Tag Archives: summer of by-elections 2023

As a Liberal Democrat, possibly the most fun you can have, apart from Federal Conference, is going and helping at a by-election. And there’s plenty to choose from this mad Summer. Somerton and Frome, Mid Bedfordshire (when Nadine eventually gets round to resigning), Uxbridge and South Ruislip and Selby and Ainsty  are all due to happen soon.

There is something very pleasurable about going to a different part of the country and meeting other Lib Dems round every street corner.

I have been to a fair few in my time. And getting in there early is particularly key. Not just because it helps establish the party as the key challenger, but because the team is just getting together and it’s just fun to be around all that.

In 1995, my husband and I decided to pop in at the Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election for a day or so at the start of what we thought might be a week touring the North West. Well, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we ended up staying the entire week there and going home exhausted but happy. We went back for another weekend later in the campaign and I returned for polling week. I met many people there who have been lifelong friends.

Then there was the Dunfermline by-election in the middle of Winter when having no leader and there being a difficult media story every five minutes didn’t seem to matter as Willie Rennie’s positivity won the day. That actually came 4 months after a by-election on my own patch after the sudden death of the much-missed Robin Cook. It’s a completely different experience when you suddenly have to arrange to accommodate all the hundreds of Lib Dems who flock to help you.

Most recently, my trip to Llandrindod Wells in 2019 to help Jane Dodds by car, plane, bus, train and boat (because of course I was going to get off the airport bus at Cardiff Bay,  visit Ianto’s Shrine and head into the city by boat)  led me to a wonderful new friend and got me a bargain in the process. I had been sent out to a gorgeous village in the pouring rain with Margaret:

Margaret told me that this was her first by-election. She joined the party shortly after arriving at Edinburgh University to study medicine sixty years ago. She saw a poster saying “What do Liberals believe?” and thought she might like to find out.

A young man was speaking at the meeting about how we should have more co-operation with our European friends and look after the environment. We are nothing if not consistent. Margaret liked the sound of that and signed up on the spot.

She hasn’t had the time to get involved in active politics but an email from James Lillis inviting her to go to Brecon came at just the right time and she has thrown herself into the by-election since Tuesday.

I only hope that my utterly crap navigation skills have not put her off for life.

She had intended to go home yesterday but stayed over to come to the Pint with Peers featuring Kate Parminter, Dorothy Thornhill and Chris Humphries.

You can read the rest of mine and Paul Walter’s Brecon diaries here.

The pandemic and Long Covid has put paid to my desires to go to the by-elections we have won since the 2019 General Election, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help. On Monday I hosted my first of the Maraphones of the Mid Bedfordshire campaign. Every session, there is a mission we need to complete to help the campaign and if you have never done by-election phoning before, don’t worry. There are lots of people in the Zoom room who can help.