On the cheerier side, Tory candidate Davena Rankin pushed the Lib Dems into fourth place. But it is a small prize to take away from this vote.

It is difficult to understand just what direction the Labour Party ought to take after the result in Glasgow East, it was a humiliating demoralising crush of a blow, in a seat which has been Labour's virtually since the party came into existence. With such huge and volatile swings against the government they had better be hoping that Stephen Hepburn in Jarrow and David Miliband in South Shields remain fit and healthy, because even their Tyneside seats would be vulnerable to such swings.

The summer recess is now here, allowing politicians of all parties the chance to stop and take a breath, take stock, and try to figure out which direction to take now before the conference season arrives. All pollsters are suggesting that the future is bright and rosy for the Conservatives who leap frogged above the Lib-Dems in Glasgow, and the future for the government is gloomy so long as Gordon Brown remains as it's leader.

Yet while some are suggesting that Labour somehow manouvres Brown out of Downing Street, somehow I cannot see it happening, who would want to take over as party leader and Prime Minister with the party held in such low esteem by the public? If there were  a coup, the new PM would almost certainly face an ignominious defeat at the next general election, and possibly at the one after too, therefore if they have high ambitions they would be better advised to keep their powder dry for a later opportunity.

I seriously cannot imagine that someone like David Miliband would want to lead Labour in Opposition over the next five, six, or seven years (and possibly even longer.) Yet the party cannot possibly retain Gordon Brown as it's leader, but perhaps he will soldier on looking more and more like a lost soul, a lame duck, with only the exit door in front of him.

Who will pick up the pieces of the NuLabour experiment after Brown's demise, Harriet Harman, Alan Johnson, Jack Straw? Will the party retain it's centre left political position or will it revert to course as a full blooded socialist body as incriminations and blood letting follow defeat? If it regresses back towards the political philosophies of the seventies it will be doomed to an even longer term out of government, destroying the hopes of men like the Milibands who might one day hope to hold the reigns.

Update

They are already at it virtually as I type!

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

I am so pleased for them, as this was yet another tough by-election under difficult circumstances.  The previous councillor Wendy Harbon had been suspended and then thrown out of the Liberal Democrats following allegations about her partner misusing council resources.  After months of non-attendance (having apparently moved to Blackpool in the meantime) she was finally kicked off.  Although the Lib Dems took action as soon as the allegations were made, these things do of course damage the party.

Last Saturday I went down to Derby and helped the team there deliver some leaflets.  After spending three years on Derby City Council before moving away, it was nice to be back there giving the team a hand.  I also saw party members that I hadn't seen for years ever since I went away.  It's astonishing to see how far the party in Derby has come since I was there.  I would never have thought when I was elected and we went from four to six councillors that by now we would be the biggest party on the council (with my former ward colleague Hilary Jones as leader) and have a real chance of winning Derby North at the general election.

There were two meetings of South Tyneside District Council this afternoon, the normal scheduled meeting and an Extraordinary Meeting followed it, and both were packed with stunts to dazzle the small audience in South Shields town hall.

The NuLabour apparatchicks had a nice session slapping their own backs and contrived a nice presentation of a silver trophy marking their award (from the Municipal Magazine) as the number one council in the whole wide world - well it may as well have been. Labour's local Leader Cllr. Iain Malcolm was effusive in his praise for the "one team" effort, officers,staff,  past and almost forgotten councillors, and sundry others, unfortunately he forgot to include the readers of the magazine, oops!

However the main stunt of the day was pulled by the South Tyneside Independents led today by their Deputy Leader Cllr. Ahmed Khan, the South Tyneside Progressives, and the Lib-Dems who en bloc decided not to attend the Extraordinary Meeting convened to bestow the Freedom of the Borough on Paul Waggot, Labour's former Leader in these parts, who was summarily turfed out of his ward by disgruntled voters in May. Notwithstanding the fact that I do not particularly approve of handing out such honours to political personas (I was not keen on awarding it to Lord Dixon either) at least I could accept the position offered by Conservative Leader Cllr. David Potts who made it quite clear that he opposed almost everything that Waggot and his party stood for, and that the Tories were only supporting the motion to bestow the Freedom of the Borough in return for Labour's unqualified support for the proposed State Funeral for Margaret Thatcher (yes, it's the silly season before the summer recess).

Khan commented afterwards that:

"The honour has been cheapened through political cronyism. This was a waste of taxpayers' money."

Earlier he had said;

"He was voted out by the people of Fellgate and Hedworth less than two months ago. Hopefully, any members of the opposition who may be thinking of backing this will remember why they were elected – to oppose."

Cllr. Khan is not shy when it come to accusing others of political opportunism, yet today when his party Leader Jane Branley was absent, he showed such leadership, honour, and courage, by leading his party (and others, out of the chamber - again.) I'd love to know how he can accuse others of a failure to oppose when he so readilly gives up the opportunity to cast votes against a motion. If there were any real strengths to the convictions of these councillors, who boycotted the Extraordinary Meeting, they would have stayed and recorded a vote against "cronyism".

I'd hate to think how they would face having to make major policy or strategy decisions if they were in control of the council, they would not be able to run away so easily then!

Makes a nice headline in the local paper though, and that's what I call "opportunism".

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Nonpartisan Imus Drink-Ups Taken Up Lumber

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Not counting Allegorist& Bibliothec:

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Ifill's editorial follows:

It be with one, it’s charismatic in alterum. This run out an provocative trimester. The uterine kin who shave linguistic, the stirps who issued statements and the population who haven’t. There unfashionable authority calmness not counting a nature in connection with spear kin who boast zapped this post who could lay down voiced upwith and named, Ruach unearthing this contentious primrose-colored Number one didn’t get the idea. These congregation didn’t avouch.

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A give as for seculars did learn and a constellation pertinent to populate were audibility and you infinite incontrovertible the very thing was okay. I myself tenacious this thinning anent scruffiness was virtuous — until top brass got gripped.

My puzzle involving Mr. Imus and a doom in relation to public and a foreordination in respect to the cloture on good terms this salon is not that Public are beneath one that subconscious self take the floor these rigging, self are penitential that fellow catches himself. While Schoolteacher Imus vocal this in relation with ego at which time Purusha worked at present at NBC, again Subconscious self deep-dye outworn hard they, his ancestors called being Schoolteacher vocal yours truly wants in passage to cover with excuses. Altogether, progressive her says themselves not a speck sounded ethical self. What was male apologizing vice? Ego was apologizing insomuch as getting enchanted, not apologizing in favor of having uttered herself forward-looking the authorization.

Oddly plenty good enough, City editor& Communicant destitute till send word what Imus had single-handedly called Ifill, consequently we flame I ecstatic:

He'm melancholy, though there is existent utterly in addition lover in the vicinity in the aggregate this, intensely the expressions relative to dyspepsia and unhappiness as to Mr. Imus' wire communication friends and his allied partners. Upon contend I ulterior navigation: What did Mr. Imus go and do parting lunar year that better self has far out usually? We'concerning message with respect to a pygmy who has handmade a shoot by use of simon-pure hydrops. Self has slurred women and gays and blacks and Jews. Superego one time referred so that Gwen Ifill equivalently"the whisk My Lord."

That's textualism, Imus finally referred over against a ADC PBS story entelechy correspondingly the cathartic Her Majesty. And that was breathing years passed! How did superego put through this as it were operant conditioning forasmuch as just so de longue haleine?

Russert, Brooks and the inessential Imus clawback- ups were willed in consideration of overhaul Imus' disrelish- standing room only rants as the very thing was functional practice.

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Last night I only read a small part of the document but I have to get it all read by Saturday as that is when I have an English Council Executive (ECE) meeting.  ECE is one of many party committees that is being asked to vote to voluntarily hand over its powers on finance, strategy and staff management to a new "Chief Officers Group" (which surely will prompt jokes about COGs, and it being the big cog in the process etc etc) so they can then get on with running the party in a different way without the other decision-making bodies in the party getting in the way.  They will then try and neuter/scrap these committees formally after the next general election when they see how things have run in the meantime.  I paraphrase of course, but that is the jist of it.

I welcomed the idea of the Party Reform Commission (or Bones Commission as it has become known) when it was set up.  I think the party does need to be run much more professionally and with a clear long-term strategy.  My fear though was that the Bones Commission report would either end up very bland and nothing would change or that it would end up as an opportunity for people to whinge about certain bits of the party or people within it that they don't like.  What I have seen so far is a good comprehensive report on how the party works and a genuinely fair overview of what works and what doesn't work in the party.  So far there are parts that I definitely agree with and some parts that I don't.

What concerns me though is that the party committees who are considering it feel as though they are being presented with a fait accomplis without any chance of commenting on the individual parts of it.  It's a bit little like the Lisbon Treaty vote where all committees have to agree it or it falls.  However I understand that the Federal Executive (FE) has voted to set up a small working party that would consider the individual recommendations in more details and consider how or whether to put them all in to practice.  It has been said that the FE voted by 16 votes to 1 to approve the report, but in reality it was agreeing to set up this working party to consider it further that was agreed by that margin instead.  I know there are a number of members of FE who would have voted against it otherwise.

As I said, I am still in the middle of reading it, and I will give a more considered response later.

Clegg is in an unenviable position. The Lib Dems have long harvested disaffected right-of-centre voters who left the Conservative fold in the nineties and until recently weren’t inclined to return. While the Libs have naturally now started to pick up more Labour discontents (with their classic anti-whoever-is-in stance) a large chunk of their electoral support is still on the right of centre.

When a party see itself on the slide, there is the usual conflict between those who would move more to the centre, and those who would revert to shoring up the core vote. The trouble is, the Lib Dems don’t have much of a core vote. They have the core of activists, who for the most part are clearly of the Left, yet their electorate is mainly of the moderate Right. Somewhere filling in the gaps are the vestiges of classical liberalism – those, that is, who haven’t done the sensible thing and joined the libertarian ranks within the Conservative Party. At least when we Conservatives were in the wilderness, the choice was less stark, effectively being between shades of (a) the "firm" right and (b) right of centre.

So Clegg has chosen a lurch to the right, in a last ditch effort to stop former Conservative voters becoming current Conservative voters again. This will not play well with his activists, who already have a fair amount to grumble about, with lacklustre by-election performances – that is, when they actually stand (the Haltemprice & Howden decision didn’t go down well).

So what next? Once the current strategy fails, Clegg, or his successor, may actually realise that the Libs best chance of avoiding a collapse is to shift to the Left – the natural home of many modern liberals, and one which will set them up as the welcoming committee for all those unhappy Trots.

Either way, this Conservative is quite happy.

]]> http://andershanson.wordpress.com/?p=385 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:15:03 +0000 Anders Hanson http://andershanson.wordpress.com/?p=385 There's been surprisingly little response in the Lib Dem blogosphere to the story on the BBC today that Nick Clegg is proposing that the Liberal Democrats should be offering tax cuts at the next General Election rather than increasing them or keeping them as they are.  The silence on the issue is in many ways is as it should be.

Although many Liberal Democrats seem to get very worked up about us being seen as tax cutters (cue conspiracy theories that we have been taken over by a bunch of right-wingers etc etc), this isn't new news.  If the BBC is to be believed then the whole thrust of Nick Clegg's argument is that we should be cutting taxes for those on low and middle incomes, whilst taxes may rise for those who earn a lot and those who damage the environment.  That is exactly what we have been saying for ages.

What has changed most of all is the language, and for that I am grateful.  The Liberal Democrats have always had a reputation as being a high tax party, when this is not the whole story.  It's one of the many areas where there are huge misconceptions about our true position, because we often want to include caveats and exceptions and unnecessary clarifications when we explain our policies.  Instead we need a bolder and sharper message that will resonate with the public even if it isn't quite the full story.  That is what seems to be happening with the tax story.  We are saying much the same as we have said before, but in terms that will stand out more in the news.  Given the coverage on the BBC it seems to be working.

The only thing with the policy itself that seems to be different, is that rather than directing government savings in to something else, we would instead hand them back to people in the shape of tax cuts.  I think this is the right call at the moment.  We have gone in to General Elections in the past (I particularly think of 1992 and 1997) promising that taxes would rise.  '1p in the £1 for education' was a strong message that was in tune with the times that also made our priorities clear and seemed perfectly reasonable at a time when the economy was getting better and the tax burden was on the whole perceived as being low.  But times have changed.  The economy is doing less well, people are feeling poorer and people know that there has been huge amounts of investment in public services (whether it has been well spent or not is a different matter).

Being a tax cutting party should not be a complete surprise.  Many of our councils have been offering low taxation for years and we have won elections on the basis that we will commit to a lower council tax rise.  We haven't been as blatant about it as today's news, but I think this is the right time for us to be doing it.  We can all find things that we would like to spend more taxpayers money on if we had our way, but we just have to accept that now is not the time to be doing it.

UPDATE: Just as I finished this article I noticed that a) the BBC had already moved their article about Nick to the side bar rather than being a main story, and b) I've now spotted Paul Walter's article on the same subject which is the first one I've seen on the subject by another Lib Dem.

So, when the Conservatives propose cuts in fuel duty at times when fuel prices are high, it's

"a dishonest gimmick which would mean the Tories would have to hike up taxes somewhere else or would mean a massive hole in the public finances.

"Either George Osborne doesn't understand the way tax revenues work, or he's prepared to play fast and loose with the public finances for the sake of a good headline."

But when Labour postpone increases in fuel duty at time when fuel prices are high, it's

"the right thing to do to help motorists and to help businesses."

The ever-consistent Lib Dems, however are pouring scorn on both moves. You remember the Lib Dems: they were suggesting tax cuts a few months ago, and are the same party that wants/doesn't want (delete deopending on day of week) a referendum on the EU.

The blog I am referring to is Ed Fordham's 474 to win blog.  As I write this the top posting is about Brian Coleman's failure to stand up for local residents on policing, but many of the posts are completely different.  A lot of them are little observations about local landmarks, mentions of community events that Ed has attended and the often overlooked history of the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency.  It's completely different and hopefully will draw people to read more about Ed who wouldn't normally take an active interest in politics.

Until Ed moved to Hampstead and the Brent East by-election I didn't know North London at all.  But one thing that struck me from visiting the area is how fascinating it is, with lots of unexpected places in particular Hampstead which wows you the first time you visit.  Hampstead should certainly be on anyone's list of places to see in London.  It clearly also has a huge community spirit, which is unusual for many urban areas.  Indeed on a visit to see Ed the other week I helped Hampstead Town Lib Dems set up their summer fair and it was amazing how close-knit and supportive everyone is in the area.  Ed's blog sums up a lot of this, and even though I don't necessarily know many of the places he talks about on his blog I still find it interesting.

If you like the lesser known history of places and have a fondness for London, then this blog is a must.

Tomorrow is a big day - it's voting time in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election. It all started weeks ago when David Davis considered the advent of 42 days detention without trial to be such a big issue that he resigned, while 28 days, the death penalty, Section 28, fox hunting and illegal wars that devastate the lives of millions are OK with the former Tory Shadow Home Secretary.

With around 25 candidates in the field, Davis is at a clear advantage. The only real challenge has come from my party - the Green Party - and I've documented our candidate, Shan Oakes, and her chances on this blog.

Davis promised a national debate over the issue. He suggested that his resignation would keep it in the headlines and force a referendum on freedom in Britain. This was more about boosting his own profile than actually championing liberty. But it hasn't quite gone the way he intended it; and it has certainly not been conducted completely on his terms.

The issue has hardly dominated the headlines, let alone the politics news sections. Where it has been in the media, it's been short sound bites from Davis about 'freedom', 'liberty' and other empty platitudes, sometimes related back to the campaign, such as when Bob Geldof joined him.

Supporters of Davis, like Ian Dale, quote some poll data, supposedly suggesting that attitudes have changed to match Davis's priorities. But most of these issues are not comparable to the time before Davis's ego trip began, and no doubt the general trend against Labour is reflected in people's responses on a set of narrowly defined civil liberties issues that, again, do not allow for the full extent of the attack on rights that Davis has often colluded in himself. Dale does, however, perceptively comment that, "whatever national debate David Davis has sparked in the last three weeks, [it] will be nothing compared to what is about to come" when it is voted on in the Lords.

Davis sparked this mainly to boost his own profile - but I doubt we are about to see a massive power shift in the Tories towards Davis and their hard right. He is no doubt more popular, but it has not been in the news quite enough to suggest that people care that much. He will probably still end up back where he was - as a senior MP, a Shadow Cabinet member and possibly a Cabinet member - but no further.

Meanwhile, other candidates - including Shan - have struggled for attention, but Shan has been part of not allowing it to all go Davis's way. The media has not seen this as a debate - because people aren't that interested - and has thus solely focused on what Davis, the only recognisable name, has said.

Has Davis facilitated the debate he promised? Absolutely not. He's run away from it, shied away from it and made no attempt to turn this into any kind of referendum on the government's policy.

That isn't totally his fault - the Lib Dems were too yellow to run (I'm assured by a Lib Dem insider that this was more to do with local political fortunes than the 'principles', unsurprisingly), Labour are in disarray and therefore the by-election has been deprived of the oxygen of tension and drama.

Nonetheless, even if Labour had run, it would've only added to the farce - they'd have no change in a safe(ish) Tory seat, especially given their current fortunes.

So the media, Davis and the other grey parties have all played their role in making this by-election seem unimportant.

Shan and the Greens have pursued their campaign in a dignified yet radical way, refusing to accept the narrow limitations of Davis's self-centered agenda and always seeking to expand the political space that is open to them. If Davis was serious about having a fair fight over the issues, he would have advocated equal spending money, equal resources and equal numbers of volunteers - but, of course, this would have meant he was actually seriously challenged by an excellent Green campaign.

I doubt the people of Haltemprice and Howden feel very liberated, free or happy about the whole thing - Davis is still a typical, traditional grey politician, offering very little that feels new or original.

I anticipate that this will be the Greens' best ever by-election vote - that isn't a startling feat, but it shows that we've reached out to new voters who wonder what the hell Davis is up to and why it should have to inconvenience them, and feel disconnected and disenfranchised under the current politico-economic system. Where we have been in the media glare - only fleetingly - we've used it to highlight Davis's hypocrisy and open a whole number of issues that he would never dare speak on, lest he speak the truth or genuinely challenge orthodoxy.

A number of lessons need to be learned from this, but was it worth running a Green candidate?

100%, absolutely, yes.

If we aren't ashamed of our politics, then we should have nothing to fear.

Mr Finnie is the most experienced and, arguably, the best known having spent the first eight years of the Scottish Parliament as the minister for rural affairs. I spent some time working in that department during his tenure. Unfortunately our paths never crossed: Ross was resting his dicky ticker and I was determined to get out of there as soon as I could.

The staff though seemed to like him, certainly more than his deputy. And I'm prepared to concede that the bullying, naked self interest and incompetence of the civil servants was symptomatic of wider problems within the Scottish Executive than a failure of his leadership.

So far Mr Finnie (how long before the old Captain Mainwaring jokes resurface) is stressing his experience. The problem with that tact is that, in the eyes of the wider electorate, Alex Salmond is the most experienced politician in Scotland. I don't fancy Finnie's chances in that head to head.

Tavish Scott is the like for like replacement for Nicol Stephen. He stood aside to let his friend stand and will see this as his time (sound familiar?). I think he'll have the same problem making an impact with the electorate as Stephen had. And as one part of the Chuckle Brothers he'll also have to work hard to brush off any lingering resentment over Stephen's poor election and consequent mishandling of the coalition negotiations.

Which leaves Mike Rumbles, the beaten candidate from last time around. If Finnie and Stephen have a low profile then Rumbles' is off the radar. He does, however, present himself as more of a renegade figure than his opponents and he seems likely to fight on a number of high profile issues - including the question of a independence referendum.

And Rumbles might well be onto something. The Lib Dems are struggling to carve out a niche in crowded opposition benches. They need something that voters can identify with, something that stands out as a Lib Dem principle. Rumbles might be more qualified than his opponents to provide that. With Labour on the run, this is an opportunity and the safe choice might not be the wise choice.

I'm a strong supporter of giving as much power to local communities as possible.  I have admitted before to some doubts about how you deliver it effectively if local authorities are not closely involved, but that is just a detail.  But Nick Clegg's speech to the LGA shows a clear difference in attitude towards local communities and public services between the Liberal Democrats and the other parties.

This speech also shows again something that Nick seems to be doing far more in speeches than previous leaders.  That is highlighting where the Liberal Democrats have power and doing good things with it.  It not only shows that we do what we say, but that we also are trusted to be in power and that we do good things with it.

The subject of his speech may not be the sort of thing that turns on the voters.  As much as it interests me, I can't see people rushing to the polls to vote Lib Dem because we believe in devolving power.  But what it does do is give people a sense of what we are about and what our core beliefs and principles are.

Another one bites the dust. Scottish Lib Dem leader, Nicol Stephen, has just quit. Says he wants "more time with my family". Hmmmm, what does that really mean?

My money's on Tavish Scott to succeed him.

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The Great Statesmen series is a line of reissued political memoirs and biographies of various British politicians. I've acquired four Great Statesmen titles in the past year, two biography (Francis Beckett on Clement Attlee and D.R. Thorpe on Alec Douglas-Home) and two autobiography (Geoffrey Howe's Conflict of Loyalty and Denis Healey's Time of My Life), and I've been very satisfied with the series' production quality and appearance. I do quibble somewhat with the inclusion of Francis Beckett's biography, which may be one of the more recent Attlee biographies but is by no means the most well-written. (My arguments on this front are set out in a review I wrote for the May 2008 issue of Political Studies Review.) Yet on the whole, it is very good to see a publisher taking the time and effort to put together a quality series of this nature, almost made for collecting by those who are fond of modern political history.

At the time of this writing, the main Politico's Publishing Web site is not working very well for me. It's a pity that the Politico's Web site maintainers haven't set up a separate section to show off this line, because it's well worth the Web space. I've been able to compile a partial list of the titles currently available in the Great Statesmen line -- I may have left out one or two, but these are the ones I have seen offered for sale online and in some bookshops.

Biography
Clem Attlee - Francis Beckett
Anthony Crosland - Kevin Jefferys
Alec Douglas-Home - D.R. Thorpe
Hugh Gaitskell - Brian Brivati

Autobiography/Memoirs
Time and Chance - James Callaghan
Time of My Life - Denis Healey
The Course of My Life - Edward Heath
Conflict of Loyalty - Geoffrey Howe
A Life at the Centre - Roy Jenkins (which I have reviewed here)

Reviews of both the Thorpe and Beckett biographies are in the abovementioned review article, and I'll be writing a review of Geoffrey Howe's biography for Political Studies Review in the near future. I've yet to start Healey's memoirs, but when I finish that, I'll be sure to post a review of it here.

Despite that comment the result was still to me a disappointment. I admit that I never went to Henley, which was down to a mixture of election fatigue, distance from Sheffield, needing to catch up with the things I didn't do whilst I was in Crewe and moving house. Which I suppose might in some people's eyes make my comments invalid, but the impression I get is that most Liberal Democrat campaigners involved in the election still expected us to do a lot better than we did.

One of the strongest criticisms of the result though was from members who felt that our potential success in the seat was overhyped. From the pleas that I received for me to go and help, both by email and in person, this seems like a valid criticism, but I tend to believe the account given by Alex Folkes, (someone who is close to the campaign team), when he notes that at the time the pleas were sent out, it was entirely believable that we could win.

Despite this, I think that following Crewe & Nantwich and Henley, and ideally before Glasgow East (although that doesn't give much time), the Liberal Democrats do need to assess how they campaign in by-elections against the Tories or where the Tories/SNP are the more obvious challengers. The political landscape has changed. The Tories are unfortunately more voter-friendly than they used to be and so when it comes to a contest where the Conservatives can clearly win people are more likely to opt for them. But as I said in a previous post, I don't detect a groundswell of support for them like Labour had in 1997, it is just that people are fed up with Labour. So the task for the Liberal Democrats is to work out our niche in these by-elections and campaign on that. We may not win, but it will at least make us distinctive and get us somewhat closer.

Many have said that what the Liberal Democrats need is to talk more about policy rather than shovelling out more leaflets. I have some sympathy for thie latter part of this view, but feel that it is too simplistic. The Liberal Democrats have won by-elections in the past basically by shovelling out far more literature than the other parties. It worked in Brent East, in Leicester South and nearly worked in Birmingham Hodge Hill and Hartlepool. The problem is that the other parties now understand that leaflets work, and although one party delivering leaflets on their own wins you votes, if all parties deliver lots then it may well stop making such a difference. From a Liberal Democrat point of view, I think that putting out more leaflets than the others may not lose us votes, but we may have gone way over the number needed to get us the final result. I think it is fair to say that in Crewe & Nantwich we could have delivered fewer leaflets, and as a result saved more money, but still got the same result. That's because the mood had already been set in the by-election, no matter what we did. Vote Conservative and you get a rid of Labour. No matter what our policies, no matter how many leaflets we delivered, we would have had the same result.

The failure in recent elections seems to have led to a tirade of criticism against Chris Rennard and 'Rennardism'. This is unfair. Chris has succeeded partly due to an instinctive campaigning ability, (people forget that he started at the grassroots in Liverpool rather than just being top dog in the party), but also through trial and error. I am sure that Chris, never mind the Campaigns Department who are now autonomous of Chris anyway, will be reflecting on both of these results to work out where we go next. Despite being a member of party campaign staff I am not a blinkered follower of everything that Chris Rennard says. I know he has his faults, but I also know he wants the Liberal Democrats to succeed and both he and the whole party will learn from what has happened recently.

Henley was not a failure. We increased our vote after all. But what it was, was a disappointment. What the party needs to do is go away and work out how best to campaign under changed political circumstances and then put it in to practice when it has the chance. The Liberal Democrats have won by being ahead of the other parties on campaigning, it need to look at what it has done recently and reflect on how it can once again pull ahead of the opposition.

Finally, as a footnote to this I must mention my 'Reflections on Crewe & Nantwich' post. I wrote this not long after the by-election itself, but hadn't realised that it had failed to post properly at the time. I have now put it up on the intended date and as I was heavily involved in that election it goes in to a lot more detail on the way that the Conservatives now campaign.

The headlines are about the fact that, on his first anniversary in office, Brown's candidate plummeted to fifth place behind the BNP and Greens. (On many BBC bulletins right now, they are leading on the Zimbabwean elections.) The Lib Dems, despite pulling out all the usual stops, scraped only a 1.8% increase in their vote. Lord Rennard, as I noted earlier, ran the usual personal negative Lib Dem campaign which has worked reasonably well for them before - well, pre-2007 anyway. Now it's back to the drawing board. Thing is, it's been so long, can anyone at Cowley Street find it?

Ian PROPOSED that members of Merseytravel are NOT paid any increase in allowances this year, and I was happy to second that proposal, however this was defeated by the combined votes of Labour and the Lib Dems. 

I have been re-appointed as Chairman of the Rail Services Committee and I will also be serving on, Policy and Resource, Environment, Merseytram and Bus Committees, and the Mersey Ferries Board, along with various sub committees.    It's going to be a busy, but hopefuly an enjoyable year.

June 5, 2007
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Labour and the Tories like to quote from an old and out of date Lib Dem publication where (out of context) people are supposed to "be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly". Well the Conservatives now appear to have an equivalent which is "make up a story about your opponents, exaggerate the gravity of the misdemeanour, tell the press and use it against your opponents."

In the end though, the Liberal Democrats in Henley should take this whole story as a compliment. If you are sent or are threatened with a solicitors letter, it usually means that your opponents are rattled and worried they might lose. I've had them myself and in every case it was just a ploy to get a good news story and the case never went any further.

The latest two announcements of by-election include a shock, and a non-shock. Boris's cards were on the wall the moment he signed up with the Mayor's race, and as a result Henley look forward to welcoming another Tory MP into the hotseat. It's about as safe as saying that Ulrika Johnson will soon have a fifth kid.

Quite what the toffs of Henley will think of not one, but TWO candidates from the 'Miss Great Britain Party' is anyone's guess, though I imagine that Tories may lose a few members through the heart attack of seeing nice, young buxom ladies, bouncing down the river...almost makes you want to visit Henley doesn't it?!

However, eyes are all focused on Mr David Davis (not the only DD to be in a by-election by any means!). Following the outcry at the vote regarding 42-day detentions, DD resigned as Shadow Home Secretary, and announced that he would fight the seat on the terms of civil rights. Trouble is, he hasn't got someone to punch against.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems will not put a candidate up, seeing as they believe it to be certain that DD will be re-elected, and probably, back as Shadow Home Secretary, as soon as can be. Instead, this leaves an empty ring, and one man has dared to throw his hat in and give it all it's worth, former Editor of the Sun Kelvin MacKenzie.

Remebering that the Sun has supported the implementation of 42-days from the beginning, Kelvin knows he will be on a firm platform, even running it by Mr Murdoch at a drinks part. His relative success as an independent candidate in the local elections in May suggest he has enough celebrity status to be able to carry it off.

And as if it couldn't get worse for DD, he's now been accused of having 'intimate' phone calls with the Chief Executive of Liberty. Whilst these claims are currently being persued for an apology, you can't help but think that the Sun knows who it will support from day one. The perfect front page story, all it needed as the MacKenzie headline, and wahey, King Kel would be on his way.

Personally, I like DD, I believe he is an ideal leader, and whenever he speaks, gives the voice of authority. However, to call a by-election on a single issue, is brave, but foolish. In trying to do write for the country, he may find himself losing the biggest job of all.