Never Mind The Bar Charts

Welcome to a special re-run of a previous, but once again very relevant, edition of Never Mind The Bar Charts. It is from June 2019, which feels a long time ago now but the calendar says that was only 12 months ago. It was the time of the party’s last leadership election, and I did an interview with Tim Farron about his experience as leader of the Liberal Democrats. We focused on his advice for th...

Apologies if you got a truncated version of this episode first time around. The podcast host has been playing up a bit but you should now be able to hear the interview all the way through to the end. How must the Liberal Democrats change in order to win more often? Listen to me discuss this with Lisa Smart, chair of the party's Federal Communications and Elections Committee (FCEC). Feedback very w...

Welcome to another special edition of Never Mind The Bar Charts, this time my appearance on Democratically: 2020 with Karin Robinson . We talk about my book, Bad News, the US Presidential race and how election coverage is so often wrong. Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. Show notes Democratically: 2020 on Apple Podcasts . (It's also on all the...

What makes for a successful opposition party? How much of that success is down to the leader? How much does policymaking matter in opposition? Wnat question should be asked the Lib Dem leadership election hustings? These are just some of the topics I chewed over with opposition expert Professor Tim Bale in this episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts. Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast...

I teamed up with the Lib Dem Pod crew for another special joint episode, with John and Richard grilling me about what's going on in the party. Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. Show notes The Liberal Democrat election review . Follow Lib Dem Pod on Twitter . Get Lib Dem Pod on YouTube . Enjoy the show? Spread the word Follow the show on Twitte...

I often talk about opinion poll data with guests on Never Mind The Bar Charts, so this time to talk about what we can read into the polls – and what we shouldn’t – I was joined by a pollster, YouGov’s Chris Curtis. We started off with discussing what a pollster actually does all day... Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. Show notes One of those...

Donald Trump may not be the most obvious of role models for the Liberal Democrats. But there's a lot about effective communication the party can learn from him. After all, he won a national election, defying political establishments and seeing off unfriendly media along the way. So in this episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talk about him with Rob Blackie. I used to work with Rob at Lib Dem H...

Rather than a normal episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, this time I’m running an episode of the excellent Not Enough Champagne podcast, including an improbable comparison between me and Terry Pratchett . You might recall me mentioning Not Enough Champagne as one of my favourite podcasts. I like it so much despite – or rather because – it’s done by two Labour Party activists, Cory and Steve, and...

It's crucial that apps designed to help us battle coronavirus also protect our privacy as otherwise their take-up and so public health will suffer. That's the key point made by the Open Rights Group's Jim Killock in the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts as we discussed the potential risks to our civil liberties from the different attempts to track who people have been in contact with. Su...

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talked with Ben Johnson, a former Liberal Democrat councillor in Southwark with a PhD on the influenza virus from Public Health England and the University of Reading, and now working for Nature , one of the world’s most famous and respected scientific journals. Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy...

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talk with Duncan Brack, the closest thing the party has to an official historian, about the lessons for the Liberal Democrats from the last time that a Conservative government was defeated. A key part of that was cross-party cooperation so we dive into what then party leader Paddy Ashdown's plans were, what worked, what didn't work and what les...

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talk with Sunder Katwala from the British Future think tank. Along with discussing civil rights in the age of coronavirus and the impact on BAME communities, he raised the important issue of the human bias towards pessimism and its impact on our reactions to the coronavirus crisis. Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others wh...

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talked with the chief executive of Demos, Polly Mackenzie, about the impact of coronavirus on public policy. We got a bonus bit of background music courtesy of one of her children and a piano. As with the other shows since coronavirus, this one was recorded over video call so apologies for the occasional blip in sound quality. Feedback very wel...

In a special tie-up with the Lib Dem Podcast, I'm interviewed by Cllr John Potter about the decision to postpone the Liberal Democrat leadership election and whether or not the party's autumn federal conference should be cancelled. Show notes Leadership election postponed The Lib Dem Podcast: Twitter / Instagram / iTunes

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I speak with Professor Phil Cowley , one of Britain’s leading political scientists, co-author for several general elections of authoritative Nuffield study and someone who casts the net so widely in his research that I occasionally appear in his footnotes. Phil’s been on my list of possible guests for a while, but I particularly wanted to talk to...

Before the coronavirus crisis hit, I recorded a podcast with my published, Biteback Books, about my new book, Bad News . Listen to find out how you can make sense of the news all around us, the problem with news coverage on gun control, the (lack of a problem) with news echo chambers and filter bubbles , why I look back on my daily commute in years past with amazement and how I came to write Bad N...

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I welcomed back to the show academic Paula Surridge. We talked about what the British Election Study is and what its polling data from the 2019 general election shows, including its implications for the future for the Liberal Democrats. Show notes Paula Surridge on Twitter. Is politics still about left versus right? - the previous show with Paula...

In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talk with Councillor Anton Georgiou from Brent, who won a spectacular by-election victory in January and is now getting to enjoy being a councillor. What's it like? How did he win? And how can others emulate him? Listen to find out... Show notes Anton Georgiou's by-election victory . His tweets about being a councillor . The importance of point...

In this episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, the Liberal Democrat leader of Chelmsford Council, Stephen Robinson is interviewed about what Lib Dem council leader does, and how he got to be one in the first place. Show notes: The Chelmsford team were great at welcoming and making good use of volunteers who came to help . Read the then Conservative leader of Chelmsford Council explaining before pol...

Professor Tim Bale, one of the leading experts in political party membership, talks about who joins parties, why they join and how those who join the Liberal Democrats differ from those who join other parties. Plus he gives his top tips on how to persuade people to join a party. Show notes: Footsoldiers: political party membership in the 21st century . Why supporters don't always join parties . Th...

Welcome to the first episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts's second season, featuring for the first special guest former Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone. Show notes: Lynne Featherstone's book on legalising same-sex marriage . The Guardian story which chose to highlight a coffee shop in the headline rather than a library. Lynne Featherstone and a pothole . An example of the sort of local camp...

In the final episode of season one, Mark and Stephen pick over the general election result, another less important election result and the plans for Season 2 of Never Mind The Bar Charts. Find Never Mind The Bar Charts on social media Like the show? Do follow on Twitter or Facebook . It's a great way to hear more about the podcast - and to let your friends and colleagues know about it too.

Welcome to the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, taking a look at the key role for targeting in general elections, how the Lib Dem Brexit policy is going down with voters, some seats to watch out for on election night and a very large number of digressions. Show notes Reactions to Jo Swinson's interview with Andrew Neil. The BBC's fact check of that interview. Fiona Bruce's Question Tim...

In Episode #24, Stephen and Mark take a look at how the Liberal Democrat general election campaign is going so far. They used a blog post from Mark about the YouGov MRP results to structure their discussion, so here as the show notes is an updated version of that post: https://www.markpack.org.uk/160501/yougov-mrp-polling/ . Find Never Mind The Bar Charts on social media Like the show? Do follow o...

Welcome to the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, which takes a look at the general election and in particular the policy-heavy message the Liberal Democrats are pushing. Show notes The David Davis 'look, no notes' photo . One , two , three , four Lib Dem candidate problems. Not Enough Campagne podcast on the impact of candidate deals. A summary of the Liberal Democrat policies . The pro...