Well I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed with the result. I didn’t get a chance to help in person but I did make some phone calls and it was encouraging. More so than the newspaper would have had us think.
Some had asked “are the Liberal Democrats broken” well to that question – the by election results in Oldham East & Saddleworth clearly shows the Lib Dems are NOT broken.
The Lib Dem vote seems to have held up very well but more people voted Labour – congratulations to Debbie Abraham the Labour candidate who one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12187965
As I’ve said I had limited involvement in this campaign. We didn’t have the 500 people Labour bused in on the preceding polling day Saturday for example. What’s really sad is how many people there didn’t vote. They told me politicians are all the same, etc, etc. The damage that the likes of Woolas and Illsey have done to politics should’nt be underestimated.
I was also stunned how many openly told me they would be voting BNP. The results demonstrate this. Another fall out of the dirty politics these voters have witnessed first hand.
Oh for God’s Sake wake up. The reason you lost wasn’t because of Woolas and Illsey, the reason you lost was because Clegg promised a ‘new kind of politics’ in May then went on to break pledges on VAT and Tuition Fees, thereby reinforcing the view that ALL politicians are the same. I know it’s difficult being a Lib Dem but take some responsibility for once.
Hi Scott,
No political party has won a by election for decades when they were in national government and didn’t already hold the seat. As a Lib Dem were used to winning by elections but we’re new to national government.
Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats didn’t win the national elections in May we came third. So of course we don’t get to impliment all our election promises. Anyone who thinks we could impiment all our pledges is living in cloud coockoo land. We didn’t get enough votes for that. But we are implimenting 2/3rds of our promises which is rather good in my opinion as the smaller partner in a coalition.