It’s really, really close and this election looks like it could shape the general election. This is the time to take a stand and prove that Lib Dems can hold onto Lib Dem seats. We have good things to offer people, we have brought things to the coalition (think pupil premium and the £10,000 tax-threshold) and we have limited some of the more extreme conservative policies. But to get people to recognise this we have to get the word out and the way to do that is the way Lib Dems have always done it – in Focus leaflets and on the doorstep.
A win for Mike Thornton strengthens theLiberal Democrat voice in Government. We do not want to see a Conservative MP elected who has been critical of state education and who is against equal marriage.
There is cake (and its really really good homemade stuff). Lemon drizzle, coffee, banana bread, Victoria Sponge…..
There is nothing more invigorating or inspiring than working with other Lib Dem activists and remembering what it really means to belong to a democratic grass-roots based party like the Lib Dems. It makes you remember all the things we’ve always fought for, are still fighting for and will continue to fight for: issues like civil liberties, human rights and fairness.
So get down there! And if you can’t go, make calls and donate.
* Ruth Edmonds is a Liberal Democrat activist from the Derbyshire Dales. She has worked in Simon Hughes' office. She is about to go up to Brasenose College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Lord Bonkers' Diary: My new friends with the webbed back feet and scaly tails
Investment, investment, investment.
Definitely a Lib Dem conference!
Ed Davey tries to name all the Lib Dem MPs while on a roller coaster
Fraser's West End ward surgeries later today #dundeewestend
What's next?
Nigel Jones
Roland
Joe Bourke
Matt (Bristol)
6 Comments
There are at least nine good reasons here! And someone should tell leaders and past leaders to stand behind the candidate not in front! (I was going to go today but am stuck at home invalid-sitting. Sorry).
Tony Greaves
@ Tony Greaves
It is all too easy to get in the way, as you would know yourself from the way your remarks about Lord Rennard have been reported in the Daily Mail.
Good luck to Mike and his team – the westminster position can’t help, but I remember a certain Mr Rennnie pulling something off in Fife- in even worse times! When though we will stop making things so hard for our own?
Can someone explain to me (1) Why is a by-election being held in Eastleigh? (2) How much is this by-election costing? (3) Who is paying for the costs of this by-election? (4) Morally, who should be paying for the costs of this by-election?
(1) Because the sitting MP vacated the seat. (2) Don’t know or care. (3) Presumably, the state is paying for the administration of the election, and candidates/parties are paying for their campaigns. (4) The aforementioned arrangement seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Channel 4 News on “the UKIP surge” in Eastleigh:
One Lib Dem MP I spoke to who was campaigning in the seat said he thought that Ukip might knock the Tories into third place and that they were threatening the Lib Dems from the winner’s spot.
He thought on balance Ukip wouldn’t get quite that far, and as Michael Crick points out in tonight’s Channel 4 News, the Lib Dems should be indestructable here having got thousands of postal votes cast before the Lord Rennard saga got going.
http://blogs.channel4.com/gary-gibbon-on-politics/eastleigh-all-eyes-on-ukip-surge/22354
Also some harsh comments (though not inappropriately so) from an unnamed Lib Dem MP on the leadership’s handling of Rennard allegations.