Who to choose, that's the big question facing all Lib Dems at the moment. MP's, ex MP's candidates and party bigshots from all around are throwing their endorsements in the ring. Even lowly party members like myself feel they have something worth adding to the debate. It's a difficult choice, made harder by a rather lacklustre and repetitive campaign and debate from supporters on both sides,
A myth is growing up about the Liberal Democrat debacle at the last general election. It holds that we lost almost all of our seats because the Conservatives ruthlessly targeted them and won over former Liberal Democrat voters. So they did, but there is little sign that our lost voters went to the Conservatives instead. To find out what really happened, read an article by Seth Thévoz and Lewis Baston on the Social Liberal Forum site. Here are a few extracts: The Conservative-facing seats showed a remarkably consistent pattern; the main factor at play was Lib Dem collapse rather than ...
Tim Farron MP, one of the two contenders for the Leadership of the Liberal Democrats, met local party members at Poole Court this week for a no-holds-barred question and answer session. He answered a wide range of questions from the crowded meeting, ranging from the economy and defence to how to rebuild the Lib Dems after the disappointing result at the General Election. The other leadership contender is Norman Lamb MP, who visited Yate in February. The result of the election will be announced on 16 July. In line with the national trend, local membership of the Liberal Democrats has ...
Ready your caveats. A tally of a little under 1,000 tweets from people saying they've voted either for Tim Farron or Norman Lamb in the Lib Dem leadership race gives it as... 64% Tim Farron, 36% Norman Lamb. Caveats away... Thanks to Ed Fordham for the prompt to do this. Keep up with news on the Lib Dem leadership race Sign up for Liberal Democrat Newswire here, and Sign up for the Facebook event for the contest (where Norman Lamb and Tim Farron are regularly answering questions from members).
Report from Lindsay: Eric has been returned to his ward from Theatre. He just had the angioplasty and did not need the bypass operation, which is good news. He tells me that Jason Wilkins, who unblocked his renal arteries last summer, carried out the procedure, which took about 1 and a half hours. Several bubbles/balloons were inserted into the femoral artery - a few exploded because there is a calcified lining to the artery - but stents then followed in. He now has to lie very still for a few hours and we hope he may be allowed home tomorrow ...
A Parliamentary report has found that Stockport has the fifth highest cancer survival rate in the country, and the highest of anywhere north of London. The report shows Stockport is now the fifth best area in England out of 211 districts, and the highest in Greater Manchester. Almost 2,000 people are diagnosed in Stockport every year, with more than 7 out of every 10 people surviving for at least one year. Stockport has steadily increased its ranking each year over the past decade, even though cancer survival rates have been improving nationwide. There are around 10,000 people in Stockport with ...
If this article in yesterday's Guardian is not a cause for concern then I do not know what is. The paper reports the startling fact that more than 70% of graduates are now leaving university with a first or upper second class degree. The Universities Minister says that 2:1s are now so common that Universities allow some students to "coast" and still get one. There has been a 300% increase in firsts since the 1990s whilst the 70% plus of graduates now leaving university with a first or 2:1, compares with 47% in the 90s. It has increased by 7% ...
[IMG: Liberal Democrat Newswire logo] Liberal Democrat Newswire #67 came out last week, looking (surprise!) at the race to be Liberal Democrat leader. You can also read it below, but if you'd like the convenience of getting it direct by email in future, just sign up here. It's free! Since LDN #67 came out, there's been further news in the leadership race: Exclusive: results of YouGov poll of Lib Dem members on leadership race Lamb lands biggest endorsement, but Farron gets the most interesting one And lo: there is some tax policy to debate in the Lib Dem leadership contest ...
Last night's online Leadership hustings did not disappoint. Tim Farron rightly said liberals wanted to help people and that's the point of the party. However it became clear that both Norman Lamb and Tim Farron are still fixated with government. Both maintain it was right to go into government (though Farron qualifies this by saying it was the wrong thing for the party). Tim Farron describes how the issue of trust over the broken promise of tuition fees created an invisible force field of distrust with the public that no amount of campaigning could break. He likened it to the ...
Yesterday the UK's Children's Commissioners published a joint report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. It makes very grim reading. If a child is poor, bullied, suffers mental ill health, gets involved with the criminal ... Continue reading →
Last month, I was invited by my friend Danny Lee Wynter to an event he had organised at the National Theatre called Act for Change. It's a movement that was set up in response to a TV Advert in 2014 which trailed the upcoming season of TV but failed to feature a single BAME performer or disabled artist. AfC campaigns on a platform that the arts are for everyone, regardless of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, age or disability, and they should reflect the societies we live in. Sound familiar to problems in any other places of work? The event ...
Last week on Lib DemVoice I remarked that when great social reforms had been enacted liberals had the support of many Christians. I was thinking of Roy Jenkin's Homosexual Law reform,when Michael Ramsay was in the front line of supporters and David Steel's Abortion Act passed at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise. This was not just a phenomenon of the 1960's you could go back to Josephine Butler's work on the Contagious Diseases Act. My point was that such Christians who are today working to celebrate same sex marriages in churches and for women to ...
Yesterday the UK's Children's Commissioners published a joint report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. It makes very grim reading. If a child is poor, bullied, suffers mental ill health, gets involved with the criminal or immigration systems or suffers the effects of domestic violence, this country simply does not provide them with what they need. I seriously recommend that you read the whole thing because a few headlines from the press doesn't quite give the flavour of the extent to which we should be ashamed of ourselves. We can have all the arguments we ...
After the hottest July day since the last last one, it's very pleasant to have some rain today, a cooling tonic after yesterday's humid heat. I didn't get time to do a Wordless Wednesday yesterday so will make up for it today with some words as well. I can't help noticing the lawn* needs less mowing as we move into summer and the grass slows down. Instead, I have a rambunctious chorus of daisies, dandelions, clover, vetches and what more discerning gardeners would call weeds (what I would call native flora vital to our insect and bee populations) shouting at ...
Thu 2nd
13:04
Aintree Village – Another bid to use Aintree Library for the community gets the brush off from...
[IMG: The Aintree & Maghull Champion has the story – See link above How sad but I can't say I am surprised by Sefton Labour's latest kick in the teeth for Aintree – at least they are consistent though! But what does surprise me is that the area's Labour MP is surprised! Frankly, having seen the previous bid to run Aintree Library using volunteers being given the short shrift by Sefton and then the MP's objections to his own councillors plan to build on acres of Green Belt being ignored you would have thought that Bill Esterson should ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33342481 The BBC Magazine has the story – see link above. [IMG: Liverpool - Southport Merseyrail line in the snow just north of Bootle New Strand Station] Liverpool – Southport Merseyrail line in the snow just north of Bootle New Strand Station Now let's remember, leaves, snow, rain, heat & high winds can all slow down or stop trains but they are still the safest and best way to travel.
Thu 2nd
12:23
LDVideo: Liberalism, free speech and extremism - Tim and Norman at the National Liberal Club
Watch on YouTube here, or below.
OK, so this post is something distinctly non-political, for a change. As someone who grew up around Gilbert and Sullivan amateur productions, and who has performed in such productions of all of their (still existing - I've never done a Thespis) works, this is, you could say, a subject of lifelong interest (quite literally!) for me. For many, many years there have been arguments going on about how much, if at all, productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas can or should be 'modernised', and what kinds of 'modernisation' are 'acceptable'. I've engaged in such discussions many times, both with ...
Before I talk about the three things I don't understand about the election, let me be clear that having a choice between Tim Farron and Norman Lamb is great, as they're both excellent candidates. But Tim Farron wins my vote, due to the way that he has always chosen to engage constructively with party members and is continuing to do ...
View image | gettyimages.com I have to say that I am incandescent with rage at a profile of the only Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder which has appeared in the New Statesman. The implied conclusion of both the journalist ... Continue reading →
I was lucky enough to be invited to a symposium of academics, pollsters and (a very few) politicians this week at Nuffield College on "Beyond General Election 2015". It was sponsored by the British Election Study, which takes an in depth look at the voting behaviour and motivations of a 30,000 strong sample. The discussion was held under the Chatham House rule, so I cannot disclose who said what, but here are some themes. The incumbency factor for sitting Liberal Democrat MPs seems to have been worth some 11%+ on the national vote share. Our 334 lost deposits are very ...
Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt's must-read account of the Liberal Democrats in coalition provides noteworthy details about the attempt to unseat Nick Clegg as Liberal Democrat leader in the aftermath of the June 2014 elections although misses some key reasons why the plot failed and failed so badly. @iainmartin1 None of the Labour plotters managed to propel themselves out of their own party though. LibDems in a class apart...! — Mark Pack (@markpack) May 28, 2014 So here's my stab at collating reasons: The plotters didn't have experience: for any follower of the many, many attempts to have a leadership ...
Thu 2nd
10:14
Something you won't hear this from me often, but here goes: I agree with Michael Fallon
The defence secretary, Michael Fallon, has added some words of wisdom to what was becoming, from the perspective of the Tory frontbench anyhow, a rather arid and even self-defeating conversation. On Radio 4 this morning, Fallon said that if a definite connection could be made between the Sousse massacre and Daesh, then surely some further military response is needed. Now, I don't so much agree with this statement from Fallon as much as I think some greater reaction from western governments to the group formerly known as ISIS is long overdue. What I really agreed with the defence secretary on ...
UPDATED DETAILS Conservative seat. Cause:Resignation. LD candidate: Geraldine Locke
UPDATED DETAILS Conservative seat. Cause:Resignation. No LD candidate.
Looking across the change in vote share at the General Election (analysing data from here) reveals that the Liberal Democrat vote was down 15.3 percentage points (pps) on average, but down slightly more in constituencies where the Lib Dems won in 2010 (15.7 pps). Excluding Scotland from these latter figures shows the Libs Dems were down by 16.8 percentage points. The biggest winner was UKIP, both in England and Wales (up 10.9 pps) and in former Lib Dem constituencies (up 7.6 pps). The Liberal Democrats need to understand why so many previous voters switched to UKIP. The Conservatives were up ...
I can't remember whose joke about the Lamb/Farron leadership contest it was, but I repeat it here. It is a wonderful thing to take part in an election and know that, whoever wins, it's going to be a Lib Dem. I've even voted already. I've been hugely impressed by both leadership candidates and the way they have kept level heads. There have been peculiar incidents but nothing like the 'calamity Clegg' business of the last Lib Dem leadership tussle. I've found the focus on what either candidates did or didn't vote for or against more than frustrating because - in ...
Before the election, the Conservatives never specified how they would make £12 billion in welfare cuts. In the end, they were correct in assuming that potential voters wouldn't need that level of detail before they went to the ballot box. Tax credits - which are regular welfare payments made to low paid workers, those with young children - seem to be first on the list to cut.
Norman Lamb has a new pamphlet out, which you can read in full below whilst The Independent has backed Tim Farron. Download this document Keep up with news on the Lib Dem leadership race Sign up for Liberal Democrat Newswire here, and Sign up for the Facebook event for the contest (where Norman Lamb and Tim Farron are regularly answering questions from members).
The election is done with, so now it is safe for the Airport Commission to report on options for expanding airport capacity in England's South East. They have duly proposed that another runway be built at Heathrow airport. Personally I was a bit surprised. I had expected the Commission to recommend expanding Gatwick. An article in the FT a while back led me to think that its Chair, Howard Davies, favoured the expansion of point to point services, which allow greater levels of competition, over the conventional arguments for the economies of hub airports, which favour big operators. But if ...
The latest 2015 Sunday Bandstand Concert on the Magdalen Green Bandstand takes place this coming Sunday at 2pm. The Tayport Instrumental Band will be playing. More details are available here.
How Snobbery Helped Take The Spice Out Of European Cooking Pressure Wash or Paint Red? In which the Indy likens @timfarron to Hercules - & by implication the party to the Augean Stables I don't think we're THAT full of shit Tories plan to batter disabled people. Again. An archbishop has started a Change.org petition to free the naked rambler. We should all sign it. How same-sex marriage could ruin civilisation very very funny from Dean, as usual I used to lead tours at a plantation. You won't believe the questions I got about slavery Comment: How we impoverish children ...
It is hard to believe that ten years ago today I first sat at my laptop and wrote a blog post. Back then I was in the post first time general election candidate daze, but was already thinking about how I could do more to get myself recognised and my views heard ahead of the next election at some point before 2010. Back then the blog title was Stephen's Linlithgow Journal as back then anything I thought I would stand for as a Liberal Democrat candidate had the word Linlithgow in the title. Of course when it came to be ...
Cllr Iain Roberts,Leader of the Lib Dem group on TfGM, is asking anyone affected by the rail disruption on 1st July to let him know what the rail companies could have done better. Damaged overhead lines caused chaos at Manchester Piccadilly and other railway stations across the North, with passengers stranded and delays lasting for hours on the hottest July day on record. "We need to understand why the incident happened and what can be done to prevent it happening again," Iain said "but we also need to look at whether more could have been done for the passengers suffering ...
Our latest eFocus for the Whickham area was published tonight and can be viewed on this link.
"The book I didn't know I was going to write" - more at Little Toller Books.
