Norway is not a member of the European Union, though as a member of the EEA, they have to obey European single market laws without having any imput into their formulation. In Oslo, they call that "fax diplomacy" — these days receiving instructions from Brussels by email, if they want (as they do) to function [...]
Although overshadowed by the General Election on the same day, Birmingham City Council had a full set of elections on the same day. The result in Acocks Green was a Labour hold for Stewart Stacey. The full result was as follows: Stewart Stacey (Labour) 4,741 (44.4%) Penny Wagg (Lib Dem) 2,846 (26.7%) Gerry Moynihan (UKIP) 1,390 (13.0%) Richard Sparkes (Tory) 1,174 (11.0%) Amanda Baker (Green) 374 (3.5%) Eamon Flyln (TUSC) 108 (1.0%) Peter Johnson (SDP) 46 (0.4%) Congratulations to Stewart who has a three year term to 2018 when all Councillors in Birmingham will be up for election following boundary ...
It's rumoured that over 3500 people have joined the Liberal Democrats since our electoral beating on Thursday, many of them even before Nick Clegg resigned as leader. It would be easy to be upset that these people didn't consider that the cause of liberalism was important before polling day, but there is little that can [...]
Paddy Ashdown will probably never live down his statement that he'd eat his hat if the exit poll was right. On Question Time last night, they made him actually do it. Sort of. Here's the video, from the Telegraph: I am not sure Paddy would wear a hat like that, though. Feel free to suggest what sort of headgear he would suit. Feel free to photoshop to your heart's content.
The count for Birkdale was much delayed and for a while we couldn't understand why until a super sleuth journalist got to the bottom of the story. Apparently a couple of UKIP guests to the count had arrived, and it being their first count didn't know the procedure. They proceeded to sit down at the Birkdale table and for some time helped to count the votes. Upon discovery we had to start all over again and had the equivalent of four recounts as they struggled to reconcile the votes. This count had the tightest 'security' I have ever encountered: letters, ...
Yes, you read that right. No, I didn't put a horrible typo in the headline. Given the Liberal Democrats lost all but one of their seats in Scotland, and even in that one seat it was rather close in what used to be a rock-solid safe seat, I was expecting to see unremitting carnage when looking at vote share changes. But here's the odd thing: the four seats with the best (i.e. least worst) change in the Liberal Democrat vote share in Britain were four seats in Scotland, all of which we'd won in 2010. Jo Swinson (-2.4%), Mike Crockart ...
Hearing from Twitter that Federal Exec have just agreed to accelerate the leadership selection process and a new leader will be in place by end July. Blimey.
Alistair Carmichael has been talking to the Shetland Times about Thursday's general election results in Scotland: "Something has happened up here. We're in new territory - we've got a competitive politics. The referendum campaign was, on the face of it, lost up here from our point of view. "But something changed that engaged more people, that told people that change was possible. "There are significant movements towards a more participative, accountable, transparent politics we needed."He has also said that he will not be standing in the forthcoming Liberal Democrat leadership contest: But Mr Carmichael ruled himself out of trying to ...
I've seen a few posts have been put up on this theme - but I've not read any of them. I wanted to put my own up and then read them, to see the much better ideas I expect everyone else will have had. So. How to get back on track. Here are 10 thoughts. Maybe this should be 9 ideas or 11 ideas but still. People like round numbers. For example I prefer '10' to '8'. Although I liked the number 57 more than both of them. Anyway... 1.Stand for things. Not general platitudes - 'cradle to grave educational ...
It was always going to be true that the 30 or so seats where the fight was between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives would end up delivering one of the most important stories of election night 2015. Liberal Democrats hoped, of course, that this would be for the reason that they were the hallmark of the party's resilience. But they were newsworthy in the end because they were symbols of the Lib Dem defeat, and the vehicles of delivery of a Conservative victory. That the tens of thousands of voters in those seats who wavered between the Liberal Democrats and ...
And so... I'm firing up the blog once again. It's been a year (save for one blog post in January when I was fit to burst). I've started a new business, and something had to give. But that's now fully up (here's a link if you're interested) and running and so here we are. Given the General Election result - and similar results in local elections for 4 years in a row, London Elections, Holyrood elections, Welsh Assembly elections and the, ahem, triumph of the European elections - it seems a good time to start again. Wish me luck and ...
Chris Leslie first swam into my consciousness by starring in an an anecdote about the first parliamentary session following Labour's landslide victory of May 1997. Here is Dan Hodges retailing a version of it: Sitting on the front bench, Tony Blair surveyed the massed ranks of his parliamentary intake and then lent over to Gordon Brown. "It's weird," he said "but there's a guy back there who's the splitting image of the boy who does your photocopying." "That is him," Brown replied. "He's your new MP for Shipley".Informed speculation this weekend has it that Leslie, now MP for Nottingham East, ...
It's time for constitutional reform – of the Liberal Democrats. We need to redesign our party structures to make them fit for the challenges we face. While there has to be a big debate on what needs change and what the best options are, here's a rundown of options worth considering: 1. Either abolish membership fees or create an associate membership which costs nothing and has some of the privilege of full members. Why should you have to pay to join our movement instead of donating when you wish and are able to? 2. Reduce barriers to participation within the ...
Sat 9th
16:31
Sir Malcolm Bruce writes.. We need to be a united campaigning force doing what we do best
[IMG: February 15th 2003 - Iraq war demo in London] I sent this to the party's Chief Executive Tim Gordon and thought that Liberal Democrat Voice readers would be interested in it. Dear Tim Although I wasn't needed in the end I was glad to have been able to be at Nick's speech and back at HQ. It was a bitter outcome and the tears and distress of so many of our dedicated staff and volunteers was plain to see in all its raw emotion. I know many of them have or will have lost their jobs and we have ...
Well here's a story of some significance as the Parish/Town Council election results (declared today) did not all follow the Labour Party band wagon in the Sefton Central Constituency. [IMG: images] Take Formby where Fragoff (Community Action Not Party Politics) have won a majority of seats on the Council which was previously a Tory stronghold. Oddly this does somewhat contradict the Borough Council results for Formby where the 3 seats up this year went 1 to the Tories and 2 to Labour with the Fragoff candidates being rejected, if only just, by the electorate. If my calculations are right Formby ...
Sat 9th
15:30Opinion: The next 5 years will bring a much greater appreciation of what we did in coalition
For the last seven years, I have had the privilege of working for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. So I'm sure you can understand that the last 48 hours have been pretty tough. Whatever you think of the party, our politics or the decisions we took, there are currently thousands of individuals who have given blood, sweat and tears in the name of our cause who have been bluntly and brutally rejected at the ballot box. It is a tragedy for the party and for the political cause we believe in: the belief that Britain is at its best ...
Since 10pm on polling day over 3,000 new members have joined the Liberal Democrats. If you'd like to be one of them you can signup here;
In all the carnage of Thursday, we should not overlook the achievement here in Leicestershire of Oadby and Wigston Liberal Democrats in maintaining control of the district council. The new balance of the council is: Liberal Democrat 19 Conservative 6 Labour 1 This is the first time Labour has been represented on the council for three decades. Oadby and Wigston has been run by the Lib Dems since 1991, but then this is an area with a strong Liberal tradition. The old Wigston UDC was run by the Liberal Party in Jo Grimond's day.
A Tory majority government, no longer constrained by the Liberal Democrats will undoubtedly be revisiting some of the issues that are dearest to it and its supporters. According to the Independent, one such issue may be hunting. I am heartened therefore that the same paper reports that anti-fox hunting campaigners are planning to work with anti-hunt Conservative MPs to sink any such attempt. They say that a number of Conservative MPs, organised around the 'Conservatives Against Fox Hunting' campaign group, have previously spoken out against the practice. Anti-hunt Conservatives returned to parliament at the general election include Simon Kirby, the ...
[IMG: 3894 Thankyous] That's 3,894 people in North West Durham who voted for a better way of doing politics, and are disappointed to see England & Wales back in the grip of two party politics, whilst Scotland distances itself into isolation. We know from our analysis that many of those votes came from close to home in Consett, and we're especially grateful to you because fear, not hope, drove this election across the country and across North West Durham. Fear of the Tory Toffs drove people back to the safety of the Labour Party's old message of class solidarity. Fear ...
Thanks to the 1104 people who voted for me in Thursday's local elections. Unfortunately not quite enough to re-elect me. Congratulations to my friend and colleague Sue Carpendale who was re-elected with 1196 votes and good luck to the Conservative who didn't even put out a leaflet and stood as a favour to the Conservative agent. She got 1145 votes and was elected. Democracy is a blunt instrument – especially when you have local elections on the same day as a General Election. In my 28 years as a local councillor I hope I have made a difference. In that ...
What a depressing time for Liberalism Thursday night was. I believe strongly that we as a party should now all get behind Tim Farron to be the new leader and begin the fight back. However, the first step must surely be to admit where we went wrong. Going into a coalition in itself was not a mistake as it showed we were prepared to put our money where our mouths were. But we voted through so many awful policies, such as tuition fees and secret courts that we should have blocked, while allowing the Tories to veto all the key ...
Over the last two years I have worked as a campaign organiser with Lib Dem MPs in the Highlands and Islands. However, after last night's terrible results that is now over for me. I can't pretend that I am not bitterly disappointed, not merely for myself but because we have lost some of the finest politicians of this generation from the Commons, at a time when experienced level headed liberals are needed most. Many excellent Constituency Organisers, who I have worked with, have now lost their jobs and many wonderful volunteers have given up their time and effort and feel ...
The electoral polls were wrong, as every election watcher in the UK knows. But sometimes it takes an American to tell us just how wrong. Roger Pielke Jr dissects the 'science' of polling. In 1948, the American writer E.B. Write opined that "the so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but a mere necromancy." While political scientists might disagree, they probably would keep their objections quite right about now. It is well known that expert predictions of the 2015 General Election were off target. But how bad were they and what might they mean for how we ...
John David Pugh Liberal Democrats 13652 31% Elected Damien Moore Conservative Party 12330 28% Not elected Liz Savage The Labour Party 8468 19% Not elected Terry Durrance United Kingdom Independence Party 7429 17% Not elected Laurence George Rankin The Green Party 1230 3% Not elected Jacqueline Anne Barlow The Southport Party 992 2% Not elected Norwood - resultsElection CandidatePartyVotes% Marianne Welsh Liberal Democrats 1971 32% Elected Stephen James Jowett The Labour Party 1459 24% Not elected Jeffrey Thomas Hughes United Kingdom Independence Party 1303 21% Not elected Anthony Irvine White Conservative Party 1024 17% Not elected David McIntosh The Green ...
It is going to take a while for us Liberal Democrats to adjust to our new situation. And it seems that the same is true of political journalists. Here are two comments on the party which made me smile today. First, the usually admirable George Parker on the Financial Times site: But Mr Farron, odds on favourite for the leadership in a small field, is regarded with suspicion by Mr Clegg's supporters, who fear he would lead the party back to its comfort zone of opposition.I fear that, whoever the new leader is, the party has been led back to ...
Sat 9th
13:58
@ALDEParty Council - what message should Liberals bring in answer toanti-immigration EU-sceptics?
Alright, we lost and the Conservatives won. A referendum on our membership of the European Union beckons and UKIP, plus a chunk of the Conservative Party, can be counted upon to campaign for us to leave. Labour can't be counted upon to make a pro-European case and the Liberal Democrats need to develop a more nuanced stance than simply being in favour of Europe as it is (not one of Nick Clegg's finest moments, might I suggest?). So, the European Liberal Forum event on confronting the far-right and Eurosceptics was a potential source of ideas and I attended with some ...
This message came out from Willie Rennie to all Scottish members this afternoon. As ever he strikes the right tone: Scotland has lost liberal giants. Our Members of Parliament were local champions with powerful liberal voices. They enriched the political debate of our country. I am sad for the loss to our party, to their communities and to the politics of our country. I know they will make a contribution to rebuilding our strength. We can proud of many of our achievements in government. We brought stability, unity and decency in tough economic times. Getting the economy back on track ...
Congratulations to Sam Rowlands for winning Clarence and to Matt Jones for a splendid result in St Peter's where the Greens crashed to fourth place. Clarence Labour 683 Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts 28 Green 399 Sam Rowlands, Liberal Democrat 1,606 Conservative 1,375 St Peter's Conservative 1,634 UKIP 191 Matt Jones, Liberal Democrat 1,250 [...]
Today I'm doing final edits on the manuscript of my novel, Faction Paradox: Head of State. Tomorrow I may go and visit some friends in Yorkshire. From Monday, I'll be doing non-political music posts for most of the month. I intend to finish off California Dreaming this month, and I'll be reviewing gigs by the [...]
A friend of mine with far more experience than I of so-called "senior management" in British secondary schools tells me that, whenever he wanted a discussion of the causes of some debacle or other the response was inevitably : " Never mind that, George (and assumed name): we must put it behind us and move on." So the causes of errors never received adequate examination and the team continued its merry way to the next omnishambles. It seems to me that both the Liberal Democrats and Labour are in danger of making the same mistake, with the rushed resignations of ...
I am very fond of political history. If nothing else, we can all reflect on and perhaps tell our grandchildren that we were there on "The night of long sgian dubhs!" I would very much like to thank my home team. They have been so energetic, dedicated and selfless to the task. Indeed, with them, I would like to thank the very many over the years who have made possible the previous seven successful general election campaigns locally. I spare a thought for, and this is true of so many constituencies, for members of staff. It is one thing for ...
With a party leadership contest in the offing, there's an extra reason for others to join the 2,350 and rising who have joined the party since 10pm on Thursday. It's that new members will also get to vote in the leadership contest: The electorate for the purpose of the election shall be those members with current membership of the Liberal Democrats on the closing date for nominations, including those members whose subscriptions were due not more than three months before the closing date. [Leadership Election Regulations] That's a great reason for local parties to push membership just now – and, ...
Well, as Treasurer of the Mid Suffolk Local Party, I had set my goals fairly low for the campaign, with the hope that we might retain our deposits in Bury St Edmunds and in Suffolk Central & North Ipswich. As for the District Council elections, my fear was that we would be swept away by high turnout. Firstly, the Parliamentary elections. Given the calamitous performance across the country, retaining both deposits is something of a pleasant surprise, even if the results are awful. In Bury St Edmunds, David Chappell came fifth with 3,581 votes (6%), down 20.4% on our 2010 ...
I've been looking through the election numbers (and thanks to Stanno on Twitter for a spreadsheet packed full of election data) and here's a few things I've noticed. The Liberal Democrats lost votes everywhere. There aren't any chinks of light in seats where we managed to gain votes. The smallest fall was Dunbartonshire East, where Jo Swinson went down just 2.4%, and the biggest was Brent Central with the total 35.8% down on 2010. All four of the smallest falls were in Scotland (aside from Dunbarton East, they were 2.8% in Edinburgh West, 3.3% in Gordon, and 3.7% in Argyll ...
The pollsters and commentators got it wrong, horribly wrong. A Conservative majority was unfathomable in the run up to the 7th May 2015, so what happened? The Labour post-mortem is well under way. (here & here). One popular suggestion is the that they massively underestimated the number of "Shy Tories" - natural Conservative voters who&ellipsis;Read the full post »
A little more than 24 hours after it became painfully clear just what the Conservatives had achieved in the general election, there is already a developing sense of buyer's remorse. Apparently almost 2400 new members have joined the Liberal Democrats since polls closed. This is obviously a good thing, although perhaps it just reflects the endless propensity [...]
Over the next few days, weeks and months there are a few grim but necessary processes which the Liberal Democrats (not to mention Labour and UKIP also) will have to go through: electing a new leader, debating the purpose and ideology that guides the party, and ultimately regrouping to lick our collective wounds. Perhaps more important than the theatrics of these things unfolding, is the question well what's next? The decimation of the party as a parliamentary force - following on from the sustained loss of local government Liberal Democrats over the past five years - has disrupted the status ...
Obviously we're a bit close to (and a bit bruised by) the drubbing we got on Thursday, and so we're probably not in the best state to come up with sensible suggestions. However, everyone ELSE is writing one of these articles, sooooo...We already have autumn conference booked and ready to roll. By the time we get there we will have had lots of time to argue about what went wrong and why everyone hates us, and will have come to some conclusions and ideas for solutions. Also, our party constituion is well overdue for a refresh. We should use Bournemouth ...
Sat 9th
10:32
On some thoughts of the devastation that Hurricane 'We hate the Lib Dems' left behind...
We all knew it was going to be bad, like real bad. No-one though saw what came as coming. Even the most rabid hater of the Lib Dems didn't see that. So anyway I have finally slept after my 36 hour marathon and will sum up a few loose points that are bouncing around my brain whilst my hoodies dry in the tumble dryer. Yes folks, that is what I'm doing, waiting for my hoodies to dry so that I can go to Asda without having cold arms. First things first. The money spent on internal polling. Do we have ...
So, I was minding my own business at last night's welcome reception when my pocket buzzed. Checking my e-mail, I was slightly surprised to find that not only were there urgency resolutions - seven of them - but that one of them proposed an asylum and migration policy for the European Union, courtesy of the FDP, and that they would be debated at 9.30 this morning. Having told Robert Woodthorpe Browne, chair of our Party's International Relations Committee and delegation leader, that I would attend, I went back to my hotel room, read the resolutions and made a few notes ...
Tim Farron famously said a little while ago something along the lines of after the apocalpyse has happened, there will still be cockroaches and Liberal Democrats delivering leaflets. Well, the apocalypse happened on Thursday. A grim night. Lewes lost, in Norman Baker, the best MP it has ever had, or likely ever will. I doubt that his successor, for all her fine words, will measure up. (Irony: some circles in Lewes have just noticed that she is pro fracking: a bit late.) We have been well and truly punished in the only poll that counts. We can now look back ...
Be Excellent to each other (tags: ) Scrap the Human Rights Act and keep TTIP: Here's what you voted for and will get with a Tory govt (tags: ) DWP releases document on cuts to disabled work access scheme hours after election result Oh look, the whole "we don't know what we're going to cut" thing WAS bullshit (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
This has to go down as one of the most bizarre things I have ever heard about happening at an election count! Iain Brodie Browne has the story on his Birkdale Focus site:- birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/blog-post.html I bet Sefton's Returning Officer will be more than a little embarrassed.
The really sad part about the local election results declared in Sefton Borough yesterday was the very firm rejection of candidates standing on environmental agendas. In my own case during my 35 years as a local political activist (30 of those as a local councillor) I have become more and more concerned about our local environment, global warming, protecting high grade agricultural land from development etc. etc. Sadly, it seems that those who vote have moved towards being less concerned about such matters. In 1998, as the Lib Dem Leader of Maghull Town Council, I led the successful campaign to ...
The values we stand for are as important today as ever. Please join our fight to protect them. http://t.co/iwrljg70wr — Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) May 8, 2015 That 1,000 figure in the last tweet in fact is now over 2,350 since the close of polls, and compares to only around a dozen resignations. (Update – now over 3,500.) Reading comments posted up online from people who have joined the party, there are repeated accounts from people of being long-standing supporters of the party's values and feeling that now something extra is needed to support those values. They're right – and very ...
Much will be said and written about what happened on the 7th. But we need to think about what happens next now. We have been heavily defeated, and it would be easy to allow that defeat to set the mood and leave us paralysed. We must not let that happen. The electoral system has delivered a result that bears little resemblance to the popular vote. Our own defeat has been amplified by this - as has been pointed out elsewhere, our parliamentary presence was within 25,000 votes of being wiped out entirely. Imagine, two million votes for no representation at ...
Labour are in real trouble. I know coming from a Lb Dem that might sound a bit rich, but hear me out. The result on Thursday was Labour's worst performance since 1987, and even '87 was better as at least the party were on the up and came into that election with very little real hope of winning. Right up until that exit poll came out Thursday evening, most of us thought Miliband had a realistic shot at Number 10, of at least being able to put together an alliance that would get him there. Now the Labour Party is ...
The Liberal Democrat family has been knocked sideways by disastrous election results. We're also all cream crackered after working all hours for months. But over 2,000 people joined the party yesterday. And here on Liberal Democrat Voice you have helped to smash records. Yesterday this site had 14,923 visitors and 55,185 page views! That's a staggering achievement! – Our highest viewing figures since we were founded in 2006! But it shows that we are a family and, when we are buffeted by 'outrageous fortune', we huddle together. Here at Liberal Democrat Voice we are surprised but really, really grateful ad ...
Blog Categories: Political Comment Vote: -1 vote + Vote up! - Vote down! Okay, he was often wrong after he had his appendix out and rejoined the Tories, but in 1908, while fighting that good Liberal seat of Dundee in the by-election of that year, Winston Churchill reminded us that: Liberalism is not Socialism, and never will be. There is a great gulf fixed. It is not only a gulf of method, it is a gulf of principle. There are many steps we have to take which our Socialist opponents or friends, whichever they like to call themselves, will have ...
Blyth Town Council's calendar for May is as follows:- Tuesday 12th , Finance Committee Thursday 21st , Annual Council Tuesday 26th , Events Committee Thursday 28th, Town Meeting All meetings are at Arms Evertyne House and start at 6:30 pm The meeting of the Planning and Development Committee scheduled for Thursday 14th has been cancelled
