'Oh, so that's who Richard Morris is..." Lord Hattersley on The Daily Politics

'An influential activist' - The Guardian

'Iain Dale, without the self loathing' - Matthew Fox in The New Statesman

'
You are a tinker...' - Tim Farron

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Blimey; so that's how you become Chief Whip



I don't suppose you become Chief Whip of the Lib Dems by pussyfooting around.

When Stephen Tall wrote this piece in Lib Dem Voice about our electoral prospects in 2015, he illustrated it with a map showing the Chief Whip's constituency thusly...

Yes, that's it, top right....

And Alistair was not happy. so look what's in the comments feed on the piece...

(click to enlarge)

Blimey.

Mind you, he's probably a bit cross about the mini rebellion yesterday....


UPDATE

He's still doing it. HE IS EVERYWHERE

Nick Clegg: The Silvio Berlusconi of the Airwaves?

My latest in The New Statesman. Enjoy!!


It's 10 O’Clock Thursday morning, and the interweb and chatterati are abuzz with Nick Clegg going off on one, in his first live phone-in programme on LBC.
"I've been listening to a broadcast that's disgusting, that's being run in a way that's despicable, vile, repugnant," the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told host Nick Ferrari during a live radio show on Thursday morning. "I've heard theories that are distorted and far from the truth. I've seen a reconstruction of reality that's the opposite of the truth." And he finished up by calling the whole programme ‘a whorehouse’.
It probably won’t happen. But then, Nick Clegg’s no Silvio Berlusconi, is he? Of course, that’s not an entirely bad thing. But if there’s one thing Mr Berlusconi is good at, it’s how to use the media to make a splash - as the above quote demonstrates. It’s what he actually told TV host Gad Lerner last year when he saw a programme he really didn’t like – and called in to let them know, live on air…
Now most people who’ve seen Nick in action fairly regularly will tell you that he doesn’t especially mind telling you exactly what he thinks - in quite bald terms. It can be quite unsettling if you’re used to the bland emollients of the normal political interaction with the public.
So might I suggest that Thursday morning’s show – and every subsequent edition of ‘call Nick Clegg’ – might go rather better than expected if he disregards the normal conventions of the political discourse with the public, and gives folk both barrels instead. After all, I suspect not many of those ringing in are likely to be on the line congratulating Nick on what a fabulous job he’s done – LBC would see that as rather poor radio.
So if callers are aggressive - get on the front foot, Nick. When the left give you a kicking, remind them what a fine job Labour did on the economy. When the Tories blame you for all the pernicious right-wing fantasy policies they’d like to enact but can’t, stick it to them.
Frankly – there’s nothing to lose, and quite a lot to gain. And I guarantee everyone would listen.

Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Manifesto News

According to Duncan Hames...

“Nick Clegg has charged David Laws and the (manifesto) Working Group with thoroughly stress-testing the deliverability and affordability of the future manifesto and to build on the approach of the last manifesto by clearly identifying our top priorities for a future government"

I seem to recall we said the same about the last manifesto


Presumably abolishing tuition fees is a shoe in then?


PS: Here's the full working committee


David Laws MP, Chair
•        Sharon Bowles MEP, Vice-Chair
•        Duncan Brack, Vice-Chair (FPC Vice-Chair)
•        Nick Clegg MP (Leader, FPC Member)
•        Tim Farron MP (President, FPC Member)
•        Duncan Hames MP (FPC Chair)
•        Cllr Dr Julie Smith (FPC Vice-Chair)
•        Dr Julian Huppert MP (FPC Vice-Chair)
•        Jenny Willott MP (FPC Member)
•        Baroness Sal Brinton (FPC Member)
•        Jo Swinson MP
•        Lord John Shipley

Monday, 7 January 2013

Hmm - is it just me - or does this sound like Plan B?

In the coalition agreement - the first one, that is, - it clearly says

"The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the measures in this agreement'

and indeed we have been told this, over and over again....

Yet in the reboot version published today, we are told...

"Dealing with the deficit may have been our first task, but our most important task is to build a stronger, more balanced economy..."

which to me says something quite different. It sounds like we need to boost the supply side of the economy, to invest, to build, to grow.

It sounds to me...like Plan B.

Vince wins.

Saturday, 5 January 2013

What we need to do in 2013 to get back on track....

My latest New Year message from the New Statesman. Do pop over and see the original for the traditional comments fun


We’re bumping along in the polls at around 10 per cent, we have the most unpopular leader of all the major political parties, and in the last three Westminster by-elections we came third, fifth and eighth, losing our deposits in two of the three campaigns. You might think the Lib Dems go into 2013 with a large black cloud hanging overhead and an awful sense of impending doom. You’d be wrong.
The grassroots are surprisingly chipper. In the most recent Lib Dem Voice survey(fieldwork just before Christmas), 77 per cent of respondents said they continued to support the party being in coalition, 61 per cent said they thought the party was on the right course, and (hold onto your hats) 58 per cent said they were either "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with Nick’s leadership.
How come? Well, partly it’s the Pollyanna lurking inside every Lib Dem. Doing less than spectacularly in mid-term polls is the default expectation for most grassroots members (even if by-election disaster after disaster is something of a novelty), so this doesn’t feel like particularly alien territory for most folk. It’s also true when you look at local election results – and when we think about the 2015 general election, we think of it at a local level – we’ve done rather better in 2013 than most people realise.
And many in the party genuinely look at the good things the Lib Dems have achieved in government – 2 million out of income tax altogether, the pupil premium, Green Investment Bank et al – and think actually, for doing all that, unpopularity is a price worth paying. And that’s a fair point. But I can’t help but feel the party may have listened to the Prime Minister’s call for the country to approach 2013 with a sense of realism and optimism a tad too literally.
So here’s my two pennies' worth for the next 12 months if the Lib Dems are going to get back on electoral track.
We have a ‘new’ positioning of the party as the only repository of both economic competence and social justice. Of course, it’s not new– Nick announced it at conference in September 2011. But it’s not really stuck has it? Might I suggest that this may have something to do with the fact that demonstrating economic competence during the worst economic malaise for 80 plus years is quite tricky? Ditto social fairness, when the last government before you has spent all the money, and you’ve got your coalition partners introducing a benefit cap and apparently encouraging words like ‘feckless’ and ‘workshy’ to be bandied about.
So if that’s the strategy, fine – but we’ll need some rather better communications to get it resonating than we’ve managed to date. Might I suggest ditching the HQ line of ‘the Lib Dems are working to build a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life’ for the rather snappier ‘Lib Dems represent the head and the heart’. Folk might actually remember that.
And while stopping the worst excesses of the Tories is as important as ever – the snoopers' charter being just a starter – that won’t be enough. Neither will shouting ‘well, what would you do then?’ on a continuous loop at the Labour Party. We need some new, exciting policy initiatives of our own. Our newly elected federal policy committee needs not just to be thinking about the general election manifesto for 2015. It need to be presenting conference very quickly with some radical new thinking for debate and agreement. And then we need to be presenting it to the country.
As a party, we spent too long on our non-differentiation strategy with our coalition ‘partners’ – and we are now similarly in danger of thinking that if we shout at the Tories about how awful they are for the next 30 months, all will be right in the world. It won’t. We have 12 months to show the country we are still the radical, reforming and creative political party the members all joined. And if we do that, combined with our record to date, we’ve got a half a chance.

Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Why the rise of UKIP isn't all bad news for the Lib Dems

Latest from me in the New Statesman - actually getting some interesting comments (and some not so good)(as per)


While there’s no point trying to pretend last week’s by-election results were anything other than awful for the Lib Dems, the silver lining comes from a surprising direction – the success of UKIP. For while the Lib Dems and UKIP are poles apart philosophically, there are some huge in-built electoral advantages to the former in the rise of the latter
Nationally, a fall in the Lib Dem share of vote is ultimately more likely to benefit Labour in the 2015 election – a fact which is well understood in No. 10, and why Nick is allowed a fair amount of Tory bashing. But from the Lib Dem end of the telescope, there are a lot of Lib Dem seats where the Tories run us a close second. Hence the Conservative target seats now being published include a high percentage of Lib Dem-held marginals – half of them in fact.
But a rise in the UKIP share of the vote throws that plan into trouble. Few core Lib Dem voters are likely to switch to UKIP in those constituencies – but a rise in the UKIP vote is likely to hit the Tories hard. Maybe not enough for UKIP to win – but certainly enough to stop the Tories getting past the Lib Dem incumbent.
Secondly, the Tories need to respond to the UKIP surge – and will want to rush to the right. And any move to the right by the Tories to counter UKIP leaves more of the centre ground open to the Lib Dems, just as the differentiation strategy needs it.
But these are just tactical advantages to the Lib Dems. There’s a greater prize. As the excellent Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson points out, the inherent unfairness of UKIP polling at 10 per cent but gaining zero Westminster seats in a general election (thanks to first-past-the-post) is likely to reignite the debate around electoral reform. The net effect of a UKIP surge removing votes from the Tories and at the same time handing Labour a landslide election victory is likely to energise the debate about proportional representation (PR) on the right.
And every Lib Dem wants the PR debate and electoral reform at the top of the political agenda. So, rather than resulting in our demise, the surge in UKIP support could actually be the saving grace for the Lib Dems. Funny old world, politics.