We Won Something!!!

Last night, Peers voted against the government to support Lord Best's amendment on housing benefit and spare rooms. There's a very good summary here:  http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/41983/lord_best_benefit_cut_treats_homes_as_transit_camps.html

The were defeated by a majority of 68!! 72 Crossbenchers, 14 LibDems and even one Conservative! (Lord Newton of Braintree, we salute you!)

Here are the Lib Dem Peers who voted against the government :

• Eric Avebury
• Brian Cotter
• Archy Kirkwood (former Chief Whip in the Commons)
• Veronica Linklater
• Ken Macdonald
• Sue Miller (former Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson)
• Roger Roberts
• Ros Scott (former Party President)
• John Shipley
• Trevor Smith
• Matthew Taylor (former chair of the party’s Campaigns and Communications Committee)
• Celia Thomas
• Jenny Tonge
• Geoff Tordoff (former Chief Whip in the Lords)

Ben Stoneham abstained.

(Hat Tip to Lib Dem Voice http://www.libdemvoice.org/14-liberal-democrat-rebels-help-defeat-housing-benefit-cuts-in-the-house-of-lords-26224.html )

In plain terms, it means people in social housing with a spare room cannot be forced to downsize and the government have to go away and come up with a better plan. This is particularly important for disabled people who may have had adaptions made to their homes to live independently or who need a second room for a carer. 

The Lib Dems originally stopped the government from cutting housing benefit by 10% for the long term unemployed  so this is clearly an issue they are prepared to fight on. It's too early to tell whether this is just an extension of their commitment to protect tenants, or part of a broader willingness, to take policies within the welfare reform bill on merit. 

That's all we ask, after all. That EVERY policy, every proposal is discussed on MERIT and peers vote accordingly. 

Either way, it's a welcome change :)

**Update : The Research Fund raised a spectacular £1,900 so far in less than 24 hours. Please keep donating and spreading the word, thank you so much for your generosity. 

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Local Triumph!!

What a couple of days!

As most of you will know, I was standing for the local council elections. When I say I live in True-Blue Toryville, I'm not sure many of you appreciate just what I mean. There hasn't been a Labour party in my town for decades. Some years we didn't even field candidates and if we did, we were usually beaten into 4th place by UKIP.

We were encouraged to put all of our time and resources into fighting for the marginal seats a few miles along the coast. Labour simply ceased to exist where I live. The Lib Dems were the opposition here, and we colluded to allow them to eat away at the vast Tory majorities, slowly building up a broad base of support.

We were rewarded with unpleasant leaflets sneering at our lack of presence and a sprinkling or dirty tricks.

I decided to stand for Labour a few years ago. I couldn't bear the fact that Labour voters didn't even have a candidate to vote for and stood as a paper candidate so that, if nothing else, democracy would be served.

Slowly, others joined me and this year, with the coalition leaving many feeling upset and betrayed, we managed to persuade our CLP (for the first time) that we should actually do some work in our own constituencies.

It won't sound like much to those of you who volunteer in busy cities and thriving Labour heartlands, but for the first time, we managed to field a candidate in every ward and I wrote a heartfelt plea to Labour voters, appealing to them to vote with their hearts. I suggested that we test the old Lib theory that "Labour cannot win here" "Vote with your hearts, just for once" I suggested, and let's just see what happens.

We hoped to put a leaflet through every door in my constituency, and amazingly, volunteers popped up from everywhere with offers of help to deliver them. It took a herculean effort for a party so fragmented, but we did it with just a day to spare.

And that was it. That was our election campaign. Other candidates used my leaflet too and made their own massive efforts, roping in family and friends to help. We were a team again and it felt amazing.

I love polling day. I always dress up to the nines (always good to out-Tory the Tories I feel) and smile and nod my way through as much of the day as I can. on Thursday, we'd also managed to put together a rota so that my polling station would be manned all day. For the first time in decades, three pretty yellow, blue and red rosettes sat side by side.

And what an odd day it was! For the first time since 1997 people were  actually glad that I was there. Normally, no-one really speaks to me all day. A few defiant voters hand me their polling card pointedly and shake my hand, but other than that I am roundly ignored and have to content myself with good natured opposition-baiting and friendly banter.

Thursday saw me nearly as busy as the other three, with voter after voter smiling or winking or patting me on the back, delighted to have a voice, delighted there was somewhere they could register a vote of protest. I knew the result was likely to be a bit better than last year, but I'm used to false hope and over-excitement. At the last election, the Libs got 38% of the vote, while I got 15% - we were only on the very first step of an endless staircase.

Let's not forget I'm not well. (This is a diary, after all.) By the end of Thursday, I staggered home at 8.30, ate my dinner and fell into bed. I was so exhausted and in so much pain, I nearly collapsed in the hallway.

The following day, colleagues from all over the town reported similar popularity and we even arranged  to go to the count, hoping for the first time that it wouldn't be too humiliating to venture in.

I couldn't get there until 10.30 ish and when I arrived, they'd just started to count.

Something extraordinary started to happen. As I watched my friend's count, her pile was going up as quickly as the Lib one! It couldn't possibly be true, but she seemed to be in second place. I scurried off to my table and sure enough, my pile of ballots was equally large. I'd got on very well with the Conservatives at my polling station and they confirmed that I seemed to be in second place, almost as excited for me as I was!

The next hour or so was just brilliant. I am a self-confessed election geek, and seeing the delight of my colleagues, the grim faces of the Lib Dems and the piles of Labour votes right across the count, I was practically dizzy with excitement. Suddenly, I was being mobbed by scores of Tories all shouting "congratulations" and trying to shake my hand at once*. I'd come second!! With a massive 29% swing to Labour, I'd overturned decades of tactical voting in just one campaign.

Soon, other seats declared and we managed three second places!! Three! for a party that hadn't even existed a year or so before. For the first time in living memory we got to enjoy a little reward for all our hard work.

Anyone looking at the results would simply see a sea of blue. The same old blue they always see. But underneath there is a story that no paper will report. Labour became the opposition again and the Lib Dems took a knock from both sides.

You see, they rarely play fair locally. They attack the Conservatives violently while sneering at us at every opportunity. You could argue that it's "just politics" but it doesn't win many friends. I'm not sure who was more excited yesterday, us or the Tories. They are heartily sick of the Libs in opposition, and celebrated the return of us reds in a way that was almost unseemly - so much so, that in a case of dreadful sour grapes, the Lib Dem leader referred to a "New, blue and red coalition in town" in his speech and was heckled by a Conservative shouting "Long may it last!!"

So, from now on, there will be a Labour voice in my town. Our group has doubled in numbers in the last year and we finally have the manpower and commitment to run successful campaigns. We have a web designer in our little group and a marketing expert. We have a few old time, battle hardened experts to help with organisation and a band of leaflet deliverers and voter-id volunteers to start to find our vote and target it more effectively. We are going to pool resources with our neighbouring constituency and work together. There will be street stalls in the centre of town every month and we're running debt counselling drop-ins for local residents, manned by two other volunteers from legal professions.

If we never win a council seat, I can at least promise that we will oppose, we will give our voters a voice.

Today feels very nice indeed.

Clegg in "Tories Lie" Shocker!!

More later, but one thing that occurs to me this morning is that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems just can't be as naive as they seem. Surely. Can they?

This morning the airwaves are jammed with Lib Dems telling tales to teacher. "He stole my referendum" "He fibbed" "He broke my coalition"

Can they honestly be surprised to find that Conservatives might lie sometimes? That Tories might sell their granny for an archaic voting system that gives them an unfair advantage? It's like a gazelle complaining that a lion ate him. Or bread reacting with astonishment at being made into a sandwich.

No-one else is surprised. No-one. Not even Conservatives. They did what they had to do and won the referendum. No hard feelings, back to business. OK, the campaign was a bit dirty, they were economical with the truth, but it's not like Lib Dems know nothing of that at local level. In my area and many others they run the dirtiest, nastiest election campaigns known to man.

We are told that "the bonhomie of the rose garden has gone". The only thing that astonishes people in the real world is that it was ever allowed to flourish so unquestioningly in the first place.

Do any of you remember that documentary - 5 Days that Changed Britain? I clearly remember Clegg saying that he phoned a friend during coalition negotiations who also knew Cameron well. "Can I trust this guy?" He asked. I shouted back "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the TV screen. "He's a Tory!! He's lied in every single speech he's made during the election campaign and before. He's like a tiger played by Leslie Phillips"

I honestly thought that Clegg must know it too, but had chosen to ignore it for the deputy PM job and a cabinet full of ministers. The sense of genuine outrage Lib Dems are expressing this morning makes me wonder if Clegg is, after all, the most naive politician of all time.?