A Personal Election

I have been receiving updates from my daughter all day as she has been driving to Torquay. This is a good place for a break at this time of the year you may think, The English Riviera and all of that. No Laura is going to devote ten days of her time to a principle and to politics. She will be pounding the streets on behalf of the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Torbay constituency, Adrian Sanders.

Now this is not some glory seeking task, but literally slogging round the streets of Torquay canvassing, i.e. asking voters who they intend to vote for so that come polling day the candidates vote can be maximised. Now I am not a Lib Dem supporter at the current time as I feel deeply betrayed by their support of the current reactionary Conservative government. However I absolutely applaud that Laura is assisting Adrian Sanders in Torbay.

Why is that, for a number of reasons -

• It is great that the young have principles and are prepared to do something about it.
• Our family have a long history of supporting Adrian, indeed if you sadly have the video of the 2001 General Election you will see our son in Torquay celebrating the win there. He has been a good friend to our family. 
• A win for the Lib Dems in Torbay is one less seat for the Conservatives. 
• Lastly but most importantly it is because Adrian is just the sort of MP that a town needs, committed locally but with a clear sense of the national picture. Certainly I would welcome him with open arms to Scarborough where we have suffered from political pygmies over the years.

So we will be following the Torbay campaign with interest, getting daily updates from Laura. It will almost seem as if we are on the streets of Paignton with her.

I suppose that even my humble blog must keep within electoral law, so details of other candidates in the Torbay constituency may be found on the BBC website.