I remember the feeling of despair.  It was the early hours of Friday, 7th May 2010.  Our team had failed to gain Ashfield by 192 votes.  That’s 192 votes out of nearly 50,000.  How annoying is that!  I looked at our exhausted team and vowed to finish the job.  A team who had worked their socks off and given their hearts, souls and just about everything else over an exhausting, yet strangely exhilarating campaign.

Everyone said we couldn’t do it.  I suppose they were right – we didn’t.  Starting the campaign nearly 15,000 behind and in 3rd place it was always going to be tall order.  A 19.5% swing was an incredible achievement though.  It was difficult to see at the time, but this was the moment our job really started…

Now – everything has changed.  We dusted ourselves down and carried on.  This time, the goalposts have changed and our work rate has gone through the roof.  We have been the fastest growing Lib Dem team in Britain 2 years on the trot.  We have canvassed like mad – we have had tens of thousands of conversations over the last few years and taken David Penhaligon’s mantra to the extreme.  We have delivered literally hundreds of thousands of leaflets across Ashfield and Eastwood and that’s just since the start of the year.

We have told our great news stories from Government. Let’s not pretend that being in Government has been easy.  It’s not been but we have so much to tell…

So what stories have we repeated on the doorstep?  Well, we remind pensioners that they have seen the biggest rise in their income since pensions began.  What about young people?  Here in Ashfield, just like everybody knows someone who is a member of the Liberal Democrats – everybody knows an apprentice.  Since 2010 – we have seen over 5000 new apprentices.  The highest in the East Midlands.  The Liberal Democrats, in Government have mobilised an army of young people round here.  A tribute to the work of Vince Cable and his team.

In 2010, we campaigned in Ashfield and Eastwood as the party of fairer tax.  In 2015 – we can campaign as the party who have delivered fairer tax.  Fairer tax to the 50,000 people in my Constituency who have had a big tax cut.  Fairer tax for the 7000 people who have been taken out of tax altogether round here.  These are the stories we tell and more.  Free school meals for infants, a stronger NHS which treats mental health seriously for the first time, a pupil premium that has delivered over £10,000,000 to Ashfield and Eastwood alone and much, much more.  We have taken our record in Government and told everyone.  After all that’s our job!

We continue to hit the doors and that’s where you can help us.  We have an Action Day – ‘Operation Eastwood’ this Saturday, followed by our ‘Love Pizza, Love Politic’s Night’.  Eastwood is the birthplace of novelist DH Lawrence.  Our novel idea is spend Valentine’s Day in a town that brought ‘Sons and Lovers’ and ‘The Rainbow’ to the masses.  DH Lawrence was an author who was persecuted and wholly misrepresented. Sound familiar?

To get involved or to find out how to get involved in our campaign either this Saturday or during the General Election Campaign.  Please email [email protected] or call Dave Hennigan on 07916 910 653 for more details.

We can accommodate, feed you and even run on the job training in canvassing, messaging and campaigning.  You can come and help us and we’ll help you!

The Action Day is this Saturday, Feb 14th starting at 10am at Pheonix Cue Sports, 24 Mansfield Road, Eastwood, Nottingham NG16 3AQ.

“Love Pizza, Love Politics” starts at 8pm at the same venue.

* Jason Zadrozny is the PPC for Ashfield and Eastwood