There are three video interviews up so far:

Mark Thompson

Maelo Manning

Mark Pack

Watch out for more videos as they appear here.

Today it is Daisy Benson who blogs at www.daisyscampaigndiary.blogspot.com.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
The morning after the 1992 election – remembering my parents’ disappointment that Labour hadn’t won (again) and the pervading sense of gloom of another Tory government.

I also remember one election in the 80s when my parents displayed an SDP and a Labour poster in the same window!

2. When did you start blogging?
2007

3. Why did you start blogging?
I started because I wanted to communicate to my constituents what I did as a councillor on their behalf.

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Local
Personal
Topical
Passionate
Committed

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Humanistic
Instinctive
Pragmatic
Empathetic
Social

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
It’s the post I wrote about the budget-making process in Reading Council. I felt proud to have played a role in delivering one of the most difficult budgets in Reading Council’s history whilst protecting key services, and I wanted to contrast our approach with that taken by Labour opposition which I thought was totally lacking, obviously.

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
I really enjoy Mark Thomposon’s posts as they are always intelligent and thought-provoking. I enjoyed this post as I thought it was a point that need making about Labour.

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?

(Also on YouTube here.)

9. Which bloggers, writers or thinkers inspire you?
I was inspired to take up blogging by Lynne Featherstone. I love her down to earth and honest style. I enjoy reading articles by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian because they are well-written and challenge lazy thinking. Matthew Taylor of the RSA is a non-Lib Dem blogger I enjoy reading.

10. Give us a surprising fact about yourself:
I originally planned to be a journalist and got into politics by accident.

You can see all our posts featuring Liberal Democrat bloggers here.

A post from me…

Online politics: get your content by following the ‘little and often’ rule

Whether it’s building up an email list, getting a decent readership for your blog or accumulating a good network of residents on Facebook, as you steadily build up towards large audiences you need a regular supply of content, and all the more so once you have got your large audience. Being seen to be regularly providing interesting, useful and occasionally fun news in itself helps build the audience.

But how should busy campaigners ensure they actually get a steady supply of such content? Read the post to find out.

… and a post from someone else

I don’t think David Cameron really believed what he said

Mark Thompson rightly takes David Cameroon to task:

David Cameron got a first class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University. He was taught by Vernon Bogdanor, one of the UK’s foremost experts on constitutional matters. It seems rather implausible that someone could get that qualification, from that university and then not be able to explain how a relatively simple electoral system works.

Read the full post from Mark Thompson here.

I have been largely silent on this blog since mid-August when I announced that I would no longer be blogging. There was one exception earlier this month when I blogged about tuition fees (I felt like I *had* to say something!) and I have done a couple of guest posts for other blogs too in that period. Apart from that though it has been a nice break for me to be able to watch the news and follow politics without always thinking about how I am going to blog the latest story …

However I have also missed blogging and the ability to be able to get my views about what is happening out there. When I first started it was like a release valve or a conduit (to stop me shouting at the TV!) and there has definitely been a gap left in its absence.

What I am going to try and do is have my cake and eat it. So I am going to start blogging again, on here albeit in a more limited form. I am no longer going to feel compelled to blog about every major political story. I have a life and also a business to run which have nothing really to do with politics and they have to be my priority. But when there are things I want to write about then I will do so here.

Great to hear this from one of the best Lib Dem bloggers – and hope you manage to strike a good balance between blogging and life/business Mark.

The Liberal Democrats face a similar tactics versus strategy dilemma, though of a slightly different sort. In the past the party has been much better at tactics than strategy but is now facing a reversal of that familiar position.

Previously the party pulled off individual campaigns and by-election victories but did not manage to alter the fundamental public perceptions of the party such as – “they’re never going to win” or the party’s low ratings in the “party with the best policies for issue X” stakes save for environment and education. Even the heydays of Vince Cable as Shadow Chancellor and Deputy Leader did little to lift the public’s overall perception of the party on economic matters.

Paddy Ashdown pulled off one strategic success, abandoning equidistance, getting a decent package of constitutional reforms agreed by New Labour before the 1997 general election and fighting an election campaign in which the party wasn’t dogged by the “but who do you really prefer?” question. That success turned sour as he pursued his talks with Tony Blair too deeply and for too long and overall the party’s record was one of being much better at political tactics than strategy.

In coalition government that record has been flipped round. On strategy, a clear course has been set that is very different from the party’s past. The party is in ministerial office, demonstrating how hung Parliaments do not have to mean political and financial instability and (perhaps most controversially) with a very clear strategic messaging approach of loving the Tories in public. Whatever you think of the strategy, it’s a clear one and being thoroughly implemented.

But at the tactics the party is doing rather less well. Most notably, coming up in a few weeks will be a vote on higher education funding where the Parliamentary Party in the Commons will almost certainly split three ways – many ministers voting for a modified version of the Browne report, some ministers and MPs abstaining and other MPs voting against. There are many ways of describing that. “A masterpiece of Parliamentary tactics” is not one of them.

Some of the party’s tactical slip-ups earlier in the summer can fairly be put down to the problems from ministers and staff taking time to find their feet in government, the loss of Short Money with the resulting redundancies and so on. As Mark Thompson put it on Lib Dem Voice earlier in the month,

I suspected when the government was first formed back in May that the public, activists and back-bench MPs would take a good while to adjust to the reality of coalition politics. What I was not really prepared for however was for Lib Dem ministers to find it so difficult to find a way to communicate the realities of what is happening within the government.

They need to find a way and quickly, otherwise how can they possibly expect Lib Dem activists to be able to do so on the doorstep?

The day-to-day tactical street fighting nous that a successful party needs, and which was essential in opposition for the Liberal Democrats to get heard at all, has been on an extended holiday. Mark’s correct to highlight the role of ministers, but it also extends to the Special Advisers. Overall, they are a really talented group of people, with a long commitment to the party and numerous examples of being a candidate, agent or other campaigner behind them.  They are also, however, dominated by policy expertise and it is no coincidence that the party’s internal communications about the coalition’s work is better at providing policy answers than political ammunition.

As I put it in July:

The danger is that, rather like a good speech writer, the party may end up making many significant changes to government, improving what is being done, but whose good work is not noticed by the public as it is behind the scenes.

The challenge for the party – at all levels – is to be seen as more than that. That both requires, as people get to grips with their jobs in government, a stronger flow of information from the parts of the party in government and also the usual hard work at publicising the party’s work by local parties, helpers and supporters.

Strategy and policy are important, but they are not enough for a political party to thrive – and without a thriving party, all the strategy and policy is but abstract day-dreaming.

The full list and some thoughts on the results from my Lib Dem Voice co-editor Stephen Tall are here.

So in case you don’t know: Mark Reckons is actually written by Mark Thompson – no, not that Mark Thompson but this Mark Thompson. Neither of whom are Mark Pack, Mark Pack or indeed Mark Pack .

All clear? Good.

The launch of the report included handing out a set of prizes, as Mark Thompson has reported. Particular congratulations to Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem MP for Hornsey & Wood Green and now a Home Office minister) who scooped the prize for Best Use Of Digital Campaigning By A Candidate. In various ways I’ve been helping Lynne with her websites since I hand-crafted the HTML for her very first back in 1999. I talked a little about the latest revamp at the Social Media 09 conference last year – see more details here.

Anthony’s report for Orange is short, clear and yet also packed full of useful lessons. As he says in his introduction,

The problem in analysing the role that digital media plays is that the question is too often posed in a binary fashion. Is it traditional campaigning or e-campaigning? Is it old media or new media? Digital media in modern politics is not a replacement of old media and campaigning. There is a mutual dependence and integration between the two.

Orange’s Digital Election Analysis

On it I intend to put up any interviews or other sorts of footage involving Lib Dem members and candidates that I can generate. I am also happy to post any relevant footage from other Lib Dem activists that might be of interest more widely.

You can see Lib Dem TV here.