Party Political PLC

Bournemouth Conference Facebook Site

2008-07-13T15:45:00.003+01:00

I couldn't find one, so I've created one for representatives and guests to chat, plan their conference, find good hotels, restaurants, pubs etc. All coming soon. Includes links for registration and Agenda.

Its here

There is also an 'event' Facebook site here though it doesn't seem to have any links/info etc at the moment.

The Lib Dem stars come out for CentreForum

2008-07-05T13:34:00.006+01:00

A thoroughly enjoyable time was to be had by all in glorious June sunshine on Monday (30th) in the College Garden of Westminster Abbey. The wine was of high quality and the speeches short. Paul Marshall hosted and Nick Clegg made his usual speech, though he was able to transpose the stats about inequalities to Glasgow East. Amongst the Public Relations bods and thinktankers from across the political spectrum there was a strong attendance from the Lib Dem 'A list'. Just for fun I thought I would score the attendant great and good by two factors - star quality and rarity factor - i.e. not often spotted at such events.

Paddy Ashdown (*****/****) heartily greeted Ian Wrigglesworth (****/*****). Shirley Williams (*****/****) mingled effortlessly amongst parliamentarians of both houses including Chris Rennard (****/**) and Tom McNally (***/***). Danny Alexander (**/****) kept a watchful eye on Nick Clegg (****/***). I'm sure I spotted Bill Rodgers (****/****) and Bob McLennan (***/****), The Goodharts (**/****), Tim Razzall (*/***), Dick Newby (**/***) Nigel Jones (*/***), Tim Clement-Jones (*/***) and Diana Maddock (*/***). Weirdest thing is that I'm also sure I spotted Richard Holme somewhere in the mingle.

Congratulations to Paul, Anthony Rowlands and CentreForum for a well organised and very enjoyable evening.

Blur drummer runs in interesting By-Election

2008-07-05T12:51:00.007+01:00

David Rowntree, former Blur drummer and 'trainee barrister' is running for the City Council again for Labour in Westminster. He stood last year in the rock solid Marylebone High Street ward and got predictably wiped out. This time however he is standing in Church Street ward, a Labour held ward. The ward covers large council and recent ex council estates on the Eastern edge of Edgware Road north of Marylebone Road and stretching East to include the Lisson Grove estate. There is a large muslim population, mainly of Bangladeshi origin and high levels of deprivation on nearly all counts. There are pockets of more Tory leaning territory and they came second last time and will fight to win in a top Westminister target seat for them (Westminster North). The failure of Respect, or one of its successors, to field a candidate has propelled the Lib Dems from fourth to third place already. Last time they came third with the well known ex-hostage and Muslim convert Yvonne Ridley. Our excellent candidate is Martin Thompson (Pictured below)who has run popular campaigns in the area and is the only locally based candidate. To help (The Lib Dems !) contact Stuart Bonar who is the campaign manager. Voting is on July 24th. I am acting as Agent.

OK - this blog posting is Published and promoted by Peter Dunphy on behalf of Martin Thompson (Liberal Democrats), both at 13 Queensborough Mews, London, W2 3SG.

Opinion Polls Trend June - Slight Slippage

2008-07-05T12:23:00.003+01:00

The polls in June show a small reduction in support for the Liberal Democrats in high, low and average numbers. There is a long standing trend of LD support slipping in the couple of months immediately post a set of elections I would propose for a number of reasons:

1. The proportion of 'Undecideds' rise (as a question about 'the next election' is less relevant). Whether we like it or not a higher proportion of LDs slip into 'undecided' out of election periods than do other parties. I'm sure Labour and the Tories would characterise this as the Party being a repository for shifting protest but I would rather see this as a sign that more of our voters are people that actually think about their choices rather than acting on tribal prejudice alone. We dont have as many "I always vote 'x' whatever policies they propose or how badly they are doing" types.

2. We lose the impact of our campaigning on the ground (which makes a significant impact but in peacetime we cannot match Labour and the Tories with the out of election time 'air cold war' to follow the analogy).

3. The RPA equal coverage guidelines that apply to actual contests cease to apply.

I would expect a further small slip into July and August followed by increasing share in September with the conference season. April to June slippage for the Lib Dems can be observed for 2006 and 2007 here at UK Polling Report

Note: I have excluded the BPIX poll in the month for reasons best explained by Mike Smithson here in the excellent Politicalbetting.com

Another By-Election ?

2008-07-04T23:32:00.002+01:00

Rumours abound that another high profile Tory MP is planning on standing down before the general election resulting in a By-Election. This is unrelated to the David Davis issue. The seat in question has some good Liberal Democrat strength in local government but a third place in recent general elections.

Opinion Polls Trend Report May - Little Change but best LD 'high' for over a year.

2008-06-08T11:48:00.003+01:00

Slow but steady progress - When Nick Clegg was elected leader the Lib Dems were recording between 14 and 18 %. The leadership campaign itself had dragged us up from lows in October (When 4 separate polls recorded the Party at 11%). The average figure for the Party is 18.8% - up from 18.4% is April (and 13.3% in October)

Opinion Polls Trend Report April - No Change

2008-05-14T18:01:00.003+01:00

Very Little to report in terms of change - it always seems odd looking at polls when you have just had real election results but here it is (very late) for the record. The top rating is down by 1 percent (from 21 to 20 wih ICM and Com Res) but the lowest rating is up from 16 to 17 (YouGov and Populus).

Spotted in Malta

2008-05-14T17:50:00.002+01:00

Nicely sums up the plight of our own Labour Party

Why Brian Didn't get the cash

2008-05-11T16:13:00.008+01:00

Brian Paddick's 'Mail on Sunday' Diary piece, has the rare qualities of being both very funny, well written and (to the best of my knowledge) almost entirely true, at least in the factual sense. I reserve an amount of ambiguity here to cover the unknown and the personal. I disagree on one major point in that I thought the Press team and campaign were excellent throughout.

As principal fundraiser I am best placed to comment on this aspect of the campaign. Brian has laid much of the blame for a poor election result in London on lack of funding:

"I feel bruised and bewildered by the lack of support as a result of not being able to raise enough money – we were outspent 20:1 by the Ken and Boris machines".

I think when the electoral commission numbers come out we will find that this ratio is somewhat high - the 20:1 relates to Boris's 'target' for fundraising, not what he actually received. I suspect when all is factored in it will be something like 8:6:1 Boris:Ken:Brian. An uphill struggle for us nevertheless.

Rick Ridder, the professional US election 'guru' brought in during the campaign commented to me that he was astonished by the lack of funding for all parties in such a high profile election. He had experienced higher funding and much higher density campaigning in even low key internal state senate campaigns in the US. Budgetwise we were operating with what he would anticipate for a single county in Arizona with an electorate of only tens of thousands.

I have said before that the negative connotations of political donations, intrusive media scrutiny and willingness of all parties to seek out and publicise any slightest irregularity in donations to other parties, however minor or misconstrued, has made many potential donors wary. This was misquoted by the Financial Times early in the campaign as an observation relating to the Lib Dems only. They called with a line of questioning 'You havent declared any major donations to Paddick therefore you must be in breach of the regulations'. When I answered factually that we had accurately recorded that we had not yet received any donations above the statutory limit (This was in early January) the piece was run - 3 weeks later and picked up in The Standard as 'Lib Dems struggling to fund campaign says chief fundraiser'.

Traditionally there are a number of reasons for making donations to political parties, some noble and some less so. These include, in rising levels of nobility

1/ Seeking reward by way of political honours or some other direct return such as a job on a quango.

2/ Seeking the acknowledgement of, and possibility to have an influence upon, the individual or individuals that are being funded, particularly if it is seen as making a difference to their election, and the post up for election is one of influence itself.

3/ Seeking to influence the election result, because you support the policies of the party funded (this is the noble one in case you didn't spot it).

The first of these is technically illegal and may have been eliminated now but has certainly applied in the past, to all parties. However the fear of being tarnished with this has undoubtedly driven away some legitimate donors. I know some personally.

The second requires the donor to have some confidence in the possible victory of the donee. Witness the scramble to fund Gordon Brown's leadership campaign. This attracted hundreds of thousands of pounds in a campaign that was a foregone conclusion. Even in our own Party neither Nick Clegg nor Chris Huhne had much difficulty raising funds to run strong leadership campaigns. The Conservatives nationally are now seeing a return of corporate donors - could this be linked to the perception that they may have a chance of government ?

The third only applies if the donor thinks the money will be well spent and may make a difference. This explains the rationale of Lord Ashcroft - making a difference in key locations. It also explains why we raise funds effectively for winnable By-Elections and key target seats (though Chris Rennard will rightly tell us that it is never enough).

None of these 3 applied in London. Although our campaign was well run our own supporters did not quite believe that Brian could win. They also believed (correctly) that the GLA has very few powers (of anything at all let alone patronage). So many 'usual suspect' donors did not come up with donations - they liked Brian and wished the campaign well - but they preferred to preserve their financial gunpowder for campaigns perceived to be winnable and/or involving elections to an institution with real power.

New (ex Party) sources of funding did not materialise to match the promise of initial offers and pledges. This may have been as a result of the continuous polling evidence that showed an absence of a breakthrough. Of course there is a large element of chicken and egg about this.

Hopefully the chequebooks will be got out again for the By-Elections in Crewe and Henley.

For my personal analysis of the other aspects of the campaign see this post.

London Elections Post Mortem

2008-05-11T12:25:00.011+01:00

I have not posted for a while due to a rather frantic April in which I have been involved in a major deal at work and have been involved in the London elections at both 'air war' and 'ground war' levels. Then I went on holiday for a week !

Obviously the result was disappointing. None of the results - assembly list, constituency or mayoral reflected our understood strength either in the country as a whole or in London (based on recent local council by-elections and opinion polls).

The Ground War

Although the campaign pumped out what seemed to be vast quantities of paper this had very little effect. 'Focus' leaflet campaigning is difficult when you have an electorate of 5 million. Even if you raise the funds for printing there simply isn't the manpower to deliver. This applies to all parties. I live in a ward that is in the marginal Labour seat of Westminster North. This is a seat Labour need to hold to cling onto power but I didn't receive a single piece of literature from Labour. Neither did my colleagues in other parts of the constituency. Only the Conservatives seemed to be putting in the resources at this level.

The Air War

Talking to voters during the campaign - whether friends, colleagues, cabbies and from canvass returns this was seen as a Ken vs Boris fight, or to be more accurate a stop Ken vs stop Boris fight. Both characters drove up the general turnout by mobilising their own opposition. I didn't pick up great enthusiasm for either but rather each lined up a coalition of support, much of it very unenthusiastic, but fully committed to either the removal of Ken or keeping out Boris.

The media I think actually gave us a reasonable amount of publicity, much more than in 2004 and much more than if we hadn't had Brian as candidate. However as we know ourselves from running the 'Its a 2 Horse Race' strategy in many wards and parliamentary seats for as long as the voters see only 2 possible winners and have a reasonable amount of antipathy towards one of those it becomes virtually impossible for the third placed campaign to impact.

The Electoral System

Theoretically a preferential system should have prevented any '2 horse race' squeeze. However most voters did not understand the system - particularly the notion that a 2nd preference could have as much value as a 1st preference. But in this case even those with a full understanding of the system could well argue that giving a 1st to a candidate that was definitely not going to win would be an exercise of partisan flagwaving only - in terms of affecting the result you may as well go straight to your choice of possible winner with your first vote and save the counting machine the trouble. The fact that any second preference awarded to a candidate not appearing in the top 2 at first round might as well not be counted didn't help. Depressingly, the GLA votes largely just followed the ticket. If Labour had not had Ken as Mayoral candidate I am sure we would have made GLA gains. He enabled them to buck an almost complete national trend of Labour weakness.

Funding

I have given a whole special post to this !

Conclusion

I think that despite the result the campaign managed to keep the Party in the public eye, mainly through the candidacy of Brian. There is evidence (primarily through second preferences) that the voters knew we were out there and even quite liked us. They just thought the requirement to stop Boris/kick out Ken was just too important to be diverted in any way.

I hope Brian reconsiders what appears to be a withdrawal from electoral politics in the Mail on Sunday. He is a great asset to the Party and whilst he may be disillusioned by the relationship of effort vs votes this time if he sticks with it I'm sure more rewarding opportunities will arise.

Opinion Polls Trend Report March - Best Polls for the Lib Dems for a year

2008-03-30T11:36:00.003+01:00

The latest Minimum, Average and Maximum figures for the Liberal Democrats are 16, 18.6 and 21. Whilst the low and high figures have not moved the average has risen by 1.2 % from February. This takes the Party to a rolling average that is the highest since April 2007. You Gov also recorded (at 17%) its highest rating for the Lib Dems since last April.

March 18.6 (5 Polls - 16% YouGov, 21% ICM)

February 17.4% (5 polls - 16% YouGov, 21% ICM)
January 17.3% (9 - 14% Yougov, 21% ICM)
December 15.6% (7 - 14% YouGov & Ipsos/Mori, 18% ICM)
November 16% (10 - 13% YouGov, 21% ICM)
October 13.3% (13 - 11% YouGov, Ipsos/Mori, BPIX, 18% ICM)
September 15.8% (13 - 12% BPIX, 20% ICM)
August 15.7% (9 14% YouGov, 18% ICM)

London Mayor - who's NOT standing

2008-03-29T14:52:00.007Z

The necessity to get 330 nominators from the 32 London boroughs, plus 10 from the City of London seems to have stumped a few would be mayoral candidates. In addition there is a £10,000 deposit to be forfeited if you get less than 5% of first preference votes. The 10 signatures from residents of the City is in itself problematic as only 6300 electors live in the square mile and the short period of time available to collect signatures coincided with Easter.

Damien Hockney, who was first elected to the GLA as UKIP, then joined Veritas and then formed the One London group had been announced as their prospective Mayoral candidate as recently as February. He rather lamely formally announced his withdrawal on the 'Vanessa Show' on the basis that there was too much Ken vs Boris media hype. There is some speculation that the real reason was the reluctance to lose his £10,000.

A project to have a 'people's' candidate, whatever that means, had a healthy budget of £50,000 but failed to get its nominations in claiming that certain boroughs did not make electoral registers available to their campaign as they are not a recognised political party. This did not seem to stop Winston Mackenzie.

Michael Hodges has been touted as 'Time Out' Magazine's candidate for months - even in the current edition. I think his website needs updating ! He has not been nominated.

The New Britain Party's Dennis Delderfield didn't turn up. He's still their selected candidate according to the Party website.

Neither did John Flunders of the Senior Citizen's Party - you can read his campaign launch statement here

We don't know what happened to Richard Fairbrass of 'Right Said Fred' fame. Read his declaration of candidacy here

Recently split Respect (The Unity Coalition !) will also be without a candidate as previous candidate Lindsey German is now part of the 'Respect' faction without the rights to use the Party description. She stands as the 'Left List' candidate. The other bit of Respect - George Galloway's 'Respect Renewal ' faction is running for the GLA list only with George as number one candidate. The former Respect vote is further split by a 'Unity for Peace & Socialism' list. Of these 3 only the 'Left List' managed a slate of constituency GLA candidates.

The poujadist 'English Democrats Party' have shown impressive organisation skills with a Mayoral candidate, GLA list and full slate of constituency candidates.

The full list of Mayoral candidates is as follows:

Richard Barnbrook - British National Party
Gerard Batten - UK Independence Party
Siân Berry - Green Party
Alan Craig - Christian Peoples Alliance and Christian Party
Lindsey German - Left List
Boris Johnson - Conservative Party
Ken Livingstone - Labour Party
Winston McKenzie - Independent
Matt O'Connor - English Democrats
Brian Paddick - Liberal Democrats

Thanks are due to Andrew Reeves for sorting the Lib Dem nominations and Ashley Lumsden of Lambeth for 'sub agenting' for the City of London and sorting the 10 nominations there over the Easter Bank Holiday.

Opinion Polls Trend Report - February

2008-03-01T12:27:00.008Z

There were only 5 UK voting intention opinion polls during February. 2 of 5 were YouGov, traditionally poor for the Lib Dems. The average rate for the party is 17.4% against 17.3% last month so little movement. Updated figures are as follows - the number of polls by particular organisations can skew the figures so I am also including data for the range and which polling organisations contributed the outlier numbers - there is a very clear trend there with ICM providing the highest numbers and usually YouGov providing the lowest..

February 17.4% (5 polls - 16% YouGov, 21% ICM)

January 17.3% (9 - 14% Yougov, 21% ICM)

December 15.6% (7 - 14% YouGov & Ipsos/Mori, 18% ICM)

November 16% (10 - 13% YouGov, 21% ICM)

October 13.3% (13 - 11% YouGov, Ipsos/Mori, BPIX, 18% ICM)

September 15.8% (13 - 12% BPIX, 20% ICM)

August 15.7% (9 14% YouGov, 18% ICM)

Beating Ashcroft at his own game

2008-02-25T14:14:00.002Z

I have already commented on the donations by Betterworld Ltd to both the Lib Dems and Labour. It is unusual for a donor to assist more than one party and sometimes the rationale can be worrying (Bernie Ecclestone comes to mind). In this case however it seems there is a fair logic as reported in the Telegraph it is a philanthropic move by a progressively minded millionaire to counter the controversial funding by Michael Ashcroft. Ashcroft's donations have increasingly been made as 'Ground War' contributions to Tory constituency parties in Labour/Tory or Lib Dem/Tory marginals. These are not controlled by usual campaign expenditure as they fall outside election funding restrictions. They also, at least for a while, avoided the kind of scrutiny that would be attracted by a single large donation to Central Office. Ashcroft made most of his fortune out of financial services in Belize and recruitment businesses Carlisle and Corporate Services Group. Recruitment is of course an enormously worthy industry and it is a shame that its proceeds could be used for such base ends as propping up Tory constituency parties in obscure but idyllic corners of Wessex.

Donation report exclusive - The 'Blah Party'

2008-02-24T16:06:00.005Z

One of the more unusal Q4 donations, of £1000 was to The Blah Party.

The party was established in 2006 and its leader is Raymond Burns, better known as Captain Sensible - the member of 'The Damned' who also enjoyed a brief solo career primarily with the single 'Happy Talk'.

The party is 'sponsored' by Seabrook Crisps, who also use the Blah! in their most recent advertising campaign. This does raise the question as to whether some of the people being asked to join the party realise that the whole thing is a crisp company PR stunt. The website plays down the Seabrook link and Seabrook is a regional, not national brand - you will only have seen the 'Blah' ads if you live in the North of England. The single donation was made by the PR Agency - The Propaganda Agency Limited of Huddersfield. They are The Damned's PR agency and are of course also PR agents for Seabrook.

Labour Analysis here

Tory Analysis here

Lib Dem Analysis here

Q4 Donations Analysis Part 3 - Liberal Democrats

2008-02-23T23:31:00.005Z

The Liberal Democrats received £1,427,467.92 of which £ 818,068.89 was donated in cash. This compares to £1,464,915.78 in Q3 2007 and £ 2,284,561.36 in Q4 2006.

The reduction between 2006 and 2007 is entirely explained by lower sums received from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. This time round the donation to the Federal Party was £49,550. Smaller sums were donated to the Scottish and Yorkshire parties. The Trust's donations are specifically hypothecated.

For Q4 2007 there were no donations exceeding £100,000 excluding Public Funds.

The highest individual donor was Anthony H Wilkinson at £100,000 and there were no further individual or corporate donations exceeding £50,000.

In terms of putting together a series of individual donations the Lib Dems are actually competing well with Labour but it is the latter's trades union donations that make the big difference. Donations to their local party's by MPs and local Councillors are significant in volume. Corporate donations were made by conference organisation company Marcus Evans (£25,000). Investment company Carrousel Capital (£50,000), IPA Consulting Limited (£11,000 to Southwark & Bermondsey), who also donated to Simon Hughes' leadership campaign and Aberdeen engineering firm Balmoral Group (£10,000 to the Scottish Party).

Labour Analysis here

Tory Analysis here

Blah Party Analysis here

Derby Defections Deja-Vu

2008-02-23T20:18:00.004Z

News has broken of mass defections of local members from Labour to the Tories in Derby. 300 no less. Rings a bell ? Something similar to this happened in 2006. The earlier defections, this time to the Liberal Democrats, were rebutted by Labour who claimed that the large majority were never Party members and that the small number of actual party defectors were disgruntled losers in a local Council selection battle.

It looks like something similar is happening. Whilst I feel sure that 300 is a gross exaggeration probably made by an embittered local politician any 'mass' defection is problematic. Can 300 people simultaneously decide that they are not 'socialists' and are really 'conservatives'. I don't think so.

Personally I have sympathies with those in the Tories who are not very welcoming and think that we should also be very suspicious of defectors that have little or no policy or issue rationale. It is possible that a major world event may cause such a ruction - the Iraq war is a good example, though even then we would need to ask whether an anti war Labour member is necessarily more likely to be a liberal than a pro war Labour member - I don't think so.

Of course we lose members as well, including elected Councillors. Interestingly where we lose groups of Councillors, usually because they have fallen out with the leadership , disagreed with a major planning application or didn't get the jobs they wanted they sometimes (Southampton 2002, Hull 2004, Torridge 2007) end up in the continuing Liberal Party, a Party that even principally defines itself as those people who dont want to be in another named political Party (us).

This really sums it up - if these people have no major problem with policy but have just not been able to get the jobs they wanted they should not be seeking office through other political parties they should either bite their lip and keep trying or just pack in and take up another hobby/career.

Q4 Donations Analysis Part 2 - Labour

2008-02-23T13:33:00.007Z

Labour received £ 5,921,561.83 in the period. By way of comparison they received £ 4,868,129.55 in the preceding Q and £ 2,730,417.28 in the equivalent period in 2006.

There were also donations of £ 43,394.00 in Q4 2007 to the Co-operative Party.

The overwhelming volume of cash was donated by trades unions including (with amount of largest single donation)

Amicus - £1,467,194.00
Unite (T & G) - £ 1,302,907.00
Unison - £ 734,225.00
GMB - £ 292,373.00
USDAW - £ 242,494.00
CWU - £ 158,194.00
Community - £ 40,178.00
UCATT - £ 37,100.00

One of the largest personal donations, of £ 89,707.81 was by Gordon Brown. Apparently this was 'left over' from his rather overfunded leadership campaign. The largest however was a sponsorship donation of £150,000 was made by Mr Mahmoud Khayami. He is an Iranian born auto - industry entrepreneur who has made much larger donations in the past. He also has City Academy links. Other than a donation by Michael Watt of £110,000 there were three bequests (12K, 27K and 43K) but no other donations by individuals exceeding £10,000.

It must be worrying for Labour to see such a dearth of large donations by individuals or corporations and see a return to reliance on Union funds.

In relation to what corporate donations were made I am surprised that no questions have been asked in relation to the fact that most came from private railway operators - GNER, EWS and National Express and defence contracters EADS and VT (formerly Vosper Thorneycroft). Why are they giving money to the Labour Party ? I would have thought that the reliance of these companies on the acquisition of lucrative national contracts and franchises and the fact that the Labour Party currently forms the government ultimately responsible for handing out the franchises provides an uncomfortable link.

£40,000 was donated by a company called 'Betterworld'. The person behind this is Henry Tinsley who has had varied interests most notably as Chairman of 'Green & Black's' Chocolate and is involved in a number of philanthropic groups including the Carter Centre, the linked 'Waging Peace', and the Network for Africa. Betterworld also made a donation (of £25,000) to the Liberal Democrats.

ToryAnalysis here
Lib Dem Analysis here
Blah Party Analysis here

Q4 Donations Analysis Part 1 - Tories

2008-02-21T13:09:00.007Z

The Tories have raced ahead of Labour for the period Oct/Nov/Dec 2007 with a whopping £11,294,900.45 against £5,921,561.83 for Labour and £1,427,467.92 for the Lib Dems.

The largest donations to the Tories were:

£ 2,990,582.20 Irvine Laidlaw (This is a previous loan now converted into a donation). Lord Laidlaw is a well established and somewhat controversial donor.

£ 508,094.00 IPGL Ltd City Index, again regular though rather capricious donors founded by Stuart Wheeler. Donations from this source have totalled over £5,000,000 over the years

£ 347,624.53 Malcolm Scott (Treasurer of the Scottish Party)

£ 279,750.00 Michael Farmer, A previous major donor. Founder of a metal trading hedge fund, he is a multimillionaire Christian.

£ 250,000.00 David Whelan - This is the Wigan Athletic/JJB Sports chap - again a previous donor.

£125,000 JCB Research - part of JC Bamford as in the diggers. Chairman Sir Anthony Bamford also made smaller donations to the Witney and Cotswolds constituency parties. Off course Witney's current MP is a certain David Cameron.

£ 101,000.00 John Cook

£101,000 Lord Steinberg, Longstanding donor, ennobled 2004, made his money from Stanley Leisure. Owning it that is.

£100,000 David Coldman, more commonly known by his middle name John, is Chairman of the Benfield Group and Deputy Chairman of Lloyds of London

£100,000 Sir John Beckwith. Founded the property company London and Edinburgh. On the Sunday Times rich list. Has assisted David Willetts with research expenses. He was knighted in the dying days of the last Tory Government for 'service to youth sports'.

Labour Analysis here
Lib Dem Analysis here
Blah Party Analysis here

4 Ways to win the Ground War in London

2008-02-19T18:21:00.004Z

The London campaign led by our excellent candidate Brian Paddick is making great strides in the media but we also need to communicate with people on the streets in the good old fashioned manner if we are to increase campaign message penetration and compete with the resources of Mayor Livingstone and Mr.Johnson. There are at least 4 ways in which you can help - and 3 of them you can do even if you are not in London.

1/ If you are in London get your local party to buy into the excellent literature and get it out as widely as possible. The next tabloid newspaper is available to local parties at just £10 per thousand, so do ensure your local party is buying some to go out in their target wards. The deadline to order them from Andrew Reeves is 9am on Monday 25th; Email Andrew to place your order. There will be more to follow.

2/ Donate some money - we have some of the Party's best campaigners working on this. They have the expertise to get the best possible value from anything you can give. This can be done via the Party website or if you want to discuss how we may channel your generosity most effectively email me. If you can help thank you !

3/ Help out in one of the critical council By-Elections taking place. Election wins provide great positive publicity, give us local momentum and energise the local membership. Details on Flock Together or from ALDC

4/ Visit the London Liberal Democrats stand at the Liverpool Federal Conference and buy some merchandise, or give us some money !

Knocking Up in Leyton

2008-02-14T17:46:00.002Z

If you are free this evening and can get to Leyton its not too late to help us win this crucial By-Election. I popped over there a bit earlier for a couple of hours - unfortunately I couldn't stay for the evening. Its cold outside but the welcome from the first class Waltham Forest team is very warm. We are clearly winning the poster war and seem to have the momentum but we need to get the votes out !

This is the By-Election caused by the disqualification of the disgraced slurmongerer Miranda Grell. If we win it we go up to 20 Councillors in Waltham Forest - the highest ever number.

Political Lunacy in Mumbai

2008-02-09T23:38:00.000Z

Whenever I travel whether for business or pleasure I try to engross myself in the local culture, read the local papers and watch the local TV. Strangely I quit often seem to end up in places that are in the middle of elections. I have just returned from Mumbai/Bombay. There are no elections in India at present but party politics are rarely away from the forefront of news - and unlike in the UK where for most of the year politics is restricted to the media there is often activity on the streets. Unfortunately the news was rather depressng. The day before I arrived a mob of party members of a Marathi party called the MNS were stopping random drivers and beating them up if they were from north India, particulary if Hindi speaking or from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. Another headline announced that 200 MNS party members had been unveiled as defectors to Shiv Sena as they thought the MNS was too extreme. This caught my eye. It says something disturbing about the state of local politics when Shiv Sena - itself an extremist sectarian, anti Muslim, isolationist and often violent Hindu nationalist party is seen as the moderate option. The 'Goondagiri' - literally using 'goons' for intimidation of political opponents has been encouraged by the leader of the MNS, Raj Thackeray, estranged nephew of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray. On a positive note the newspapers I read and readers' letters were appropriately contemptuous of both. However these were English language newspapers and so may not be very representative - both Shiv Sena and MNS are antagonistic towards the use of English which is seen as a remnant of colonialism. It was after all Shiv Sena that changed all the place names in the City including changing the official name from Bombay to Mumbai. Which you use seems to have become a political statement in itself.

Opinion Polls Trend Report - Reason to be cheerful

2008-02-09T22:54:00.000Z

Despite the constant little ups and downs of polls and the usual caveats about different polling organisations and margins of error if you look at a longer trend of the last few months compiled from all polls there has been a steady recovery in the Lib Dem's fortunes. What the trend shows is that our nadir took place in October and we are a full 4% up on the position then. An average of all polls on a monthly basis it reads as follows, with number of polls. August 15.7% ( 9 Polls) September 15.8% (13) October 13.3% (13) November 16% (10) December 15.6% (7) January 17.3% (9). The slight slip in December can be best explained by the fact that of the low number of 7 polls 3 of those were YouGov which usually reports lower voting intentionsfor the Lib Dems.

Full data available on UK Polling Report

Exclusive - Paddick Positive Publicity Beats Boris - The Stats

2008-02-01T12:38:00.000Z

If you live in London and maybe if you live outside you cannot have missed the great volume of publicity being gained by Brian's Campaign. For the last 2 weeks Brian's media has beaten Boris's by a good margin. What follows is the listing of press and media hits for Brian in just 10 days. There have been positive comments and endorsements by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Indy, Suzanne Moore in The Mail, and Nirpal Dhaliwal in the Standard.

21/01/2008
Canna Zine
21/01/2008
Independent
21/01/2008
New Statesman
21/01/2008
Guardian
21/01/2008
Daily Star
21/01/2008
Pink News
21/01/2008
Guardian Unlimited
21/01/2008
Evening Standard
21/01/2008
MoreFour News
21/01/2008
evening standard
22/01/2008
Guardian Comment is Free
22/01/2008
BBC News
22/01/2008
Guardian
22/01/2008
Croydon Guardian
22/01/2008
Daily Mail (Ephraim Hardcastle)
22/01/2008
Evening Standard
22/01/2008
Evening Standard
22/01/2008
Guardian Unlimited
23/01/2008
Gay Times
23/01/2008
UK Gay News
23/01/2008
This is London
23/01/2008
BBC News
23/01/2008
LBC Nick Ferrari
23/01/2008
Telegraph
23/01/2008
Press Association
23/01/2008
Guardian Unlimited
23/01/2008
Daily Express
23/01/2008
Evening Standard
23/01/2008
evening Standard
23/01/2008
London Lite
23/01/2008
Evening Standard
23/01/2008
News 24
23/01/2008
Pink News
23/01/2008
Guardian Unlimited
23/01/2008
Guardian Comment is Free
23/01/2008
The Sun
23/01/2008
FT.com
23/01/2008
BBC London
23/01/2008
ITV News
23/01/2008
Radio 4
23/01/2008
TF1 (French)
23/01/2008
Sky PMQ
23/01/2008
Time Out
23/01/2008
wandsworth borough news
24/01/2008
Guardian
24/01/2008
Guardian
24/01/2008
Pink News
24/01/2008
TV NZ (New Zealand)
24/01/2008
New Statesman
24/01/2008
Daily Mail
24/01/2008
New Statesman
24/01/2008
Ilford Recorder
24/01/2008
Cambridge Student
24/01/2008
Evening Standard
24/01/2008
Evening Standard
24/01/2008
London Paper
24/01/2008
Metro
24/01/2008
Ham & High
25/01/2008
MoreFour News
25/01/2008
Metro
25/01/2008
Guardian
25/01/2008
The Times
25/01/2008
Guardian Comment is Free
25/01/2008
Evening Standard
25/01/2008
Evening Standard
25/01/2008
Guardian Unlimited
25/01/2008
Jane's Police review
26/01/2008
Gulf News
26/01/2008
Guardian
26/01/2008
Independent
27/01/2008
Sunday times
27/01/2008
Sunday times
27/01/2008
Mail on Sunday
27/01/2008
The Observer
27/01/2008
Telegraph
27/01/2008
Guardian Comment is Free
27/01/2008
Independent on Sunday
28/01/2008
Local Guardian
28/01/2008
Local London
28/01/2008
Evening Standard
28/01/2008
Evening Standard
28/01/2008
Pink News
28/01/2008
Richard and Judy
29/01/2008
BBC News
29/01/2008
Guardian Unlimited
29/01/2008
LBC Radio
29/01/2008
BBC London News
29/01/2008
Local London
29/01/2008
Canna Zine
29/01/2008
UK Gay News
29/01/2008
Pink News
29/01/2008
Mayor Watch
29/01/2008
London Paper
29/01/2008
BBC London News
30/01/2008
Daily politics show
30/01/2008
Bexley times
30/01/2008
Mayor Watch
30/01/2008
BBC News 24
30/01/2008
BBC National News 6pm
30/01/2008
BBC National News 10pm
30/01/2008
Sky News
30/01/2008
Channel 4 News
30/01/2008
evening standard
30/01/2008
London Paper
31/01/2008
Lynne Featherstone Blog
31/01/2008
Pink News
31/01/2008
Financial Times
31/01/2008
Evening Standard
31/01/2008
Bloomberg.com
31/01/2008
London Net
31/01/2008
London Lite
31/01/2008
London Paper
31/01/2008
Evening Standard

Peers appoinments ? - successful or generous ? then B****r off !

2008-01-19T15:09:00.000Z

No democrat can support a situation where wealthy individuals are able to 'buy' a position in a legislature and we all know many examples of this sitting on the red benches. However the scrutiny of appointments and honours is now leading to a situation where making a significant donation is regarded as a disqualification. Recent Lib Dem peerages have been very very safe to avoid possible scandal and I am aware of at least one senior party figure on the Peers panel who has been overlooked precisely because of his generosity - so only poor and/or mean people need apply then.