World’s first Liberal podcaster

So who is the world’s first Liberal podcaster?

It’s possible to make a case for Gladstone with his 1888 recording on a wax cylinder for Thomas Edison (and you can understand from this extract of the Gladstone recording on the Liberal Democrat History Group website just how resonant and impressive his voice must have been). However this wasn’t particularly political in intent.

I think there’s a better case for Asquith and Lloyd-George who produced records for HMV in 1909 backing the controversial ‘People’s Budget’ – and are amongst the first politicians in the world to use mechanical reproduction of their voice in order to spread their message more widely – a closer analogy to the practice of podcasting.

It appears that Asquith was recorded on July 20, 1909 (listen to an extract of Asquith’s speech here) and Lloyd-George on July 23, 1909 (listen to an extract of Lloyd George’s speech here) – so Asquith has it by three days.

Reassuring to know that the current review of how we can use the latest technology to strengthen our campaigning versus the other parties is following in a proud Liberal tradition. 🙂

Petition calling for Charles Clarke’s resignation

Rob Fenwick, together with Mark Pack and yours truly, has just put up a petition calling for Charles Clarke’s resignation on the front page of the federal site. Rob did the design and graphics. I did the ‘petition engine’ (of which more at a later date) and most of the buttons. Mark drove the project overall, sorted out the fundraising and did the rest of the buttons.

Lost - 1,023 prisoners - Charles Clarke must go - link to Lib Dem petition site

Nick Clegg has written a short piece which not only lays out why Clarke should go, but also points out how this fiasco illustrates the hollowness of Labour’s sanctimonious rhetoric on crime.

At a time when more and more of UK government is being driven by central mandate rather than local democracy, it’s essential that those making the mandates are held personally to account. These are, after all, people who believe so strongly in their own personal judgement and abilities that they believe that they should be able to unilaterally change the law without a vote in parliament.

If losing 1,023 prisoners isn’t a resigning issue, then what is?

Old chums connection?

Stephen Tall wonders why the BBC continue to retain Frank Luntz over at ‘A Liberal Goes A Long Way’.

I wonder if he’s seen the earlier comments on the ‘David Davis for leader’ blog?

BBC management probably like Luntz because he makes entertaining TV and he predicted the Cameron victory – although several commentators have made the case that the causality actually went the other way and that his Newsnight Focus Group made a major contribution to the Cameron victory (discussed at length in this thread on politicalbetting.com).

However, anyone who’s spent any time in marketing or market research knows how easy it is to ‘throw’ qualitative research, how easy it is to bias research group stimulus, and, particularly, how easy it to selectively edit the results, particularly if you’re looking for people to endorse your product (or politician).

A couple of minutes’ research shows pretty clear evidence from the US is that Frank Luntz has a strong link to the Bush administration and the conservative right as well – this PBS interview is particularly illuminating. There’s also evidence that he has misled media companies about those links. In light of this, I’m surprised that the BBC continue to use him as an ‘independent pollster’ rather than as a ‘conservative pollster and commentator’. Perhaps entertaining TV provides enough justification to throw any attempt at neutrality out of the window.

Perhaps we should get Media Matters for America – who wrote to MSNBC to complain about their use of Frank Luntz in 2004 – to write to the BBC in 2006?