Lynne Featherstone

I’m on The Westminster Hour: Radio 4, 10pm, Sunday.

If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.libdems.org.uk/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

I’m back on The Westminster Hour this Sunday: Radio 4, 10pm.

If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

I’m back on The Westminster Hour this Sunday: Radio 4, 10pm.

If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

Morning and evening, I’m in the media tomorrow.

In the morning it’s the newspaper review on Sky for Sunday Live, from 10am.

Then in the evening, I’m back on The Westminster Hour: Radio 4, 10pm. If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.libdems.org.uk/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

Have just finished doing The Westminster Hour for Radio 4. Caught a small part of the interview with Tony Travers (LSE expert on London government etc) on the London Mayor elections – and liked this bit!

Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat who was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police, has actually fought an excellent campaign, probably the best of the three of the leading candidates.

Hear, hear! You can back Brian on Facebook or sign up for news from his campaign on the website.

I’m back on The Westminster Hour this Sunday: Radio 4, 10pm.

If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

That was one of the issues which came up when I appeared on The Westminster Hour with Conservative MP Ed Vaizey on Sunday night. The trigger for the discussion was last week’s publication of the annual British Social Attitudes survey.

Many of its finding were – to a liberal like myself – welcome: for example, far fewer people now think that homosexuality is wrong (down to around a third from a majority back in 1987), whilst the public service ethos amongst those working to provide the rest of us with public services seems to have strengthened.

But several reports singled out the question of the attitudes of other people towards the poorest in our society: “Hearts are hardening against those who have least” said the Economist, whilst the FT said, “there are signs that attitudes towards state aid for the needy have hardened significantly“.

It was a good thing I’d had a quick rumination over the details before the radio show, because the details seem to me to tell a different story. The key is that these conclusions were drawn from questions such as whether or not the government should spend more on the neediest – and comparing today’s answers with those from 1991, when we were still in the immediate wake of the Thatcher years.

So the change in people’s answers doesn’t really reflect changing attitudes towards those who are poorest per se; rather, it tells us about the difference between the government now and the government, both in policy and in public perception. For all Gordon Brown’s faults, he isn’t Mrs Thatcher – and also the huge splurge in government spending in many public services without matching improvements to show for it means people are, understandably, generally more sceptical about policy solutions which are simply about increasing public spending.

Changing circumstances – changing policy preferences, but without it meaning we’re becoming meaner under all that. Thank goodness!

I’m back on The Westminster Hour this Sunday: Radio 4, 10pm.

If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

This Sunday I’ll be appearing again on The Westminster Hour: Radio 4, 10pm.

If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again on their website.

If you want to get advanced notice of my media appearances like this one, you can use the media events service at Flock Together. You’ve got three choices:

1. Using this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LiberalDemocratsMediaAppearances, or
2. By email: register at FlockTogether and pick “Media appearances” as one of the categories of events you want to be emailed about. (If you are an existing Flock Together user you can also change your preferences – login and then click “Edit your preferences” in the left-hand menu; you need to tick “Media Appearances” under “Email options”), or
3. On the web: take a look at the dedicated Flock Together page.

Bumped into Carolyn Quinn of Westminster Hour fame – and she told me the brilliant news. At a ceremony in London held by the Political Studies Association, The Westminster Hour won an award for being Political Programme of the Year. The Political Studies Association is the professional body for the nation’s political scientists.

I congratulated her effusively – and she kindly pointed out that I was part of the program. I guess – in a ten minute panel way – that’s true. Anyway – I am jolly pleased for them!

PS And I’m on the show again this Sunday: from 10pm, Radio 4. Or if you miss the show you can listen again on their website.