Archive for featured
Paddy Ashdown’s eight steps to winning a Parliamentary constituency
In December 1976 Paddy Ashdown put to the local party in Yeovil a plan for winning the constituency for which he had been recently selected and where the party was third at almost every election. Thirty-five and a bit years on, it still reads as a pretty good plan. 1. We should adopt a three-election strategy [...]
Understanding the university application figures
Ahead of the preliminary university application figures late last year, I posted five questions by which to judge them when they were published. The gist of all the questions was, “what do the figures really mean if you scratch beneath the surface?”. In particular, the big spike in applications in the last year before the [...]
Campaign Corner: Getting the most out of a delivery session
The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest. Today’s Campaign Corner question: We’re organising a mass delivery session next weekend. Any last minute tips on what we should do? 1. Stickers and badges: As Greenwich Liberal Democrats [...]
What happens if someone tries to join the Liberal Democrats?
No reply. That’s what happens a third of the time if a member of the public contacts a Liberal Democrat local party via the internet according to a ‘mystery shopper’ exercise I carried out earlier this month. Taking the publicly advertised email addresses for 25 local parties, I tried sending them all a test email [...]
Ashdown, Glover and Williams on the party’s history
The latest edition of the Journal of Liberal History caries this account from me of the conference meeting which launched the new history of the party, Peace, Reform and Liberation. You can watch the meeting in full here. It would be a brave person who walked up to Paddy Ashdown or Shirley Williams and told them to [...]
The best spoof political interview. Ever.
Earlier in the month I shared my two favourite clips of political canvassing going wrong from TV drama shows. Today it’s the turn of the best spoof interview, courtesy of Australian TV in the 1990s. Enjoy:
Campaign Corner: How do I deal with information overload?
Aarrgh! There's just too much information online. How do I cope?
Campaign Corner: How do we get more people to our next campaign session?
Some people prefer to get a task and then go off and do it on their own; others prefer group activity. Some prefer talking to people; others prefer leafleting. Your possible helpers vary in all sorts of ways, so plan a range of different ways that people can be involved.
The Liberal Democrat challenges for 2012: recap
To mark the start of 2012, last week we ran a series of posts on the main challenges for the Liberal Democrats in 2012. Here in one handy recap is the full list: The Budget May’s elections Treating supporters as active participants Wealth taxation Communicative ministers A coherent narrative And don’t forget the four priorities [...]
The perils of political canvassing
May your new year on the doorsteps go better than this pair of all too true scenes from Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton:
