Extensive coverage today of Chris Huhne’s revelations – via some pointed Parliamentary questions – showing that “none of the people caught selling knives to young people in the last five years were sent to prison and only one was given a community sentence”. The BBC is among those reporting the Lib Dems’ findings that:

• Only 71 people have been successfully prosecuted for selling knives to the children in the last five years
• None were sent to prison and only one was given a community sentence
• 56 were fined, of those 11 were given a fine of between £50 and £100, a further 10 were given fines of less than £200
• In the last 5 years 42 people (75% of all those fined) were given fines of less than £500
• The total value of the fines levied against the 56 people caught selling knives to kids between 2002 and 2006 was £23,025
• The average fine was just £411.16

Chris has condemned the light-touch for knife-sellers:

Unscrupulous shopkeepers who sell knives to kids are profiting from the violence on our streets. It is unacceptable that so few of them are being punished and those that do are being given such pitiful fines. If we are to tackle knife crime, a strong message must be sent to those who ply this deadly trade. Fining them a few hundred quid is not going to do that.”

Welcome to the 74th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (13-19th July), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

Let’s get straight down to it, in traditional descending order: Read more »

Take a look round Facebook, and you’ll find multiples examples of all the main political parties, and their MPs, making use of it to promote their wares and network with supporters. However, look at other social networking sites such as Bebo or Myspace and you’ll find only a relatively sparse party presence, with very few MPs around.

Is this concentration on Facebook justified? After all, it is only one of several social networking sites, and as recently as June last year it only got 16% of the UK social networking site traffic, lagging behind Myspace on 29% and Bebo on 34%.

However, Facebook has see its share of traffic grow very quickly, with the latest figures giving it 45%, well ahead of Bebo on 25% and Myspace on 15%. No-one else breaks 2%.

Conclusion? Whether or not the heavy concentration on Facebook was right in the past,* it is increasingly looking like the right decision, particularly when you factor in the higher proportion of much younger users on Bebo and the number of conflicting demands on politicians’ time, which usually means having one active social networking presence is the most they can squeeze in.

(Figures from Hitwise)

* Of course, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, I put that past decision down to quality forecasting of future trends

The Guardian asks the question Is Gordon trying to bury bad news?, noting:

At 2pm on the day the House of Commons rises for a 75-day summer break, Gordon Brown will publish 10 written ministerial statements on everything from the gifts received by ministers to the guests entertained at Chequers at the public’s expense.

The move has prompted claims that the prime minister and his government - which is due to publish a total of 30 written ministerial statements today - has broken it own code of conduct and is attempting to “bury bad news” by deluging parliament with such a mass of information on the last day of term.

Paragraph 9.3 of the ministerial code of conduct, officially enforceable by the prime minister, states: “Every effort should be made to avoid leaving significant announcements to the last day before a recess.”

Norman Baker, the Lib Dems’ terrier-without-portfolio, isn’t impressed:

The prime minister has violated his own ministerial code of conduct 10 times in one day. It seems Gordon Brown is as addicted to spin and media manipulation as Tony Blair was.

“Today’s order paper shows 30 written statements being shoved out together, in clear violation of the rules.

“This is a clear attempt to bury bad news by releasing it all together just as MPs are breaking up for the summer recess. It is the same New Labour and the same old spin.”

* For the low-down on the popular etymology of ‘Take out the trash’ courtesy of The West Wing click here.

Lib Dem Voice now has a page on the social networking site Facebook - you can find us here - and show your support by becoming a fan.

If the social networking revolution has so far passed you by, you can still join Facebook for free here.

32 on-the-ball Facebookers have already marked themselves as fans on Facebook even before this official launch, as news of the new page spread like wildfire through people’s recent actions, profiles and newsfeeds.  Now the rest of us can join in as we take LDV to never-before imagined heights.

You can use the Facebook site to publicly show your support for us to your friends and contacts, and there’s a facility for you to share news stories with us that you think we should be covering.  And finally, we also hope to use the list of fans to ask you for stories occasionally.  Remember, it’s YOUR Lib Dem Voice and we are always interested in submissions and ideas for stories.

I have a confession to make, dear reader. There’s an email I’ve been, erm, sitting on while I try to work out what to do with it. And it’s from Iain Dale.

If you read his blog (what do I mean ‘if’, of course we all do) then you’ll already know what it’s about. If not here’s the copy ‘n’ paste skinny:

In early September TOTAL POLITICS, in association with APCO WORLDWIDE will publish the 2008-9 Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. It will contain articles on blogging by some of Britain’s leading bloggers, together with a directory of UK political blogs, and a series of Top 20s and Top 10s. The book will be available at the Green Party, TUC, Labour, LibDem and Tory Conferences, where TOTAL POLITICS will have exhibition stands.

We’re asking for your votes to decide the Top 100 UK Political Blogs. Simply email your Top Ten (ranked from 1 to 10) to . If you have a blog, please encourage your readers to do the same. I’ll then compile the Top 100 from those that you send in. Just order them from 1 to 10. Your top blog gets 10 points and your tenth gets 1 point.

The deadline for submitting your Top 10 is Friday August 15th. Please type Top 10 in the subject line. Or you can of course leave your Top 10 in the Comments on this post. Once all the entries are in a lucky dip draw will take place and the winner will be sent £100 worth of political books!

So, what was my dilemma? Well, Sunny Hundal over at Liberal Conspiracy has summed it up rather well:

Now, I have nothing against Iain Dale personally - he’s a lovely chap and I was invited to the Total Politics event and we had a good chat. But Iain Dale is trying to position himself as the granddaddy of the entire British blogosphere by doing these lists and I think his editorial approach to blogging makes me hard to take that seriously.

Sunny cites two big beefs with Iain’s approach to blogging.

First, he’s an avowedly partisan Tory for all that he’s sometimes introduced as a ‘political commentator’, a phrase which suggests an objectivity that Iain doesn’t pretend to have. And, secondly, that he’s an, erm, avowedly partisan Tory, who sometimes disses those he doesn’t agree with in a not altogether fair way.

Both criticisms are fair enough, at least some of the time. Iain Dale’s blog is precisely that: the views of one man (albeit increasingly a one-man industry). I won’t pretend that I don’t sometimes get irritated by Iain’s snipes at Lib Dem Voice – claiming that we’ve ignored stories, or are too late with them, comparing us snarkily with ConservativeHome – when the most usual explanation is that LDV is run on a purely volunteer basis, and occasionally those volunteers cannot respond to each and every breaking political story within a matters of hours.

But I decided that LDV should promote the new Guide to Political Blogging when I saw what Sunny’s proposal was:

this year I won’t be submitting a list of my top blogs. Other liberl-left bloggers are welcome to make their own submissions but I would also urge them to boycott this exercise.

Because a boycott strikes me as such a pusillanimous response. Occasionally boycotts can have a point: maybe as a gesture of dissent when any real action is impractical or undesirable for another reason; or maybe to name and shame those you think will respond to such tactics. But generally it’s an admission of failure, of weakness: “I don’t like what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it. I am therefore going to pretend it’s not happening in the hope that someone else will do something else in a better way in the future.”

It’s ironic, really, as Sunny himself half-concedes the point:

The Tories are always desperate to push this idea that they dominate the British blogosphere and no one else is worth listening to. The lazy journalists who can’t be arsed to do any original research buy into this.

The idea that a boycott of this competition by non-Tory bloggers will somehow make lazy journalists sit up and take notice strikes me as distinctly odd. I remember, back in the 1990s, Ken Livingstone defending himself against those who accused him of selling out the Wapping strikers when he decided to write a weekly column in The Sun: “I boycotted the Murdoch press for five years. And then I realised it was still there.”

There’s an old political saying: No opposition without proposition.

So, I decided LDV should boycott the boycott, and instead provide a link to Iain’s blog with the details of how you, dear individual reader, can submit your votes should you so choose.

And as an alternative Lib Dem Voice will shortly be announcing its own annual blogging competition, the third Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year awards - including some brand new categories – the winners of which will, as is traditional, be announced at the party’s autumn conference in Bournemouth in September. Who knows? It might even generate some publicity for good, liberal blogging. It certainly has in the past

He is at least less unpopular more popular than President George W. Bush – PoliticalWire reports on the latest American Research Group poll

finds that just 21% of Americans approve of the way President Bush is handling his job and 72% disapprove. When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 17% approve and 77% disapprove.

Furthermore, 76% say the national economy is getting worse, 61% say their household financial situations are getting worse, and 68% say the national economy is in a recession.

That’s something to cheer the Prime Minister up as he embarks on his holiday – a holiday which apparently entails continuing to do his job, according to Mr Brown’s official spokesman:

The Prime Minister remains in charge whether he’s there or not. There will be senior cabinet ministers in London to deal with day to day business.”

Now there’s being dedicated to your work, and then there’s madness: most of us know where to draw the line. But does Gordon?

There’s high praise for the Lib Dems’ Glasgow East candidate Ian Robertson in The Herald today:

Yesterday he had Scots grandees Sir Menzies Campbell and Lord Wallace in to help, plus deputy leader Vince Cable, but he knows he won’t be giving up the teaching career any time soon.

Watch him on any of the televised hustings and you’ll be impressed. Most journalists have scored him as an excellent candidate and one to watch if a more winnable seat comes up.

Meanwhile, The Herald also reports on possible trouble for Labour following allegations that “the daughter of retiring Glasgow East MP David Marshall operated two private firms from the Marshall family home which also houses Mr Marshall’s publicly-funded office.”

There’s an interesting and pretty perceptive editorial in today’s Guardian taking a thoughtful look at the Lib Dems’ Make it Happen policy proposal paper, launched by Nick Clegg last week. (And, whether it was deliberate or not, let me take a moment to congratulate The Guardian on not rushing to judgment, but taking a reflective, carefully considered, and rounded look at the document).

And broadly it gives Make it Happen a thumbs-up, albeit in a back-handed way for those who came into the party through the SDP:

Liberal Democrats do not think of their party, as the media does, in terms of its position relative to Labour and the Conservatives. They lay claim to ideological roots of their own, liberal values of independence and fair treatment and scepticism about state command that predates not just New Labour, but socialism. Mr Clegg’s new document draws on these old themes. It is critical of big government, without lapsing into libertarianism, and is clear that the party does not (unlike Labour’s Fabian tradition) see high state spending as a moral good in itself. As such it represents a shift towards liberal traditions and away from social democratic ones that have shaped policy since the 1980s and which culminated in the only one most voters could remember, the promise to put a penny on income tax for education.

And it also acquits the party of making this shift solely for tactical reasons:

Try as he might, Mr Clegg will not be able to shake off the suspicion that he is courting Conservatives (and Conservative votes in his threatened marginal seats in the south), but it is unfair to caricature his leadership in this way. He is trying to propose an alternative to a Labour model of social justice that he believes has run its course. That does not mean he accepts the merits of the Conservative model. Nor does it mean that he is forcing his party into new clothes that will not fit. Last week’s document was not so new, after all - even if the ambition to cut taxes overall has never been spelled out so clearly. It took in much existing party policy - including specific cuts in government programmes, such as ID cards, to fund tax cuts for people on low incomes. The emphasis was different, as was the (unconvincing) tabloid language: “Get the government off people’s backs.” But the party has been moving in this direction for some time, and began to move before Mr Cameron became Tory leader.

There are a couple of specific cautions: that the Lib Dems will have to prove they can find £20bn of public expenditure cuts; and that the party should spell out more clearly the redistributionist elements of the tax package. But there is unabashed praise for the party’s questioning of how far national government is able or competent to deliver social justice:

At least the Liberal Democrats are engaged in the debate about the central state, and its failure to guarantee social justice, a debate Labour struggles to enter, but which needs to be had.

Latest news I hear is that following his resignation as Conservative candidate for Watford, Ian Oakley has now also resigned from the Conservative group on Hillingdon Council and will sit as an independent. All this follows the news at the weekend that he had been arrested by the police as part of investigations in to a long-running hate campaign at Liberal Democrat members in Watford.

(As before, if you comment on this please remember that he has been arrested, which is not the same as being convicted.)

An interesting article in yesterday’s Times, with former national Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell wading into the current Scottish leadership debate, and in particular the controversy over whether Lib Dems should support a referendum on Scottish independence:

Sir Menzies Campbell has warned the next leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats to oppose an independence referendum, even if the party conference votes in favour. …

Two of the three candidates in the race to replace Nicol Stephen as leader of the Scottish Lib Dems have already said they are open-minded about a ballot on breaking up Britain. Mike Rumbles has proposed putting the issue to the party’s Scottish conference next spring — if members backed a vote, then Lib Dem MSPs would help to pass the required legislation in 2010. Ross Finnie said it would be “mad” to rule out a referendum after a proper debate.

However Campbell, who is backing Tavish Scott, the hard-line referendum opponent, said it was down to the party’s 16 MSPs not its 4,000 Scottish members to decide how to vote, despite the conference being the party’s policy-making body.

“We campaigned throughout the Scottish parliament elections on the basis we were against a referendum. It was one of the issues which precluded any question of a deal between Alex Salmond and Nicol Stephen. To go back on that within 13, 14 months might be regarded in some quarters as inconsistent,” the northeast Fife MP said. “The party in parliament has to decide if it’s bound by the decision of the conference. Party policy has obviously got to be given weight, but it’s not a question of slavish adherence to policy, one way or another.”

Campbell, who stepped down as UK leader last October, also counselled MSPs against entering into a coalition with the SNP this parliament, something both Rumbles and Finnie said was possible if there was something in it for Lib Dems.

Two issues to debate this fine Monday morning:

1. Is the current Scottish Lib Dem policy of opposing a referendum on independence the right one? After all, on Europe we’ve been making the case for a simple ‘in or out’ referendum, while making it 100% clear we’d be on the pro-Europe side. Why not in Scotland?

2. Is it ever right for the vote of a party’s conference to be over-ridden by the parliamentary party? Should our elected representatives regard themselves as Lib Dem delegates in the national parliaments and assemblies, there to vote for party policy as decided by members? Or should they be able to ignore the wishes of the party in certain situations?

There’s an interview with Nick Clegg gone up on the Wardman Wire this morning. Arty black and white shooting. Here’s a copy.

That’s the overwhelming verdict of almost two-thirds of Lib Dem Voice readers, according to our recent poll asking, “Do you think Gordon Brown will get to enjoy a second anniversary as Prime Minister?” However, a fairly significant minority – 21% - dissented, taking the view that the Labour party will choose to ditch their leader within the next 12 months.

Here are the results in full…

We asked:
“Do you think Gordon Brown will get to enjoy a second anniversary as Prime Minister?”

You said:
No - the Labour party will dump him as an electoral liability: 119 (21%)
No - he will stand down in the next year for the good of the party: 23 (4%)
No - he will call and lose a general election in the next year: 66 (12%)
Yes - he will withstand the pressure and still be there: 348 (63%)

Total Votes: 556. Poll ran: 23rd June – 19th July, 2008

Liberal Democrats in Watford have been on the receiving end of a harassment campaign since 2005 (indeed, it’s over a year since I blogged about a £5,000 reward being offered by the police).

Yesterday events took a dramatic turn as the Watford Observer reports:

Ian Oakley, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Watford [and councillor in Hillingdon], has been arrested in connection with a hate campaign directed at the town’s local Liberal Democrat group…

A police statement, released today (Saturday) said: “We can confirm a 31-year-old man from West Drayton was arrested on Friday, yesterday, in connection with a series of criminal damage and harassment offences, the victims of which were local members of a national political party.

“He has been given police bail pending further enquiries.”

The police investigation, nicknamed Operation Tuition, started in 2005 after several Lib Dem supporters received poison pen letters aimed at Watford councillors…

The case is considered so serious Hertfordshire Constabulary’s major crime task force has been investigating the matter.

As well as poison pen letters, the police operations has encompassed criminal damage to property. It is known car tyres have been slashed and bodywork damaged.

Speaking today, Mayor of Watford Dorothy Thornhill said: “We are absolutely delighted that after three years of harassment and distress somebody has finally been arrested.

“We are pleased the police have persevered with this and now it is up to the CPS to obviously carry it forward.

“We don’t want to say anything else that could jeopardise any court case but we are delighted they are proceeding with the investigation.”

Election humour, US-style:

A story LDV didn’t get round to covering this week was the Mail on Sunday’s suggestion that Margaret Thatcher is to be honoured when she dies with a state funeral, the first British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to be afforded such an honour. This prompted a flurry of commentary from friends and foes taking fairly predictable positions.

* “all that pomp and ceremony in her honour, plus a day off for school kids, will be very, very wrong.” (The Mirror)
* “Thatcher did succeed … like Churchill, the country owes her a 19-gun salute.” (Harry Phibbs in The Guardian)

A whole generation has been born post-Thatcher; no-one born after 1969 will even have had the opportunity to vote in an election at which Mrs Thatcher was the Tory leader; views of her now are more temperate than when she was in power.

To an extent she is now viewed as an historical inevitability, a necessary (if sometimes harsh) corrective to the bloated, pessimistic 70s’ corporatism under which the UK had laboured. Indeed, it was a view which was propounded as early as 1980 by former Liberal leader Joe Grimond, who argued in The Future of Liberalism: “Liberals must stress at all times the virtues of the market, not only for efficiency but to enable the widest possible choice…Much of what Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph say and do is in the mainstream of liberal philosophy.”

All of which leads me to ask this question of LDV readers:

“On balance, do you believe Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister was a good or a bad thing for the UK?”

The two options, as the question suggests, are:

Yes, Margaret Thatcher was a Good Thing on balance
No, Margaret Thatcher was a Bad Thing on balance

(There’s no hand-wringing, wishy-washy, equivocating, some-things-were-good and some-were-bad option in this poll. Of course your views about Mrs Thatcher’s governments will be mixed; but grasp the nettle and come down on one side or t’other).

And, of course feel free to continue a more subtle debate in the comments thread below.

A welcome suggestion, in line with what the Liberal Democrats have previously called for, from the Electoral Commission in one of its new reports:

The prime minister should give more than a month’s notice if he is calling a general election, a watchdog has suggested in a report.

The Electoral Commission recommends extending the parliamentary election timetable from 17 to 25 working days - in line with that of local government.

Today’s Independent brings the news that:

Labour is to delay repaying its “cash for honours” loans for up to a decade as it attempts to plug a £16m black hole in its finances…

Accounts due to be published at the end of this month will show the party still has a net deficit of £16m and will need to slash spending this year – despite an existing programme of cuts meant to ensure Labour was living within its means.

The party has axed next year’s spring conference to save £250,000 and plans to cut retainers to firms such as the advertising giant Saatchi and Saatchi and the Prime Minister’s personal pollster, Deborah Mattinson…

Sources said that the party had increased income from subscriptions, despite a fresh fall in membership to around 175,000 from a peak of more than 400,000 in 1997.