Author Archives: Jim Forrest

When they ran special trains for us

By Jim Forrest | Tue 9th December 2025 - 1:00 pm

Embed from Getty Images
(Editor’s note: The above photo merely gives a flavour of the 1906 election and is unrelated to the specifics of the article below.)

It’s a torn and faded paper poster in a nondescript frame; no illustrations, just 30 or so lines of red-printed text in a wide range of sizes. But it’s a strong contender for the treasured item I would rush to save from a fire.

“We are seven!” it begins. Then in huge type, “Great Liberal DEMONSTRATION” followed by the much smaller but far more interesting line: “To celebrate the return of a Liberal MP for every constituency within the county of Northamptonshire.”

The date for the MASS MEETING in the Corn Exchange, Northampton is June 6, 1906, a few months after the historic General Election which saw Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberals win 397 seats.

Posted in Liberal History | Tagged henry campbell-bannerman | 4 Comments

Opinion: Have we forgotten the basics of community politics?

By Jim Forrest | Thu 13th November 2014 - 2:55 pm

Do we still do community politics? “Of course we do,” all Lib Dems will say, particularly after press comments on Lorely Burt’s “dog poo” speech at a conference fringe meeting. But I’m not so sure.

A while back when I advised residents to use the local Text the Council number to report flytipping etc, my colleague, a hard working ex-councillor was horrified. ‘Don’t do that,” he told me, “get them to text you so that we get the credit for reporting it.”

And of course we do that all the time and it earns us votes.

But wasn’t part of the point of community politics, as set out in the 1970s by the ALC and the Young Liberals, to create an empowered citizenry, to help residents to take responsibility for their neighbourhoods and hopefully absorb Liberal values in doing so?