Spring Offensive

blog: Sally FitzHarris Liib Dem candidate Kingswood

Last week the ground war turned into the Spring Offensive.  After weeks of tramping the streets in the bitter cold, leafleting became a recreational pastime.  Sunny gardens are stuffed with grape hyacinths, polyanthus and daffodils.  There are massed cowslips on the road to Pucklechurch and the blackthorn is coming out.

But the campaign gathers speed: last week Lib Dem HQ floor ( Alan’s front room) was invisible beneath 12,000 Focus leaflets.  Six days later the floor is clear: now activists are complaining of writer’s cramp as they address 8,000 blue envelopes for the handwritten letter.

And meanwhile, the people  whose support we ask for, whose doors we knock on, whose evening meals we disturb and whose houses we deluge with leaflets, remain, to an astonishing degree,  friendly and polite.  

But people are wanting the leaflets, because now as never before they want information. ‘Thank you, I’ll have a read,’ is the most frequent response. Yes, there is disaffection and great anger at the expenses scandal – brought to boiling point by the fresh revelation of MPs seeking legal aid –  but more often, and with lifetime Labour voters, you meet the bewilderment of those who have left a familiar neighbourhood and are looking for another road.     

Ground war turns to air war as the media descend upon Kingswood: recently in the headlines as a ‘tipping seat’ – an early indicator of which party has won.  ‘What issues are you campaigning on?’ asks Radio Bristol. National issues: because we are all proud of Lib Dem policy: it is fair, it is decent, it makes sense. It will work. Paddy Ashdown talks about Lib Dem policies ‘fitting like an old coat’. I think this is it.  You recognize Lib Dem ideas – because you feel they are your own.

Will the election be won in airspace? For the air war, above all, has its fighter aces.  For a long while Vince Cable has been shooting aircraft from the skies: since the start of the campaign he has been the one politician all voters like and trust. Now, since the television debate, Nick Clegg’s star too has risen: polls and headlines scream a meteoric rise.

For Lib Dems in the last few days, the doorstep has been a euphoric place: ‘Saw your boss on the TV. I’m voting for you.’ ‘Was a floater.....that’s nailed it.....’

‘Haven’t been received this well since the early days of the SDP,’ said one of my campaign team.

Countdown. Two and a half more weeks till D-Day.   ‘Keep pounding the streets, girl’ said a voter yesterday. So I do.