The Northern no.

56
October
Democrat
The newsletter for Liberal Democrats in the North of England
2010

Cabinet in the
North
Huhne and Moore
speak at North
East Conference
You wait 65 years for one and two come
along to the same Conference! Liberal
Democrats had been out of government
for 65 years but on 16th October, two Lib zChris Huhne MP
Dem Cabinet members attended the
North East Regional
Conference.
Energy and Climate
Change Secretary Chris
Huhne MP and Scottish
Secretary Michael Moore MP
were the guest speakers at
the Conference held at
Gateshead Civic Centre.
Also attending for the first
time in his capacity as an MP
was Redcar’s Ian Swales.
Baroness Diana Maddock,
Berwick upon Tweed MP Alan
Beith and Euro MP Fiona
Hall were also at the
Conference to take part in a
quesiton and answer session
for the North East’s
Parliamentarians.
Coverage of the
Conference can be found on zIan Swales MP zMichael Moore MP
pages 5 - 6 of this edition of
the Northern Democrat. Produced, printed and promoted by Jonathan Wallace, 7 Laburnum Grove, Sunniside, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE16 5LY
 Northern Democrat October 2010
Contents
Page 2 By-elections
Page 3 Presidential election
Page 4-5 Advertisements Editorial: please send material for
Pages 6-7 North East Conference inclusion to the editor, Jonathan Wallace,
at jonathanwallace@compuserve.com or
Page 8 Winning Teams phone 0191 4883190
Page 9 National News
Page 10 Local News

By-election help needed

Northumberland County Council has set the scene for a
by-election battle between the minority Lib Dem
administration and the opposition Conservatives.
Former Hexham Parliamentary Candidate Andrew
Duffield (pictured with Chris Huhne MP) is hoping to sieze
the seat in the contest for Ponteland on 4th November,
caused by the death of the Conservative Councillor for the
ward that also covers Stannington.
Lib Dems have been getting a good response on the
doorsteps but help is needed to get out Focus leaflets,
canvass, write envelopes and telephone voters. Offers of
help to Neil Bradbury on 0791 4854060.

Great Aycliffe Town Council, West York City Council, Hull Road
Thursday 28 October 2010 12:00 THURSDAY 14 OCTOBER 2010
Party defending seat: Lab. Resignation. Lab 860 (58.7; +25.6)
Prospective Candidate: Janine Mawson Con 296 (20.2; -5.8)
Contact: Anne-Marie Curry, Campaign Organiser, LD Rachel Williams 183 (12.5; -4.2)
curryannemarie@aol.com 01325 482415 Green 84 (5.7; -8.0)
BNP 42 (2.9; -7.6)
South Lakeland DC, Lyth Valley Majority 564
Thursday 04 November 2010 12:00 Turnout 18.3%
Party defending seat: LD. Resignation. Lab hold
Prospective Candidate: Jane Hall Percentage change is since May 2007.
Contact: Paul Trollope, Agent, paul@timfarron.co.uk 01539
723403 Leeds MBC, Guiseley and Rawdon
THURSDAY 14 OCTOBER 2010
Gateshead Liberal Democrats’
Con 2075 (45.1; +4.9)
Race Night Lab 1708 (37.1; +8.9)
7pm on Saturday 6th November
LD Cindy Cleasby 818 (17.8; -5.3)
The Coachman’s Pub, The Broadway,
[Green (0.0; -3.4)]
Whickham, Gateshead
[BNP (0.0; -5.1)]
Tickets £5 a person,
Majority 367
includes pie and pea supper
Turnout not yet known
To book your tickets,
Con hold
call Susan Craig on 0191 4880787
Percentage change is since May 2010.
 Time to choose!
The Presidential Debate
Members of the Liberal Democrats should now have received ballot papers to elect the Party’s new President.
There are two candidates for the post: Susan Kramer and Tim Farron.
In this edition of Northern Democrat we look at what each of the candidates has to offer. We are being strictly neutral in
this election but we have approached both campaigns to offer each candidate additional space to put over their message
to members. This offer has been taken up by both campaigns.

Susan Kramer
This is a time of great opportunity for our party. Whether through
establishing the pupil premium for disadvantaged children, increasing tax
relief for low income families, restoring vital civil liberties or putting the
environment at the forefront of all we do, our values are at the heart of
British government for the first time in generations. Britain is better off with
Liberal Democrats in Cabinet.
A strong and unified party is needed to hold the Coalition Government to
account, however, and division within the party will only make this job
harder. If elected as party President, I will use the role to help hold us
together and to strengthen our distinctive Liberal Democrat voice and future.
I see these as the key tasks:
z To listen to our grassroots and make sure that local views are heard
by the leadership and answered;
z To support local party campaigns up and down the country to win the
crucial AV Referendum but also to succeed in local, Scottish, Welsh
and London elections, promoting our distinct Liberal Democrat values;
z To keep our party unified as the Tory and Labour parties, abetted by
the media, try to tear us apart and damage our shared Liberal
Democrat principles.

Tim Farron
When I read people telling us that this coalition government is “turning the
clock back to the 1980s” because of the cuts, I know that this is witless
rubbish – but I’ll be honest with you, those barbs really hurt me. I was
brought up by a single mum, in significant poverty in Lancashire in
Thatcher’s Britain.
I went to a comprehensive near Preston. I respect our Conservative
colleagues (just as I respect Labour politicians) and passionately believe in
pluralistic politics that leads to people who are ideologically very different
working together for the good of the country. But I am a radical Liberal, a
progressive and a product of my background.
My job as president will be to be an unwavering supporter of Nick in his role,
to be a critical friend of the coalition, and to get out there and make clear
what the Liberal Democrats are for – why we are distinct from the coalition,
why you should vote for us, why you should join us, why the Liberal
Democrats should not just be a junior partner in government, but a party that
can aspire to power in our own right.
If that’s the kind of president you want, I’m all yours.
Advertisement
Advertisement
 North East Conference Report
North East Conference on 16th
October was also the regional
party’s annual general meeting.
That meant business motions to
accept the accounts and the reports
of the party’s regional officers
occupied the first part of the
morning’s business.
This was followed by Ian Swales
who addressed the meeting on “The
Transition from Lib Dem Campaigner
to Government MP.” Ian spoke about
how he had taken on the role of PPC
in 2004. He went through a long hard
process of fighting council by-
elections, meeting thousands of local zParliamentarians on parade: left to right - Alan Beith MP,
Baroness Diana Maddock, Michael Moore MP (Secretary of
voters,
State for Scotland), Fiona Hall MEP, Frank Hindle (re-
squeezing
elected as Regional Chairman) and Ian Swales MP.)
the
Conservatives and delivering over half a million leaflets over the
following 6 years that resulted in his victory in May 2010 with a record
breaking swing of over 20%.
After Ian spoke, Northern Parliamentarians Fiona Hall MEP, Alan
Beith MP, Baroness Diana Maddock and Ian Swales MP held a
question and answer session taking a variety of questions from the
floor of the conference.
Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
Change, and a key figure in the Coalition’s aim of becoming the
greenest ever government, spoke at midday.
Chris outlined the need to address how we should tackle the
demand for electricity, demand for which is expected to increase
dramatically over the next twenty years.
He praised work that was underway in the North on renewable
energy and restated the Government’s commitment to expanding
renewables to meet the increased
demands for electricity in the future.
Secretary of State for Scotland,
Michael Moore MP, spoke after the
lunch break about the lessons of
coalition from Scotland where the Lib
Dems shared power for 8 years before
the SNP minority Government took
over in 2010. His main advice to Lib
Dems in the North: get out on the
doorsteps to tell people about the
benefits of having Lib Dems in
government.
 North East Conference Report
1)All seats were taken in the Gateshead
Council Chamber. The public gallery had
to be opened to take the additional
Conference representatives.
1
2)Parliamentarians during the Q&A, chaired
by David Freeman.
3)Fiona Hall MEP answers questions
about her work in Europe.
4)The best way to keep up with what’s
happening is to read the Northern Democrat,
as demonstrated by Chris Foote Wood.
5)Angelika Schneider, the North East
Regional Media Co-ordinator, is moving
to a new job shortly. She was thanked for
all her work by Regional Chair Frank
Hindle who presented her with a card
signed by members at the Conference,
and a gift.

2 3

4 5
 National News
Nick announces £7 billion for the
poorest kids
Key Liberal Democrat demands to ensure
a fair start in life for all children have
taken a huge step forward following a
major announcement by Deputy Prime
Minister Nick Clegg.
On Friday 15th October, Nick outlined the
plans to spend £7 billion on ensuring
children from the poorest backgrounds get
the additional help they need.
Liberal Democrats have argued that the
educational achievements of children is too
closely related to parental income. Bright
kids whose parents are at the bottom of the
income scale all too often are out-performed
by children of lesser ability from better off
backgrounds. zNick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats in Government are putting
into action plans to close the educational gap between rich and
The Liberal Democrats put closing this poor that widened under Labour.
gap between rich and poor kids at the heart
of their election manifesto.

z
Nick’s announcements include:
Every disadvantaged two-year-old to be entitled
Post Office may
to 15 hours free early education – in addition to
the existing entitlements at the ages of three and
four. become mutual
The Post Office could
z Every poor school child will get additional help
from a Pupil Premium paid to their school. be turned into a
z Every young adult who wants to go to university mutual society under
will be able to do so, undeterred by financial the control of
barriers. postmasters and
mistresses and local
By the end of the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending communities,
Review period, we will be investing £3 billion a year on this
Business Secretary
Fairness Premium – including £2.5 billion on the pupil Vince Cable has
premium alone, £300 million on the extra help for two announced.
year-olds and £150 million on the university fairness
scheme. The proposal is part
of a wider package that zVince Cable MP
“Given that we are having to cut spending these are
will see Post Office Ltd removed from the Royal Mail
sizable new commitments,” said Nick. “But even as we cut
Group which itself would be privatised.
spending, we are determined to invest in fairness.
Liberal Democrats first backed plans to transfer the
“For me, this is personal. A decade ago I argued in
Royal Mail into the private sector in 2006 when the
favour of a pupil premium to help children and close the
Government opened up the business to full competition.
educational gap. Under Labour this gap has been left to
widen and for too long the achievements in life have been But the party was always clear that Post Office Ltd,
which runs the Post Office franchise and brand, should be
dictated by the circumstances of birth.
separated from Royal Mail and retained in the public
“All of us are having to work hard in order to make the sector.
spending review fair. We’re all having to accept difficult The party also wanted to use moves to privatisation to
cuts in many areas of public spending that we would very boost worker participation and shareownership.
much rather avoid.
10% of shares in Royal Mail will be held over for staff.
“Both parties in Government are having to negotiate and
compromise. We’re all having to change our positions on “It seems to me that the Post Office is ideally suited to
some issues when the arguments demand it. a John Lewis or Co-operative Group style structure,
where employees, sub-postmasters and communities get
“But all of us in this government, including the Prime a greater say in how the company is run,” said Vince.
Minister and myself, are not willing to compromise on a
better future for the poorest children.”
 Regional News
Popping corks to celebrate park’s
Cllr Maureen
survival Rigg reports
In November 2009 the Labour MP for Stockton
South wrote to her constituents in Eaglescliffe to
tell them that she thought building a new secondary
school in Preston Park in Eaglescliffe was a
wonderful idea and she hoped they would support
it.
This was the result of a long campaign by Ingleby
Barwick Independents to have more school places
provided near to Ingleby. They thought that a bridge
across the river could be provided to enable children to
walk to the new school.
Within days all hell broke out in Eaglescliffe and the Lib
Dem Councillors struggled to keep track of the e-mails,
phone calls, letters and face to face protests at what
people feared was a “done deal”. We organised a
petition both on our website and on paper and soon
found that residents were taking them off us as fast as we could supply them. A local Gents’ Hairdresser not only
had all his customers signing the petition but joined the party because of it. Over Christmas and New Year and into
January we kept the signatures coming in, not only from Eaglescliffe nor even from the borough but from all over the
world. Our most distant signature came from Melbourne.
Meanwhile we organised a public meeting to allow people to hear what was being proposed, as the MP had put out
some untrue statements as well as some which raised a lot of questions. The church in which we held the meeting
was so full that people went home as they couldn’t get near enough to the door to hear. The meeting was chaired
by the local Police Inspector and supported by the Conservative PPC.
The petition of over 2500 signatures was handed to the Council in January 2010 with good press coverage. At a
subsequent public meeting a residents campaigning group was set up, Protect Preston Park, to carry on the
campaign with our support. They organised a further petition and several awareness raising events.
Finally on October 14th Stockton Council’s Cabinet agreed to drop the proposal from any future plans for new school
building in the borough. Residents and councillors celebrated with champagne in the park on the following morning,
with good coverage on BBC Tees.
Apart from stopping the proposal in its tracks what did we gain? Two new members, lots of involved and motivated
residents prepared to keep on campaigning to ensure the park is fully protected for the future, a relatively new
member being confident now to stand for election to council, a Friends of Preston Park Group which will work with
the council to obtain funding for the improvements we want, hundreds of addresses to add to our pool mailings.
Stockton South also has a new Conservative MP which we’re convinced is partly owing to this furore. Sadly, we
couldn’t capitalise on it as much as we’d have liked in the general election but our local profile has been boosted
considerably.

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