Tag Archives: #newmembersday

#NewMembersDay New member Anna out on the Tower Hamlets campaign trail already – and how you can help

By Elaine Bagshaw | Wed 13th May 2015 - 1:25 pm

The #libdemfightback has been incredible since last Thursday. As well as being astounded at over 100 people joining Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats in less than a week, we’ve been straight back out on the doorsteps talking to people as part of my campaign to become Mayor on 11 June. We’re finding that we’re getting a great reception, as Thursday’s result has driven people to realise that we share so many of our core values. Our new members are joining us at each event as well – full of enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas that will help reinvigorate our party. The photo shows us out with new member Anna Ovsyanikova, who is holding the clipboard.

Tower Hamlets has always been a borough full of contradictions. We live in the shadows of the City and Canary Wharf yet we have the second highest unemployment rate in London and 49% of our children are living in poverty. With a Tory government now in power preparing to slash the pupil premium that brought over £70 million to our local schools and further cuts to welfare, it’s even more important that new ideas and liberal values are at the heart of our Town Hall.

#NewMembersDay: Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #1

By Phoebe Demster | Wed 13th May 2015 - 11:25 am

My first few elections were easy – I knew I liked the LibDems, and they were the only ones who stood a chance of beating the Tories in my hometown. A no-brainer, you might say.

It wasn’t until I moved to Scotland that I had to wrestle with tactical voting. SNP v Labour, and not a LibDem in sight. I talked it over with my partner at the time, and we both decided to vote LibDem regardless. But lo, suddenly I found myself in the polling booth, ticking a Labour box in a moment of blind, tactical terror. It is the only time I have voted out of fear rather than hope. I regretted it almost immediately. Turned out my partner had done the same.

I made a resolve never to vote tactically again and so, when the Holyrood elections rolled round a year later, I voted LibDem (to little avail).

To little avail, did I say? It’s true that my vote did not count for much, and I knew in advance that it would not. My previous Labour vote had “made a difference”, by which I mean it had picked a person and policies I disliked over those I disliked even more. My Labour vote mattered in Westminster. But it also made me feel sadder, smaller, a little more cynical.