1. What’s your formative political memory?
The 2005 election was the one I was probably first properly aware of as a 15/16 year-old. I remember reading the Liberal Democrat manifesto and seeing posters up in my area (mainly Labour, though I’m pleased to say that’s no longer true, and orange diamonds are now far more pervasive during election campaigns).
2. When did you start blogging?
September 2009.
3. Why did you start blogging?
I’d been reading various blogs for a while, and had previously thought about starting my own, but the catalyst was probably chatting to a number of bloggers at Lib Dem Voice’s BOTY awards at the 2009 conference.
4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Straightforward, rational and occasionally random.
5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
In every possible way: liberal.
6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
Attending and blogging about the court case which ultimately led to Phil Woolas being kicked out of Parliament was obviously quite an experience, and I also particularly liked writing this post on a rather daft claim by Ed Balls, which was very short and simple but which, I think, demonstrates the value of blogging as a medium.
7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I hope the rules can be bent, as this was just over a year ago, but I found this post by Stephen here on Lib Dem Voice on why Clegg should rule out a coalition (!) extremely compelling. It was faultless in its logic, and I agreed with Stephen at the time, but its arguments were based on a number of assumptions which we all made but which ultimately proved to be false (particularly that the Conservatives would never give enough ground, including on electoral reform, to ever make a coalition even remotely possible). Speculating on what might have been had the Lib Dem leadership followed Stephen’s advice is an interesting game, and I can’t help coming to the conclusion that we would now be in a (perhaps significantly) worse position than that which we are currently in.
8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
My Twitter followers won’t be surprised that I’ve picked this clip from the magnificent West Wing, the script-writing and acting in which demonstrate just why the show is so brilliant.
Wondering what to get people for Christmas presents? Here’s a selection of what various Liberal Democrat bloggers suggest:
Jonathan Calder recommends Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young: “Anyone with an interest in folk music will find this book engrossing. Young traces the rise of the genre from Cecil Sharp and other Edwardian song collectors like Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Butterworth, through the post-war radialism of Ewan MacColl and Charles Parker, to its electronic heyday in the hands of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. He finds the visionary spirit living on in unlikely artists such as …
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 Alex Foster
| Sun 19th September 2010 - 5:32 pm
This lunchtime, Lib Dem conference representatives gathered in the staggeringly poorly signposted Hall 1B to hear a stellar lineup of Susan Kramer, Evan Harris and interloper Will Straw from Left Foot Forward hold forth on the subject of “Fairer? For whom?” – excellently wrangled by the chairman, our own Stephen Tall.
As with all Lib Dem Voice fringe events, we were there with …
Stephen Tall writes today at Comment is Free that not only is it healthy to be open about disagreement within the coalition, but that it could be good for future Lib Dem – and coalition – success.
He cites the results of this week’s Lib Dem Voice survey, in which 84% of respondents still support the coalition partnership between the Lib Dems and Conservatives – yet just 17% believe it will be good for the party’s prospects at the next general election.
Far from being taken for a ride by the Tories or being carried away by power-hunger, as …
Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall looks at the hysterical over-reaction of the rightwing press to the Lib Dems’ poll surge. It has got, he argues, “the rightwing papers running scared and flinging so much mud it insults their readers’ intelligence”. Here’s an excerpt:
Ever since Nick Clegg’s victory in that debate six days ago, the right-wing press, much like the Tory party, has been utterly paralysed, unsure whether to launch a full-tilt attack on the Lib Dems, or to patronise the party’s surge as the teenage tantrum of an electorate which should jolly well just grow up. …
What really worries the Mail and Murdoch about the Lib Dem poll ratings is this: they understand Nick Clegg’s party is a direct threat to the cosy status quo with which they are so comfortable. Don’t take my word for it: former Sun editor David Yelland made the point quite explicitly on these very pages just a couple of days ago in his explosive article, Nick Clegg’s rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics.
Will the Mail/Murdoch attacks work. Only time will tell, says Stephen, but notes that the newspapers are (to their chagrin) no longer as important as they might have once been:
Lib Dems leading the election race, and polling above 30% – that’s not a line (m)any of us expected to be able to type with a straight face. But it’s the present reality. The questions is: can the Lib Dem surge last? Here’s what a handful of Lib Dem bloggers think …
Anyone who claims to know what will happen electorally next month simply doesn’t know what they are talking about. But there are a number of reasons to suggest that the Liberal Democrats’ poll leap over the weekend might last.
Firstly, polls tend to be mutually reinforcing. This is why some countries ban them during election time. The same factor which has reinforced the Lib Dems’ image as no-hopers in the past might well work in our favour now, especially since it is such a dramatic development.
Go on, try to guess what LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall thought of Nick Clegg’s performance in the televised Prime Ministerial debate yesterday…
Even if you can guess the answer, Stephen’s piece on Comment is Free is well worth a read for the analysis it gives of why the debate went the way it did:
At least in part, it’s the practice that the Lib Dem leader has put in. I don’t mean the intensive “debate camp” cramming all three leaders have undertaken in recent weeks, but rather the scores of town hall meetings he’s been holding up and down the country since
Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall has a pop at Labour’s Lord Adonis for begging for Lib Dem votes, aguing that left-liberal voters have been let down by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – so we’re scarcely inclined to prop them up now. Here’s an excerpt:
There is a respectable argument for tactical voting, given our clunking electoral system. And if Lord Adonis really wants to pursue his “don’t let the Tories in” scare tactic to its logical conclusion, it’s very clear what progressives should do in Lib Dem-Tory marginals: vote Lib Dem. And
Over at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, LDV Co-Editor Stephen Tall poses the question, Where’s George?, and suggests the Tories have shunted the unpopular shadow chancellor into the sidings. Here’s an excerpt:
As the three major parties launched their respective campaigns yesterday, the omnipresent St Vince appeared to have been welded to Nick Clegg’s side, a perpetual reminder of the Lib Dems’ twin leadership ticket. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown surrounded himself with his entire cabinet, including Darling. … And where was George? Well, according to my spies, he was sighted at Luton airport, accompanied by one reporter.
It’s 19th March and LDV Towers will shortly be taking delivery of an enormous cake for Co-editor Stephen Tall’s birthday. Rumour has it he will be leaping out of said cake, and if he does, we’ll be first with the news and photos.
In the meantime…
2 Big Stories
Clarke fails to toe line on party pledge
David Cameron last night overruled Ken Clarke, after the shadow business secretary appeared to backtrack on a Tory commitment to spell out details of a core tax policy ahead of the general election.
The Conservative leader acted after Mr Clarke told a London event that the party could not decide until it was in power whether it would reverse the one percentage point rise in national insurance that is due to take effect in April.
The Tory former chancellor said the party needed to have “the reins of power” before it could make Budget decisions such as the potential tax reversal. “We will only know if we can afford it in the 50-day Budget,” he told a business audience. “The Budget is not just something you knock off for a TV programme.”
To co-incide with the launch yesterday by Lib Dem Voice of our new ‘How Liberal / Authoritarian is your MP?’ website – http://rank.libdemvoice.org – two articles apeared in the media …
‘Although politics is often talked about in terms of left vs right, for a lot of people the liberal/authoritarian spectrum is the more important one,’ LibDemVoice editor Mark Pack told PRWeek. ‘It’s one that tends to get a bit more overlooked but is often what distinguishes people.’
Meanwhile Stephen Tall penned an article for The Guardian’s Comment Is …
On this day 51 years ago, Fidel Castro was sworn in as Cuban Prime Minister. Twenty five years ago Clive Ponting resigned from his post at the MoD over the Belgrano affair, despite having been acquitted of breaching the Official Secrets Act a week previously. Just five years ago, the Kyoto Protocol came into force.
Today is of course Shrove Tuesday, so get ready for pancakes tonight. But don’t rely on your opponents giving up campaigning for Lent. I’m off to spend the night setting the budget for the good residents of Three Rivers.
It’s a mark of a good piece of analysis that it is still sound even if the particular news story that prompted its publication doesn’t stand up for long. And so it is with Stephen’s piece over on Comment is Free, triggered by the Guardian story – firmly rubbished by the party – about the party’s attitude towards coalitions.
So although The Guardian story has been ridiculed – after all the paper has variously reported that the party wants a coalition with the Tories, wants a coalition with Labour or doesn’t want a coalition at all – Stephen’s three tests …
By Stephen Tall
| Fri 11th December 2009 - 10:30 am
If you could choose up to three items for your Christmas stocking, what would they be? That was the question LDV posed to a group of Lib Dem bloggers. All this week we’re revealing what they told us, with all their choices added to the Amazon carousel widget featured on our home-page, referral fees from which will help support Lib Dem Voice: so get clicking and ordering. You can read Part I here and Part II here. In the final part, three more bloggers – Mark Thompson, Mark Valladares, Linda Jack and, erm, me – give …
Compass, the left-leaning pressure group, has launched a campaign for a referendum on proportional representation. Music to the Lib Dems’ ears?
Lib Dem Voice’s own Stephen Tall explains today at Comment is Free why it’s not something we’ll be supporting as a party, this side of the General Election:
Labour has had 12 years in which to renew the democratic fabric of this country. They failed to do anything about it because, quite simply, they didn’t care enough about it. If they care now, it is only because it’s expedient to; and expediency is the worst possible motive for reform.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 30th September 2009 - 9:30 pm
I blogged at the weekend about the resignations of three Lib Dem MPs – Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Lynne Featherstone – from the PoliticsHome ‘insiders’ panel’, the PH100, in protest at the acquisition by Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft of a majority stake in the site.
Today I’ve hear from an impecable source that another Lib Dem MP – not previously publicly listed as a member of the PH100 – has also quit: Chris Huhne. The only other Lib Dem MP publicly listed as a PH100 member is David Laws, and I’ve not yet heard if he’s resigned.
The second Lib Dem to resign from the panel is, erm, me.
By Alex Foster
| Wed 23rd September 2009 - 8:01 pm
We were taping ippr‘s fringe with our own Editor at Large Stephen Tall along with some relative political unknowns – Shirley Williams, Menzies Campbell and Charles Clarke.
The ippr did say they were recording the event themselves, and their recording is probably better than ours, but I can’t immediately find it on their website.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 23rd September 2009 - 6:50 pm
I’m speaking tomorrow, Thursday, at a lunchtime lecture at the RSA with the timely title, Party conferences – who needs them?, alongside Stephen Pound MP, Iain Dale and Michael White. Here’s the blurb:
The annual party conferences attract hordes of the party faithful and mark the start of the political calendar for the Whitehall establishment. The news teams and cameras will be there poised to cover events. But what impact do the party conferences really have in Britain, or indeed the wider world?
Policy is no longer made here – arguably the party conference has become a triumph of stage management over
By Stephen Tall
| Tue 22nd September 2009 - 12:25 pm
Over the last few days I’ve been uploading the results from Lib Dem Voice’s members’ survey, completed by c.250 party members – you can catch up on the results published to date by clicking here.
The survey was conducted in association with the Institute of Public Policy Research (ippr) in advance of today’s lunchtime fringe, The end of politics as we know it?. Full details here:
Liberal Democrats Conference: The end of politics as we know it?
22 September 2009 –
13.00-14.00
Dorchester One room, Marriott Highcliff Hotel
By Alex Foster
| Mon 21st September 2009 - 7:45 pm
Whilst the LDV team is out tonight enjoying, in our various abstemious ways, the Liberal Drinks event at Bournemouth’s Goat and Tricycle tonight, we thought we’d bring you the tape of last night’s BOTY ceremony.
Sadly the audio version can not to justice to the range of visual feasts the evening provided. Stephen’s milliner will be most disappointed; the ice sculptors know their art is fleeting; and we have really only just rounded up all the flamingoes.
But it was a striking evening for a number of reasons, as we hope the …
The Lib Dem blog awards are with us again – and one of the categories is ‘Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2008)’. This is actually my favourite award for the simple reason that it recognises writing talent, pure and simple. By which I don’t mean that the prose has to be worthy of a Booker nomination; rather that the article has to attract, engage and provoke readers – elevate our thinking, if you like.
All of which musing prompted me to ask my LDV colleagues – and myself – to self-nominate the favourite articles we’ve posted here on the site. Here’s what we said:
Millions of people are revealing 25 ‘random’ and often embarrassing things about themselves in the latest phenomenon to sweep the internet … The first of 25 random things is: “The weirdest thing I have ever eaten is fried bees in China.”
Clegg, you might think, sounds like a fearless action man. Study his list more closely, however, and he comes across as too slick by half. He oils his eco-credentials with his second
By Stephen Tall
| Fri 16th January 2009 - 10:52 pm
For those of you able to watch BBC Parliament, I’ll be appearing on tonight’s The Record Review (11pm, 12.30am, 5am etc) reporting back on this week’s first PMQs of 2009. For those of you, like me, who can’t get BBC Parliament on your telly, it’s available on iPlayer here after transmission for a week.
And it may only be a few minutes long, but, believe me, it took over an hour standing in the freezing cold to film.
All round love walrus John Thurso MP is currently heading a poll to be crowned sexiest man in the Liberal Democrats on the blogger of the year’s site. It’s the ‘tache that does it. Lib Dem Voice unsucessfully lobbied for Jeremy Purvis MSP to be included on the list.
Jenny Willott is currently leading the field for the ladies and… look, I’m just not sure how much more I can say on this whole article without offending anyone, OK? So …
Well done Stephen! As the room was packed with both bloggers, the press (and Iain Dale!), I’m pretty sure we will repeat this in future – though possibly with air conditioning. (Personally, I think it is a sign of our green credentials that we passed up on air conditioning of course).
Tom Arms I meant to say that the UK supplies the nuclear warheads for its deterrent....
Tom Arms There are some areas where the US is likely to dominate for a very long time. Space is an obvious one. Ukraine would be up the proverbial creek without America'...
Ruth Bright @Paul is surely right, do we have age breakdowns for stats on members and active supporters?...
Tom Bailey Alex Macfie says:
"He [Farage], has just seized on one case of supposed “anti-white bias” by the police (the only one available)"
So the 3 decades of Brit...
Alex Macfie @Simon Robinson &c: Please stop pretending Nigel Farage is acting in good faith. He has just seized on one case of supposed "anti-white bias" by the police ...
All round love walrus John Thurso MP is currently heading a poll to be crowned sexiest man in the Liberal Democrats on the 
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Knaptoft: The very heart of England
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Church Green video
Tom Arms 
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Alex Macfie 