Yesterday morning the Newbury Liberal Democrats launched their campaign HQ on Bartholomew Street. Lib Dem MEP Catherine Bearder declared the HQ open – that’s her with the candidate David Rendel below:
Bearder gave a short speech rallying the troops to support Rendel’s campaign. Very positive and upbeat, including some nice lines about the arrival of spring and the yellow of the oil seed rape in the fields indicating Lib Dem success – pity I can’t quote verbatim, might try & record any more of these I attend.
It’s clear that Nick Clegg and especially Vince Cable are seen as strong plus points for the Lib Dems – Cable’s performance on the Chancellors debate was mentioned at least once. This rings very true to me as a politics geek – I think Cable is impressive, though I might not agree with him! Whether this will really influence people’s choice of vote remains a question to be answered…
I was slightly surprised at one comment from Bearder: “Just do what you’re told” in relation to campaigning. By all means a campaign should stay on-message, but I’m not sure that’s a healthy attitude to one’s supporters, even if clearly meant as a joke…
After Bearder’s speech I chatted with a couple of the Lib Dem supporters there helping to stuff envelopes and prepare campaign material. They were a very friendly bunch! Spirits were high and they clearly have confidence in Rendel as their candidate.
It was noticeable that most of the Lib Dem supporters there were of somewhat advanced years. This is far from unique to the Lib Dems; the other parties also struggle to attract younger supporters, a sad reflection of voter apathy and disengagement with politics. This came up in conversation yesterday, and it’s clear the Lib Dems would love to get more young people involved – it’s just working out how that’s difficult.
I was a bit surprised at how low-tech the campaign HQ was. Sure, I’m maybe an outlier towards the techy end of the spectrum, but I would have expected to see at least the odd laptop or some evidence of technology! I got the feeling that not too many of those present were on Twitter.
It wasn’t the kind of event where actual issues are discussed, but I did speak briefly with David Rendel. He’s happy to carry out a short interview with me at some point – so I’ll be looking to get some clearer answers on his position then. If any readers would like to suggest questions, please contribute in the comments – I’d be particularly interested in questions on issues that matter to you locally.
So the Lib Dems at least seem very fired up for this campaign. Hope to get some more news about the Tory campaign shortly…
[Non-election footnote: I also spoke to Catherine Bearder about ACTA, and her views on proper democratic scrutiny of any agreement that might be reached. I was pleased that she is strongly in support of such scrutiny, wants to see more information on ACTA made available and will continue to vote to support such openess in the European Parliament. Good!]