The Lib Dem Witney by-election HQ was abuzz with activity when I visited to help today. I was astonished by the busy team all set to work so early in the campaign. It was great weather for delivering leaflets. I enjoyed doing my very large bundle in Carterton, with the sound of the aircraft at Brize Norton in the background.
Party President Sal Brinton was there today, and as you can see above, I arrived at an opportune moment for a photo with Sal, busy candidate Liz Leffman and our Bichon Frise Charlie, now into his ninth year of Focus delivery.
This weekend’s A3 leaflet draws attention to local cuts to the NHS by the Conservatives, while Labour are “too busy fighting amongst themselves”. It points out Liz Leffman’s impeccable local credentials and how she was part of the team that fought to save Chipping Norton hospital.
Please help Liz’s Witney campaign as you can. Details of how to do so are here. If you can get to Witney tomorrow, the details of where to go are here.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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9 Comments
Playing the cute puppy card, I see, Mr Walter. Charlie is gorgeous!
Well done on being the first LDV team member to make it to Witney!
I’ll be there on Monday.
I canvassed for Liz for 3 hours in the sunshine in Woodstock today with North Wilts candidate Dr Brian Mathew. Lots of support and many frustrated former Tories and Labour voters moving our way. Meanwhile Chippenham Local Party Chair Neville Farmer joined our Party President in sorting dozens of walks for delivery. Over 100 people turned up to help Liz today! She’s a terrific candidate! It is a great start and was a very enjoyable trip with Brian and Neville. We’ll be back again in the week and many more times before Polling Day.
Liz Leffman is a great candidate for this by-election and I am glad to see strong early support for her. We have won parliamentary by-elections before when we have been at 8% in the polls and doubled our share in national polls subsequently (Eastbourne 1990 and Ribble Valley 1991) and such successes have always been the route to recovery for our party after periods of disappointment. With many party members, I was as the funeral in Liverpool on Friday for Sir Trevor Jones (aka ‘Jones the Vote’) and he inspired the Liberal revival of the 1970s when he masterminded the Sutton & Cheam by-election won by Graham Tope in 1972 (coming from third place). Michael Meadowcroft wrote a good obituary of Trevor in yesterday’s Guardian and this should help to inspire people to support Liz and her team in Witney: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/21/sir-trevor-jones-obituary?CMP=share_btn_tw
I can’t help with campaigning so I made a small donation to the Witney campaign. Yesterday evening I was very surprised to get a phone call from Liz Leffman herself to thank me because she believes people should be thanked. What a remarkable candidate we have!
Thanks for coming to help Paul, and I’m sorry I managed to miss you, it was pretty hectic!
Thanks also to Gavin and his team for providing some very useful feedback from their canvassing yesterday and to Sue and everyone else who has donated.
Good to see Charlie hard at work Will try to get my hound put on the campaign trail. Charlie is definitely not Camrron’s poodle!
I was there! My first time doing anything like this too. Was a good experience I am happy to report thanks to the veterans who looked after me.
Tip to other first timers, use comfortable shoes; I still have blisters. Good luck to Liz and I will try to get back some more.
It was a good day yesterday. Delivering in Witney in the late afternoon/early evening was in fact a pleasure. We need everyone who can manage it to get out there as often as they can. As Chris says, the Conservatives will flood the constituency with money, so we have to flood it with people. There is no other way to raise our profile that would be anything like as effective as doing well in Witney.
Remember, its the seat of the ex Tory leader who bet the house on a referendum and lost. It is clear he thought Nick would save him from having to deliver on his promise, but he stabbed Nick so effectively in the back that we weren’t there to say no when David Cameron needed us. Also Labour are so divided over Jeremy Corbyn we should beat them out of sight.
The one big problem is that we are so hollowed out after the disastrous coalition years that people may not believe we can do it. The first step is that we have to believe we can win. It will be tough, but if we don’t believe that, then we certainly won’t.
If I had any intentions of voting for your candidate they have now vanished due to the mountains of flyers that are delivered through my letterbox. I know I share the same feelings of my neighbours that putting three to four different flyers and leaflets through letterboxes each week is not only wasteful in manhours, but also damaging the environment too, not to mention very annoying! If you find wasting resources on this scale is okay then I am fearful of your policies if you were to find yourself elected, hence the loss of this households votes.