Author Archives: The Voice

Back in 2015 Lib Dem Voice had an interesting “conversation” with Dominic Raab, which we would like to share with you again.

The trigger for this was a post we published in February 2015 by Roisin Miller: Opinion: An MP who takes me for granted has left me feeling disenfranchised. In it she wrote:

Confession time. I’m a political activist and I’m not currently registered to vote. I have dropped off thanks to individual voter registration and I haven’t sought to redress it.

This is something which I find reprehensible, yet I am lacking the motivation to correct it.

I live in Esher and Walton which since 1906 has only ever returned a conservative MP. The lowest majority was in the 1930s, it was 16%. Dominic Raab got 58% of the vote in 2010, a majority of around 18,000.

I’ve written to Raab on a number of occasions and always got a reply. Often quite half hearted but it’s always come.

Do I feel represented? No. Regardless of party affiliation, he isn’t a particularly good MP. He was not really on local election literature, I’ve had nothing from him since I moved in 3 years ago and I’ve not once been canvassed.

Compare this to my parents in Havant, also a seat where the Conservative gets over 50% of the vote. David Willetts does not have to campaign as if his seat was marginal yet you always get an annual report, canvassing at local elections and a very heartfelt casework service (in fact I would go so far as to say the best of any MP I’ve come across, including worked for). Despite it being a safe seat, I was always compelled to vote, I felt it mattered.

Why the difference?

The answer is clear- it lies in the willing of local parties to engage with the electorate. Despite Havant being true blue Willetts clearly sees the importance of talking to his electorate.

It strikes me however that when someone as politically engaged as myself is left feeling disengaged by the state of my local politics, how must others feel? It comes as little surprise to me that many feel politicians don’t care when I know they do, yet at home I still feel like this.

The following day Dominic Raab added this comment below the post:

I have posted a full response to Roisin Miller’s post on my blog (for the record Liberal Democrat Voice declined to post it):

To which Mary Reid replied:

Dominic – Lib Dem Voice did not refuse to post it. You sent it to the personal email address of one of the editors instead of to the voice email address, so it was not picked up for a while.

As today’s editor I posted it a good 25 minutes before you placed your comment above.

So what was the full response that we received from him?  Here it is in full: Lib Dem Spin Doctor feels ‘Disenfranchised’.