Hindsight is a wonderful thing and something we all wish we could have.In the cold light of day I regret the language used in a previous post yesterday. I reacted emotionally to a personal attack made against me on this site ... Continue reading →
Two of my posts have made the top seven most read on the Lib Dem Voice Golden Dozen. Thank you everyone. Really appreciate all your support. I'll keep posting...
The more I read our national press the more it becomes apparent that British journalists are like semi intelligent pack animals trained by their masters to produce stories within a narrow band of political ideology. Admittedly journalists are cleaner than animals as their crap ends up in print or broadcast, but they are nothing if not relentless in attacking Lib Dems, which continues unabated, with Clegg hammered daily, the Observer had Ed Milliband, asking once again for Libs to defect not for the first time. Saturday the paper's were bitching about, AV and how this was another blow to Nick ...
Thursday night and Friday was hard for me to take as many candidates (and friends) across Scotland were losing seats and deposits as the domino effect of the SNP majority was happening before our very eyes. The whole team had worked so incredibly hard, some candidates and their teams doing the volumes of door knocking and leafleting they hadn't seen since the early 1980's. We had deliberately reduced the team in Clifton Terrace, our Edinburgh HQ from the levels of the 2007 campaign because we knew we had to get our teams out in the constituencies. Despite some criticism from ...
This is St Hugh's in Northampton Road, Market Harborough, which was opened in 1940. The new parish was carved out of Little Bowden in 1920 to serve the housing that had appeared south of the River Welland in since the late Victorian period. (The two parishes were reunited some years ago.) On Saturday I bought a pamphlet about this church's history: Following a meeting in November 1892 it was agreed to acquire the necessary land and build a Mission Room. The building was opened on 16th August 1893. The building is still in use as the Church Hall ... The ...
Here are some blog posts and articles have caught my eye over the last few days. Next Left on why the Yes to AV campaign failed Political Scribe on how why it is the Left that is crucifying the Lib Dems Julian Glover on why the Lib Dems should continue to exist Andrew Brown on why the Left hate Nick Clegg Tim Montgomerie on what the results mean for the coalition And finally... me talking about why it is time for a coalition narrative
Thursday was a bad set of elections for the Lib Dems. In Blaydon constituency, where I stood at the General Election last year, the trend of Labour gains against the Lib Dems accelerated. I was particularly sad to see Brenda Osborne in Winlaton and Derek Anderson in Crawcrook lose their seats. Brenda has worked tirelessly for her community and gives people hell when they are not doing their job and helping people. Derek has worked tirelessly with a residents group (the DSD estate) to generate a real community spirit. In addition, SOnya Hawkins in Whickham East and Dunston Hill was ...
Will Egypt be forced to embrace secularism in light of their democratic uprising? Is one of the inevitable results of a social liberal democracy, embracing freedom of citizens, democratic voting rights and transparency of government a move towards secularisation? As Egypt, still a storming nation under millitary rule following citizens' successful uprising this year, dissolve into religious
Well okay only 43.87% did There is nothing more frustrating while spending 15 hours on your feet than seeing friends throwing complaints about the campaign you have given up the last six months of your life for. Well maybe knowing that before one of the three constituencies that you were the agent on site for had declared that the national result was already a disaster. Some of it was justified and some it ignored the fact that many of us involved in the campaign were fighting for some of the things and failings they mentioned. The eyes and ears on ...
The mood as well as the weather was sunny in Victoria Lubbock's garden in Hackney this afternoon. After all, that London borough produced the highest vote in favour of AV of anywhere in the country on Thursday. Moreover, in London there were no local elections, so Liberal Democrats in the capital aren't feeling quite as wounded as in some other parts of the UK, though frustrated at the results. Besides, the Hackney local party had organised a splendid debate on the NHS reforms between Health Minister Paul Burstow and Prateek Buch of the Social Liberal Forum, the still relatiuvely new ...
[IMG: Parliament Buildings, Stormont] Parliament Buildings, Stormont The final results in the NI Assembly election were declared last night with mixed fortunes for the Alliance Party. 108 MLAs are elected to the Assembly using STV in 18 six-seat constituencies. The constituencies are the same as those used for Westminster elections. Our vote increased by 2.5% from the 2007 election to 7.7%, an extra Assembly seat was won, with both Judith Cochrane and Chris Lyttle elected in Belfast East, taking the total to 8 and Anna Lo topped the poll with 19.8% in Belfast South. Anna's closest rival was the SDLP's ...
In any two horse political race, it is damned near impossible to poll less than 40% of the vote. You have to be spectacularly inept or obscenely unpopular to drop below this figure. For example, no Republican or Democrat Presidential candidate in recent US history has fallen this far. Even Barry Goldwater, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis - all famous for being electorally destroyed - managed to outscore the woeful YES percentage handsomely. Yet somehow, the YES campaign managed to exceed even these extreme depths of campaigning ineptitude. It didn't just lose. It was thrashed out of sight. It was ...
They seem impossibly clean-cut and their music seems potentially cheesy. But there is something classy about The Seekers, one of Australia's finest exports, apart from The Wiggles. One of my favourite lines from "The Boat that rocked" is this one from Angus "The Nut" Nutsford: Who's going to have the moral fibre to play The Seekers when the time is right? Obviously, there are their million sellers such as Georgy Girl or The Carnival is Over. But when I was a radio deejay in the 1980s I latched onto this lesser-known track from them – Come the Day. I think ...
This isn't just dad rock it is granddad rock. But I do like Paul Weller's sweater. So Sad About Us is a Townshend song, written for The Who. There is a great version by them recorded live at The Marquee in the 1960s. And The Jam used to play it too. So here they are together.
Another day, another invitation from Ed to join the great progressive crusade against an evil government, stealing the bread from the mouths of orphans, etc, etc. So, just in case you missed my first response, let me put it in terms that will take me off your invitation list... I'm a liberal, not a socialist. Alright, you're not a socialist either, but a progressive - a bastard word that would sell itself to any weasel in a tight corner, as Terry Pratchett so elegantly describes in 'Going Postal'. Or at least, you say you are. And given that your definition ...
This afternoon, between today's showers, I was delivering leaflets in the West End. Thankfully, for a nice change, it was not election leaflets but a leaflet advertising the forthcoming Friends of Magdalen Green AGM and public lecture and another seeking residents' views on possible new BBQ tables for the Green that would hopefully help reduce damage to the grass through disposable barbeques. I've already given an update on this blog about the forthcoming AGM and public lecture, but you can download the BBQ consultation leaflet by going to http://tinyurl.com/BBQconsult.
All communication professionals know that if you fail to provide a narrative someone else will frame one for you. What is more, it is likely to be one that you don't like. After the bruising electoral verdict of 5 May, the Liberal Democrats are searching for a way to distinguish the party from the Conservatives. As the party has already found, this is difficult. It seems that the plan is to publicly say when they don't support certain policies. This was done over immigration and could be a template. It has been supported by the Conservatives too. But done too ...
Back in October of last year, before the tuition fees vote, I wrote a rather impassioned email to Nick Clegg, at his invitation, expressing my dismay at the way the party was handling the issue inside the coalition. I didn't publish my email on the blog at that time (though I did mention that I'd sent it.) This is (part of) what I wrote: Dear Nick, I have been a member of the Liberal Democrats since the party was founded, having originally been a member of the SDP since I was at university in the mid 1980s. While there is ...
No, not that one. Nick Thornsby has concluded that there is no progressive majority in Britain.As a party we have spent years becoming diligent on local issues, helpful on personal problems and brilliant on targetting tactics but we have not changed minds. Like every other party we have abandoned ideology and when our leadership makes strategic errors, our fair-weather voters melt away leaving
I meant to publish this in September, and appear to have forgotten to do so... but it's fun anyway, so why not... Whilst pottering about in Stowupland a few weeks ago, Ros and I came upon a poster for a Treasure Hunt, due to take place this weekend just passed. Whilst we don't get much opportunity to do things locally, it so happened that we would be at home and not committed to anything else, so Ros signed us up to take part. So, yesterday morning at 10.25 a.m., we found ourselves at the Village Hall at Stowupland, where we ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 220th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (1st-7th May, 2011), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Sadly I've been ...
So many good blog-posts from Lib Dems this past weekend — bad news makes for a much better quality of introspection than victory, it seems. Here are the top seven posts (is that a baker's half-dozen?) I think are well worth reading: Time for the Lib Dems to 'Man up' (Steven Gauge): damn straight. And this, by the way, is a quite genius line: Cleggmania was a little bit bonkers and its current hysterical replacement is much the same; different sides of the same bankrupt currency. The progressive minority (Nick Thornsby): an eloquently reasoned post I wish I'd written. Here's ...
I've spent the post-election weekend in Brecon, south Wales. It's a place about as far from the suburban political madness of last week in Bury as it is possible to be, but I was helping out at a friend's wedding there and sharing a barn with about six families-worth of screaming toddlers, so a rural rest ...
So, the writers for the next series of Sherlock have been announced. Mark Gatiss is doing Hound - no surprise there, given his Hammer geekery - Moff is doing Scandal in Bohemia - which is slightly worrying, as his female characters do tend towards the tropey - and Steve Thompson, yes, THAT Steve Thompson, the eejit who wrote the racist, sexist, cliché-filled episode of last series of Sherlock and last night's less than whelm-inducing episode of Doctor Who, has been given The Final Problem. I'll say that again, just in case you missed it: Steve Thompson is writing The Final ...
Twelve months of Lib Dems in government, and what has been achieved in the areas of policy that really matter to the public ? Many senior Lib Dems and those who are regularly wheeled out to defend the party like Evan Harris and Simon Hughes, together with the uber loyal blogs and websites that defend the party at all costs, read out a long list of achievements which are, in truth, utterly unimportant to the man on the street or the voter on the doorstep. Having just gone through a local election campaign as a sitting councillor, I thought it ...
There is no doubt that Thursday was a terrible result for the Liberal Democrats in Manchester. Many people who had dedicated years of their lives to helping people lost their seats, including my Ward Colleague Wendy Helsby. It will be interesting to see if those new arrivals on the Council will show the same dedication. Labour's aims though were made clear in a letterto the Guardian by Labour's Cllr. Karney. Bragging that Manchester was a Tory-free zone, he anticipates Manchester becoming a Liberal Democrat free zone too. In other words, he wants a one-party Council, where nobody will be held ...
There has been much comment and discussion about what happens to the coalition now that the local elections and AV referendum have taken place. Below are some possible scenarios. The Peter Bingle Scenario For many months, the Bell Pottinger Public Affairs' Chairman was arguing that a new centre party would emerge after the 2015 general election. This new party would comprise of Cameroons, Orange Bookers and some New Labour modernisers. This assumed that the coalition would be a success and that the Prime Minister was realigning British politics. Tory and Lib Dem commentators now reject this view. However, without AV ...
"Write about what you know" is a maxim which has been taught to writers for as long as there have been writers to teach - or at least as long as there have been creative writing classes. Of course, the human mind's capacity for imagination and invention is much broader than this. Without imagination, The Lord of the Rings would have been a treatise on Anglo Saxon and Nordic languages and Hannibal Lecter would have been considerably more mildly mannered. There are some things, though, which it must be incredibly hard to imagine - like how would you cope if ...
After the party's battering at the polls on Thursday, and the simultaneous rejection of electoral reform, the Lib Dems' future in the Coalition government has been the subject of much media discussion this weekend, with Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Simon Hughes all leading the fightback. Here's a round-up of some of their BBC interviews... Clegg fights back with tough NHS pledge ... Cable on 'business-like' coalition Hughes says NHS bill needs 'fundamental change'
If you're my friend on Facebook, you will probably be sick to death of seeing this, so apologies. I am a bit like a child. I should probably be more cool, but I'm quite excited that I was asked to write for a proper paper - not, you understand, that I've ever written for an improper one. It looks quite impressive, at the bottom of page 13 of Scotland on Sunday. The online version is here.
A sound thrashing efficiently administered, the public will now doubtless look to something else to keep them occupied for a while. In the meantime, we need to start thinking about where we go from here. There are those who will call for the head of young Clegg, and I am curious as to why Sky News think that we should pay the blindest bit of attention to an easily gamed Twitter poll, but there you go. There are those who will suggest that we need to get our message across more effectively. But what is that message? To be honest, ...
As my fellow Lib Dem Voice team member Sara Bedford spotted this morning, Nick Clegg has called for a "louder Lib Dem Voice". So I've been doing my duty and ordering one of these for each of us on the team: [IMG: A loud hailer] Higher volume, here we come.
My Saturday evenings will not be the same for a very long time. First, BBC4 treated us to The Killing (or Forbrydelsen, if you'll forgive my Danish); then, when it concluded, they eased our loss by showing the third season of Spiral (or Engranages, if you'll forgive my French). Both were terrific, putting British crime series to shame. Though I'm a fan of shows such as Waking the Dead and Silent Witness, there is an unreality to their every-case-wrapped-up-in-two-episodes schtick. Breakneck plotlines which rely on instant breakthroughs. Lead characters who must all have their personal crises erupted and sorted within ...
What with the election, and still not being completely recovered from my recent indisposition, I'm way behind in both reading and book-blogging (and in replies to various emails as well). Tomorrow may be a day to start catching up, though I'm doing radio again in the morning and TV in the evening. Meantime, I should record that I finished this book as long ago as Thursday; it is a history of the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I by his daughter Anna. Gibbon is (as so often) unfairly scathing about this book, saying that "an elaborate affectation of rhetoric ...
After the devastation, the analysis began. There has been no shortage of individuals expressing views on the Liberal Democrats' spectacular collapse in Scotland - from gloating Labour activists (who really should concentrate on their own difficulties) to our outgoing leader. The Herald subscribes to the view that this result represents punishment for being too closely allied with the Conservatives in Westminster. The Guardian claims that the Liberal Democrats were "slapped, kicked and left for dead...flattened in Scotland, their share of the vote reduced to numbers so meagre they were last seen [back in 1988]." This is, of course, absolutely true. ...
Over on the Guardian's Comment Is Free, former Liberal Democrat MP, Evan Harris, has an article defending the party's decision to enter a coalition with the Conservatives last year, but also setting out some of the mistakes that have been over the last year – with the benefit of his "retrospectoscope" – as well as some suggestions of how they can be avoided in the future. Here's a sample: When we opted last year to form a coalition with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats were not so naive as to think these elections would be anything better than extremely difficult. ...
Having had four entire years without a story set in Earth's past (other than a few scenes in City of Death), we now have two in a row, with Black Orchid taking us forward to the 1920s. There's not a lot to comment on here; nice characterisation of the regulars, but regrettably the Tardis becomes a taxi again to transport some policemen, appropriately enough given its external appearance, for a distance of only a few miles. The behaviour of the Cranleighs is actually rather reprehensible, and while I hope that the inquest attributed some blame to them, it probably didn't, ...
i) births and deaths 8 May 1928: birth of John Bennett, who played General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) and Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977). 8 May 1931: birth of Douglas Camfield, who directed the third episode of Planet of Giants (1964), also The Crusade (1965), The Time Meddler (1965), The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-66), The Web of Fear (1968), The Invasion (1968), much of Inferno (1970), Terror of the Zygons (1975) and The Seeds of Doom (1976). ii) broadcast anniversaries 8 May 1965: broadcast of "The Search", third episode of the story we ...
So we (the Yes campaign) lost. We lost big time. Just like at the General Election last year – the Lib Dems – the main impetus behind the Yes campaign – saw their good performance early in the polls scrubed out by the time the country goes to the polls. This shows us three things. Firstly that they do not campaign well. Secondly that their support is the softest and thirdly people deep down do not like change. So how does this translate to political reform in the future? Firstly whilst most political commentators are speculating that political reform is ...
The Spring 2011 newsletter of the Cheadle Civic Society is out. In addition to Cheadle news, the newsletter has interesting articles on Cheadle Hall (demolished 50 years ago, and partly unearthed in the Cheadle Green excavations last year), on Cheadle's first motor mechanic and car salesman James Bullock, tracing your family history and the 150th anniversary of Bruntwood Hall. With a year's membership costing just £5, the society is well worth joining for anyone with an interest in the past, present and future of Cheadle village.
I noticed that the Yes to Fairer votes campaign have already packed up and gone home. They have taken down their website already.I must admit I was very disappointed with how the campaign was run, especially as there wasn't a free post.
Well, as you may have heard, Redlands elected a Labour councillor on May 5th. I was nevertheless thrilled with the support I received from residents and our many helpers: it has been both a pleasure and an honour to serve my area and the town over the last four years. I have no doubt that Glenn and Daisy will continue to be wonderful councillors for the area, and I will continue to give them and my neighbours all the help and support I can. Again, thankyou and very best wishes, Kirsten
The saying that you can't see the wood for the trees certainly applies to blogging this week. There is just so much to write about that is very difficult to know where to start. There are fewer experiences more unpleasant than watching the rout of your chosen political party. Thursday was just that. The Lib Dem's were reduced to five MSP's losing 12 MSP's while Labour lost even more first past the post seats but their loses were mitigated in part by top ups. It is really difficult to see good people, usually friends, losing and for the Lib Dem's ...
This is an interesting quote: Last night a senior source in the campaign for the alternative vote admitted they knew "very early on" that there was no chance of winning the referendum and that Clegg had become part of the problem: "Every time Clegg spoke about AV our polling numbers went into free-fall. We knew from very early on, before the new year, that we couldn't win, our message wasn't getting through and the Liberal Democrats in the whole were worse than useless. Clegg was toxic and everything [Chris] Huhne did in criticising the Tories just put the attention on ...
Alright, I've picked myself up, dusted myself off and am focused on the horizon. However, there is some unfinished business before I set off on the next leg of the journey. Yes, it's time to thank those whose contributions made the campaign as successful as it was... Firstly, I should start with the people who set me loose on an unsuspecting District council ward, David Chappell, our then PPC, Kathy Pollard, the Leader of our County Group, Penny Otton, the Leader of our District Group, and Martin Redbond, our agent and campaign guru. They told me that I could start ...
As a Liberal Democrat member, I'm proud of the fact that our party is in government, with ministers making tough choices about the UK. While most attention is on electoral reform and tuition fees, I want to steer your attention towards foreign policy. In the Foreign Office there is one Lib Dem minister, Jeremy Browne MP. He takes the responsibility in the FCO for human rights policy among other things. Mr Browne recently made an excellent Q&A video on YouTube last month, focussing on the UK's action on promoting foreign policy abroad: It's encouraging to see a minister directly answering ...
.....and am supporting the Coalition in Westminster No.1: The Pledge 2010 Lib Dem Manifesto p.18 - We will immediately restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings. We will uprate the state pension annually by whichever is the higher of growth in earnings or 2.5%. The Action Lib Dems in Coalition Government - Restored the link between pensions and earnings, scrapped by Margaret Thatcher, in the Coalition's first budget The Benefit There is a clear link between the rise of pensioner poverty and the rises in average earnings. As inflation has pushed prices higher there have been rises ...
(I wrote this on Saturday. Nick Clegg has since threatened the veto on the NHS, which is a good start. I hope it's not just a PR exercise following a bad set of elections.) As with any defeat, particularly the battering received this week, there will be a post-mortem. Some lessons will be learnt – some of them might even be heeded – and plans will be changed. But above all, let's remember that the people can be trusted. We don't need to track everyone in a central database. We don't need to treat every disabled person like a probable ...
In Reading, the Greens gained Park Ward comfortably from the Conservatives. Labour somehow managed to win Church Ward in a campaign dominated by the row over the disastrous traffic scheme at Shinfield Road - a scheme, ironically, imposed on the local area by Labour. I was surprised that the former owner of the local chippy, standing for the "Common Sense Party", didn't do better there. The Conservatives made great play of their candidate being a local businessman, but his Beenham address can't have done him any good. The Liberal Democrats lost Katesgrove, Redlands and Tilehurst, the latter coming as a ...
The news, when it finally came, was hardly surprising. The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Tavish Scott, has decided to stand down following what The Herald terms a "disastrous" election for his party. "Disastrous" is perhaps understating it a little. Make no mistake - this was a massacre on a scale not witnessed in UK politics since 1997. The big questions following the catastrophic collapse were not about analysis of the actual result, but in asking how the Scottish Liberal Democrats can move forward and whether Tavish Scott is the right man to lead us into the future. Mr ...
I am pleased to see that there has been a London demonstration calling for the removal of President Assad. People like me often complain that some demonstrators care only about things done by Israel, and not about things done by other countries in the Middle East, and that's a double standard. Well, now some people have come out to say precisely what they think about the appalling atrocities being committed by the Assad regime in Syria. And credit to them for that.
Iain Dale writes on Lib Dem Voice today an article that attempts to point the way forward for the Lib Dems in the wake of catastrophic election results. Sadly, despite the fact that Iain is actually a rather nice guy, he fails to understand the problem, and his solutions are very much what is best for the Tory Party, not the Lib Dems. Vince Cable, who has long been on Iain's list of Lib Dems who need bashing, comes in for some tribal abuse from Iain. The fact that Iain then brings up a quote from a campaign manual from ...
The election results from both the District Council and National Referendum are now available from the South Cambridgeshire District Council website (here) and are reproduced below; Congratulations to Roger who polled more than 50% of the vote (a case when AV wouldn't have mattered!). Breaking the results down by Share of the vote gives us; Broadly speaking the results followed the national trend with the Labour party picking up the "anti-government" vote and with the Conservative vote dropping. A slight consolation locally is that compared to the election of four years ago (see here) our "share of the vote" remains ...
On this weekend, when we're all still hurting and nursing our wounds, on this weekend you choose to run a piece by the slimy moustache-twirling villain of the Tory blogosphere telling us exactly what he thinks we should do? On a weekend when we have been told by the electorate exactly how toxic agreeing too much with the Tories is, you run a piece which has the tone of fatherly advice to errant children from one of the most underhanded Tories going? WHAT IN CTHULHU'S NAME ARE YOU THINKING??? Right at this moment in time we need to be seen ...
The reports this week were that the Government is planning to scale back its proposals for outsourcing public services. A significant policy shift means that the delayed Open Public Services White paper will not feature proposals for "wholesale outsourcing" to the for-profit private sector when it finally emerges in a few weeks time. Notes drawn up by the CBI following a meeting with Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, leaked to the BBC, suggest that the Government remains committed to "transforming services". But the White Paper will focus on moving services from the public sector to charities, social enterprises, and employee-owned ...
How refreshing it would be to have a party, and its leader (especially one which has taken a severe pasting), openly sit down and debate the issues and learn from them. To be seen to debate and discuss the economic imperative that led us to a full coalition, the compromises made, what we are getting from it of our own agenda, and how we handle coalition from here on, and with a view to what we then offer in 2015. We were largely seen as being a 'different' kind of party - independent, honest and with integrity; values accorded to ...
I will be having another go at the Great Manchester Run this year. It's only a week to go, but sponsorship is welcome. Can't guarantee that I'll exactly be running it all, there might well be some walk involved, but it's all in a good cause. http://www.runningsponsorme.org/jackiepearcey2011
Why did Labour suffer a humiliating defeat in Scotland, Yvette? "....coalition is doing such damage in Scotland"
Sun 8th
11:39
Nick Clegg comes out fighting on Andrew Marr - but he must not have final say on Health Reform Bill
I am so tired today. I had a rare bout of Insomnia last night. Normally nothing keeps me from my sleep, but for some reason I woke up at half past midnight and didn't get back to sleep till 4. That might have been ok if I hadn't had to get up at 6:30 to see Anna off to her choir concert - of which more later. At least I was awake to watch Andrew Marr. It was good to see Nick Clegg come out fighting after a pretty miserable weekend. He seems to have got the message that he ...
This is a personal post – I might write a political one in the future some time. So, I lost my seat on Nottingham Council on Thursday night, and along with it all my income. Perhaps foolishly, my only job was being a full-time councillor, with extra bits of income from responsibilities and from working with the Fire Authority as well. All of that goes, and I've had my last pay-slip. For about the last six months, I have been thinking that defeat was a distinct possibility at these elections – my ward colleague was more optimistic, and in all ...
Twelve seats out of 108 changed hands in terms of party representation, which is actually the same number as in 2007, though the shifts were a bit more evenly distributed: The DUP gained four (two from the UUP, one each from SF and the SDLP) and lost two (to the UUP).Sinn Féin gained two (from the SDLP and UUP) and lost one (to the DUP).The SDLP lost three (to the DUP, SF and TUV) and gained one (from Kieran Deeny, who did not stand again).The UUP gained two (from the DUP) and lost four (two to the DUP, one to ...
When LibDem MPs return to Westminster this week they could be forgiven for having a collective panic attack. In their 22 year history they have never had such an onslaught of the political heebie-jeebies as they experienced at the hands of 12 million grumpy voters this week. Cleggmania has turned into Cleggophobia. Every policy Nick Clegg touches now is seen to be toxic. Westminster pundits are already writing him off as a political busted flush. But then again, these are the very same commentators who didn't see the SNP landslide coming in Scotland. They are the same people who predicted ...
BBC News reports that talks are taking place to explore the possibility of a coalition government in Wales after Labour fell just short of winning a majority last week: Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams told BBC Wales she has not ruled out working with Labour. "Welsh Liberal Democrats want there to be a stable government over the next five years and we want to concentrate on the issues we've been campaigning on, how can we strengthen the Welsh economy, how can we improve education results for our children and how can we cut waiting times. "Whether that's part of ...
FM Cornford's MICROCOSMOGRAPHIA ACADEMICA published in 1908 explains academic politics and has some truth for the wider world and the AV debate in particular. He says there is only one reason for doing something - because it's right - whereas there are many reasons for NOT doing something. He also gives the following definitions of two kinds of academic politicians:"A Conservative Liberal is a
As Mike's post has already revealed he was defeated in the election on Thursday. The full election results are available on the Cambridge City Council website (here) and are reproduced below; The majority was 175 (or about 7.5% of the total). The total number of votes cast was 2,261 (which represented around 37% of the electorate). The share of the vote was as follows; Needless to say this is a very disappointing result for your local team in King's Hedges and we all wish Mike well as he takes a well earned break and for whatever he chooses to do ...
During the week, I'll be writings a series of posts on the lessons for the Liberal Democrats from Thursday's elections, but in the meantime this is what I told the BBC this morning:
Just two quick points to correct some misconceptions that have appeared in the media over the last few days: 1. Putting an opposition member into the role of Presiding Officer will not give Labour a one seat majority. That is because standing orders say that if the opposition supply the PO then the Government must supply the Deputy Presiding Officer, who also does not have a vote. The effect therefore will be neutral. 2. There have been no talks whatsoever between the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Labour about coalitions or any other sort of power sharing and nor will there ...
Episode 83 of the Pod Delusion I'm item two this week, laying into Nadine Dorries. (tags: podcasts) Tories ruthless and calculating, says Cable I <3 Vince. (tags: vince) We have a mountain to reclimb Stephen has a nice climbing metaphor for the current state of Lib Demmery (tags: libdemmery) Steve Richards: It was in Clegg's moment of triumph that the seeds of disaster were sown - Steve Richards, Commentators - The Independent (tags: libdemmery) The myth of Lib Dem 'betrayal' Evan Harris writes an interesting, somewhat bullish, piece (tags: politics)
Having lost the election in North Hinksey and Wytham I do now have the advantage of being able to speak freely about the results which have come in in the Vale and across the country. It's been a torrid few days and the most obvious conclusion to be drawn is that you simply can't trust the Tories. I was deeply depressed when we went into coalition with them last year but I considered the various comments and plans over the following days and concluded that it was probably the best thing for the Lib Dems to do to demonstrate that ...
A beauty of a quote from Barack Obama, via Political Wire: We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure? – President Obama, quoted by the Washington Post in the Situation Room, when told a Navy Seal had to lie down next to the body of Osama bin Laden to measure his height.
Sun 8th
09:45
AV Referendum. Lots of lists of reasons why we lost. But one fundamental question no one's asking...
Olly Grender predicted on Twitter on Friday that there would be a weekend full of clever hindsight about why the AV referendum was lost. In fact by Friday afternoon the Guardian had a fairly full list of 10 reasons to which I'll quickly add two more. It was held on the wrong day (the Tories got their vote out better in the English Council elections); and supporters of the 2 parties that have been in government continously for the 65 years until the last election, worked out that the status quo of FPTP was a better bet for them staying ...
It was a sad dismal result for the overall YES campaign in the AV election. The Tories and BNP won with a resounding NO vote nationally . I don't know about the rest of the country but locally in Southwark the Labour and Green parties didn't practically support the YES campaign. On election day we were fortunate to have two Labour supporters helping in East Dulwich – one being Margaret Higman a former councillor for Alleyn ward. But in East Dulwich we ran a full YES campaign. We delivered 4 YES leaflets and 2 YES letters across the ward and ...
[IMG: e-myth revisited by Michael Gerber] I've been wanting to start filming book reviews for a while now because many of my friends know that I'm a voratious reader of business, marketing, politics and self-improvement books and are always asking me for recommendations. So the first of my video book reviews is about Michael Gerber's 'E-Myth Revisited' (affiliate link). I was turned onto this book a couple of years ago as I heard it was required reading at Stanford's MBA course and guys like Tim Ferriss had spoken about it favorably. If you're a small business owner this book is ...
Rochford District has been one of the bluest councils in England in recent years - before election day the Tories had 31 seats, we had 5 , the Greens had 1 and the Rochford District Residents Party had 1, with 1 vacancy in Hullbridge. It was very much an election for us to focus on defense, as we had elections in all 3 wards where we had councillors.... The end result was that we lost one seat
It can't be denied that there were many very amazing results in the May 5th elections. Two of which were, Conservatives gaining seats when they were expected to lose and the SNP gaining a majority in Hollyrude. This majority for the Scottish Nationalist will result at some point in a vote for independence. It is well known that the majority of Scots do not want independence at the moment. But let's say over time the SNP manage to persuade the Scottish people to break the union. Now putting aside the fact that the Conservatives are a unionist party and will ...
I pulled no punches at the time that the university fees decision was an awful one, satisfying nobody. With the results in and most universities deciding to charge at the top end of the artificially narrow window personally I think the trouble is only beginning. And it's going to be serious both for universities and for the politicians who cobbled together this other "miserable compromise". Universities move slowly, of necessity: people need to know the costs they are committing to before they start applying, 18 months or more up front; then seeing the outcome of that "market" will take several ...
So, this episode, falling in between the two set-up-the-big-story-of-the-series opening eps and the ep everyone's been salivating over because it's written by Neil Gaiman, was always going to be a bit of a filler. Add to that the fact that it was written by the guy who wrote the horrendously racist, sexist and clichéd second ep of Sherlock last year, and my hopes for it were not exactly high. After the shock ending of last week's episode, it felt like something of a jolt to leave that story behind totally for a standalone episode, and the script did nothing to ...
South Glos has sent out some ideas for comment, but their ideas lack detail and don't answer the key questions. All they've done is give three options for where the shelters could go - two of which are so far from the actual bus stops that they will leave elderly and disabled people having to sprint to the bus with their shopping, so they would be useless. They haven't produced any designs which show what the shelters will be like - and of course that is the main thing we are all worried about. And they have given no information ...
North Down Alex Easton DUP 5,175 18.4% Gordon Dunne DUP 3,741 13.3% Peter Weir DUP 3,496 12.4% Stephen Farry AP 3,131 11.1% Steven Agnew GRN 2,207 7.9% Anne Wilson AP 2,100 7.5% Alan McFarland Independent 1,879 6.7% Alan Chambers Independent 1,765 6.3% Leslie Cree UUP 1,585 5.6% Colin Breen UUP 1,343 4.8% Liam Logan SDLP 768 2.7% Fred McGlade UKIP 615 2.2% Conor Keenan SF 293 1.0% Agnew held the Green seat by 99 votes ahead of Alliance's Anne Wilson, with 62 votes of Stephen Farry's surplus undistributed, which makes this realistically an even tighter result than the Fermanagh-South Tyrone margin of 62 for SF over the SDLP. DUP gain from UUP, with the UUP vote utterly splintered and devastated. Mid Ulster Martin McGuinness SF 8,957 21.0% Ian ...
The Liberal Democrat vote fell apart and it did so because the electorate see us as collaborators not moderators. They don't mind the Tories making cuts as that's what they do but it just doesn't fit well with the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg knows this and has written "I think it is clear that we need to do more to show people in the party and beyond what we are doing in Government and, perhaps more importantly, why. Because we are achieving a great deal. The BBC estimates that we are implementing 75% of the policies of in our manifesto, ...
Were you cheered (not that there's any reason to need cheering up, no, no, waaaaaaahhh) by Doctor Who - The Curse of the Black Spot tonight? Then why not try another pirate story of Cap'n Avery's curs'd gold, starring William Hartnell's Doctor? What could be cheerier than more Doctor Who (except cake. More cake. And burgers. Hmm... A burger between two slices of cake... I'm drifting)? True, it's probably a different Captain Avery and there's a squire rather than a siren, but though it was the preceding story that had its own Blue Peter feature, here's one they prepared earlier... ...
