Stephen Tall

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Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Oakeshott, Ashdown and Pack top your list

LDV asked: Which prominent Lib Dems who are NOT MPs (eg, peers, campaigners) are doing an effective job of promoting the party to the public? Please write-in.

Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott
Lord (Paddy) Ashdown
Mark Pack
Evan Harris
Baroness (Shirley) Williams
Lord (Chris) Rennard
Caroline Pidgeon AM
Willie Rennie MSP
Baroness (Susan) Kramer
Stephen Tall
Kirsty Williams AM
Lord (Tom) McNally
Baroness (Ros) Scott
Brian Paddick
Chris Davies MEP
Lord (Tony) Greaves

The list above is in descending order of effectiveness at promoting the party to the public as measured by our sample of Lib Dem members’ responses to this write-in question. Over half our 500 respondents replied, most with multiple suggestions. There were many more suggestions than made this list: I applied a cut-off threshold for inclusion of a minimum of five spontaneous mentions.

To give you an idea of the scale, Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott recorded more than 70 mentions, which means getting on for one-in-three party members who responded named him an effective Lib Dem advocate (albeit some said they didn’t always agree with him). What’s encouraging from the list is to see campaigners from across a broad range of the party: peers, MEPs, Scottish, Welsh and London leaders, and grassroots campaigners.

(Editor’s note: I’ve left my name in the list, but am well aware that as I’m the survey author that probably skewed responses — for the record, I certainly don’t believe I’m more effective than Kirsty Williams or the others!)

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

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