Skip to main content

Early Morning

Arisen early in order to deliver Good Morning leaflets across the constituency. With a possible pause for a famed Lib Dem Bacon Roll around 11 (and a snooze in the late afternoon) I guess it will be solid all the way through until the count tonight.

I will be in the Aberdeen Conference Centre, which is also in the constituency, acting as a polling agent. So I hope to see, not merely the re-election of Malcolm Bruce and Sir Robert Smith, but also the election of many new Liberal Democrat MPs too.

It has been a long campaign- after all it really began when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister- Yet this may prove to be not the culmination of such a long period, but the beginning of a new era of British politics.

The Russians have an expression: "we hoped for the best, but it turned out like always". For the Liberal Democrats and the Liberals before that has been the story of successive elections. This time the campaign has been different: the success of Nick Clegg has done more than raise morale: it has reminded all the voters that they can- if they choose- make a profound difference.

I don't know the result, no one does, but I think that the Liberal Democrats are on course for the best election result for the Liberal interest in over 100 years. We should be proud of our campaign, proud of our principles, proud of our leaders.

Now, on polling day itself, we must play the mechanics of the electoral process: leaflets, knock-ups and the rest of it. I wish an enjoyable day to all participants, and the best of success to my Liberal Democrat colleagues.

Good Luck Dad!

Comments

HTea said…
I agree that this will be a historic election for the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg deserves all our thanks for that.
It is interesting to see what themes the media emphasised in the final days of the election campaign. One of them is seemingly about generations of voters and candidates. I think his popularity has a lot to do with his age and possibly generation. I quite liked this piece in the Independent the other day. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/jonathan-pontell-cleggs-rise-is-the-sound-of-generation-jones-clearing-its-throat-1961191.html) which addresses the leaders’ generations. The main point is that Clegg and Cameron are both part of the emerging generation between the Boomers and Xers: Generation Jones.
When you research Generation Jones, which I just did, you find that this concept/term has gained much traction in several countries. It looks like it is a regular part of national discussions, with widespread acceptance by experts and media. While it has gotten some media interest here, it hasn’t gotten nearly as much in this country. That’s unfortunate. This is the generation which will be running the show for the foreseeable future, and we Brits need to get a grasp of who Jonesers are and what makes them tick. I think one helpful starting point in this process is looking at this pretty good overview here: http://www.generationjones.org.uk/ . And then, I’d recommend doing a bit more research to fill in some of the detail. I believe this will be an increasingly discussed topic, and it makes sense to get in ahead of the curve.
Anonymous said…
Well.. not such a good day for the Liberal Democrats after all. Aside from Clegg having a roll as king maker, but that's more through the Tories not quite being successful enough than a LD breakthrough.

If only the Liberal Democrats would ditch the social democratic wing and they would be a party worth voting for.

I'm a staunch liberal but I'll never be a Liberal without reform. Viva the orange book brigade.

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo

Bournemouth absence

Although I had hoped to get down to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, simple pressure of work has now made that impossible. I must admit to great disappointment. The last conference before the General Election was always likely to show a few fireworks, and indeed the conference has attracted more headlines than any other over the past three years. Some of these headlines show a significant change of course in terms of economic policy. Scepticism about the size of government expenditure has given way to concern and now it is clear that reducing government expenditure will need to be the most urgent priority of the next government. So far it has been the Liberal Democrats that have made the running, and although the Conservatives are now belatedly recognising that cuts will be required they continue to fail to provide even the slightest detail as to what they think should guide their decisions in this area. This political cowardice means that we are expected to ch