Tag Archives: campaign trail

Mark Valladares

Was an obscure set of elections in Mid Suffolk a pointer towards May?

By Mark Valladares | Fri 10th February 2023 - 3:32 pm

Welcome to Mid Suffolk, a historically Conservative, rural District in the East of England. Liberal Democrats had led a coalition administration until 2003 but, since then, it has been Conservative-led. By the way, don’t take Wikipedia too seriously when it suggests that it was in no overall control between 2005 and 2007 – the Independents around here generally aren’t.

Labour have, over the years, faded into insignificance, having disappeared from the council chamber in 2007 (apart from a lone councillor in Stowmarket North from 2011-15) and only ran eight candidates across the District in 2015. The Greens won their first seat in Mendlesham in 2003 and had slowly built up their strength through classic LibDem-style campaigning to become the official opposition by 2015, albeit with only five of the forty councillors, whilst the Liberal Democrats had fallen away to a clutch of long held wards.

It would be fair to say that the prospects for change in 2019 were not promising, despite boundary changes and a resultant reduction of the number of councillors from forty to thirty-four. Indeed, the political editor of the East Anglian Daily Times, Suffolk’s main newspaper, glossed over Mid Suffolk as being relatively uninteresting.

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John Grout

Opinion: On the campaign trail with Jenny Woods and Meri O’Connell in Reading

By John Grout | Fri 24th April 2015 - 10:25 am
Jenny Woods and Meri O'ConnellLast September, the Greater Reading party was gearing up to select its Prospective Parliamentary Candidates for the two seats in our area: Reading East and Reading West.  It was the fevered period just before the Scottish referendum, yet discussion about the looming General Election was increasing, including discussion of the number of women in Parliament and ongoing debate about women in the Liberal Democrats in the light of past events.

I was therefore delighted when Jenny Woods and Meri O’Connell were selected, enthusiastically and overwhelmingly, to stand for Reading East and Reading West.

Jenny is that rare thing in politics (less so in Lib Dem politics, it seems!) – a scientist, specialising in sustainability and policy making.  She joined the party in Reading in 2010 out of sheer frustration with how politics deals with science and funding.  She made her mark on the 2012 Spring Conference by proposing a policy amendment against the incipient Snooper’s Charter.  It was thanks to her that Julian Huppert and the rest of the party were able to take up the fight and kill it in Parliament; it is directly thanks to her efforts that the Snooper’s Charter and its cynical successor are not law.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrats campaign all year round – even in the snow

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 29th January 2015 - 10:09 pm

When I woke up to an icy white blanket in my garden this morning, my first thought was for all those Liberal Democrat campaigners who are out and about in the freezing cold risking life and limb to talk to voters and get our message across.

I will never be one of them. I am a total wuss where snow and ice are concerned.  Or, to be more accurate, a chionophobic. Ever since a fall on ice meant that I wasn’t able to walk for five months, I don’t do snow or ice if I can possibly avoid it.

My admiration for those who do go out in the horrible white stuff knows no bounds. I had presumed if we had snow in the central belt, that the North East would be under feet of the stuff, but both West Aberdeenshire and Gordon reported bak that they were enjoying beautiful weather. However, Christine had posted a photograph of some lethal looking local pavements last Saturday:

Dyce death trap pavements

South of the border, we find our own Joe Otten  out with a team in Sheffield. They looked very happy in their work:

Joe in Hallam Snow

 

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Caron Lindsay

What do you listen to while leafletting?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 17th January 2015 - 4:03 pm

Today Liberal Democrat campaigners will have been out doing what they do most weeks – getting out and about on the doorsteps or with the leaflets. By now, I expect they’ll be thawing out with a nice cup of tea.

Make sure, by the way, that you send us your pictures from the campaign trail as many of you trudge out in snowy conditions. Tweet them to @libdemvoice or email to [email protected].

Smartphone or iPod and headphones are as common a part of  leafletters’ attire these days as the cloth bag with the bird on it and the spatula to help negotiate stubborn letterboxes with dogs on the other side of them.

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Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments
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