Archive for the ‘ Liberal Democrat ’ Category

Hacking scandal beats a path to Cameron’s Door

Many political aficionados were beyond surprised when David Cameron appointed the former News International apparatchik Andy Coulson, to manage his communications.  Coulson was already tarred in the hacking debacle but Cameron felt he should have a “second chance”.

That decision was either a cold, calculated gamble to garner the powerful endorsement of the Murdoch empire in the run up to a general election or it was spectacularly naive.    Either way it has backfired on the prime minister.  Twitter is alive with condemnation and News International are hanging Coulson out to dry with the revelations that he authorised payments to the police.  Is this a shot across Cameron’s bows by Rebekah Brooks?

A full public enquiry will undoubtedly turn the spotlight on Cameron and how much he knew or should have know about Coulson’s activities.   It will also be very uncomfortable for a number of high-ranking members of the metropolitan police.

This has implications too for the coalition.   It provides a once in a parliament opportunity for Nick Clegg to revive the fortunes of the Liberal party on an issue that isn’t part of the coalition agreement.

2011
07/06
CATEGORY
Conservative
Liberal Democrat
Social web
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LibDem Coalition Crisis Will Surely Grow

It’s not surprising that the leaders of a party so long in the wilderness should be politically naive.  However the extent to which the LibDems are bearing the brunt of opposition to Conservative policy, particularly on tuition fees, must amaze even the most hardened Tory strategists.

Vince Cable famously said of Gordon Brown that “the House has noticed the Prime Minister’s remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean”.   Cable himself has made an equally remarkable conversion from Father Christmas to Ebenezer Scrooge.  The LibDems today fell to just 8% in the polls.   Translated into an electoral vote, that would actually mean fewer seats under proportional representation that they have now.

The mistake that the LibDem leaders made was to join the Tories in a full coalition rather that a confidence and supply agreement.  In doing so the Tories would have had to agree to enact more of the LibDems’ manifesto and politically the LibDems would have avoided being tainted as a full coalition partner in an unpopular government determined to cut spending .  They would certainly have not been dragged into supporting a policy on university fees  that they so clearly opposed.

To regain popular support, they must return to the path of principle and it is likely that those who vote with their conscience today will emerge post-crisis at the helm.   The alternative is to continue to take the rap for the cuts and to consign Liberal politics to political history.

2010
12/09
CATEGORY
Conservative
Liberal Democrat
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#NoTo55 Crassly Stupid Though this Attack on Democracy Is

The 55% rule on dissolution is the stitch up of the century but it strikes me that it is evident that the people who put this together and are now in government are, how should I put this, a bit stupid?  The relevant text in Con Lib deal goes as follows: 

The parties agree to the establishment of five-year fixed-term parliaments. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government will put a binding motion before the House of Commons in the first days following this agreement stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015. Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55%or more of the House votes in favour.

In a well argued piece by Louise Balldock it is clear that they the Tories are trying to make it impossible to oust them from Parliament even if the coalition falls apart, they alone could put up more than 45% of the votes, rejecting dissolution.

But this is the stupid bit.  They can’t rig votes on bills, so if the coalition does fall apart and there was a majority in favour of dissolution all they would have to do is vote through an amendment to this crass Act restoring the principle, up until now delivered through convention after the passing of a motion of no confidence, of a simple majority for dissolution.  Makes you despair.

2010
05/13
CATEGORY
Conservative
Hung Parliament
Liberal Democrat
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Conservatives and Liberal Democrats Agree

Wordcloud of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition agreement created by Chris Quinn at www.wordle.net

2010
05/12
CATEGORY
Conservative
Hung Parliament
Liberal Democrat
1 comment

Election 10 is Staying Put – Ready for the Second 2010 Election

Logic dictates that this blog should shuffle off or transform itself into something that covers the wider issues of politics and social media, but we live in interesting times.  I think that the chances are extremely high that 2010 will see a second UK general election.

If the LibDems do a deal with the Conservatives the backlash that they will face for ‘dancing with the devil’ with no promise on voter reform will inevitably destabilise the coalition, that’s if it gets off the ground.  A Conservative minority government wouldn’t last long and a Labour/LibDem/SNP/Plaid Cymru/DUP/Green coalition would be inherently weak.   

It’s hardly a cast iron solution but another plebiscite is looking increasingly likely.

2010
05/10
CATEGORY
Conservative
General
Hung Parliament
Labour
Liberal Democrat
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Why Social Media May Decide the Outcome of the Election After All

Today the leadership, MPs and Federal Executive of the Liberal Democrat party are meeting to decide in which direction the party will leap, if indeed they opt for either.  Today’s discussions will decide who will be Prime Minister and which party or parties will form the government.   These are closed meeting but the social web is play a really significant part in the debate.

Yesterday Mark Pack, joint editor of Liberal Democrat Voice used the blog platform to open out the debate “On Saturday afternoon the party’s Federal Executive is meeting to discuss how the party should handle the Parliamentary situation… in order to ensure that people have a chance to send in a view that will be read before the meeting, we’ve agreed with the Party President Ros Scott a special email address which can be used to email in your views.”

There has been ardent discussion on twitter with the hashtag #DontDoItNick trending and a Facebook group has been created which the administrators claim is being monitored by the party hierarchy.  Currently it has 14,000 members and is growing at a rate of over 1000 an hour.  A Flashmob organised mainly via social networks has appeared outside of the Liberal Democrat HQ.  At the same time Sara Scarlett – Director of Development at Liberal Vision has been gauging support for a Con/Lib agreement. This could in the end turn out to be the social media election that many predicted.

2010
05/08
CATEGORY
Hung Parliament
Liberal Democrat
3 comments

Why a Coalition Would be Smart for Either Labour or The Conservatives

The combined Conservative and Labour share of the vote fell to less that two-thirds of the total ballots cast for the first time since 1918, the election that followed the great war.  That’s important because the two main parties have dominated politics for generations but their stranglehold is slipping and has been gradually eroded in successive elections since the middle of the last century.   In this election is was around 65.3%.  What that means is that even under the first past the post system hung parliaments are increasingly likely.

In order to form a majority administration Labour or Tory parties in the future will have to include the LibDems.  Wouldn’t it make sense to get in first and build the foundations of future coalitions.

2010
05/07
CATEGORY
Conservative
Hung Parliament
Labour
Liberal Democrat
1 comment

Popular Hashtags in the 2010 UK General Election Campaign #GE2010

This general election has been the first in which Hastags have played a part, they are used in social networks and most commonly in twitter, as user-generated meta data.  Put simply they are a way of identifying and therefore following tweets that cover the election or an aspect of it .  Here is a quick guide to some of the most popular ones

#GE2010  -  This is the default tag for posts that relate to the 2010 general election.  There are others but this has emerged as the most popular because it is economical in its use of characters.

#GE10  -  A shorter form, but less used than the above.  Useful if you have run out of characters but likely to be seen by fewer people.

#Vote  -  Has been used both as a short generic hashtag for the election but was also popular in encouraging voters to register before the deadline.

#UKElection  -  More instantly recognisable than #GE2010 but not quite as popular because it eats up more characters.

#LeadersDebate -  One of the most interesting because it was part of a phenomenon that TV programme makers call “two-screen”, using a laptop or smart phone to comment on live television.  It mean that social networks rather than conventional media were the first to pass judgement on the performance of the part leaders during the TV debates.

#iagreewithnick -  Echoing Gordon Brown’s famous utterance during the first TV debate and used primarily to show support for the LibDem leader during the bounce his party received after the first debate.

#NickCleggsFault  - Widely employed to mock the print media’s ‘assassination’ attempts on Clegg.  It was a meme that lasted a few days as Clegg was accused of all manner of spoofed wrongdoings.

#paxo   – Similar to the #LeadersDebate but employed for the Paxman leader interviews.

#LibDemFlashMob  - The hashtag used to organise the Liberal Democrat gatherings in Trafalgar Square and other UK cities on Bank Holiday Monday.

#InVinceCable  - Used by a group of digital marketeers and PR people, and their fellow travellers, to promote Vince Cable as Chancellor in the event of a hung or balanced parliament.  (FD  Election10 endorses the objectives of the #InVinceCable campaign).

#Labourdoorstep - Used by Labour candidates and activists to emphasise the fact that they were taking the campaign directly to the voters.

I’m going to venture another one that might become popular in the next few days. #Hung10 anyone?

2010
05/05
CATEGORY
Conservative
General
Hung Parliament
Labour
Liberal Democrat
1 comment

Labour and Conservative Decline Traces Back Over Half a Century

This morning I posted about the decline in the overall share of the two “major” parties and how this pointed to a certain hung parliament.

The post attracted a lot of traffic and several comments not least from one Ben Goldacre, journalist, doctor and author of the Bad Science blog.  I used ICM/Guardian data and plotted a graph showing the decline in votes over the last 20 years for the two major parties. He accused me of bullshitting and repeatedly called me a twat because I had omitted data from 1984-1990 that was available from the Guardian.  In fact the reason for starting from 1990 was because 20 years seemed like a good length of time to support the argument and there was a blip in the early eighties caused by the split of the SDP from Labour and their alliance with the Liberals.  I ought to point out that I wasn’t entirely blameless in the exchange in that I suggested he’d had a drink or two. Sorry Ben.

I am now posting using election data from the last 50 years and the latest poll data for 2010.  I think the picture is pretty clear and undistorted and supports the earlier hypothesis.  The combined support for the two main parties has been falling for 50 years.  If that continues and there is no proof that it will then two-party politics is on the way out.  The defining moment might just be on Thursday.

2010
05/03
CATEGORY
Conservative
General
Labour
Liberal Democrat
8 comments

‘Hung’ Parliament Guaranteed by Labour and Conservative Decline

The TV debates aren’t responsible for the Hung Parliament that will follow Thursday’s election as surely as night follows day.  A quarter of a century of decline in the combined Labour and Conservative share of the vote means that the two party stranglehold over UK politics is on its way out and Clegg’s TV performance was just a tipping point.

One of the wonderful things about the web is the accessibility of data.  The Guardian has published all of the Guardian/ICM polling data since 1984. At Election 10 we took the combined Labour and Conservative share for every poll and created the graph above.  In 1990 the two parties were claiming almost 90% of the vote between them this has shrunk to a little over 60% and it has been a steady consistent decline.   A continuation of this would mean a government taking power that was opposed by around 65% of the population.  Even our bizarre electoral system can’t sustain this.

To predict the future we must delve into the past.  In this case the past is telling us that the party is very nearly over for the reds and blues and the voters will be calling time this Thursday.

2010
05/03
CATEGORY
Conservative
Labour
Liberal Democrat
TV Debate
20 comments

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