[IMG: Human rights concept.] We are getting a very strong indication of the Conservatives' preoccupations for the opening weeks of this Parliament. The tabloids are keen to tell us the Government is acting decisively by going to 'war' against a range of its established bugbears – extremists, the EU, the trade unions, human rights law. It appears that the Government is aiming to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights during its first hundred days in office. This has all the hallmarks of a legislative car crash. Liberals of all parties and none are very exercised ...
For me the saddest, and in many ways most unexpected, result last Thursday night was Simon Hughes's ousting from Bermondsey and Old Southwark after 32 years as the area's member of parliament. One knew that Labour had been absolutely flooding the place with campaigners for months — including shedloads of Labour MPs who were urged [...]
I cannot believe that the Prime Minister, the most powerful person in our country has said: Dave no longer wants us sticking together "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It's often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that's helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach." I'm sorry Dave, but this approach is more likely to make people turn to extremism. Tolerance is one of those ...
So, one week on and it still hurts. Five years ago I posted a lot to Facebook campaigning and lost at least one friend in the process. This year I didn't do that, I just had one eve of election day post, then one after voting. As such, despite pounding the streets delivering leaflets I feel that I didn't give enough. Honestly, I don't think I was expecting us to lose in Bath, I thought the council might slip (despite their excellent record, 100% of promises kept and no council tax rises) but not the seat as well. Therefore I ...
Picture credit via Richard Morris Apparently now it is not enough to merely obey the law to be tolerated by the Tories. Speaking at the National Security Council today David Cameron said: "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'. "It's often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that's helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance." Now my values are different from those of Tories and I have no doubt I will have grievances with them as they ...
Copyright © Dennis Calow This bridge used to take goods wagons across the Grand Union Canal near Leicester West Bridge station. It is photographed here in 1965. Movable Bridges in the British Isles says it used to be preserved at the Leicester Museum of Technology and was transferred to Snibston Discovery Park near Coalville. What will become of it now that Snibston is to close? That site also quote an old newspaper article: On January 23rd 2009 the Leicester Mercury published an item about this drawbridge in which local resident Roy Rains recalled his childhood in the streets close to ...
Thu 14th
21:15
Why the Lib Dems should stick in the liberal centre. Not because we have to, but because we should c...
[IMG: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg Delivers His Keynote Speech At The Liberal Democrat Party Conference] The near-obliteration of Lib Dem MPs has at least resolved one strategic dilemma for my party: there's no point pretending for the next few years that we aim to be a party of government. At the next election we will instead revert to the tried-and-tested formula that people should vote for us because they believe in our values and like our policies. It probably won't work — it didn't do much for the Greens this year — but it will at least be coherent. ...
It's a nice problem to have. It's an unexpected problem to have. But it's still a problem: quite what should local parties do with all the new members flooding in since polling day, the vast majority of whom are new to political parties. Party HQ itself is getting much right that it hasn't with previous bursts of new members: prompt member surveys, new member packs, welcome calls and getting people signed up to direct debit (much easier to renew) are all things done a bit in the past but now happening much more systematically. Yet that isn't a substitute for ...
Everyone else thought Michael Foot was a disastrous leader of the Labour Party, but legend has it that he was convinced he had won the 1983 general election. In fact he almost came third. Writing in the Spectator, Dan Hodges says Ed Miliband and his inner circle were equally convinced they had won. On the way, he tells a couple of great stories: Most of the blame, inevitably, is being aimed at the leader's office. 'When the campaign started we were told we had to clear all leaflet design past the leader's office,' said one party worker. 'We thought that ...
Thu 14th
20:44
Elected Mayors – Centralising power in one persons hands is bad but if it is being forced on M...
I have long opposed an elected Metro Mayor/City Regional Mayor/Merseyside Mayor call it what you will and without going over too much ground this is why:- * Merseyside is too small to be a successful competitive City Region with areas such as Ellesmere Port and West Lancashire being excluded from it. * A Borough like Sefton which has a majority border with Lancashire could end up being even more disconnected with its neighbouring communities. I am thinking of Southport, Lydiate and Formby here especially. * What's so cleaver about centralising power in one person's hands? Surely this is an ...
"I have no regrets at all, and if someone had told me in 1987 that the deal was that I would be a Councillor for 16 years, council leader for 6, an MP for 18 years, and a Minister for four and a half years, I would have said that that was a pretty good deal." Norman Baker says goodbye to his political career. Jennie Rigg offers a reading list for all those new Lib Dem members. (The comments are good too, hem hem.) Hereford Heckler remembers the Archenfield Review. The duped party in a forgery is not all that ...
After hours of counting on the morning on Friday 7th May 2010 it was announced for the world to see that Glenda Jackson was re-elected elected as the Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Kilburn. Hidden beneath this was my own result where I lost by 842. A close result, except that I was in third place - in 2010 the best placed third placed loser in Britain I'm told. In most of the accounts of the 2010 General Election H&K as it was dubbed, is listed as the seat the LD's hoped to win - Nick Clegg had launch ...
[IMG: election-590x288] I've mentioned before how much I've been enjoying the University of Cambridge's Election podcast over the last few months. The format of each podcast follows pretty much the same pattern – a discussion between host David Runciman with regular panellists Helen Thompson, Finbarr Livesey and Chris Brooke, an interview between Runciman and someone usually very interesting with an interesting take on politics, then a closing discussion, discussing some of the topics raised in the interview. I'd recommend listening to all of them, as even if some of the discussion in the panels might now be out of date ...
We have been here before. My last full time commitments with the party were the back-to-back by-elections of 1982 that saw us make significant gains on the Tories and beat one Anthony 'Tony' Blair into third place with a message of change and a better alternative, followed by the sting of an all-too-foreseeable but nonetheless devastating loss on a point of principal. I don't recall much about the Beaconsfield by-election. But I do recall that in Mitcham and Morden I arrived exhausted from the previous campaign. We set up shop in what had been, I think, a grocer's on one ...
The Scottish Liberal Democrats adopted a targeted strategy in its 11 held seats at the General Election. We faced a drop in the popular vote by more than half compared to 2010 and a Scottish Nationalist insurgency. The approach taken was to appeal to a Unionist tactical vote in those areas, hoping that the fear of SNP victories across the board would draw-in Labour and Tory voters in places like East Dunbartonshire, Gordon and West Aberdeenshire. I want to acknowledge from the outset, that this was a less ineffective strategy for the Scottish Lib Dems than it proved for Scottish ...
Voting reform has been a key Lib Dem issue for many years now. It's not necessarily primary concern of the average voter, but the way in which we choose who governs us is one of the most important aspects of democracy and cannot be dismissed. The latest election has provided us with a stark display of why a more proportional system is vital for Britain's future. Those determined to protect that status quo will point to the referendum in 2011 and claim that the British public has already rejected reform, but this is nonsense. AV may be fairer than FPTP, ...
Regular readers of this blog will have come across my friend and fellow campaigner Robin McGhee before. I've featured his writing on subjects as diverse as atheism, Orwell and Russell Brand. But now he's made an appearance in a much more widely seen arena: the Daily Show. And here's more of the Daily Show on the General Election.Filed under: Uncategorized [...]
I received a DM from a friend on twitter today, which read:Probably a really stupid question but err... would a filthy leftie treehugger be welcome in the LDs?to which my response wasWell they made ME chair.You don't have to like everything the party has ever done (or proposes to do now) to join. We're a democratic party. While obviously you need to have some areas of overlap just to fit in, if you don't like party policy, you can work to change it. I know, I've done it and succeeded. I'm not saying it's easy, and you've got to put ...
Do you have what it takes to persuade an MP or minister to change his or her mind? Can you work effectively with politicians from other political parties? Could you attend regular meetings in London and around England and Wales? Are you a good communicator? Are you a Lib Dem councillor in England or Wales? Is [...]
As the dust settles from the elections and we lament the loss of so many talented and dedicated Liberal Democrat MPs and councillors, there will inevitably be discussions over what went wrong and how it could have been avoided. As a party we have a lot of hard thinking to do about how best we rebuild. But there is no time for a protracted period of introspection. The country stands at a crossroads: one way leading to a strong and united Britain at the heart of the EU, the other to a little England isolated from its neighbours at home ...
1. Firmly held left wing viewpoint on life 2. Able to communicate their views effectively and persuasively 3. Respected and feared by opponents 4. Popular 5. Ideally not a white, middle class, Oxbridge educated man. 6. An election winner There is an obvious candidate who ticks all those boxes. Can anyone see the problem?
ALDC is recruiting for the following staff position based at our offices in Manchester City Centre. Campaigns Officer Full time fixed contract for one year, with the potential for extension This is a new post created to help us boost the support we can provide to our members through the provision of campaign packs, materials [...]
Over at the Western Mail, Welsh Liberal Democrats Leader, Kirsty Williams argues that the new UK Government's desire to repeal the Human Rights Act could prompt the first constitutional crisis of the parliamentary term,. She points out that the Act is embedded in Wales' devolution settlement and it is unlikely that Assembly Members here will want to lose it: "The new Conservative Government is trying to deprive Welsh people of their human rights. As things stand, elderly people who are in conflict with a local authority over the care they receive can use this legislation to fight their case. "If ...
From more popular than Winston Churchill to being less popular than me in Speedo's. It has been quite the ride for the former leader of the Lib Dems and whilst the country turned against him due to him being an easy target, he should go to bed at night knowing that lives are better because of what he did than what would have happened had he not acted how he did in 2010. You see I'm a long-term liberal but a short-term member having joined in 2011 during the coalition. I liked Paddy Ashdown (he visited my school in the ...
It's just under one week since the polls closed, and we have now recruited over 11,000 new members and it's growing all the time. There is an extraordinary public endorsement of a liberal voice - a Liberal Democrat voice - in the UK today, and this is so exciting. I want to thank everyone who has contacted me by email, text, Facebook, Twitter and phone. Please forgive me for being slow in replying personally, but I am receiving hundreds every day. I am extremely busy with everything that the President has to do, the Leadership election, and as you can ...
Last week, the British public went to the polls and a shock result propelled David Cameron and the Conservative Party to a 12 seat majority in the House of Commons. For the first time in over 20 years, the Conservatives are governing alone. Let's look at their priority new policies. Introduce a "Snooper's Charter" Yesterday David&ellipsis;Read the full post »
I read Dan Hodges' controversial article in the Speccy, and one bit jumped out at me:In the final days of the 2010 campaign, Balls telephoned an MP friend. 'I've just had Alicia Kennedy [Labour's deputy general secretary] on,' said Balls. 'She says I might be in trouble in my seat and I should get back there. What do you think?' 'Get back there now,' his friend said. Balls did and clung on by 1,101 votes. This time, no call arrived. There are some in the Balls camp who think that was no accident. The fascinating bit is not the conspiracy ...
Thu 14th
11:58
Tim Farron MP writes... Why I'm standing for leader..to be the vigorous liberal voice Britain needs
As I've written in The Independent, last week's election results still leave me feeling numb. The Liberal Democrats are not a political machine but a human family, made up of dear friends and colleagues, striving together in a common cause. Which is why the loss of so many excellent MPs, councillors and staff is not just a political catastrophe but also a personal heartbreak. Liberalism and liberal values are under threat from a triumphalist Tory party in hock to its right wing and from the forces of nationalism and isolationism. No one can rely on a Labour 'opposition' who have ...
[IMG: Ed Miliband surrounded by sharks - The Week] Nick Tyrone has written of his personal experiences of meeting and working with Ed Miliband, ones which help explain what always to me (at a much greater distance) seemed puzzling – his apparently highly limited leadership skills in the outside world yet his popularity with many Labour activists who were convinced he was brilliant. As Nick writes: I stood in the backstage area where everyone had gathered for tea and networking opportunities (networking opportunities being the only reason many of the people who worked on the Yes campaign did so). I ...
About 20 years ago the Liberal Democrats in Hull crashed from about 8 seats to just one survivor, (Simone Butterworth) grimly hanging on and maintain a presence for us. Eight or nine years later I was asked at very short ... Continue reading →
There has been a lot written about the importance of "values". I'm not convinced. Talk about values reinforces the idea that one can pick and mix principles and ideas - just as with policies, one can put together a package which suits your pocket or your likes and then decide which party at any one time best meets your need to vote. Or, indeed, you can just campaign on one or two which happen to strike you as most important. This view encourages the idea that party is an outdated concept and often inconvenient if there happen to be some ...
The Liberal Democrats have a lot of internal organisations that revolve around an identity or an interest. They are normally referred to as (S)AOs, or (specified) associated organisations, even though those terms don't apply to them all. An SAO is slightly more powerful than an AO in that it can submit motions to conference in its own right, but some of the AOs have enormous membership. Some unofficial groupings are treated in the same way as (S)AOs for all practical purposes. Add to that the fact that many of them have an acronymtastic name, and it can all get a ...
Thu 14th
10:08
The question at the heart of Liberal Democrat strategy. The party must seek a wider alliance
The Liberal Democrat catastrophe in last week's British General Election (57 seat to just 8), has a rather bewildering sequal. A membership surge. More than 10,000 new members have joined since the election, as the total membership shot past the 50,000 mark. In my not very active local party some 95 joined. We only had about 120 to begin with. I haven't met any of these new members yet. Some are old ones rejoining; most are not, apparently. These membership surges seem to be something of a feature of modern British politics. This surge is dwarfed by the one the ...
[IMG: image] The new LDV members' survey is now live. So if you are one of the 1,900+ registered members of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum, and any paid-up party member is welcome to join, then you now have the opportunity to make your views known. Questions we're asking this month include: pre-election predictions; post-election analysis; what you though of the Coalition; Nick Clegg standing down; who should replace him as leader; what our losing MPs should do next; It should take no longer than 5 minutes minutes to fill in. All registered members of the Forum should have been ...
Supporters of ousted MP offer to pay his mortgage (tags: ) Our jobs are not even slightly dignified, Britain points out (tags: ) My Lib Dem Reading List, reworked for Lib Dem Voice. I think footnote 4 is most important bit (tags: ) If you think Ed Miliband was too leftwing you weren't paying attention (tags: ) I think Nick quite liked my reading list post *blush* (tags: ) Extreme views are best defeated by free speech (tags: ) Making an opinion illegal is not going to stop terrorism from happening (tags: ) Cornwall and Yorkshire show regional identities run ...
The Beach Boys were rather desperate for a hit. By May 1968 it had been almost two years since Good Vibrations had gone to number one, and their singles since then had been at best moderate successes. Friends, the title track from their most recent album, hadn't even reached the top forty. So for the [...]
Thu 14th
09:02Opinion: Mental health support is for everyone - we all have brains to look after #MHAW15
I'm not having a life crisis. I've never suffered from depression or any other clinically recognised mental health condition. I've taken ownership of things that have happened to me in the past, the way they have affected my behaviour and made changes. Yet I still regularly visit a counsellor – why is that? Is it because I wear a top-knot, work for a charity and hang out in bars in East London? Just another hipster tosser who cares too much about his own existence? Well, maybe. But I don't feel that way. My backstory isn't the point here, so I'll ...
[IMG: House_of_Lords_chamber_-_toward_throne] Mark Pack has news of a call for any Lib Dem appointments to the House of Lords to be used to bring more diversity to the Upper House. However, I'm reminded of a suggestion I made a couple of years ago, and want to develop that further. What we should do as a party is quite simple: announce that we're only appointing women to be Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords until we have parity in our group there. Obviously, I'd like to see the Lords abolished and replaced, but until such time (at least five years, ...
The British Election Study is a mammoth set of research into how voters decide who to vote for and why – tracking people before, during and after the election. I thought the Liberal Democrats had slain the ghost of 1992. I was wrong.Press stunts, leader's speeches, target mail, glossy leaflets, email messages, social media adverts and more were all applied to the great task of resurrecting the ghost of 1992. more It's the sort of data the fuels excellent studies such as Affluence, Austerity and Electoral Change in Britain (which is well worth a read for its explanation of why ...
I first met Nick Clegg after I wrote a pamphlet for Liberator in 2000 about how we might re-imagine a political party which could, once again, have a mass membership. He was interested in ideas. I liked him enormously. I have only spoken to him twice since he became deputy prime minister. You can't really be friends with senior politicians. You have to devote yourself completely to their cause and be useful to them. I don't blame him for this: it's the nature of the job and, also, I did rather let him down a couple of times. But I ...
Liberal Reform issued this statement following Tim Farron's announcement that he will contest the party leadership election: From the Board of Liberal Reform: "The party now has two excellent candidates to choose from for leader, both with many strengths. We believe that whichever candidate is elected will need to lead a united party into battle against the Government and to expose the fake progressives of Labour and the SNP. In this spirit, therefore, we do not believe it is appropriate for Liberal Reform to endorse a candidate in this contest and would urge other groups to take the same view. ...
During the parliament that has just elapsed, most of what came from left of centre voices in this country was ill-informed, reactionary and often downright childish. I know that's a harsh opening statement, but now is not the time to be mealy mouthed. It started with the cuts marches being endorsed by Ed Miliband in person, comparing those participating to the Suffragettes. The worship of Syriza; all the talk about "post-capitalism" without any concrete alternatives being offered; as a final kick in the groin, the left of centre's commentariat embracing the SNP and their brand of nationalism during the short ...
... and has my support I will be writing why shortly. But meantime - this is says pretty much what I think Good luck Tim
Last night, along with representatives of the Friends of Balgay, one of my ward colleagues and City Council Environment Department officers, I attended the latest Balgay Stakeholders' Group meeting that took place in the pavilion at Lochee Park. The group discusses projects and issues at Balgay Park, the Hill, Cemetery and Victoria Park and we had a really good meeting covering a number of positive developments covering various matters around the park from road improvements, cleaning up the cemetery paths and new signage in the park. I also raised constituents' requests for seating to the south of the Mills Observatory. ...
The May edition of The Railway Magazine has a 6 page article entitled Pier Pleasure all about the pier railways of the UK of which we are told there used to be more than a dozen. [IMG: rsz_southport_pier_tram_-_fastest_in_the_town] Few are left now but here in Sunny Southport we still have one and there is a short write up about the history of our local pier railway together with a photo of the Silver Belle diesel powered train which ran on the pier up until the 1970's. The photo is amongst my Flickr shots at:-
Thu 14th
08:09Elections – My second rabbit in the headlight moment and another close encounter with Cllr. Ti...
I first won a seat on Sefton Borough Council in 1999 in Molyneux ward (which was then made up of Aintree Village, Melling, Thornton, Ince Blundell and Sefton Parishes) by taking it from Labour. The Labour candidate and sitting councillor back then was a friend of mine and fellow trade union officer! I genuinely felt bad about beating him. His name? Tim Hale. 16 years later and the boot was almost on the other foot as I was in the process of losing my Park Ward (Lydiate, Sefton & Lunt Villages and western Maghull) Sefton Council seat to a Labour ...
So Sefton has a new Leader (Cllr. Ian Maher) and surprise, surprise it's another Labour Councillor from Bootle and his Deputy will be, yes you have guessed it, another Labour Councillor from Bootle (Cllr. John Fairclough). The Bootle Labour Party has dominated Sefton politics for some years now.
The Lib Dem team are working on a scheme to provide more parking at the popular Bruntwood Park. Local residents and park users have long complained that at busy times the car parks are full, traffic spills out onto local roads and some people who want to enjoy the park have to drive away. Keith said "Bruntwood Park is a victim of its own success and desperately needs more parking. Our scheme would drain and strengthen a section of field, keeping the grass and allowing parking on it all year round." The scheme from the Lib Dems will see the ...
A new library is being progressed in the Botanic Gardens Southport to serve both Churchtown and Crossens communities. There next fundraising event is a Blind Wine Tasting, West Lancs Yacht Club Friday 22nd May 7.30pm. Please contact helenmaloney@hotmail.co.uk
Meols Ward Lib Dem Councillors John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and Jo Barton are holding their next advice centre in Churchtown. We will be at Cafe Moo Moo on Cambridge Road (by the junction with Preston New Road, next to Boots) from 10:30 to 11:30 am on Thursday 28th May. We will be there to meet you and discuss any Council problems you may have. No appointment necessary. Just pop in. We also hold a monthly advice centre in Crossens, at St John's School, Rufford Road, Crossens every month (except August) on the second Saturday of the month from 11:00 am ...
Looking back on a disappointing election I wondered how it could all look if put to the titles or lyrics of popular music so here goes with my GE2015 Play list The campaign The Leaders debate. Eurythmics - Sisters are doing it for themselves. The Tory campaign. Iron Maiden - Fear of the dark. Lib Dem campaign. Steelers Wheel - Stuck in the middle with you UKIP. Steven Miller
Only the Liberal Democrats, hardened by a hundred years of losing and buoyed by an inextinguishable hope in Liberalism, could follow an 'extinction event' election by gaining more than eleven thousand new members in less than a week. Welcome, all of you! You might like to look at Liberal Democrat Voice's New Members Day (new voices, recommended reading and party essentials). You help remind us all that for all the talk of historical precedents, the year we're in is 2015. But tonight I'm still looking back with a sense of history and with thanks to so many Lib Dem MPs. ...
