of it - apart from ignoring what comes up in TV news programs....
Mark Johnston The process is rushed, like last time (2021), but the opportunities for engagement are great than last time. I'm glad both the party and leader strategies are f...
expats Sadly, some UK politicians/ governments have a history of ignoring international law.. In 1998 the Labour government acceded to International law and arrested A...
Chloe How do you ensure arrest warrants are enforced ? The diplomatic fallout of such action would be significant. The Israeli leadership and for that matter Putin wi...
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Chloe 