Author Archives: Christopher Hudson

Bright eyed, bushy tailed and knowing almost nothing in 2017, being handed the keys to run a Local Party’s finances was a bewildering and exciting moment. I’m sure there are thousands of people who have had similar feelings.

There was always a mountain of things that needed to be done, matched by an enthusiasm to get going. As I moved through other roles, and went through elections, I picked up skills as I tried to work out what I should be doing and the best ways of doing it. While there were hugely experienced people around willing to teach what they knew, I realised quickly that there was no complete manual or guide. As people came and went from local politics, so too did the institutional knowledge they had nurtured.

So, I decided used my time in lockdown productively reading up, interviewing and collating best practice from different people who had done different roles across the country.

While there may have been quirks to Local Parties there were also many common problems and bright ideas. For me the big lessons from the process of writing Winning Here Winning There were:

1. Keeping a group of volunteers organised and motivated is no easy task
2. You can quickly get distracted and consumed by immediate issues
3. You need a long-term multi-election strategy to win
4. Working hard will not guarantee success, you also need to work smart
5. Local Party know-how is easily lost when people leave/retire
6. Coming up with reasons to logically vote Lib Dem is easy, creating an emotional argument is much more difficult
7. There’s so much more to being in a political party than delivering leaflets
8. Get a head start by learning the lessons of the past rather than replicating their mistakes

Having been a Local Party Chair, Treasurer, Agent, regional executive member, and campaigner in London, as well as helper at by-elections, I have witnessed the enthusiasm of campaigners keen for success, as well as the disappointment of wasted effort reinventing the wheel.