Anders Hanson

Pay attention all political anoraks who also write Focus leaflets, because here’s an exciting posting on fonts. That particularly includes you Duncan Borrowman and Ed Maxfield (sorry, private joke).

It turns out that Paul Mijksenaar, the person who designed the signage at the airports in Amsterdam, Athens and Frankfurt, has Gill Sans Serif as his font of choice.

Gill Sans also happens to be the standard font used by Lib Dem campaigners for their Focus leaflets (many are written in other fonts of course, but it is the one that party training usually recommends).

What I hadn’t realised is how much the font is used when I have only ever heard of it in the context of the Liberal Democrats. According to the Wikipedia article on Gill Sans (who spends their time writing these things? Mind you, who apart from me reads them?) it is also the original font used by Penguin Books, as well as being used by Fox News, the band Bloc Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain. Given that fonts are usually a key part of the brand and image of a company or organisation, I’d be intrigued to know what the similarities are between the ones I have just mentioned and the Liberal Democrats.

For anyone who cares and who doesn’t know, and more importantly hasn’t fallen asleep by this point, the font of choice for headlines in Lib Dem Focus leaflets is usually Democrat Sans. I understand this was created specifically for the Liberal Democrats and so there probably isn’t much to say about it.

Of all the ideas that have been put forward recently as potential government policy, the idea of a Britishness Day and an ‘oath of allegiance’ is one of the most ridiculous.

I have an allegiance to my country (both the UK as the country in which I grew up and where one half of my family is from, and Sweden as that is where I was born and where the other half of my family is from). I have an allegiance to my family and friends. I also have an allegiance to the community I live in. But what I don’t have is an allegiance to the Queen. She may be perfectly pleasant, hardworking and a good figurehead for the country. But that is exactly what she is - a figurehead. I am not a republican but I feel no more loyalty to her than I do to anyone else that I don’t know.

I am also unhappy with this plan because it is purely and simply a gimmick. You do not make people more loyal or committed to a country by making them swear an oath. If someone does not feel loyalty or wants to actively undermine it then I doubt they will be put off by having to go through the motions of swearing their allegiance.

Thirdly, the whole idea for the oath of allegiance and the Britishness Day is incredibly artificial. It would be fine if it had come out of years of history, but it hasn’t. I have said before that I am all for celebrating the country we come from, but it would all be so much better if it was spontaneous or rooted in tradition. Allegiance to Britain is a gut instinct and about the various traditions of our country that have steadily built up over the years, and not some political gimmick thought up by a political party policy group.

After the week that the Liberal Democrats have just had it probably wasn’t the best time to have a conference. But actually the mood at conference was very good.

It seeed to be that regardless of what side of the argument people were on, they just seem determined to put a difficult week behind them and look forward to the local elections in May. One MP I spoke to last night, who was one of the rebels in the Lisbon Treaty referendum vote, also seemed pretty chipper and as they knew that the issue was an incredibly difficult one to handle they had no gripe about Nick himself. It was also definitely noticeable how many people I know that have elections in May were fairly confident in them doing well at the ballot box.

The most notable thing for me is the number of people who have come up to me all weekend and said, “Life must have changed a lot for you now that Nick Clegg is leader”. To which the answer is always “Not at all. Nick is still the MP for Sheffield Hallam and although he has extra responsibilities as leader, life in the constituency carries on as normal and we carry on campaigning as normal.” It’s interesting how even people who are long-standing activists seem to imagine that Nick’s campaigning in the constituency is somehow different now.

So to Nick’s big moment - his first conference speech as leader. It went very well and he really made it very clear the style that he wants to adopt as leader and the sorts of things that the Liberal Democrats should be championing. I was also pleased with two bits that I was surprised he mentioned - ruling out going in to government with both Labour and the Conservatives, and also using any savings in government to cut the taxes of the least well off. The speech was clear, interesting, gives a lot of promise of great things to come, and he even managed to do well one of the things that he has not always been good at - ad libbing. I knew he had done well, but it was the reaction from other people that made feel particularly chuffed as they were all along the lines of “the boy’s done good” and “that was a speech from a real leader”. I felt good coming out of the conference hall, but I was even more pleased with it after the feedback.

Ever since Nick Clegg has been leader I have also had butterflies every time I know that he has a big moment where he really has to perfom well. I got it at Prime Minister’s Questions. I got it today. But hopefully like has happened with PMQs his excellent performances will stop me getting so nervous.

Until this weekend I’d never been to Liverpool before. Actually, that isn’t strictly true. I did come here as a small child with my parents to go to the International Garden Festival. But that was a long time ago and we didn’t see anything of the city itself.

But having now been to Liverpool this weekend I am pretty impressed by the place. In some cities, the people who live there know they are on the up and are confident in their success, and develop a kind of arrogant swagger about their home town. Liverpool isn’t like that. They know it doesn’t have a great reputation but they are also determined to change people’s minds. What Liverpool has is the feel of being an important commercial city, a bit like Leeds and Manchester, but it is also a bit more down to earth and rough around the edges than them, and so in that sense is a bit like Sheffield. I suppose it’s those two things combined that makes me like the place.

I spent Friday afternoon and today doing some sightseeing around the city. Although I went to the fairly obvious choice of Tate Liverpool, I also went to Williamson’s Tunnels which I had heard about and was intrigued to see. They were both interesting in very different ways and I am glad I went. But I also spent a lot of time just looking around the place to get a feel for what it is like. The thing that struck me more than anything was the impresive architecture, but also how much redevelopment is going on.

I knew that Liverpool was being turned around, but you don’t appreciate the scale of it until you go there. At the Liberal Democrat Conference, Councillors Warren Bradley and Mike Storey have made a big thing about how the Liberal Democrats have turned the city around and if it wasn’t for them then the city would not be undergoing the huge renaissance that it is. Well I believe them. The city is certainly improving a lot, and from the press I have read (so not just Lib Dem spin) a lot of it is down to the Lib Dems taking control of the city. I know they have had a lot of problems too, particularly in relation to being the European Capital of Culture, but I can honestly say they seem to be doing an excellent job. With so much building still in progress it does detract a bit from the image at the moment, but I am sure when it is all done it will be great. And loads of people I have spoken to this weekend have said the same.

The Lib Dems in Liverpool have done an excellent job of selling their city to the conference delegates. They said to people at conference that they wanted people to go away after this weekend impressed, and then to come back. Well Liverpool has impressed me and I will definitely be back, and I hope Lib Dem Conference will be too.

NOTE AT 21:24
Seems like I was far less original than I thought when I came up with the title for this posting.  If lots of people said it then maybe they all heard it from me.  Not much of a brag though as it isn’t exactly roll on the floor laughing material.

The developers of Sheffield’s New Retail Quarter, now renamed ‘Sevenstone‘, have unveiled their designs for the new shopping centre that will take in all of the land between Pinstone Street, Barker’s Pool, Division Street, Rockingham Street and Furnival Gate.   There is an exhibition that only lasts until Saturday (anyone would think they didn’t want people’s opinions) but there are also pictures on The Star’s website.

For what it’s worth I think most of the design is quite exciting and it is great if we can have a really impressive and architecturally daring shopping centre in the middle of the city.  Sevenstone (terrible name but I suppose we will have to live with it) will also hopefully be a great counterbalance to Meadowhall and will make sure that the city centre has a much better range of shops and attracts more of the national chains as well as local one-off stores.  This will mean that the city centre, that has improved immeasurably over the last few years, will be able to stand on its own two feet in competition with Meadowhall and other surrounding cities.

Although many people in Sheffield will disagree with the design, what it doesn’t seem to be is yet another bland and boring building like some of the recent developments in the middle of the city.  I don’t mind having unusual and controversial buildings because, although some won’t stand the test of time, we should in the long-run end up with an interesting and attractive cityscape.  Unfortunately what we seem to have had lately is some pretty cheap and nasty looking architecture that is also pretty bland.  The worst in my view is 1 St. Paul’s Place which is unattractive and bland and yet stands in a very high-profile location.

What worries me about Sevenstone is what we are losing in the process.  Although I won’t shed a tear when we lose buildings such as the current John Lewis, Kingdom nightclub and the Central Fire Station, it is appalling that we will lose buildings such as the old Bethel Sunday School on Cambridge Street and the pepper pot building on Pinstone Street.  Not only are they of architectural importance but they are also of historical significance too.  Sheffield is not renowned for its great architecture and a combination of bad planning decisions and the Second World War has reduced Sheffield’s collection of interesting older buildings down to a handful.  So I don’t want us to lose yet more.

I also don’t accept the argument that we have to be prepared to lose these buildings for the greater good.  I firmly believe that if you go to a reputable developer and say that they can do what they like but they have to protect certain buildings they will see it as a challenge and come back with something that not only retains the buildings but is perhaps even more interesting and exciting.