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07/05/2010:
Dear everyone,
Just a quick note to say a huge "Thank You" to you all for your unstinting
efforts over the last few weeks designing or
delivering the leaflets, displaying posters, attending debates, contributing to funds, and generally providing the support and encouragement that has been so essential in an election campaign.
I'm sorry things haven't worked out the way I'd hoped but we tried! And for
that I owe a debt of gratitude to you all.
So thank you for giving up your time to deliver the rounds you took on, or what ever else you have contributed to the overall campaign effort, but I hope you enjoyed it rather than endured it: Whichever, I couldn't have done this without you.
A final note of thanks to both my agent, Mr. Simon "tireless" Temple, who
despite being stuck in Palestine for a week
longer than anticipated, has gone the extra mile whenever necessary to make the impossible possible; and to Mick Bagshaw who laboured long & late to get all our printing requirements done - Especial thanks to the both of you.
Without this sounding like the and speech at the Oscars, there are many others
of you I could highlight for particular
praise, but both you and I know who you are - A big thanks to you too. I'll be back at work on Monday - Life goes on! Results @ 02:37hrs:
"Spin": We increased our share of the vote from 21.5% (2005) to 23.5% (2010) despite the ascendency of Conservatism nationally. This compares to the LibDems across the UK managing an increase of 2.9% in the proportion of votes. We have also learnt a lot and recruited new members & helpers. However, there are no prizes for 2nd, 3rd nor 4th place: Well done to Natascha Engel, but we need to do much better the next time around. The increase in turnout is admirable, but one can't help wondering why the other 35% of society feel so disenfranchised that they don't registered their opinion ... or maybe they have? 06/05/2010: Today's the big day! Lots of street work in Dronfield; very busy in the morning and less so in the afternoon. Even so, the national polls reckon up to 40% of voters are still undecided ("floaters") and about 10% will decide in the voting booth itself! So all to play for and I've had many discussions with people who are not yet decidedor just wanting clarification before firming up their selected candidate. It must be so difficult: Many people are reporting that despite following the Prime Ministerial debates and everything on the news, they are still confused... and what are you voting for? The PM? The cabinet team as a whole? The Party? The policies? The local candidate? Local issues? Or any combination of the above! The turnout seems to be good again this year: In 2005 there was a 61.2% turnout which is well above the national average and I hope this is exceeded today ... we'll see! 05/05/2010: Another great morning on the streets of Clay Cross & Killamarsh with Simon Temple, my agent. Unfortunately, vey few people around in Eckington in the afternoon as half day closing, so went running together instead. An evening with church leaders in Holmewood tonight: Quite a few questions covering issues mainly of morality, the law and the church's place in society relative to other faith or interest groups...Interesting and challenging for both of us! 04/05/2010: A good morning campaigning on the streets in Clay Cross, North Wingfield and Holmewood, before home for a spot of lunch and onto Eckington Comprehensive School for a hustings across the afternoon with the 6th form. There were approximately 150-200 youth and teachers present and some great questions! The rest of the afternoon was spent briefly in Renishaw and Dronfield, before some last minute preparation fro the Eckington Hustings @ the Civic Hall. We acheived an audience of about 50 people and again, some good questions. After the 8 sets of hustings, I think the public should have a good idea of the values and polices of each of the parties, and one would hope, the creative, radical, researched, costed and validated policies of the LibDems! 03/05/2010: Emails, letters, website and some street work at the Ashover May Day fayre: A great afternoon out apart from the heavy but intermittent rain. Met fascinating people and causes on the stands and was tempted to partake of the fun run, but managed to refrain! The campaign gets back underway tomorrow for the remaining 3 days. David Cameron has pledged just 24hrs non-stop ... the slacker! We will be a bit more measured as the "we" will be "I" and I need some sleep! (Besides, I cannot imaging a local factory letting me in during the wee small hours to disrupt their staff!) 02/05/2010: Sunday ... A day of rest! Not intentionally as I went to a fair in Holymoorside, but appears to have been a wild goose chase as no event found or known about by the few locals who were out and about. Did some more leafletting around Dronfield, and delivered more leaflets for other helpers to post (you're all doing a wonderful job, thanks). 01/05/2010: Started the day with a brief early morning Agent's meeting, then a round of leafleting in Brimington, Chesterfield, for Paul Holmes. I then popped across to Ashover for the rest of the morning meeting people on the street, but not too many folks around! Spent the afternoon attending to the garden, reading the papers, preparing for the next round of hustings and answering letters & emails/general admin tasks. An evening off: I was more tired than I'd realised! 30/04/2010: Watched the final Prime Ministerial debate on BBC i-player this morning - I thought it more entertaining than previous debates, and slightly more probing, but all 3 candidates still less that convincing. Actually, it was good to see someone else on the end of the questions ... my next hustings tonight! Went to the Baptist Mother & Toddler group to meet mums, and a grand-dad! Again, some interesting people and discussions. From there onto an hour or two in the rain at Eckington market, to meet the locals, before hunger drove me home to Dronfield & lunch. The rain persisted, so I spent the afternoon doing emails and letters, reading and preparing for the hustings. The second Dronfield hustings were again sponsored by Churches Together in Dronfield & District: A great turn-out. Possibly the best to date with possibly 200 people. Some probing questions and therefore different answers from all the candidates, which was refreshing and kept us all on our toes. A good night overall, although I always think of what I could have said just after handing over to the next candidate! 90 seconds just isn't enough time to communicate a reasoned answer, but I'm going to have to get used to this in a sound-bite society; perhaps? 29/04/2010: Attended the formal opening of the postal votes - terribly proper & correct procedure! No results, just opening and validating, but no count: This will all be done on the evening of the final count on 6th May. Left after 15 minutes! Street work in Dronfield on market day: Loads of people, really positive and supportive atmosphere, although got really cold and needed to pop into Harvesters for a quick coffee and warm before shooting of to Killamarsh. Attended the St. Giles primary school for an informal meeting with staff, and a tour of the school and chat with parents in the playground afterwards. Also did some street work which was again very positive. It is striking that in the heart of traditional Labour territory, there is a ground-swell of support for change, and more towards LibDems than any other party. An informal tally showed that the results could be as follows:
Clearly this has a lot of biases inherent in the poll but remains surprising in Killamarsh, which reflects the position in Clay Cross too. Finally, the hustings in Tupton went well - eventually! I arrived at 7:25pm, but was informed they'd started without me as I was 25 minutes late and missed the initial two questions! (Entirely my fault, and apologies to the sudience, the Chair and fellow candidates - I'd just assumed it started at 7:30pm as all the others had!). Nevertheless, the debate was quite good - although by now, our answers are not now just polished, but we could answer each others position o almost any question! Still, this is not for our benefit, but for that of the public, and they seemed to enjoy the evening. 28/04/2010: Radio interview with Matthew Burrows of BBC Radio Derby in Matlock this morning. Got there early, parked the car paying for 2 hours as we'd scheduled 1 hour, allowing for the early arrival and possible over-running talking about policy issues, etc. Ticket machine wouldn't give change, so paid considerably over the odds! Met Matthew slightly early; said that all he needed was a 40 second snip! We talked a few minutes, and he was adamant he had more than enough material, so was out 10 minutes later!! Went to Clay Cross to do some street work: Met lots of lovely people and was surprised to get more LibDem indications than Labour, with non-voters third place, Conservative fourth and finally, UKIP last place in my tally. However, clearly a biased sample and maybe some disguised intentions, but heartening nevertheless in the heart of Labour country. Because of this, went to Killamarsh in the afternoon: The town was deserted! I managed to meet no more than a dozen people: Results very similar to the mornings encounters. Finally, went to the Wingerworth Hustings this evening: Packed out! There must have been 140+ people with standing room only - and not much of that either! Questions included education; health; Private & public sector pensions; sentencing, ASBOs and ABCs; personal allegiance to constituency or party? There were fewer questions because of far more audience interaction/cross-debate ... I sat as an observer for parts of the meeting, but very lively. All 4 candidates answers are becoming more refined/polished now that we've had 4 goes at this ... just Tupton, Dronfield (2) and Eckington to go!
27/04/2010: Candidates Hustings @ Clay Cross: Many fewer people than Dronfield, but still lively with some debate. Issues included Health; social care; energy & ecology; education; armed forces; the Budget Deficit; electoral reform; consumer protection; education; taxation amongst other things. 26/04/2010: Street walkabout with local councillors in Barrow Hill: Spent a few hours looking at some of the achievements and needs of the village, meeting locals to discuss their issues/views. 25/04/2010: The Virgin London Marathon: Started well back, taking 10+ minutes to get through to the start line alone, caused a lot of problems. The run being constantly slowed by too many runners & too narrow roads. This meant trips and stop/starts and generally taking time to find gaps to run through. This isn't unusual for the London Marathon, but generally thins out at about 8 miles. However, as we started well back, had both red and green start runners filter in in front of us as well, the crowding went on to the corner onto Pall Mall at 26 miles! The one good thing was that I never hit the wall - probably because the pace was so slow. First 1/2 marathon distance in 2:02 and the second in 1:50, giving an overall time of 3:52, against an intended 3:30 and PB of 3:16 (2000). Nevertheless, I enjoyed the carnival atmosphere immensely and appreciated the fantastic logistics exercise in organising an event like that for 38,000 runners. Would I do it again? Not London, because it's not suitable for good times, but I've promised myself a marathon every 5 years until I drop! 22/04/2010: First Dronfield hustings tonight; about 80 people present and a good atmosphere. Some good questions to put us all through our paces. The meeting was well chaired, and questions covered subjects such as University Tuition Fees; characteristics of a good MP; policies for schools; energy, ecology and global warming; what were constituents were most concerned about?; social care and health care policies; the economy; cleaning up politics. 20/04/2010: Lots of emails, phone calls and letters to deal with as usual, but today had a great opportunity to declare the LibDem message in the first of the hustings held at the NEDDC Council Chamber on Saltergate for Voluntary & Community Services (VCS). Unfortunately, only the 3 main candidates were able to attend, but we had a good Q&A/debate. Next hustings Thursday 22/04/10 @ Dronfield Civic Hall. 14/04/2010: £500 deposit Withdrew £500 for my deposit today - I hope to get this back! Actually, I only need to achieve 5% of the vote in order to achieve safe return of the deposit ... I think even I can do that! Liberal Democrat candidates have historically achieved about 19-20% of the votes cast in North East Derbyshire, and I'd like to see that doubled to at least 40%, which would probably be enough for victory given the close nature of the electoral contest locally this year; we'll see on May 6th! 13/04/2010: Collecting the Electoral Register To stand as a candidate for MP, one must collect the signed sponsorship of 10 constituents, and then cross reference them to the electoral register. Therefore, for each candidate, a print-off of the entire register is made ~ approximately 500 pages! I collected this today, and have the task of cross referencing my sponsors before submitting my candidacy papers in on Monday Morning along with my £500 deposit. 06/04/2010: The General Election is called! At last we now know the date is to be 6th May, 2010. I'd booked a fortnight holidays for the two weeks just prior for campaigning, but it was a calculated gamble - the election could have been called later/earlier! Time to get the posters up and start with the Focus leaflets in earnest. If anyone would like to help deliver leaflets or have a poster in their window, please let me know via the Feedback page. 16/11/09: The Big Ask The Liberal Democrats are often jokingly seen as the party for whom one can write their policies on the back of a postcard, but without justification, it would seem. For Dr. Richard Bull, the Liberal Democrat’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for NE Derbyshire, is about to embark on “The Big Ask”, a grand tour, speaking at 14 venues around the constituency over the next few months. Each event will be dedicated to a short presentation on a particular Liberal Democrat policy, topics that most affect ordinary people’s lives, followed by what is expected to be a lively Q&A, on any subject! Dr. Bull says “the events are designed to be fairly interactive, with a short presentation and then plenty of time for questions and answers. Many people are surprised to learn that the Liberal Democrats have a wide range of developed & costed policies. Although events are staged in communities across NE Derbyshire, and the topics are wide & diverse, the invitation is open to all to attend as many events as one is interested in.” Dr. Richard Bull, who is also currently a Town and NEDDC councillor continued, “All too often real policy debate gets lost in the cut and thrust of electioneering, and I wanted the opportunity to communicate what are sensible and imaginative policy ideas, engage in discussion and also to learn more about the needs of our local communities.”
*These events will usually run from 7.30-8.30pm with doors generally open from 7.15pm, but the Wingerworth & Ashover events are 7.30pm entry for a 7.45pm start - Watch local press for more details or see the itinery page at www.nedlibdems.org/itinery.htm *************************************************************************************************** 18/12/2008: Environmental concerns: On 11 December, our governments decided Europe's response to climate change for the next 12 years. Unless they had agreed to at least 30% cuts in European greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, we'll have no chance of keeping global warming below 2°C and avoiding climate catastrophe.
In the event, a large majority of MEPs gave backing to the EU's climate change package which aims to ensure that the EU will achieve its climate targets by 2020:
The world climate conference at Poznan in Poland earlier this month was a successful continuation of negotiations towards the Copenhagen meeting next December - when a world plan is to be agreed to continue the Kyoto agreement.
It seems likely that, under Barak Obama’s presidency, the USA will be more cooperative, and the Chinese may provide a constructive role (especially with their industrial export markets hit by the global economic downturn), but there are worries regarding the Russians and the Indians.
It all sounds fairly positive, except that the latest measurements by NASA indicate that things are changing for the worse faster than anybody had forecast.
As stated earlier, the EU’s agreement to 20% rather than the required 30% may prove to be a costly mistake (even without fringe agreements on German heavy industry and Polish coal fired power stations), because the economic costs of climate change tomorrow will make the bills of today seem positively bargain basement!
But what should we do?
The long-term strategic goal of climate change strategy should be to limit the average global temperature increase to within 2°C above pre-industrial levels. It is also clear that the Government’s aim of a 60 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 will not be enough, even if the Government had the will to achieve it.
A reduction in emissions of 30% by 2020 and then 100% by 2050 is now required to stabilize global temperatures below the 2°C ceiling, and this will only happen if developed countries such as the UK take the lead by cutting their own emissions.
An international approach to tackling climate change is essential, with developed countries taking the lead in transforming themselves into low carbon, high energy efficiency economies. The objective of domestic climate change strategy must be to make the UK carbon neutral over the longer term.
I believe that for the UK, there are five key elements of a mitigation policy: - 1. Pricing carbon through trading, tax or regulation. 2. Encouraging development, demonstration and deployment to bring forward a range of low carbon technologies. 3. Encouraging long-term behavioural changes. 4. Helping developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. 5. Ensuring that UK climate change strategy is credible and capable of being implemented.
We should introduce credible and predictable mechanisms for pricing carbon by: - 1. Strengthening the EU Emissions Trading System, by linking it to the EU target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, setting national emissions caps for rolling five year periods on an incrementally reducing basis, aiming for full auctioning of allowances and broadening the scheme to cover aviation, shipping, and road transport through fuel suppliers. 2. Reforming the Climate Change Levy into a carbon tax that would apply to primary fuels as they enter the economy, once our energy efficiency measures have become effective in tackling fuel poverty, using revenues to cut other taxes. 3. Making a green tax switch by more steeply graduating Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) for new vehicles, based on carbon emissions, reforming the per ticket Air Passenger Duty into a per flight Aircraft Tax, and indexing fuel duty to GDP growth except in periods of oil price spikes, using the revenue to fund other priorities.
In parallel, we should bring forward environmentally sustainable technologies by: - 1. Setting a target for 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity to come from clean, non-carbon emitting sources by 2020, rising to 100 per cent by 2050, providing new incentives for renewable energy sources and small-scale micro-generation through guaranteed prices (‘feed-in tariffs’). 2. Providing new incentives for renewable heat technologies. 3. Promoting transitional technologies such as carbon capture and storage. 4. Rejecting a new generation of nuclear power stations. 5. Working to introduce mandatory UK/EU average vehicle emissions targets of 120g CO2/km by 2015, 95g/km by 2020, and zero carbon for all new cars by 2040. 6. Increasing the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation to require at least 10 per cent of all fuel sold on UK forecourts to come from renewable sources by 2015.
Also, we should encourage behavioural changes by: - 1. Requiring all new homes to be built to the “Green-House” standard no later than 2011 (the best known standard for building homes that require no fossil fuels for their space heating). 2. Introducing “Warm-Homes” packages of improvements available for existing houses funded through ‘green mortgages’, which enable people to use the savings from their lower energy use to pay back the cost of the package through their quarterly energy bill. 3. Setting up a Future Transport Fund to invest in key rail and light rail improvements and extensions, including High Speed Rail, by using the proceeds from charging road freight for using the motorways and the proceeds from a climate change charge on air flights within the UK, exempting ‘lifeline’ flights.
We should also enhance the UK’s ability to adapt to the effects of climate change by: - 1. Developing a UK national adaptation plan to educate individuals and businesses about what adaptations are necessary in response to climate change. 2. Ensuring that government departments are given a clear responsibility for planning for the effects of climate change. 3. Investing in flood management systems.
We should help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change by: - 1. Working for the establishment of an International Leapfrog Fund to facilitate the development of low carbon technologies, energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in developing countries. 2. Advocating a new UN Adaptation Fund.
Finally, we should ensure that UK climate change strategy is credible and capable of being implemented by: - 1. Placing a legal duty on ministers to achieve the long-term goal of a carbon neutral UK and producing annual carbon budgets. 2. Setting up a Cabinet Committee on climate change 3. Creating a new Department of Environment, Energy and Transport.
All this is possible today, let’s not leave it until tomorrow!
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News stories posted to the site last month: Last modified: 05-06-2010 |
