Never Mind The Bar Charts

There was a weird role reversal at the heart of the Liberal Democrat decisions over tuition fees in 2010, as Chris Butler's academic research reveals. So I invited him on Never Mind The Bar Charts to discuss what he has found, the lessons for the Liberal Democrats and the implications more generally about what makes for successful political parties.

• Chris Butler's research: When are governing parties more likely to respond to public opinion? The strange case of the Liberal Democrats and tuition fees.
• David Laws's book on the coalition negotiations.
• The front page of the 2010 general election manifesto.
• Ryan Coetzee's controversial take on the 2015 general election, and my take on his take along with my second take on his take.
• How to get right thinking about who might vote for you: a core vote strategy.
• Nick Clegg's tuition fees apology - including the musical remix.
• Chris Butler on Twitter.
• Music by Hugo Lee.
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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. Such contact tracing is essential to tackling coronavirus, but how can it be done best? Listen to find out...

Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it.

• How Australia is legislating for a contact tracing app in ways that protect people's rights.
• The German approach to protecting civil liberties while tracking people to tackle coronavirus.
• Problems with the British approach.
• Join the Open Rights Group.
• Jim Killock on Twitter.
• Photo credit: Rieo from Pixabay.

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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 with others who you think may enjoy it.

• Tim Bale's previous appearance, talking about how you can persuade someone to join a political party.
• Tim Bale's excellent, re-arrangeable book on Ed Miliband.
• Recovering Power: The Conservatives in Opposition Since 1867: the book from which the list five things opposition parties must do came: Amazon / Waterstones.
• The Liberal Democrat election review.
• Tim Harford on how to avoid making mistakes.
• Turning Japanese: the excellent book that didn't foretell the future.
• That Norman Lamont photo (with a young David Cameron in the background).
• The Politics of Competence by Will Jennings and Jane Green: Amazon / Waterstones.
• Will Jennings on Twitter.
• Jane Green on Twitter.
• Tim Bale on Twitter.

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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 therefore gives a rather different take on the world from mine.

Different enough to be thought-provoking and a guard against insular thinking without being so different as to cause me to hit stop in disgust.

And the reason for picking this particular episode that they’ve kindly let me re-run here?

Well, in it they talk about my book, Bad News. See what some non-Lib Dems make of it and enjoy listening, including hearing – if you listen right to the end, their cracking theme tune by Dave Depper.

Hope you enjoy their show and do subscribe to their podcast too.

Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it.

• Terry Pratchett's footnotes were glorious.
• The Not Enough Champagne podcast.
• The Not Enough Champagne team on Twitter: @paperbackrioter and @acousticradical.
• Bad News: what the headlines don't tell us.

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Professor Kate Dommett is one of the UK’s absolute top rank experts on political campaigning, data and the internet. So who better to have back on Never Mind The Bar Charts to talk about how parties use data and what the next general election might bring?

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• Data-Driven Campaigning and Political Parties: Five Advanced Democracies Compared by Katharine Dommett, Glenn Kefford and Simon Kruschinski: available from Amazon, Waterstones and independent bookshops.*
• My previous scepticism about the impact of Cambridge Analytica.
• Using a Personality-Profiling Algorithm to Investigate Political Microtargeting: Assessing the Persuasion Effects of Personality-Tailored Ads on Social Media: an academic study showing how targeting people by personality type could work.
• The small effects of political advertising are small regardless of context, message, sender, or receiver: Evidence from 59 real-time randomized experiments: the limited impact of online advertising.
• Podcast with Florian Foos on the effects of different campaign tactics.
• Eitan Hersh on what data US campaigners really use.
• Ground Wars – Personalized Communications in Political Campaigns by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: or what canvassers really do when they are on the doorstep.
• Ground Wars – Personalized Communications in Political Campaigns by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
• Kate Dommett's previous appearance on this podcast: What really happens at the grassroots when political parties push new ways of campaigning?
• One of my early experiments with using Zoom for politics and how Pokémon GO was used by some Lib Dems.
• Kate Dommett and John Curtice talks for the Political Studies Association.
• Kate Dommett on X/Twitter.
• Theme tune by Hugo Lee.
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