on conservatism, socialism and liberalism

This has been posted several places before, but I know I will want this for future reference. Nick Clegg delivered the annual Demos lecture earlier this week, setting out his vision of the 'open society'. You can read the full speech here.

The bit that really struck me, which many of my non-Lib Dem readers may find interesting is this neat summary of political ideology:

It is clear that one of the most important differences between the three traditions is in our attitudes towards change. Open society liberals are progressives: we believe that the future can and ought to be better than the past.

Conservatives, by definition, tend to defend the status quo, embracing change reluctantly and often after the event.

Socialists see themselves as progressives, with a vision for a better future. The problem is: they have a fixed blueprint for what that better society looks like. Like the conservative right, the socialist or left-wing social democrat view is that “we – either the elite or the state – know what is good for you”. Liberals pay people the compliment that they know what is good for them, without ideological instruction.

So liberals are optimistic about the potential of people, collectively and individually, to lead good lives and shape good communities. And we value diversity, as societies experiment their way forward. Open societies are raucous, noisy, and sometimes unpredictable – but that is a price eminently worth paying for our freedom. The open society is not for those who want a quiet life.

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Thameslink decision - Labour to blame says Select Committee

The Transport Select Committee have published their review of the decision to award Siemens rather than Bombardier the contract for new Thameslink rolling stock.

There would now appear to be few defenders of the previous Government's decision to exclude socio-economic criteria from the Thameslink procurement and we note that it would not have been possible for the terms of the contract to have been amended, following the change of Government in May 2010, without starting the procurement afresh with a new invitation to tender.

The full report can be found here. It is worth remembering, the Transport Select Committee is Chaired by a Labour MP.

What did Ed Miliband have to say this morning? The response from @christopherward does sum him up:

@Ed_Miliband Decision was based on your government's procurement document you incompetent useless bandwagoning unprincipled liar.

— Chris Ward (@christopherward) December 16, 2011

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Nadine Dorries explains the Lib Dem influence in Government

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Is the UKPollingReport Polling Average being skewed by @YouGov?

I like polls, without going into too much detail they are an interesting snapshot of the fortunes of political parties. Each polling company has different ways of conducting their polls and so I usually take a look at the UKPollingReport Polling Average which employs a methodology to amalgamate all the polls together (see here).

This includes, among other things, a decline in weightings of polls which are conducted by the same company:

In terms of creating polling averages this risks skewing an average if one pollster does a lot more polling than their rivals. For that reason, if a single company has more than one poll in the time period, the second is given a weighting of 0.76, the third 0.52, the fourth 0.27 and so on.

I'm not sure that methodology was created with YouGov in mind, who conducts daily polls. When all five polls that make up the Polling Average are from YouGov, the question has to be asked, how can a polling average consisting of one company, be a polling average? Enter the PoliticalBetting poll of polls?

I suspect I wouldn't be complaining about this if the YouGov daily polls showed a Lib Dem lead, I should also mention that UKPollingReport is written by YouGov's Anthony Wells. But still, thoughts?

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The Conservative run #No2AV campaign - Part II

I previously blogged about the key names behind the No2AV campaign (may have changed since then) and how despite claims of being a 'cross-party' campaign group, the key players are all Conservatives.

The Guardian has a new story on their website which highlights even more how the No2AV campaign is a Tory party front. The story states that:

• 42 of the 53 named donors to the No2AV campaign are also Conservative party donors
• Donors also include corporate finance groups and stockbroking firms (which raises the question, what do they stand to gain from maintaining the status quo? What does your 'gut' tell you?)

Margaret Beckett (herself ignorant when it comes to the facts about AV), is part of the committee on standards in public life, which is investigating political funding, she is also President of the No2AV campaign. With comments such as those below, I would seriously call into question her judgement to sit on the committee investigating the how political parties are funded in the UK:

"This is the truism in politics. I think it's a pity, I'm sorry about it. Am I excited about it? No." and going on to describe the funding as "a necessary evil."

Tellingly, the No2AV campaign refuses to disclose all their donations since they were set up, choosing only to disclose donations 'since the start of the campaign'. The Yes campaign has disclosed all their funding since they were set up in the Summer of 2010.

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Tuition fees increase - it ain't over til the first student pays?

Under the proposed new scheme which would see tuition fees rise to a maximum of £9k a year, no one has to pay up front. The first repayments will therefore be 3 years + up to the next tax year following the date of starting the degree. Or in other words, April 2015 - around the time of the next election...

The conspiracy theorists amongst us could almost say that the tuition fees issue has effectively been kicked into the long grass. The alternative proposal, a graduate tax wouldn't have achieved this, because taxes once implemented have a way of sticking around.

Crafty

So anyone who thinks the tuition fees issue has gone away should think again, it will be a hot topic at the next election and not just for the reasons we think.

Start planning your campaign to get them scrapped now. It still is Lib Dem policy (as odd as that may seem), by 2015 the estimate is to have the deficit under control, first out of the block could be a plan to get rid of fees, the two most dominant figures at the next election for the Lib Dems look set to be Simon Hughes and Tim Farron, both against tuition fees and both will be in a strong position to argue against them.

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