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Sam Bowman: Liberal Voice of the Year

By Editor
January 14th, 2013 at 12:38 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Uncategorized

Congratulations to Sam Bowman, Policy Director of the  Adam Smith Institute, for winning Lib Dem Voice “Liberal Voice of the Year” award.

 

Sam was the clear winner taking 52% of the vote, indeed Sam was the clear winner through out every round of the voting (see here) receiving nearly 50% from the off.

The top 3 were

1. Sam Bowman (52%)

2. Malala Yousafzai (28%)

3. Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (20%)

Congratulations to all three. But special congrats to Sam. A very worthy winner who has been positively prolific across 2012, speaking out for liberty across so many areas:  immigration, same sex marriage, legalisation of drugs,  the surveillance state, minimum alcohol pricing, and much more. Sound on every occasion.

Sam follows in the footsteps of Mark Littlewood (formerly of this parish), Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Liberal Voice of the Year winner 2012.

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Mark Littlewood: Liberal Voice of the Year

By Angela Harbutt
January 15th, 2012 at 5:31 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Uncategorized

Congratulations to Mark Littlewood, formerly of this parish, for winning LDV’s Liberal Voice of the Year.

As we posted hear a couple of days ago, we thought Mark was a deserving candidate – but even we were somewhat surprised by the decisiveness of the vote.

Mark Littlewood 32%

The Occupy Movement 13%

Ken Clarke 13%

Mohamed Bouazizi 11%

Nick Davies and the Guardian 10%

Ai Weiwei 8%

Hugh Grant and the Hacked Off Campaign 6%

Hilary Rodham Clinton 4%

Barack Obama 3%

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Liberal Vision votes in LDV’s “Liberal Voice of the Year poll”

By Editor

 

Much has been said on the subject of  LDV’s “Liberal Voice of Year Poll”. Having read a good number of thoughts, on a range of blogs and posts, about who people think should (or shouldn’t) get the vote… we thought we might lob our two-penneth in.

It probably won’t surprise you to discover that we think it should be Mark Littlewood, founder of and former contributor to this very blog.

Why? Curiously NOT because he has easily been the most effective “free market freedom fighter” of the past year. That should perhaps count… but we think there are other reasons…

First off, as many of you know (and some may have forgotten) Mark is a true liberal. Not only has he done his turn working for Liberty, Mark co-founded, and was chief spokesman for, NO2ID for quite a stint. It is easy to forget that without the simply brilliant and relentless work of NO2ID (hats off here to Phil Booth and Guy Herbert as well) we would almost certainly have seen ID cards being rolled out by now. That alone should earn him some form of recognition.

And whilst on the subject of noble causes let us not forget his stint as chief spin doctor for the party. Not many people will know the extent to which he totally modernised the Lib Dem press office – recruiting and promoting some of the brightest and the best in the business (several of whom are still doing their bit for the party in government today), changing structures and practices that made party’s press operation one the best in the business.

But perhaps the real reason why we here at Liberal Vision think that he deserves to win is that he has, almost single-handedly, championed the cause of personal freedom. He has taken on ministers over regressive plans to introduce minimum pricing on alcohol; tackled lobbyists over the crippling smoking ban; called for the legalisation of drugs. He has demanded time and time again that adults should be treated as adults and not patronised; not spoken down to; not dismissed by those in power. He has been THE VOICE for all those people out there who believe that Government meddling, nannying or nudging is insane, frequently counter-productive and too often unfair – but have no opportunity to say so. He speaks for millions.

Of course we should not overlook his credentials as the “free market freedom fighter” – a term that truly reflects both the passion he has for the subject and the sheer amount of work he does (when is he NOT on the media somewhere or other?). He was without any shadow of any doubt THE free market Voice of 2011. We understand that not everyone shares his views. But what people can not deny is his willingness to engage in the intellectual argument surrounding economic liberalism.

Whilst here at LV, Mark was always insistent that whenever we ran into people who disagreed with our views, the only way to tackle it was to engage and discuss. Those of you that follow him on twitter today will know that he pursues that philosophy to this day. Liberal Democrats have always valued discussion and debate more than any other party. It is one of the things that distinguishes us from the other parties. And Mark must be one of the exemplary figures in doing just that. Yet another damn fine reason why he deserves the title of Liberal Voice of the Year.

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