Liberal Burblings

Archive for the ‘West Berkshire’ Category

It was with great sadness that I heard of the death of Sally Hannon earlier today. I express my sincere sympathies to Sally’s family at this very sad time.

Sally was a very long-serving and consistent Liberal, having been a Young Liberal, a member of the Liberator magazine editorial collective for many years and, since 1991, a councillor on Newbury District Council and then West Berkshire Council. Recently she was chair of the Thames Valley Police Authority. She also served as case worker for David Rendel when he was MP for Newbury. She was a remarkably unstuffy Mayor of Newbury.

I think the best word to describe Sally is “spirited”. She was highly intelligent and perceptive. When she was “on a roll”, she was extremely engaging and funny. She was a model of a reliable councillor who was extremely knowledgeable in council and public body procedures and, when necessary, well ready and able to criticise them. It is only when you lose people like Sally that you realise what an extraordinarily loyal and dogged servant of the public and Liberalism she was.

As a tribute to Sally, I have reproduced here below the last Focus which featured her. It was distributed in her St Johns ward, Newbury, during January and February. In true Liberal style, her photo is on the front page twice.

Sally’s husband, Paul, has kindly emailed many of Sally’s colleagues including myself and says that “The funeral will take place on Friday May 25th at 2.30 p.m. in St Nicholas Church in the centre of Newbury. Afterwards there will be various beverages and refreshments in the adjacent church hall, and after that for those who share Sally’s enjoyment of good company and are able to stay on, there will be an adjournment to a neighbouring hostelry – probably The Dolphin. Please pass this message on to those who you think would wish to know – Sally was keen that as many of her friends and colleagues as possible should be invited.”

I am typing this post at 6am on 27th April. I will press “publish” on this posting after the actual results are announced on 4th May. Today I will print off this posting and post it back to myself in the Royal Mail, sealed in an envelope with sellotape which I will sign across, to prove through the postmark when I typed this.

For West Berkshire Council I predict this result:

Conservatives 41 seats
Liberal Democrats 11 seats

And for Newbury Town Council I predict this result:

Conservatives 16 seats
Liberal Democrats 7 seats

The Liberal Democrats locally and nationally fought a fantastically good campaign. It was first class. However, there is a tide at work at the moment. National trends, Tory phone banks, repeated letters – that sort of thing. West Berkshire is a marginal enough area as it is.

As I learnt as a kid living on the coast, you can’t fight the tide. It comes and it goes.

Us Liberal Democrats in West Berkshire and nationally have all slogged ourselves out through hard work. But then again, we fought just as hard a campaign in the mid-1990s when we won all but seven seats on Newbury District Council. But at that time the tide was with us and against the Conservatives.

We should remember the old Rudyard Kipling lines:

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

At the end of the day, we should be able to say that we did our very best and that we know what we believe in. In West Berkshire and nationally, us LibDems did our very best in this campaign, we clearly know what we believe in and we are our true to our beliefs. That is all that matters. The rest is tide.

Two of my friends are currently facing cancer and have days or weeks left in this world. It puts things into perspective.

It is sometimes worth asking oneself: “When I am on my deathbed (if I am lucky enough to have one!), what sort of things will I regret not doing?”

The answer for me is: I would regret it if I didn’t spend enough time enjoying my family, being with friends and enjoying God’s world – sun, dawn, sea, rivers, exercise, fresh air, real ale etc.

What I definitely won’t say to myself on my deathbed is this:

If only we had won that election….and if only I had spent more time in council meetings.

We are used to seeing a good number of Conservative candidates described as a “local businessman”. Addresses such as Newbury’s exclusive Garden Close Lane, usually adorn the names of Tory candidates.

Well, this time, the list of West Berkshire Liberal Democrat candidates boosts a good number of “business people” and two people whose address is “Garden Close Lane”. Goodness me, there is even a double-barrelled name in the LibDem ranks. Whatever next?

It seems that West Berkshire Conservatives are somewhat rattled and not confident of how they will fare on May 3rd. This is from the Newbury Weekly News this week:

Laszlo Zverko (Westwood), the Tory who now controls the council’s finances, thinks that the make-up of the council could be sealed by a single family in next month’s vote. “The Lib Dems are giving an awful lot of attention to this ward,” he said. “Because of the tiny majority, one husband and wife voting one way or the other could shift the whole balance of power in the ward and potentially the whole council.” It’s squeaky bum time, clearly. (Herodatus – NWN – 19th April 2007).