Best new Liberal Democrat blog

• It hasn’t quite been clarified as to whether she is eligible for this award, but if so, my first choice for best newcomer goes to Jennie at the Gob.  Why? Well a) I think she comes from the same brand of liberalism as I do (essentially the “Will you just eff off and leave me alone, and by the way nice coat” strain), b) she is a might more interesting than most, and c) her analysis of events always seems to me to be spot on.

If she doesn’t qualify then I will pick someone else (NB. Just, if you were wondering, I do qualify for this category.  You know, if you were wondering.)

Best Blog from a Liberal Democrat holding office

Tricky one this, but for all the right reasons:

• You have the blogging MP’s such as Featherstone, ol’ Webbo and the Hem-monster all blogging well about their respective briefs or issues close to their hearts.
• You’ve got the politicians from the hinterlands such as Peter Black, who seems to be one of the most popular bloggers around, regardless of political affiliation
• You got blogging lords, most evident in Ros Scott, but also some Lib Dem lords blogging as part of Lords of the Blog.
• and of course you’ve got the various councillors dotted around the country telling us all about their small corner of Britain.

So who to choose, who to choose…

• My cheer goes to Mary Reid.  I have never even been to Kingston but I find now that I have a certain affection for the place.  She is also a cheerleader for the use of new technology in politics to get the message to as many people as possible.

Best use of blogging or social networking by a Liberal Democrat:

This one is tricky as well but unfortunately for the wrong reasons:

• Nothing really stands out as amazing. I never really got into Twitter so anything such as Brian Paddick’s twitter interview passed me by.  Beyond that, what has been done?  I get lots of messages on Facebook from various people for various causes but I have trouble getting overly interested. 
• For this I would probably choose the “No to ID cards” video, with special mention going to banana pet man.

Best Posting on a Liberal Democrat blog

• There are quite a few individual blog posts that could be worthy of nominations.  Most posts coming out of the Stockley, Goldie, Gore, Mortimer and Wilcock stables are worth reading a number of times.  But Jock Coats is the only blogger who consistently writes posts that make you really question the nature of liberalism.  From his list of posts I would choose his recent post Unconditional benefits: now is the time to smash that “cosy consensus”.  This post (and its two follow ups that Jock had to write to deal with all the discussion it generated, unfortunately from outside the Lib Dems) nicely summarises what he considers as issues fundamental to Liberal policy.

Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog

Outside the incestuous world of LD blogs my political blog reading comes from Iain, CH, DK, Tim, Tim, Mark, Unity and LC.

• Iain Dale I don’t find a particularly good read but can be good for bile-raising.
• Ditto also for Liberal Conspiracy, it can be informative and sometimes a good read but mainly I come away glad that I am not a member of the Labour party and that I know what the word ‘liberal’ means.
• DK, what to say, swears a lot. Fun.
• ToryHome is funny, in a foaming, mad as a box of spanners way. Or it would be if they weren’t going to be in charge of the country in two years time.
• Tim (Worstall) can be good for tearing apart idiot economics.
• Tim (Ireland) is good for pointing out when other bloggers are being idiots.
• Mark Wadsworth is someone I find it hard to disagree with.
• But the winner in this category for me is Unity at the Ministry of Truth.  His/Her posts are true essays but are so worth reading if you have the time.  He does something that gives blogging a good name - he takes an issue and goes to the  heart of it, what MSM should be doing but seems to have given up on.

(Special mention in this category from me would have to also go to Lee Griffin who I haven’t read on a regular basis but it seems is definitely someone I should)

Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year

So I think we have quite a few worthy blogs within our little band.  There is the old guard of James, Jonathan and Paul, showing us young scamps how it is done.  You’ve got that young buck writing the OneHourAhead blog.  There are the thoughtful bloggers such as Neil, Simon, Jock and Tristan.  There is OneHourAhead.  There are the quick, punchy, spicy bloggers such as Jo and Nich.  (cough) OneHourAhead.  The people looking to just make the world a bit more of a respectable place to live such as Jo, Linda and Mat. OHA.  The people just blogging about the own part of the world such as Steve and Richard. And now the place seems to be swarming with bloody youngsters like Ali, Irfan, and James.   And there are many, many more. And an Elephant.

• But, as with the Dale blog list, the blogger of the year for me is Alix. The writing, topics and ideas are better than elsewhere. Nuff said.

* I think we can all tell from the extravagant use of commas in that sentence that, actually, I might not be the best around!

…I don’t like it.  By it, I of course mean the new Liberal Democrat main party site.

(Pic from Paul Walter)

Like Paul, I have had a little sneaky.  Unlike Paul, and it seems others, I don’t like it.  I had written why I don’t like it but thought I would wait for it to go ‘live’ first and allow everyone to see it before I slagged it off, so as not to prejudice you all.

I hope people do like it and I am wrong.

UPDATE:  James Graham makes a fair point in the comments:  If I am not going to say what I think the problem is, then why say anything at all?

I think it looks cheap.  That is the first word that came to mind when I opened it up.  It is just not a very good design.  I think they have added some very good features, but have pulled the whole thing down by not making it very good looking.  It may not seem much, but with all the other websites out there vying for attention, ours will still be a small voice in the wilderness.

Warrant issued for Lib Dem donor

A judge has issued an arrest warrant for a wealthy businessman whose company donated more than £2 million to the Liberal Democrats.

Michael Brown, 42, is due to stand trial in September accused of a number of fraud and money laundering offences.

But Judge Geoffrey Rivlin at Southwark Crown Court issued an arrest warrant after he breached his bail conditions.

A City of London Police spokesman said: “Efforts are being made to contact him.”

A further hearing on the case has been scheduled for 11 August.

Update: Stephen has more from Sky at LDV.

Boris/Local Elections/Crewe

I know it was all a long time ago now and I hate to remind you all but I wasn’t overly optimistic after the results.  I thought the local election results were okay but for both Crewe and London the squeeze took hold and we seemed almost resigned to the fact afterwards.

As for Boris, well, he has nicely shown his true colours in the first couple of months in power.  More rules and policies to hit the poor.  He shows as stupidity the idea that conservatism and liberalism go together.  He has also shown that the modern Tory is just as authoritarian as anyone in the Labour party.  I hope this will all come back to bite the Tories in the arse come 2010 but I won’t hold my breath.

Double-D and Double-H

First off, Nick made the right decision.  I can’t quite fathom why people think he didn’t. The only way for him to have possibly done better was to be psychic and get someone to resign first.  By staying out of the fight we got to have our say against 42 days and without looking like the crank that Davis did.  Fine, we don’t command the pulpit on civil liberties but this little debacle has thrown into light DD’s other less liberal positions with which we can go after him when he returns to the backbenches.  Plus it adds a little to the inner turmoil of the Tory party that is just aching to boil over as the scent of victory draws ever nearer.  The worst thing we could have done was stand, it would have leant weight to one of our opponents most promising attacks against us - that we are simply opportunistic, political scavengers waiting for some bloated carcass of politician to hove into view.

Ros4Prez

I have nothing against Lembit and am happy to have a Hello! celebrity in our midst but think the position would be better taken by someone with perhaps a smaller profile who can get on with the hard slog associated with being president and doing all the general party things, allowing the MPs to get on with furthering our cause in the wider sphere.  Plus she and Mark now live in the splendid surroundings of Suffolk, where all the best people come from.

Henley

Certainly not great, but not absolutely awful either.  Time to look at our overall campaigning technique though.  We have made a lot of our invincible by-election team but in these days of a Tory resurgence we will have to look for other avenues in to voters minds.

One thing though, I have to disagree with John at Liberal Revolution. I thought that the website wasn’t good, neither modern nor stylish, and although a lot of information was contained, it was simply too busy, best exemplified by the fact they couldn’t find anywhere to put the youtube video, so made it tiny and put it over a banner.  John Howell’s website wasn’t great but the main page was a lot simpler allowing the information on it to be taken in quickly (although at 1400 the day after they haven’t updated their website with the fact that they, er, won).

Brown’s woes

Wow, where to start.  The big man has taken a battering in the last couple of months, but he soldiers on as only a dour Scot can.  But I don’t understand why he continues to come out with more and more moronic ideas?  Surely it’s obvious that you shouldn’t lock people up for 42 days?   If your administration keeps losing people’s data, why do you think they would then trust you with being the sole repository for their identities?  If your party is the supposed champion of the people, why try to take more and more money from the poorest?

Even though Labour has dived in the polls I don’t think its beyond saving.  Less than a year ago Brown was riding high.  Who’s to say what will happen in the next two years to change to political scene before the next general election?  What it would take though I do not know, and I don’t think GB does either.

Cameron’s woes

Samantha may already be wondering what colour carpets to have in the No. 10 flat but I bet while she sits there looking at swatches, Dave is beside her wondering how long he can keep his group of parliamentary odd-bods all pointing in the same direction, or if he does make it into the black door, how long he will stay there before the knife comes down swiftly between his shoulderblades. The loons on the back benches and in the constituency parties are staying with him for now as he is a winner, but with no real substance behind his not very good style, he will trip up.

The cliche is that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them and I don’t think that will be any truer than in the general election of 2010.    

Nick’s woes

The polls ain’t good, but have they ever been?  Caught in the middle between the increasingly crazed Labour party and the resurgent Cons we really have to begin fighting our way out of the sandwich.  Importantly, we have to regain our own story.  At the moment we are taken over by the ‘protest vote’ story and the ‘opportunistic’ story, the latter not helped by Nick’s decision on the Lisbon referendum. 

I think the direction of the party is good, more in keeping with the original liberalism of the party.  This emphasis on putting individuals back in charge of their own lives is good, as it is the way the general consensus is going, with people more and more despondent with the burgeoning state.  I think we have to be willing to make tough decisions, such as proposing tough taxes, and also make radical decisions, such as proposing LVT or drug legalisation.

Most importantly though, we have to push away from the mainstream politics of the big two.  Currently we are seen as the poor man’s version of both, whereas moving away from them to a more radical standpoint would get us noticed above normal politics.  We need to admit that we don’t have the answer to all life’s ills, that the answers lie with individuals and small communities rather than anyone 50,100, 200 miles away in London.  This was nicely illustrated by Nick in a recent speech on education.

So, the country is moving away from Labour, as their ideas of social democracy move ever closer to pure socialism.  However, the country shows no real passion for the compassionate conservatism of the current right.  As with all good Englishmen, they really just want to be left alone.  Appealing to this nature of the country is the key to winning, IMHO.

Like most, I have been massively impressed with Millenium’s blogger interviews.  The chance for us hoi-polloi to go and talk face-to-face with the top people in one of the main parties in British politics is pretty cool.

However, living on the continent I am not best placed to sign up for these.  Although the next one is going to be in the great northern enclave of Sheffield (where all the best people go to university) I doubt the shores of Lake Geneva are going to be on the interviewing schedule anytime soon.  Pity.  It is very nice this time of year.  But, when there was some hoohah about these interviews a few months ago then Alex Wilcock rightly suggested ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’.  So that is what I am thinking of doing.

Via the magic-inty-web.

In a nutshell, coveritlive is a real-time chat platform.  If you want to host a chat all you have to do is go to the website and fill in the relevant information and then all you do is paste the bit of code they give you into a post on your blog.  The main plus-points for coveritlive are:

1. Fully moderated:  the ‘producer’ (in coveritlive parlance the person who’s blog it is on) has the choice whether or not to publish comments.
2. Easy for commentators: It runs through a normal blog post so individual commentators don’t have to do anything special to join in, no extra software* or registration, they should just be able to go to the particular post on the blog and can join in straight away.
3. Easy for ‘panelists’: Whoever it is you want to chat to doesn’t have to make any special arrangements either, all they need to do is find an hour or so to sit in front of a computer one evening - not necessarily easy for busy people but not impossible either.
4. Global: The guy in the next room can join in, or the girl on the other side of the world.
5. You can add lots of extra bits in: Embed the party’s videos from youtube, or links to policy documents to back up the argument you are making.  It also allows you to host quick polls to get an idea of what the commentators/readers think about particular topics.

*perhaps a flash plugin, but most people will have that kind of thing already.

If you want to see what they look like, post-interview, go either here, where Iain Dale hosted one with the Tory Chris Rennard, Eric Pickle, or go here, where Sky hosted one with the C&N candidates. Or better still, go to the coveritlive website, sign up and then play around with their practice platform.

Over on Libdemvoice at the moment there is a short discussion about whether we should always be chatting about our strategy/policy/woe in public.  Thinking about this, it would also be possible to password-protect the individual post that the chat was in, and then invite people individually to the chat and give them the password.  This might be best if it were possible to get people from the internal party machine to come and chat.  For MP’s, Lords, PPC’s etc. it might be better to leave it open so they can tell constituents or other interested bodies about it. As I said, the chat is fully moderated so trolls could be ignored.

So, I would welcome any feedback as to whether people think this might be a good idea? Or whether I should just shut my cake-hole?

“In a speech at Policy Exchange yesterday, Nick Clegg said:

When Labour came to power in 1997, the Government took three hundred billion pounds a year in tax. This year the Government will take nearly double that. They take one thousand seven hundred million pounds of our money every single day of the year. That’s more than £18,000 a second.

Indeed – and isn’t that a great way to put it? The whole speech is pretty interesting actually, as it marks a definite departure from the tax and spend, social democrat stance of the party – which characterized its last two general election campaigns – and a shift towards old-fashioned liberalism. Clegg says he wants to break the consensus on ever-higher spending and claims he ” would not be interested in spending a single penny of people’s money unless I knew it was going to give a greater benefit than leaving it in their pockets”. Which is excellent.

But while I don’t doubt Clegg’s conviction – it’s always been clear that he is much more free market than most Lib Dem activists – I suspect this speech is more the result of a political realization than an economic one. The Lib Dems know that most of their key election battles in 2010 are going to be against the Conservatives, and are positioning themselves accordingly.

In either case, this is good news for British politics. When the Lib Dems position themselves on the left, it drags the centre of political gravity in that direction, pulling the terms of debate with it. Hopefully the Lib Dems’ explicit embrace of freer markets, lower taxes and greater decentralization will have the opposite effect.”

The last paragraph is telling.  It suggests that we have the power to set the narrative with whichever way we swing.  Not entirely sure this is true but it should show that we should always look to set our own agenda and then let the other two parties follow.

On Labour ignoring the advice  on the classification of Cannabis:

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said that, as its advice had been disregarded, ministers should disband the advisory council of experts and replace it with an advisory council of “tabloid newspaper editors”. BBC News

and on Boris, the new oh-so-liberal Conservative Mayor of London banning alcohol on public transport and then the Government doing possibly one of the dumbest things ever and following suit nationwide: 

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said: “A drinks ban on all public transport including long-distance rail would be completely over the top, widely ignored and impossible to enforce.

“This would be the nanny state gone mad. Ordinary passengers should not be punished for the misbehaviour of a minority.” Daily Mail

HT: MW and DK respectively

But if it is true, and Londoners will choose not to have Brian as their next mayor then I cannot but think that it is really a truly sad thing for London, and politics as a whole.

Here is a REAL candidate, not someone put forward by the party through sheer weight of personality that has never been interested in the capital before, not someone who has used London as his own personal socialist state inviting dictators round for tea.

Here is a candidate who has a done a REAL job, one of the toughest, a police officer in London, and rose through the ranks due to outstanding ability to become one of the top cops in the city, not someone who has used his aristocratic connections to smarm his way through politics, or has backstabbed his way through the incestuous back channels of British socialism.

Here is a candidate with REAL values, liberal values which suit one of the most liberal cities in the world, not a right-winger who admires black people’s “Watermelon smiles” or a left-winger who hates all that do well in life but is happy to take money for himself and his cronies.

Here is a candidate with REAL integrity, who stood up to the top brass of the net when the did wrong and he wouldn’t go along with them and lost his job because of it, not someone who will leave the people who currently have elected him for the chance of a higher profile job, or someone who will not condemn suspicious activity even within his own staff.

Here is a candidate with REAL ideas, who will engage with people and stand down if he doesn’t fulfill his promises, not someone who won’t defend his ideas or someone who will renege on election promises.

So in London there is a REAL candidate, his name is Brian Paddick and he is the Liberal Democrat choice for Mayor. He is the only REAL choice.

Firstly, I would like to point out what I think Lib Dem blogs do right:

• Local issues: I know, blah blah, localism, blah, blah but, although personally I don’t read them one of the best things about the Lib Dem blogosphere is that there are many councillors, AM’s and MP’s out there that are blogging for their constituents, not for you and me and Westminster.  This is an excellent way to get across to people. For instance, say you are a young mum or dad in central Manchester wondering about schools and centres for your kid, you hear of a possible new centre called ‘Butterstile’. You google ‘Butterstile Children’s Centre’ and the first entry is Richard Baum’s entry on the place, above the local paper link.  People click there and find out about the centre AND about Richard Baum, who they may never have heard about before, they are then introduced to Richard, the Lib Dems and the local party.  Excellent. I bet every local blog has a story like that and they all add up.
• Write well:  When I first started blogging I thought my writing was pretty good, what with my A in GCSE English and all.  Thought you’d all be falling at my feet waiting for my next morsel with which to satisfy yourselves.  Unfortunately I started blogging around about the time Alix Mortimer did. Bugger.  Next to her it just looks like I am beating my fists against the keyboard whilst drunk on envy.  Add to that a sprinkling of James, Paul, Neil, Jonny and Anders plus many more and we have ourselves a very coherent, eloquent voice out here on the interweb.  This may seem like a minor point but there is nothing that is going to turn off people like summit that ain’t write wellen like.
• Wimmin: I know there could always be more but at least there are some. We’ve got Alix, Bridget, Charlotte, Jenny, Jo, Jo, Jo, Linda, Lynne, Mary, Maureen and Meral and even a bonafide Baroness. The Tories have got Mad Nad. Nuff Said.
• Constructive criticism: We understand that those poor dittle people wearing yellowly orange in the westy minsty housey somewtimes get it an incey bit wrong. Aw, bless ‘em, look at ‘em in there nice Burton suits. We pat them on the head, point them in the right direction and let them get on with it. We don’t castigate them for not bringing back hanging or not killing all the poor. Neither do we stick our tongues right up their fundaments.
• Issues: Our blogs actually contain issues, some of the quite in depth discussions on areas of our or others policies. They are not the electronic equivalent of “You know your MP, right? He takes it right up the chutney, he does. Swear.”  The latter may get more page views but doesn’t quite move the debate on as much as the former.  Some of the blogs I generally agree with, some I don’t, but at least I/we have the chance to think about stuff whereas others are not so fortunate.
• Non-issues:  Be it James Graham’s discussions on the inner workings of the British comic market, Jenny detailing her latest hangover or Ed Fordham’s daily virtual tours around North London, we shouldn’t be afraid to, dare I say it, show our personality. Oh gosh!  I love The Wire, most comedy and stupid or profound things written down.  And, godammit, when I’m done you bastards will love them too!

So that’s all good, what about things we could do better? 

Lynne’s originally post was about whether the blogs could be used as a more pro-active, attacking campaigning device a la the Great Union of Richard.  This is a possibility but one that I think is unlikely.  In the UK, the poliblogs with larger audiences or more well-known seem to be the ones with no immediate party political affiliation, even if they do tend towards the right, libertarian edge of the spectrum.  The party political ones are not so well-read or good, maybe for the reasons highlighted in Andy Mayer’s post on the subject, essentially they are not free to do what they wanna do, to ride their machines without being hassled by the man.  It could also be that we are all such frightfully nice people that we wouldn’t dream of such nastiness.

The reason Lynne brought up this subject was due to her Twitter post receiving a lot of attention and spreading around the Lib Dem blogosphere and beyond.  I think there are three lessons from this that other MP’s et al could learn from if they want to get more representation here in electric world:

1. Be Zeitgeisty - Twitter is the new Facebook which was the new MySpace which was the new, er, tea-room.  Everybody seems to be banging on about all of a sudden.  I don’t move from my desk all day (sob sob) and hate my mobile phone so don’t subscribe to it, but with Brian now signed up it is definitely the soup de jour.  Getting to grips with these new ways of communicating could be vital.  Don’t get me wrong, I still think knocking on someone’s door and explaining why Lib Dem bin collection would be better is vital too, but for an increasing number a knock on the door from someone in a rosette is about as popular as one from a Jehovah’s Witness with an eye for your kids.
2. Be First.  Who was the second MP to have Twitter? Is there one? Do we care? No. Lynne Rules. End of story. She was there first and the rest of you can bugger off.
3. Have Friends.  I know, strange. But if you tell 10 people and they tell 10 people and so on then soon the whole world will know. The ones with computers anyhow. And if some of those friends are outside the LD blogs then real people get to find out too. Wonderous.

So my first message to the party people is if you want us to write about something, and you want others to write about us writing about something, then, well do something.

We do support you but, firstly, we are all self-serving individuals at heart and want you to do things we like and, secondly, try to actually engage with us (and lo and behold others).  These are the secrets to being written about. 

The question shouldn’t be “Are we making the most of blogging?” it should be “Are MP’s make the most of the bloggers?” or “Is the party making the most of a completely new and revolutionary way of communicating?”  The answer to both is not quite (but if I were a Tory or a Labour supporter the answer to that question would be Fuck No! Arragh, shiit!).  

The recent interviews have been a great start and if I was in the country I would have bought Millennium as many sticky buns as he wanted to be able to go along and engage. 

But there are other opportunities. 

We should look at setting up video or skype interviews, or follow Brian’s lead with the Twitter interviews. 

We should also look at how to engage other technically savvy people with the use of t’internet.  Engage the young’uns on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo.  It is not good enough to have a static webpage or profile.  You wouldn’t knock on someone’s door and then stand still and silent when they answered?  Why would you do that on the web? 

A great example of this is explained by our web pioneer Steve Webb in the video I linked to last week.

Blogs, Social networking, Youtube, Twitter, Skype, the Dynamic web are all part of the same system that can allow the party to communicate with people that it couldn’t before and are all begging to be used to suck up voters.

Do, Do, Do, Engage, Engage, Engage - that is the answer to making the most of blogging.  In My Humble Opinion.