Archive for sarah teather
Reshuffle thoughts: how does it score against my four criteria?
Ahead of the reshuffle, I posted four criteria against which the Liberal Democrat part of the shuffling should be judged. Now nearly all the details are in, how does it look? Most importantly, have people been put in jobs they’ve got a decent chance of doing well? It’s hard enough being a minister in [...]
LibLink: Sarah Teather – Special needs children deserve more
Writing over in The Guardian, Liberal Democrat minister Sarah Teather says: John Harris writes of the fight he had to simply get the basic support for his autistic child (Special needs kids deserve better than a rush to reform, 21 May). His experience is a story I have heard over and over again. It is [...]
Which of the five Lib Dem reshuffle options will Nick Clegg pick?
Five scenarios for your delectation: The Lib Dem night of the long beards The drastic, dramatic and painful option. Clegg says the Liberal Democrats need David Laws’s expertise and media savvy at the heart of economic decision making, restoring him to Chief Secretary to the Treasury and expressing tearful regret that Danny Alexander is off [...]
Campainging for Afifa Pervez in Brent
Brrrrrrr. It was off to the cold streets of Wembley Central this morning to go canvassing for Afifa Pervez in the ward which, during the 2001 census, has the highest proportion of overseas-born residents in the country. One quick look at the canvass cards showed how multicultural the area has remained and the doorsteps quickly [...]
The significant part of Tim Farron’s speech
Tim Farron is probably the Parliamentary Party’s best funny speech maker (though I’d pay good money to see him head-to-head in a laugh off with Alistair Carmichael), so it’s not a surprise that Tim’s speech to Liberal Democrat conference caught the headlines mostly for his humour and his stress-testing of political marriage analogies to destruction. [...]
The perils of projecting the impact of boundary changes from previous election results
There’s been an understandable flurry of interest in The Guardian’s reported projections of what boundary changes might mean for the parties, but there are two major caveats about the nature of such projections. From what I’ve seen, Lewis Baston (as I would expect) has done the numbers well, but not only do we not yet [...]
Sarah Teather talks about special education needs
Via YouTube: You can read more about Sarah Teather’s proposals and the questions she’s asking for feedback on over on Lib Dem Voice.
Internet and politics: how it worked back in 2003
A quick trip down memory lane for some historical perspective on the impact of the internet on political campaigning with this piece that I wrote for an academic email newsletter (the Political Marketing Group Newsletter) after the 2003 Brent East by-election. The lessons still look extremely relevant – making the point that principles of good [...]
Sarah Teather on the education funding settlement
I commented yesterday on the good deal Chris Huhne has got for environmental spending (due to go up by a fifth in cash terms over the spending review period). The best settlement for any ministerial area however looks to have been secured for Sarah Teather’s early years education brief – assisted by Nick Clegg’s own [...]
