Automated Attack Monkeys, Scalpel Mines, & Acid

Why any analysis of the local election results cannot be extrapolated to a general election

Sat, 04 May 2013 15:21:34 GMT

I am utterly sick of people attempting to read in the entrails of the local election results what might happen in the general election in 2015. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of why such efforts are fruitless bullshit:

People vote differently in local and general elections. Recognising that the local council has very little power any more, people take council elections far less seriously. This means that turnout is derisory and the result is thus distorted by the people who DO turnout being either seriously committed to one party or another, or wanting to "send a message" by spoiling their ballot or voting for a party they know cannot win.

Local elections were not held in every parliamentary constituency. This means that any extrapolation to a national result is "projection" - i.e. guesswork

Time will pass between now and a general election. Political change tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but sometimes there IS a revolutionary change, and none of us knows what will happen in the next two years. The old adage that a week is a long time in politics still holds true in many cases.

Data which applies to our electoral system is incomplete, verging on non-existent. The only polling data we have which is reliable at constituency level is from previous general elections. No polling company holds/collects data at constituency level, and most of them hold/collect data at a national level. This is USELESS for predicting the results of a general election under the first past the post electoral system, where every single constituency has its own idiosyncracies. We will never get a British Nate Silver or change the woeful quality of political analysis in the media unless this changes.

The pundits in the media are crap. Relying on the proclamations of media pundits is an exercise in futility when none of them even acknowledge that they are guessing from incomplete data.

I'm sure there are other reasons that could be added to this list, but you get the idea. Basically, if anyone tells you that they can predict what will happen in May 2015 after this week's local election results, your bullshit detector should be pinging off the top of the scale.

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Never Let It Be Said That I Don't Follow Orders Like a Good Little Lib Dem Soldier*

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:51:15 GMT

Caron has exhorted us to praise the Divine Ms Duffett at least once a day. I know we all have busy lives, so I thought I'd make it a bit easier by providing a standardised form of words:

Our Helen, which art in Great George Street,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in parliament,
As it is on Lib Dem Voice.
Give us this day our daily Focus leaflets.
And forgive us our failure to deliver them because it was snowing,
As we try to forgive them that vote the wrong bloody way in parliament and make us bang our heads against our desks.
And lead us not into the Greens,
But deliver us from Tories.
For thine is the party,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Or at least until you get tired of it, in which case hopefully we'll be able to find someone half as awesome as you to pick up the baton.

Amen.

Sorry it's a bit Christian-centric, but even as an atheist it's the tradition I was brought up in...

* OK, SOME orders. From people I like. Sometimes.

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An Open Letter to the Editors of Lib Dem Voice

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 12:19:01 GMT

I see that circumstance has given you an opportunity to restructure. While I am sure you will feel the loss of Count Packula keenly, it would be a shame if you did not treat his departure as an opportunity for reform, particularly of what happens below the line. I'm sure you are aware of the dissatisfaction many of us feel with the way comments are run on LDV. But I'm not here just to whinge! I'm here to propose solutions.

1, The number one most important thing I would suggest is to follow the advice given in this article on the Online journalism review. If the author of an article isn't prepared to engage in the comments, there is no point offering comments on that article. I don't propose to retype Robert's article here, but I suggest you all read and digest it.

2, Please, please, PLEASE enable comment subscription. If you don't enable comment subscription the only people who are going to return to the comment threads are the combative arseholes who obsessively hit refresh to see if whoever they want to attack has replied so they can attack them. This does not foster a positive commenting experience.

3, You should read Anil Dash's article about how to foster a positive comment space, digest it and implement it. I think Anil's comment that if you allow arseholes to foster you're an arsehole yourself is possibly a bit harsh, but the advice he offers on how to stop arseholes fostering is sensible and easy to implement, and most importantly it works.

4, Don't be afraid to wield the banhammer. If a person came into your house and behaved the way (to take two random examples) jedibeeftrix or Simon Titley do, you would not put up with it. Lib Dem Voice is all our house. Don't be swayed by the free speech argument; you're not affecting someone's freedom of speech by banning them from LDV. They are quite free to go and set up their own blog and scream abuse at you from there. Freedom of speech necessarily involves the freedom to ignore and/or respond however you wish.

ETA 4a, If you wield the banhammer, do it publicly, with reasons. This way everyone knows what the rules are and how they will be applied. Vituperative trolls will see that they won't be tolerated and eventually stop bothering to comment at all. This will make life immeasurably easier on your moderators.

5, It's not about whether or not someone uses their real name or a pseud - Simon, bless him, is ample proof of that - it's about how they behave towards other people. If someone is constantly aggressive and arsehole-ish that's going to put other people off. Active moderation will need to be strong in the beginning, but people will eventually get used to it and you'll find you need very little moderation once it's bedded in. I can't remember the last time I had to delete a comment on here, but that's because I have always, consistently, had positive comment policies and been clear about them. The best thing is, because all my regulars are comfortable with what my policies and comfort zones are, on the rare occasion an arsehole does turn up, my regulars generally deal with him or her before I even notice they are here.

I expect this post to cause some controversy. I also expect it to not make a blind bit of difference. But I feel better having put it out there.

yrs

Jennie.

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Controversial Article in the Torygraph: a poll

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 23:02:04 GMT

So, the Torygraph have printed an article which is going to piss off a lot of people in the Lib Dems. There are a couple of theories as to the source: one is that the parliamentary Lib Dems haven't thought through how controversial the idea is and have leaked it themselves because they are proud of it, and/or are running it up the flagpole to see who salutes. The other theory is that the tories know it will cause the Lib Dems to fight like cats in a sack and have leaked it and are right now popping corn. Dear reader, which of these theories do you think is more likely?

View Poll: Cock-up or Conspiracy?

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Lib Dem Manifesto Committee - names released

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:21:37 GMT

The full membership of the committee tasked with building the next Lib Dem manifesto is:

• David Laws MP, Chair
• Sharon Bowles MEP, Vice-Chair
• Duncan Brack, Vice-Chair (FPC Vice-Chair)
• Nick Clegg MP (Leader, FPC Member)
• Tim Farron MP (President, FPC Member)
• Duncan Hames MP (FPC Chair)
• Cllr Dr Julie Smith (FPC Vice-Chair)
• Dr Julian Huppert MP (FPC Vice-Chair)
• Jenny Willott MP (FPC Member)
• Baroness Sal Brinton (FPC Member)
• Jo Swinson MP
• Lord John Shipley

At first glance this lacks diversity in a couple of concerning areas. First, it's almost entirely made up of parliamentarians. Second, it's all white, very testosterone-laden, and skews somewhat to the right of the party. Third, there's a few too many of the religious types on there for my liking.

I shall be watching developments with interest. And, once more, pinning a lot of hope on Julian Huppert to bring sanity and to prevent the jerky knee tendency of some of those names...

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"Suggestions similar to John Stuart Mill" says twitter

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:01:31 GMT

Bullshit, say I! Look at this email I just got:

Similar to John Stuart Mill:

Stephen Tall
Stephen Tall @stephentall
Co-Editor @LibDemVoice, Research Associate @CentreForum, Development...
Followed by Darren Bridgman and 70 others.

Phil Reilly
Phil Reilly @phil_reilly
Deputy Head of Media for @libdems. Editor-in-chief @AdLibMag. Former...
Followed by Dinti Batstone and 48 others.

CentreForum
CentreForum @CentreForum
CentreForum is an independent, liberal think tank. Find us at...
Followed by Tom Brake MP and 27 others.

John Kampfner
John Kampfner @johnkampfner
Author, broadcaster, commentator; adviser on free expression and culture...
Followed by Ali Goldsworthy and 21 others.

Sarah Yong
Sarah Yong @srhyong
Lib Dem Somerset lass!
Followed by Tom Brake MP and 19 others.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but none of those are awesome Victorian MPs/philosophers, two of them are people I follow anyway, and one of them isn't even a person.

ETA: and as I've just been reminded by Nissemus, I suspect none of them have been particularly ill after drinking half a pint of shandy.

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Ad Lib magazine: First Look

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:02:40 GMT

My free copy of Ad Lib arrived today. It was mostly unsurprising, but there were a couple of unexpected things about it. The first surprise was the size; having had it consistently described as a magazine I was expecting something... well... magazine sized. Perhaps this is due to me having worked in a couple of newsagents', I dunno. Anyway, it's not magazine sized. It's not even American comic sized. It's just slightly bigger than my daughter's Kindle Touch. I guess this could be sold as a positive, making the thing more portable.

The second surprise was the number of loose adverts it came packaged with. Now, this is the free first copy, and I understand that needs funding somehow, but I'd be pretty annoyed if I was a subscriber and had paid to be sent four separate advertising leaflets as well as the ~~pamphlet~~ magazine.

The content, on the other hand, was mostly unsurprising. There were some adverts, but all Lib Dem related. The articles were mostly the sort of thing you'd find on LDV, aside from Desert Island Tessa Munt (which I suspect the beeb and/or the estate of Roy Plomley might have something to say about, copyright-wise) and, for some reason, a recipe page. When I joked about there being a recipe page discussing the mag on twitter, ribbing the editor about the stereotypical women's interest lifestyle magazine sector and its vapid and patronising content, I had no idea about there actually being a recipe page...

There was no substantive comment in Ad Lib that was news to me, but some of the feature content was vaguely interesting. Predictably, of the articles with names on, the Serious Politics was nearly all by men (apart from the webinar report, by the awesome Helen Duffett) and the Women's Issues articles (including the blasted recipe) were all by women. The gender balance overall wasn't bad, but the fact that women are trusted to talk about page 3 and the conditions in women's prisons, while the men get sent to interview the party heavyweights and talk about how to succeed in elections is a bit disappointing.

The typesetting and formatting is of the "endearingly amateurish" type we are all used to seeing in Focus leaflets, but ramped up a bit for glossy paper and full colour. The title is... Well, my views on the title are pretty well known. I don't think it's big or clever for our members' magazine to basically tell everyone we make it up as we go along, but apparently I am reading too much into it. Just like I suspect I'll be told I'm reading too much into the gender stuff...

Anyway, I suspect this is the sort of thing that would be very useful for an armchair member, or for members who aren't plugged in to the constant other sources of Lib Dem news and analysis. I further suspect that if it were added to membership subs as an option this would be a useful thing, and most people wouldn't complain. I'm definitely not saying it has no value to anybody. But it's not a thing that's aimed at me (or if it was it missed) and I won't be spending scarce money on it.

If you're less of a grumpy old bag than me, and want to spend money on it, you can go here. It's fifty quid for normal people, or thirty-five if you, like me, are daft enough to still be a party member.

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The Problem With Liberal Democrats in Government

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 12:04:40 GMT

We had a discussion in the office Saturday morning. It was a wide-ranging and occasionally sweary discussion. It touched on Leveson, CCDP, access to justice, housing and many other areas. And at the end of it, we reached a conclusion. The conclusion was this:

The problem with Lib Dems in government* is that they don't listen to or trust the people who know what they are talking about.

For example, I am not a big economics geek, but I know enough about it to know it's important and to know who IS a big geek and which of them to trust (matgb is one, Richard Flowers another. Another example, on IT systems, I know a bit, but not as much as someone like Zoe O'Connell. On science, there's the magnificent Huppmeister. On digital rights, there's Dave Page. I could go on, but you get the idea.

When one is in power, the trick is NOT to try to become and expert on everything, because that isn't humanly possible. The trick is to surround yourself with people you can trust who are experts in the various fields you need to make decisions on.

Now theoretically, this should be easy in the Lib Dems. We have lots of experts, and lots of internal party committees that they can join or be elected to which would theoretically smooth their communication with the party leadership and the parliamentarians. Even better, our leader recognised before we went into coalition that going native when surrounded by civil servants might be an issue, and warned us to keep an eye on him (and the other parliamentarians) for it. And we have lots of councillors and council leaders who have experience of officers trying to control them and methods of avoiding it.

So if we have the people who can solve the problem, and a leadership which is alive to the problem, why is the problem still happening?

I think it boils down to trust. Somehow the leadership and MPs have lost trust in the people who know what they are doing within the party and started to listen to the siren call of those who have been embedded in the Westminster Bubble for decades. This is something that members of our party who are/have been in local government leadership positions predicted; those Westminster Bubble types have years of experience of persuading MPs that they need to listen to them and nobody else.

Communication between the leadership and the experts within the party has got more distant and one way, despite the best efforts of the experts, because the parliamentarians have started to believe that the civil service knows better. Emails from the leadership have become steadily more patronising and mansplainy as we get further from 2010. And this isn't going to change because I (or anyone else) has a moan about it.

To be honest, although I can see the problem, I don't have the first clue what to do about it. Any of yoou lot have any bright ideas?

* not all of them, and not all of the time, but enough of them enough of the time to make it systemic

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My "Three Strikes and You're Out" Policy for emails from Liberal Democrat Party Luminaries

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 17:59:31 GMT

If I get an email from a top table person in the Lib Dems it normally falls into one of two categories. Either

It's in reply to something I have sent, or it's to an email list I have consciously signed up for, in which case I will read it; or
It's from some party bigwig

If it falls into category two, it is subject to the Three Strikes And You're Out rule. This means that each sender has just three chances to persuade me their emails are worth reading. If, for any reason, an email from a sender pisses me off, they get a strike. After three strikes emails from that sender are deleted without ever being read. As you can probably guess, Cleggy used up his three strikes YEARS ago...

Anyway, for the edification of Lib Dem bigwigs everywhere, here is a (non-exhaustive) list of things that piss me off, so that you can avoid doing them and maybe get your emails read.

Patronising tone. This is my number one complaint. Even the erstwhile Farron can occasionally fall into this one, but some MPs seem incapable of NOT doing it.

Crediting me with something I haven't been involved with. I may not even care about your pet policy area. Don't say "we" when I haven't been involved.

Taking credit for someone else's hard work Don't say that you personally have pushed something through parliament all by yourself, when other people have been campaigning hard on it for years and you've just been appointed figurehead.

Trying to get me to support Tory policies which are against the letter and/or spirit of Lib Dem policy I know that you're a minister in a coalition government. I get the concept of collective cabinet responsibility. This does not mean I am going to toot my horn for whatever hare-brained Tory scheme you've sold your soul for.

Unsolicited begging for cash. I haven't got any. You've almost certainly got more than me, especially if you're an MP. Raid your own damn pockets.

Addressing me as "dear Friend", or spelling my name wrong. If you can't even be bothered to set up a mass mailing that scrapes names from the addresses, I can't be bothered reading your email.

I just got an email from one Lib Dem MP (name redacted to protect the guilty) who managed to hit three of those in just one email. That's a special talent right there, but I'm not sure it's one the party should be nurturing.

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The Lib Dem Activist Blues

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:24:01 GMT

I went down to the office
In my constituency
There was a great big pile of leaflets a-waiting there for me

The organiser told me
To go and get them out
And then come back for some posters and put them all about
Oh I got too much stuff to do
I got the Lib Dem activist blues

I spoke to the cand’date
He’s nothing like me
He’s white and grey and suited and he told me to be free
But I got too much stuff to do
I got the Lib Dem activist blues

I went round the doorsteps
I knocked on the door
The voter screamed into my face to not come back no more
Oh I got too much stuff to do
I got the Lib Dem activist blues

The voters they despise me
They call me hypocrite
They say that I’m a traitor to the values that make me tick
Oh I got too much stuff to do
I got the Lib Dem activist blues

So please, I beg you voter
Tho it goes against the grain
To please be gentle to me and be mindful of my pain
Cos I got too much stuff to do
I got the Lib Dem activist blues
I got the low-down dirty poor Lib Dem activist blues...

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Federal party elections: who won and who I voted for

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:11:27 GMT

The full results of the elections are here. Of the people who got elected, the following got reasonably high preferences* from me:

Federal Executive committee:

Daisy Cooper
Ramesh Dewan
Caron Lindsay (my first pref)
Martin Tod

On my A-list and not elected was Joe Otten. Nobody from my "Oh God No Please Not This Person" list got elected to FE.

Federal Policy Committee:

Dinti Batstone
Prateek Buch
Lucy Care
Evan Harris
Phil Willis

On my A-list and not elected were Richard Flowers (my first pref), Carl Minns, Ewan Hoyle, Jenny Woods, Mark Thompson and David Grace. Only two of the list above were on my A-list. Five people from my "Oh God No Please Not This Person" list got elected to FPC.

Federal Conference Committee:

Gareth Epps
Susan Gaszczak
Evan Harris
Justine McGuinness

Not one person from my A-list for FCC got elected (my first pref was Zoe O'Connell, and my other two As were George Potter and David Grace). Five people from my "Oh God No Please Not This Person" list got elected to FCC.

International Relations Committee has two people elected I voted positively for, but not my first pref, and only one from my "Oh God No Please Not This Person" list; and ELDR Delegation saw my top four prefs elected (Ruth Coleman-Taylor, Jonathan Fryer, Allis Moss and the honourable lady Mark Valladares) and nobody from the "Oh God No Please Not This Person" list.

All in all, it's reasonably depressing, particularly FPC and FCC. Far too many "Oh God No Please Not This Person" type folks on both of those. The only one I feel happy about the result for is ELDR, and while all five committees are important and do important work, I'd say ELDR is fourth in terms of importance to the future of the party.

Still, I got to vote, and I got to contribute positively to the election, in terms of my Q&As that about half the candidates bothered to answer. YAY for engagement, and lets have more of it next time.

* when I say "reasonably high preferences" I mean they were in my a (these people would be great), b (these people would be pretty good) or c (these people would be acceptable) groups

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Voting in Lib Dem Federal Elections

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:29:28 GMT

Has taken me a good four hours this evening. I very carefully ordered every candidate in all the elections, using my own personal criteria.

I'm not going to give you the full running order, but for the big three, my top choices were
- FE: Caron Lindsay
- FPC: Richard Flowers
- FCC: Zoe O'Connell

My method, if anyone cares, was to group candidates into lettered groups, and then rank them within the group. Candidates who didn't answer my/Andy's questions were ranked n for neutral, and then within n by what I know about them. Candidates whose answers I really liked got put in group a; those I quite liked in b or c; those I thought were ok in d to f. Candidates whose answers I didn't like got put in group x, and candidates whose answers I thought were truly awful in group z. Then it was a simple matter of hitting "sort alphabetically"...

It was genuinely worth answering the questions that I and Andy put - one person I had never heard of before this election ended up getting my second preference for FPC - and I was not the only person using candidates answers to rank them, from the thanks I have received in blog comments, by twitter, and by email.

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Answers From Candidates #41: Mark Platt, standing for FPC

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:19:27 GMT

Mark's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #40: Shas Sheehan, standing for FCC

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:20:28 GMT

Shas's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #39: Susan Gaszczak, standing for FCC

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:47:33 GMT

Susan's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #38: David Grace, standing for both FCC and FPC

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:31:34 GMT

David's answers for FCC are ( under the cut )

David's answers for FPC are ( under this cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #37: James Sandbach, standing for FPC

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:00:25 GMT

James's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #36: Evan Harris, standing for both FCC and FPC

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:38:11 GMT

Evan's answers for FCC are ( under the cut )

Evan's answers for FPC are ( under this cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Signal Boost: Lib Dems Against Secret Courts

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:53:03 GMT

One of the things I am sad I missed at the recent conference was the vote on the Tories' secret courts proposal; I would have liked to have been there to see the leadership given a bloody nose over it. The problem is: the leadership HAVE been given a bloody nose, what happens now? How does the grassroots keep pressure on the leadership to say we're not going to stand for this illiberal measure?

That's where Lib Dems Against Secret Courts come in. I've signed their petition, and I hope you will too.

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Answers From Candidates #35: Chris Carrigan, standing for FPC

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:39:15 GMT

Chris's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #34: Louise Bloom, standing for FPC

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:26:19 GMT

Louise's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #33: Julie Smith, standing for FPC

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:18:29 GMT

Julie's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #32: Jo Hayes

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:42:06 GMT

Jo's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #31: Martin Tod, standing for FPC

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 08:49:29 GMT

Martin's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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Answers From Candidates #31: Ewan Hoyle, standing for FPC

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:50:30 GMT

Ewan's answers are ( under the cut )

You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here

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