Paddy Ashdown can’t hurt me now

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 14th March 2015 - 8:40 pm

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Last night in his rally speech, Paddy Ashdown jokingly suggested that he might deliver a cruel and unusual punishment to anyone who didn’t do the 10 calls from the Team 2015 phone bank that was requested of every member over the Conference weekend.

In no way am I scared of Paddy and his humorous threats were not the main reason I headed down there this afternoon. Honest.

It was all very painless and great fun. You are greeted by cheery volunteers who sign you in and give you a mobile phone, a script and a list of calls to make. The biggest problem I had, typically for me, was that it took me ages to work out how to end the calls on the, shall we say, old fashioned models we were using. I was sitting next to Julian Huppert. He was calling voters in his Cambridge constituency. I was calling people for Stephen Williams in Bristol West. And here is the proof:

Lots of great people in the Campaign Zone at the moment including @caronmlindsay @julianhuppert @catherinemep #ldconf pic.twitter.com/QwHjwFhkxo

— Lib Dems Team 2015 (@LibDemsTeam2015) March 14, 2015

As for the response, everyone I spoke to was very friendly and the first person even said he’d take a poster for Stephen. He certainly has a very good reputation. The outs definitely had it, though.

Paul Walter had done his slot earlier in the day, and Joe Otten was there at the same time as I was so the Liberal Democrat Voice team has done its bit for the Conference Team 2015 effort.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

5 Comments

theakes 15th Mar '15 - 12:59pm

Ashdown may not be able to hurt you but he certainly appears to have hurt the party this morning with his comments about the party president. It is really time Ashdown gracefully retired. For some reason we keep seeing yesterdays men and women as spokespeople for the party. We should change the record and give the younger generation their head.
theakes 15th Mar '15 - 1:06pm

Quick correction, should of course be the previous party president!.
johnmc 15th Mar '15 - 1:17pm

Deservedly, he can’t get you Caron but equally deservedly he seems
to have done for Tim Farron! The latter really needs to go away and reflect.
The damage down to the party by coalition was, I feel, almost entirely self-inflicted.
If Tim really is the future, we’re in a worse hole than I realised.
A Social Liberal 15th Mar '15 - 8:00pm

Perhaps Tim didn’t make his 10 phone calls and this is how Paddy came after him?
Caron Lindsay 16th Mar '15 - 11:10pm

A Social Liberal: The idea that Tim didn’t do his fair share of campaigning is almost as bad as the Sarah Palin suggestion from the anonymous briefer:-).