Archive for featured
Nick Clegg’s conference speech: what does it need to do? #ldconf
With the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, Nick Clegg is giving his last conference speech before the general election. Who knows, there may even be two general elections before he gets to give his autumn conference speech…
So what does Nick need to achieve with his Sunday speech?
Conference speeches have two audiences: the [...]
Why vote Liberal Democrat? Book review
If you go to Amazon searching for “Why vote Liberal Democrat?”, edited by Danny Alexander and just published by Biteback, you may be surprised to find yourself being presented instead with a book of the same title from 1997, written by William Wallace. The new book is misfiled by Amazon under the title “Why vote [...]
Digital Economy Bill: Parliamentarians reply to prospective candidates
Yesterday we covered an open letter from 25+ Liberal Democrat prospective Parliamentary candidates (and see also this comment from ex-MP Richard Allan), expressing concerns over the line the party had taken in the House of Lords on a key part of the Digital Economy Bill. The party’s DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) team [...]
TV leaders debates: what do the rules signify?
Despite some alarms along the way, the rules are now set for the first-ever head-to-head general election debates in the UK a mere 46 years after the first suggestion.
(And no, yawn yawn, it isn’t only in the US that such debates take place: the US wasn’t first and the US isn’t a particularly good place [...]
What we’ve been saying about the general election
With the general election looking to be heading towards a hung Parliament according to the latest prediction we've published from a group of academics, how are things looking for the Liberal Democrats?
We've published three previews of the election:
Liberal Democrats launch green jobs manifesto pledge
Earlier today Nick Clegg today launched another plank of the party's green economic policies for the general election, pledging to create 57,000 jobs by investing £400million in upgrading disused shipyards so that they can produce off-shore wind turbines.
It's a triple win: boost the economy, help parts of the country which have been hit the hardest and improve Britian's environmental record.
Why politics should be about personalities
Tony Benn’s lament that politics should be about issues, not personalities, is one echoed even by many who would struggle to find any issues on which they agree with him.
But it’s not a view I share. Why? Because the detailed policies of election manifestos or conference speeches frequently get swept aside in power by events. [...]
+++ Exclusive general election prediction: too close to call
With new polling figures in, the general election prediction model we covered in November and December has churned out a new prediction for the next general election – and it’s a striking one:
New prediction: Conservative lead of 6% but Labour largest party with 299 seats (27 short of an overall majority)
December prediction: Conservative lead of [...]
So, what do you make of this graph about gender and politics?
Here’s the proportion of local election candidates of the three main parties who were female over the last twenty-five years. As you can see, proportions for all three parties grew in the late ’80s and since then have stalled (Lib Dems, Conservatives) or only crept up (Labour), all remaining under 40%.
The dips every four years [...]
