So how has polling day been for you? I am sure I am not the only person who got sunburnt while telling at a polling station.
Talking of which, did anyone mention dogs at polling stations? I had a conversation with this beautiful Pyrenean Mountain Dog while taking numbers.
We now wait for the exit polls, which have been pretty accurate in previous elections. To keep you entertained I thought I might remind you of what happened to a previous editor of Lib Dem Voice, Stephen Tall, back in 2015.
You may have noticed that the members of the Lib Dem Voice team have been reticent to make predictions about how many seats we will win. That’s because we don’t want to follow in Stephen’s footsteps – quite literally.
He pledged to run naked down Whitehall if the party gained fewer than 20 seats in the General Election in 2015. Here is a reminder of what happened next…
As we prepare to welcome Joe Biden as US President a week on Wednesday, I thought it might be an idea to look back at previous inaugurations.
Let’s hope that we get to 20th January without any more of the scenes we saw this week. There may well be drama in Congress as the Democrats attempt a second impeachment, but the last thing anybody needs is more injury or loss of life.
I’m thinking back 12 years to Obama’s inaugural speech. I will never forget it. But that is partly because our hamster Puffball died during it, not just for its inspiring and hopeful qualities.
Then LDV co-editor Stephen Tall said that he came across as the “ultimate pragmatist CEO”:
Was this speech a mesmerising tour de force which will rank among his best? Not for me. But that’s not a bad thing at all, because what the speech did demonstrate was a sense of uncompromising purpose – and I’ll take that over highfalutin oratory from the most powerful leader in the world. For sure, there was the soaring promise:
The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
But what struck me more was the sense of the ultimate pragmatist CEO, impatient to fix what he sees as broken:
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
I was still learning to love him. Obviously I was delighted that he had been elected, but I have always been a Hillary fan. Somewhere there’s an alternate universe where we are now at the end of Obama’s first term as 45th President with her having been the 44th. That would have been a lot better.
Obama was just starting to inspire me. His inaugural speech certainly made me warm to him more as I wrote on my own blog.
Obama’s speech still had the idealism and the confidence that we have come to expect from him, but this was tempered with sobering realism and a call to all Americans to give of their best to deal with the unprecedented challenges ahead.
You could actually see George W Bush squirming as his legacy was laid bare in a few well chosen, but very frank words. “Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet”
There were two phrases that I thought were the signs of the new age. “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” So it’s goodbye Guantanamo. The poisonous vernacular of the war on terror is replaced with “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Well, I loved it.
And if this is true, then bring it on: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.” I hope Israel was listening and will be made to think about the way it consumes the resources of the middle east. It would be good if clean waters flowed in Gaza.
Another theme of the speech was personal responsibility, and embracing your duties as a citizen to help the nation succeed. “For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.”
The two things I really loved most of all about the speech was the inclusion of non-believers in the list of value systems at one point and the addition of curiosity as one of the “values on which our success depends.” I like the willingness to abandon conventions as novel solutions are sought for challenges.
I will be forever grateful to my former co-editor Stephen Tall for teaching me two very valuable life lessons; be careful what you commit to on live TV and honour your pledges with good humour and grace.
On 27th August, LDV will be 10 years old. In that time, we’ve brought you over 24,000 posts and published over 337,000 comments. Over the Summer holidays, we’ll take you on a nostalgic meander through a decade of Liberal Democrat history, seen through the eyes of our editors and contributors. We hope you enjoy our choices.
This is one of our more iconic posts. Former co-editor Stephen Tall made a bit of a rash promise on the Daily Politics in 2013. He said that if the Liberal Democrats only won 24 seats in the General Election, he would run naked up Whitehall.
Well, sadly, the election result is history. Stephen could have got off on a technicality, but he did the run, on, of all dates, the anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth, pretty much naked and filmed for the Daily Politics. Enjoy.
Stephen Tall, formerly of this parish, has honoured the pledge he made to run naked down Whitehall if the Liberal Democrats were reduced to 24 seats.
You do wonder what was in Stephen Tall’s mind. He could so easily have said: If the Lib Dems only get 24 seats, I’ll bake everyone lemon drizzle cake. But, no, he said he’d run naked down Whitehall. It’s one thing to do it in the pub with a few mates, but he did it on live tv.
Yesterday, Stephen’s run hit the Sun. Not the yellow thing in the Sky, the Murdoch raggy thing in the newsagent.
A prominent Lib Dem will run half a mile down Whitehall semi-naked after losing a bet.
Before the general election Stephen Tall, the former deputy Lord Mayor of Oxford, bet the Daily Politics that if the Lib Dems were reduced to 24MPs or fewer he would do a naked dash.
The party was all but obliterated at the polls in May with just eight MPs returning to the Commons.
And now Mr Tall, a Lib Dem blogger, has pledged to jog naked from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square – for the viewing pleasure of office workers from a string of government departments.
Stephen Tall is making good on what turned out to be an ill-advised pledge in 2013 that he would run naked down Whitehall if the Liberal Democrats got 24 seats in this year’s General Election. He has decided that others should benefit from his immodesty and is raising money for Medecins Sans Frontieres. The charity will already be benefiting from £5000 promised by Kelvin Mackenzie, the former editor of the Sun, on live television last week. Stephen has set up a JustGiving page to augment that sum.
You can find out more about the amazing work that MSF does here on its website. I was particularly moved by this post where former MSF emergency co-ordinator wrote about the people she met while working on MSF’s search and rescue vessel. Here she tells the story of 17 year old Sako:
He had been in Libya for five years, and he had seen it fall into lawless anarchy and violence. His uncle who brought him there, died. His best friend died last year after a child soldier, about the same age as him, hit him in the head with a steel bar. He didn’t die immediately; it took a long time before he gave up. There are no hospitals.
“Child soldier my age.” Suddenly it struck me how young he looked. “17,” he said with a big smile. My mind spun again. So he was 11 when he arrived in Libya? He is still a minor, even though he has seen and survived more than any man I know has in a lifetime.
I explained how in Europe you are still a child until you are 18 and that if he wanted I will make sure he gets off together with all the other minors we had on board.
He nodded. Looked down. Suddenly he looked like a child after all.
Remember that pledge of Stephen Tall’s that he’d run naked down Whitehall if we were down to 24 seats in the election? Well, he has been reminded about it every time he’s appeared on the Daily Politics since. Back on the programme yesterday, he was put in an awkward position when former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie offered £5000 to charity for Stephen to do it. So long as the legal issues can be overcome, there doesn’t seem to be a way he can get out of it now. From the Telegraph:
Stephen Tall, co-editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, was asked on the BBC’s Daily Politics show why he had not yet delivered on his promise to run nude if his party lost half of its seats.
The Sun’s former editor Kelvin MacKenzie, who appeared on the same show, then offered Mr Tall £5,000 to complete the challenge.
Mr Tall and Mr MacKenzie shook hands on the promise that he would carry out the task in return for the money being donated to his chosen charity.
So, I was watching the 10 o’clock News last night and saw our Stephen Tall flaunting his Labour leadership ballot paper.
As he explains, he wasn’t out to do a Toby Young and vote for Jeremy Corbyn:
I was ambivalent whether I would actually exercise my vote, but decided that, if I did, it wouldn’t be to troll Labour by choosing Jeremy Corbyn: I would vote for the candidate the other parties would least like to face.
Assuming, that is, Labour gave me a vote. After all, the party assures us they have “rigorous due diligence” processes in place to weed out infiltrators from other parties. Having stood for election against Labour a few weeks ago, I half-assumed they’d (quite legitimately) disenfranchise me.
But then yesterday morning I received my online ballot paper…
Stephen decided to register as a supporter to see how their leadership process worked as an interested observer. By rights, any decent verification process would have spotted him and got rid of him. Instead, it seems to be getting rid of long term Labour supporters whose social media profiles were a bit too lefty for them. In fact, it plays into the hands of lefty conspiracy theorists that someone who would, if he’d voted at all, have voted for Liz Kendall, received a ballot and they didn’t.
Our esteemed former co-editor Stephen Tall has a piece on the Independent Voices site looking into tactical voting. Why might you, he asks:
For all the complexity of political debates about the economy, public services, the environment and immigration, the choice each of us faces when handed our ballot paper is simple: which candidate should receive our solitary “X”?
Suppose you’re a Conservative supporter living in Nick Clegg’s seat of Sheffield Hallam; should you stick by your party, even if that means handing the seat to Labour? Or lend your vote to the Lib Dem leader this time?
Or perhaps you’re a Scot who wants to see the UK stick together – then the canny choice will be the candidate best-placed to thwart the SNP. Danny Alexander is pinning his hopes of survival in his Inverness seat on rallying anti-nationalist voters.
He adds that voting for the party that most reflects your values is not always the best way of getting something like your values enacted under the first past the post electoral system:
Stephen Tall has been writing for the Times’ Red Box on Liberal Democrat prospects for the election. He makes the point that although commentators seem keen to ignore the party, we may yet be serious players in the next Parliament.
However, the Lib Dems’ 120+ polls reveal something Ashcroft’s polling has neglected: naming the candidate makes a big difference for the Lib Dems. In seats as diverse as Labour-facing Cambridge and Tory-facing St Austell and Newquay, asking voters to think about whose name will actually appear on the ballot paper is enough to flip these seats into the Lib Dem column.
Even in Scotland, where the SNP surge could flatten all before it, the party rates its chances of holding a clutch of seats, such as Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine. Oh, and anyone betting against Charles Kennedy needs their head examined.
The margins, though, are wafer-thin. On a good day, with a following wind, the Lib Dems could hold up to 40 seats (though few expect the final tally to be quite that high).
By Caron Lindsay
| Tue 17th February 2015 - 12:46 pm
On Sunday night, Stephen Tall and I were on the Westminster Hour discussing the party’s prospects for the coming election and beyond. You can listen to the whole thing here. They also have a shorter clip of Stephen talking about the dilemma facing the party about portraying itself as a “split the difference” party. He rightly said that concern about it is something that unites activists on both sides of the party but on the other hand we aren’t going to win the election outright so we have to claim the centre ground between the other two.
In my contribution on this issue, I said that there was a place in our campaigning for showing what we’d stopped or would stop. We had done so very effectively in coalition with Labour in Scotland. However, we had to show our heart as a bold, radical liberal party.
By Caron Lindsay
| Tue 30th December 2014 - 10:54 am
The members of the LDV team are in a relaxed state at the moment, replete with the joys, food and drink of the season.
Some of us have been showing off our best Christmas fashion and I thought you’d like to have a look over your morning coffee.
We’ll start with the tasteful. Mary Reid’s wonderful green coat. I bumped into her at LDHQ the other week and I can promise that it feels amazingly soft. I don’t really care that much about clothes, but I like this coat.
I guess Joe Otten’s new funky Christmas shirt could be described as tasteful, too. It’s kind of like the duvet I had as a teenager.
So, I asked around at LDV Towers and discovered that there was only one member of the team who has a Positive Candy Crush Status. And it isn’t me. I’m not going to out the person because they asked me not to.
In his fortnightly ConservativeHome column, LDV co-editor Stephen Tall has taken a look at the five fears (the “queasy quintet”, as he terms them) be thinks haunting the Lib Dems. The first two questions – ‘A May massacre?’, ‘Are we becoming irrelevant?’ – are self-explanatory. Here’s what he has to say about the third and fourth fears:
3) Have the Lib Dems done enough in government?
Oh, we have lists of achievements. There isn’t a senior Lib Dem alive who’s won’t rehearse, when challenged “But what have you done?”, the line that the our top 2010 priorities – tax-cuts for low-earners,
Jeremy Browne’s decision to stand down as MP for Taunton Deane at the next election surprised many in the party. Ed Fordham wrote a tribute to Jeremy’s long service for the party on LDV here today — and the Lib Dem blogosphere has also had plenty to say. Here’s a selection…
Last year Tall replaced Mark Pack as co-editor of the hugely successful Liberal Democrat Voice, the must-read site for party activists. A research associate at CentreForum, he is usually more at home with the politics of David Laws than of Simon Hughes, but rarely picks factional fights as a critical friend of the party who prefers to talk up its achievements rather than knock them down.
This is all fine except its not accurate that he replaced Mark Pack. They worked together for several years.
Our Stephen Tall has written a column for Total Politics in which he suggests that the Liberal Democrat manifesto next year will have much more in common with Labour than the Conservatives.
First he sets the scene in the wake of the European and local election results and the Oakeshott coup:
Clegg knows he needs to do more than just survive. Limping towards 2015, acknowledged to be a survival election for the Lib Dems, won’t be good enough. He must inspire the troops that a great liberal victory is possible (or, more realistically, that a truly awful defeat can be avoided).
So Clegg’s sought to re-focus the party’s sights on the 2015 election.
On Tuesday, Centre Forum, the liberal think tank, held a one-day conference in London to mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Orange Book (we have already run pieces on the event by Stephen here, by Andrew Chamberlain here and by Rebecca Hanson here).
David Laws, one of the co-editors of The Orange Book (along with Paul Marshall), delivered the key-note speech on the day, a video of which has now been put online by Centre Forum. You can view it below, or here on YouTube.
Stephen Tall writes that “in terms of policies, there wasn’t much that was new” in Nick Clegg’s Bloomberg speech. Giles Wilkes and others have suggested that, on the contrary, Nick’s fiscal targets are a welcome change from the excessive deficit reduction the Coalition has pencilled in for the next parliament.
These commentators think that Nick’s deficit target (below) is a continuation of Labour and current Coalition policy – to balance the budget excluding capital spending. My understanding, however, is that what Nick said …
I got a call from the BBC’s Daily Politics this morning asking if I’d be willing to pitch up this lunchtime to discuss the Lib Dem performance, as the party wasn’t willing to put up anyone official. (Labour didn’t either.) I duly did so and you can see what I said below. If you want to skip Grant Shapps and Roger Helmer, I pop up briefly at the 12 minute mark. As ever, you only really get to string together a couple of sentences: I blogged my fuller views on Newark …
There was much spluttering at LDV Towers this morning when we saw THAT headline. There was Earl Grey everywhere. Eventually, though, we managed to calm down and keep reading. In fact, our Stephen was messing with the heads of the readers of Conservative Home, as he does every few weeks or so.
In fact, his own vote for the fabulous Liberal Democrat team in the South East is secure. He is talking, though, about how he’s casting a proxy vote for a friend of his who has decided to vote …
Thank you to everyone on Lib Dem Voice who has taken the trouble to comment on my book ‘Race Plan’. It is healthy to have an active debate about how our liberalism can be applied to address the big political events of our time. I am appreciative of the favourable comments; I also thought it might be of interest (and good manners) to respond to some of the main criticisms and themes that emerged on LDV.
“We’re interviewing Bus Pass Elvis – the guy who beat the Lib Dems in a council by-election last week – and wondered if you’d be free to come on and talk about whether it means the writing’s on the wall.” That was the enticing invitation from the BBC’s Daily Politics show – how could I refuse? You can see how I got on below.
It was a brief segment, so there were two points I didn’t get to make which I think are important and relevant.
First, what Bus Pass Elvis’s defeat of the Lib Dems in North Clifton ward in Nottingham shows is the extent to which the party’s support has been hit in non-target areas. The party didn’t contest the ward at all in 2011 but when it did in 2007 it attracted 7% of the vote. Seven years on, the Lib Dems got 2%.
On the BBC’s Daily Politics on Friday, Alex Forsyth looked at the Lib Dem fortunes in recent and not-so-recent elections, with predictions for 2014 and 2015 polls. Some familiar faces interviewed, including Tim Farron, Eastleigh’s Lib Dem council leader Keith House, and LDV’s own Stephen Tall…
In his regular Conservative Home column, Liberal Democrat Voice co-editor Stephen Tall looked at the rationale behind two things that Nick Clegg had done last week, the debate challenge to Farage and his comments on Steve Richards’ programme which were interpreted as showing willing for a coalition with Labour.
So what does Stephen think it’s all about. Firstly, about getting the best deal in 2015 if there’s another hung Parliament:
In part, he’s preparing the ground for what may be. In part, he’s reaching out to those 2010 Lib Dem voters who’ve peeled off to Labour. And in part, he’s laying down
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