Posted by Warwick Smith on 20 April 2010
This is the third or fourth time I’ve started to write this. I’ve not finished previous attempts because we are in uncharted waters following the LibDem surge on the back of Nick Clegg’s performance in the first party leaders’ televised debate.
We’re off the edge of the political map: where, centuries ago, explorers found written on [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 22 March 2010
Just emerging from a series of radio and TV interviews on the weekend’s lobbying scandal … except it wasn’t. There was no lobbyist to be seen. Rather a few MPs willing to be paid to do things which most right-minded people would think were just plain wrong. As Nick Clegg said yesterday (I paraphrase), what [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 9 March 2010
I spent the afternoon with 20 other people sitting in a Defra meeting room debating how to make the collection and recycling of small household items work. Which got me to wondering whether we haven’t lost the way with this sort of environmental legislation.
We were in the domain of “producer responsibility” where manufacturers pay independent [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 11 February 2010
Great post by Roger Helmer. Best explanation of lobbying from a politician for a long time.
Posted by Warwick Smith on 10 February 2010
Yesterday’s public comments on the regulation of lobbying have produced much heat and little light in today’s media. OK, I accept that the debate between my old friends Peter Bingle and Mark Adams at the CPIR didn’t generate that much airtime. But David Cameron’s speech was widely reported, albeit sadly inaccurately.
The common theme between the [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 29 January 2010
As we await the evidence of Witness number 69 to the Chilcott Inquiry, David Blunkett’s defence of Tony Blair on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning contained much of what you’d expect, but a high spot for me was his answer to the question of whether Tony Blair’s money making activities had made the ex-Prime [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 18 January 2010
Watching Nick Clegg on Andrew Marr’s show on Sunday morning underlined how the Liberal Democrat leader has upped his game over that last few months. After the campaign against Ming Campbell’s leadership, it’s a blessed piece of irony that Clegg still looks too young and lacks David Cameron’s air of seriousness. And he has to [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 12 January 2010
High spots of last night’s Policy Exchange debate on proportional representation included Boris Johnson’s description of a constituent asking him to decide who was the father of her baby; and Jonathan Isaby’s hat. Splendid knockabout fun between cousins—for the evening—Boris and Alan Johnson, supported by Phillip Norton and Vernon Bogdanor respectively. The latter’s one joke [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 24 September 2009
No, not that one, the Federal Policy Committee. That bit of the Liberal Democrats’ democratic constitution that turns front bench aspiration into party policy.
I’m not sure that Vince’s mansions tax is the right way to go. It’s one thing to seek to distinguish yourselves from the Tories with bold policies under the heading of “fair [...]
Posted by Warwick Smith on 10 September 2009
Good food, wine and discussion on Thursday evening when we launched the research done with ComRes into the views of in-house practitioners and MPs on the best way to use the party conferences.
Some fascinating stuff came out. No surprise that there’s a noticeable shift of resources to the Tories. Perhaps more surprising that 85% of [...]