Category Archives: YouTube

The Voice

Missed last night’s Nick v Nigel debate? Want to watch it again? Here it is…

By The Voice | Thu 27th March 2014 - 8:00 am

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Stephen Tall

My 5 minutes defending Lib Dem honour against Bus Pass Elvis

By Stephen Tall | Sat 15th March 2014 - 10:34 am

“We’re interviewing Bus Pass Elvis – the guy who beat the Lib Dems in a council by-election last week – and wondered if you’d be free to come on and talk about whether it means the writing’s on the wall.” That was the enticing invitation from the BBC’s Daily Politics show – how could I refuse? You can see how I got on below.

It was a brief segment, so there were two points I didn’t get to make which I think are important and relevant.

First, what Bus Pass Elvis’s defeat of the Lib Dems in North Clifton ward in Nottingham shows is the extent to which the party’s support has been hit in non-target areas. The party didn’t contest the ward at all in 2011 but when it did in 2007 it attracted 7% of the vote. Seven years on, the Lib Dems got 2%.

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The Voice

LDVideo: Matthew Oakeshott on the Lib Dem differentiation strategy

By The Voice | Mon 10th February 2014 - 4:05 pm

BBC’s Sunday Politics looked at recent statements by leading Lib Dems – including three of the Coalition’s biggest champions, Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander and David Laws – widely seen as an attempt to differentiate the party from the Conservatives:

Post by BBC Daily Politics & Sunday Politics.
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Stephen Tall

LDVideo EXCLUSIVE: “The Lost Liberal Democrat Votes”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 7th February 2014 - 3:15 pm

Here’s a fascinating 7-minute video from documentary producer Ed Stradling looking at “The lost Liberal Democrat Votes” – and what the party can do to win them back by 2015. Ed’s not a Lib Dem member, so when I asked him what had prompted him to make this short film, here’s what he told me:

I’m not a party member, in fact I’ve never even voted for the Lib Dems, although I may have done had they ever stood a chance in any of my constituencies. However, I do think the Lib Dems have done a fantastic job in Government, and come 2015 I would certainly favour a Lib-Con coalition over an outright Tory Government, just as I’d favour a Lib-Lab coalition over an outright Labour Government. I think the political consequences of joining the Coalition have been terribly unfair on the Lib Dems and I guess that is the main motivation for the video – it’s always struck me as crazy that the Lib Dems should be punished by the left-sided voters for taking a decision which is clearly better for them, than the almost certain alternative of a Tory majority in a second 2010 election.

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem Deputy Leader election: result expected today at 7pm

By Stephen Tall | Tue 28th January 2014 - 2:40 pm

Three Lib Dem MPs hope that by this evening they will be elected Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems – the post was vacated by Simon Hughes when he was appointed Justice Minister. The three competing for the post are (in strict surname order) Gordon Birtwhistle, Sir Malcolm Bruce and Lorely Burt.

The electorate is comprised of their fellow MPs – technically the post is Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons, though only the first two words of the title are commonly used – with the wider party membership getting to choose the Party President (for which there will also be a vacancy later this year when Tim Farron’s second two-year term expires).

We’ll find out the result this evening, but to whet your appetite the BBC has this two-minute profile of the runners and riders…

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Stephen Tall

Careful, Boris. Remember what happened to the last top Tory to liken the Lib Dems to a bird?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th December 2013 - 9:25 am

“The sooner we are shot of the great yellow albatross, in my view, the better.” So said Boris Johnson yesterday, taking a pop at both Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems.

But, as a classics scholar, Boris should beware a little thing called hubris. At the 1990 Tory Party conference, Mrs Thatcher poked fun at the Lib Dems’ new logo, the bird of freedom, by performing the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch:

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Newsmoggie

Nick Clegg celebrates 40 years of LBC and asks for a forty year contract

By Newsmoggie | Fri 11th October 2013 - 3:33 pm

It begins with a tongue in cheek moan. Where’s the caviar and red carpet? It ends with Nick Clegg recording a heartfelt tribute to LBC’s 40 years of broadcasting. And in the process Nick asks the broadcaster for a forty year contract.

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Stephen Tall

As Channel 4 News goes on titillating ‘fishing trip’, Sarah Teather calls them out

By Stephen Tall | Fri 11th October 2013 - 11:45 am

I wasn’t too impressed by the timing of Sarah Teather’s announcement — on the eve of the party’s conference — that she wouldn’t be standing as a Lib Dem at the next election. But I was impressed by her performance on Channel 4 News last night.

Invited on to talk about immigration in her first television interview since that news broke, Matt Frei decided instead to search for cheap and easy headlines — does she think Nick Clegg’s a sell-out, is she in touch with Lord Rennard? etc — to her evident frustration.

She deals with it well, though as she’s commented today: “I agreed to do Channel 4 last night hoping for a thoughtful space to articulate some of my views on immigration and public discourse. Sadly Channel 4 were doing the Westminster thing and trying to make everything personal and titillating. But that is Westminster I guess. One of the challenges of trying to make arguments from inside the party political space! But I got to make some points anyway.”

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Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Iain Dale unilaterally disarms anti-nukes protester in front of TV cameras

By Stephen Tall | Tue 24th September 2013 - 10:05 am

Don’t mess with Dale! And definitely not when he’s in protective publisher mode and wants to ensure a hassle-free interview for his latest political author, Damian McBride. Just a still photo and the link to the video for now, but it’s bound to be on YouTube soon enough…

iain dale no nukes

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The Voice

LDVideo: Glasgow 2013 party conference redux

By The Voice | Sat 21st September 2013 - 1:15 pm

Why attend a Lib De conference? And what happens when you do? Those are two of the questions communicatios firm covi set out to get answers to in this 5-minute video featuring Alison Goldsworthy, Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrat Federal Executive: Mark Pack, Editor of Lib Dem Newswire; David Boyle, author and policy maker; and Professor Stephen Lee, Chief Executive of CentreForum…

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Stephen Tall

Ukip’s Godfrey Bloom brands Michael Crick a racist and hits him with party’s ‘no black faces’ conference brochure

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th September 2013 - 2:40 pm

This tweet from Mark Wallace was picked up Channel 4′s political editor Michael Crick…

… who decided to quiz shy and retiring Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom about the absence of black faces from his party’s conference brochure.

Here’s what happened next…

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The Voice

LDVideo: Stephen Tall reviews the Lib Dem year for BBC’s Daily Politics

By The Voice | Wed 18th September 2013 - 11:10 am

Stephen Tall reviews the Lib Dem year – it’s ups and its down – for the BBC’s Daily Politics, recalling some of the questions on Nick’s weekly LBC radio phone-in, Call Clegg…

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Stephen Tall

RIP David Frost. Here’s the TW3 sketch I’ll remember him for

By Stephen Tall | Sun 1st September 2013 - 12:45 pm

Sir David Frost – satirist, interviewer, writer – has died. Here’s my favourite That Was The Week That Was sketch, in which he and Willie Rushton excoriated Conservative home secretary Henry Brooke. It concludes with the brutal pay-off: “If you’re Home Secretary, you can get away with murder”.

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The Voice

Nick Clegg on Syria: Government “is not going to act outside the remit of international law”

By The Voice | Tue 27th August 2013 - 7:15 pm

Here’s Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg commenting on the Government’s actions on Syria:

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged and | 28 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Watch Spanish premier Rajoy’s “fin de la cita” cock-up

By Stephen Tall | Sun 11th August 2013 - 10:30 am

Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy has been having a tough summer. The country’s economy continues to contract, unemployment has soared, and — most personally damaging of all — he and his (very) right-wing Partido Popular have been embroiled in a slush fund corruption scandal.

A recent speech to the Spanish parliament was intended to draw a line under the affair. But Rajoy seemed not to have read his text in advance: after each quote, he also read out loud the words in parentheses, ‘(fin de la cita)’ — ‘(end of quote)’. He did this nine times, with varying intonations of intensity, triggering confusion among his peers in parliament and prompting guffaws among the public at home.


(Watch here on YouTube.)

It brings to mind the classic “As I look out over this magnificent vista” clip from The West Wing. It’s Sunday, so why not enjoy those four minutes once again…

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Stephen Tall

Jim Messina and “the single most infamous congressional ad in contemporary history”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 3rd August 2013 - 10:00 am

The Conservatives have hired Barack Obama’s election strategist Jim Messina to advise on their 2015 general election campaign. The Guardian describes it as “a coup for the Tory team to have been able to hire a strategist who proved such a vital figure in Obama’s presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2012.”

Those unfamiliar with Mr Messina’s work can watch an example of his kind of ad below. It’s from the 2002 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee race between Max Baucus and Montana Republican Senate nominee Mike Taylor, and has been described by Salon.com as “the single most infamous congressional ad in contemporary history”:

Renowned in political circles, the ad set porno music to 20-year-old footage of a video from Taylor’s cosmetics business. The video showed Taylor in a leisure suit rubbing cream into another man’s face. As the spot faded to black, it showed Taylor then seeming to reach for the man’s crotch as a voice-over said “Mike Taylor — not the way we do business in Montana.”

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The Voice

LDVideo: Graham Norton meets Lib Dem councillor Paula Belford and her husband’s “little chappie”

By The Voice | Sat 20th July 2013 - 6:25 pm

Here’s Islington Lib Dem councillor Paula Belford starring on Graham Norton’s chat-show, with Steve Carrel among others looking on…

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dems select Maajid Nawaz as candidate in ultra-close three-way marginal of Hampstead and Kilburn

By Stephen Tall | Sat 20th July 2013 - 10:45 am

maajid-navazIn the 2010 general election, Hampstead and Kilburn was a three-way marginal: Glenda Jackson squeaked back in for Labour by just 42 votes, polling fewer than 900 votes ahead of the third-placed Lib Dems.

This week, the local Lib Dems selected the candidate they hope will succeed Ms Jackson when she retires at the next election: he’s Maajid Nawaz, a former radical Islamist, author of Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening, and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation. As the Ethnic Minority Lib Dems note:

He is the first visible minority so far to become a PPC for the 2015 general election in a constituency where the party has a realistic chance of winning. EMLD welcomes his selection as a step forward in BAME representation. He will take on Labour’s Tulip Siddiq who is seeking to succeed Glenda Jackson as MP. Jackson’s north London seat has a paper-thin majority and is regarded as a three-way ultra marginal. The Lib Dems were in third place in 2010 but have a realistic chance of success, particularly if we garner a sizable share of the BAME vote, which makes up over 30% of the local electorate.

And here’s how the Qulliam Foundation acknowledges Maajid’s selection:

Maajid Nawaz will run in his personal capacity, as a member of the Liberal Democrat Party. In running for the Liberal Democrats, Mr Nawaz continues his political journey from a former leading member of a radical organisation towards liberal democratic values. He will remain Chairman of Quilliam and is committed to its cross-party values and mission of countering extremism, promoting pluralism, inspiring change and seeding democratic culture.

You can read more about Maajid on his Wikipedia page here, and see him in action on BBC1′s Question Time here:

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Stephen Tall

The right to privacy: “in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd June 2013 - 6:30 pm

With news today of yet further alleged intrusion into private citizens’ communications — GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world’s communications (Guardian) — here’s how The West Wing anticipated the past week’s furore…

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The Voice

LDVideo: Danny Alexander on UK’s commitment to tax transparency and the unproven case for arming the rebels in Syria

By The Voice | Sun 16th June 2013 - 12:35 pm

Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander did the rounds of the TV studios yesterday to promote the Coalition’s actions to increase tax transparency. You can see his BBC News interview here. On Channel 4 meanwhile, he was also quizzed about whether he thought the UK should help arm Syrian rebels: he said the case was unproven that would help the country at this time:

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The Voice

LDVideo: Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes comment on the Lib Dem performance in the local elections

By The Voice | Sat 4th May 2013 - 5:20 pm

The Lib Dem leader and deputy leader on the outcomes from Thursday’s elections…

Nick Clegg on the Lib Dems’ local election performance

Local elections: Simon Hughes defends Lib Dem result

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The Voice

Clegg defends Coalition: “We inherited from Labour an economy teetering on the edge”

By The Voice | Wed 1st May 2013 - 8:58 pm

Nick Clegg was interviewed while on the campaign trail in Lewes today for Channel 4 News by Gary Gibbon — here’s a 6-minute excerpt in which Nick explains the steps the Coalition has taken to rescue the economy since 2010:

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The Voice

Nick Clegg grilled by Martha Kearney: Lib Dems “the voice of fairness” in government

By The Voice | Tue 30th April 2013 - 8:35 pm

Nick Clegg fared better than Ed Miliband in his pre-local election grilling today by Martha Kearney on BBC Radio 4′s World at One. You can watch the 18-minute interview here:

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Stephen Tall

Steven Spielberg presents… President Obama: “I’m Daniel Day-Lewis.”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 28th April 2013 - 12:15 pm

The 2013 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the annual event which disproves any notion the Americans can’t do irony…


(Watch it on YouTube here.)

And here’s the full 20 minute Obama routine:

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Mark Valladares

That was the day that was… 15 March (with added by-election good news)

By Mark Valladares | Fri 15th March 2013 - 7:51 pm

Another day over, here at Liberal Democrat Voice, and a fascinating one it has been too.

There is good news to report from Arun, in Sussex, courtesy of Cllr Jamie Bennett;

To put the result in perspective, a Conservative majority of nearly 1,000 was overturned, with Liberal Democrats up from 16% to 34%. Congratulations to our successful candidate, Paul Wells, and all of the team in Aldwick East.

Elsewhere, Liberal Democrat proposals for press regulation have been published on the Party website. We’ll have more coverage of that over the weekend and early next week.

And finally, in keeping with my occasional attempts to bring culture to the masses, here’s a little something that I’d like to dedicate to our site’s resident Eurosceptic…

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The Voice

LDVideo: Lib Dem spring conference round-up (2)

By The Voice | Mon 11th March 2013 - 12:45 pm

Missed the Lib Dems’ spring conference this weekend? Here are three clips to help you catch-up, or re-live, some of what happened… (You can see part 1 of our round-up here.)

Nick Clegg criticises Theresa May’s Human Rights Convention comments

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The Voice

LDVideo: Lib Dem spring conference round-up (1)

By The Voice | Mon 11th March 2013 - 8:05 am

Missed the Lib Dems’ spring conference this weekend? Here are three clips to help you catch-up, or re-live, some of what happened…

“Where we work we win” says Nick Clegg

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The Voice

Stephen Tall on Sky News comments on today’s Chris Rennard allegations

By The Voice | Mon 25th February 2013 - 10:40 pm

Lib Dem Voice co-editor Stephen Tall was interviewed on Sky News earlier today about the allegations concerning Chris Rennard — here’s what he had to say:

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The Voice

Tessa Munt and Tim Farron on Chris Huhne’s downfall

By The Voice | Mon 4th February 2013 - 7:40 pm

Reaction to Chris Huhne’s shock decision to plead guilty to perverting the course of justice over a 2003 speeding case and to quit as MP for Eastleigh has been rolling throughout the day.

Here’s two of Chris’s backbench colleagues on today’s events. First, Lib Dem MP for Wells, Tessa Munt, who praised his work as a “fantastic constituency MP”:

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The Voice

LDVideo: Clegg – “Overwhelming priority of the British people is jobs, growth and a strong economy”

By The Voice | Wed 23rd January 2013 - 7:45 pm

Caron Lindsay reported here earlier today Nick Clegg’s initial reaction to David Camern’s announcement there will be an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Here’s what he told the BBC:

And here’s the transcript of his interview with Sky News:

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