Isn't it lovely to be appreciated?

Look what I got in the post this morning...

Not only did that make it feel that all of my efforts in February had been noticed, but the growing number of photographs of them popping up all over the place brought back happy memories of how the party really bonded and worked together to get Mike Thornton into Westminster. I didn't even go to Eastleigh. All I did was at the end of a phone in the warm. Nothing compared to those fabulous people who worked pretty much 24/7 for weeks. If we get a badge, they should get a vat of beer.

Thanks to whoever it was in LDHQ who thought to do this. It was a lovely surprise, and came out just at the right time.

But enough of this soft-heartedness. These phone calls to voters across the country aren't going to make themselves.

The party has put the same spirit into the local elections as it did into Eastleigh, working hard to get our brilliant local councillors re-elected.

Liberal Youth's Gold Guard initiative has seen them campaign all over the country. Just see how they are making a difference.

Just two more days of slog, people. Keep at it.

Three things the Liberal Democrats must learn from Eastleigh

From Liberal Democrat Voice:

Liberal Democrats are entitled to a weekend of being incredibly pleased with ourselves. I have never been as proud of this party as I am now. The way we calmly and professionally got on with delivering a brilliant campaign on the ground was astonishingly good. Activists put their lives on hold and dedicated themselves to Eastleigh for three weeks. My eternal regret will be that I never made it there, due to a horrendous Flu and its lingering aftermath. However, Team Scotland and many others across the country phonebanked their hearts out. Yesterday in Edinburgh, we even had to have an overflow room because so many people turned up to get out the vote. One young man, Daniel, even drove the 130 miles from Aberdeen to join us. 

The way the party bonded in adversity was not dissimilar to Willie Rennie's shock victory in Dunfermline seven years ago which was set in a backdrop of us having no leader and an uncomfortable tabloid story appearing roughly every half hour. We weren't in Government, then, though.

The team on the ground who produced the leaflets, got them delivered, made good use of the VIPs' time, organised the technology and inspired the party to rally round them were second to none. None of them should ever have to pay for a drink at Federal Conference ever again. We all owe them.

Stephen Tall has already written about the overall political ramifications of the result. I want to concentrate on the lessons the party must learn and act upon in the future.

There is no room for complacency

Yes, we won. But we had a significant swing against us that we can't ignore. We can't allow ourselves to forget in the warm glow of victory that we have some serious stuff to sort out. When we get things wrong, we don't have friendly media to help us out of the mire. As we've seen the last week, the likes of the Mail, the Murdoch empire and the Telegraph are only too keen to give us a good kicking. We have to demonstrate that we have dealt with all the issues which have been raised about us in the last week. If that means a few boats need to be rocked, then so be it.

The very nature of a general election means we can't concentrate all our activists on one place with one common goal. It is neither practical nor legal to deliver a leaflet a day in a campaign where the expenses limit is much smaller.  The intensity and brevity of the by-election helped us. We have to work out how to translate the things that worked in Eastleigh to local campaigns and build the capacity to deliver them. That necessitates a serious strategy to attract both members and supporters.

We have to value and build on our local government base

I doubt we would be celebrating this morning if we hadn't had such a bedrock of a local government base and a long record of delivering for the community. Keith House leads a team of over 40 local councillors who do all the right things. I lost count of the times voters told me great things about their local Liberal Democrat councillor, whose name they always remembered. The party needs to step up to the Eastleigh or the Portsmouth level of activity. We need to throw the kitchen sink at the County Council elections in May and make sure that our local base is enhanced. Our councillors matter and we need to work with them better. I'm encouraged by closer working together between ALDC and the party's election strategists. We need to do more, though and we need to listen to our councillors when we develop national campaigns. We might not have elections here in Scotland, but I'll certainly be encouraging people from here to help in Northumberland.

We have to develop a liberal response to the anti-immigration rhetoric of UKIP

It is not a good thing when a party like UKIP does well in any election. Their narrow nationalism makes any self-respecting liberal wince. The only thing we were saying about the UKIP candidate was that she lived in Surrey. We need to do better than that and effectively challenge the rubbish they come out with. Too many voters told me widely inaccurate stuff about how 40 million Romanians and Bulgarians were going to come here and get houses. 40 million? Really?  That's more than the entire population of both countries put together. We need to arm ourselves with some facts and engage in this debate. I was very happy with the policy we had at the last general election, to give people who had been here for a long time a path to citizenship and I wouldn't want to see us change it. Even Nick Clegg saying on the radio the other week that we need to look at whether the rules on housing allocation were fair made me slightly uncomfortable. What we need is more affordable housing, not to put people against each other. Nobody else is going to put the liberal case for us. We have to do this effectively and never pander to the sort of rhetoric we hear from UKIP and, regrettably and increasingly, our coalition partners and the official opposition.

The same goes for issues relating to the EU, as well.

Just for a little, while, though, let's allow ourselves the luxury of a well deserved celebration. Federal Conference a week from today is going to be fun.

Irony and the Tory MP #eastleigh

One of the funniest moments of yesterday was listening to Tory MP George Hollingberry talk about how refreshing it was to have politicians who spoke their mind. "Do you want to have robocandidate?" he said.

And he said it without a trace of irony, too.

Who would have thought his comments came as part of the Eastleigh by-election hustings on Radio 5 Live? Here he was, replacing the party's actual candidate in the by-election, Maria Hutchings. Why on earth would the Tories replace a loose cannon of a candidate who has criticised state education with an on-message Cameron crony? Her minders have form for keeping her as far away from the press as possible as Mark Pack reported the other day, for what appear to be obvious reasons. She's not been called the Tories' Sarah Palin for nothing.

This poster was seen circulating round social media yesterday morning and I thought it was worth putting it on here for posterity.

Mike Thornton, the Liberal Democrat candidate, made some excellent points during the hustings, despite being rudely interrupted by host Victoria Derbyshire on numerous occasions, even during his closing statement.

He was very clear that he thought Chris Huhne should apologise for the wrong that he's done. He was very good on both local and national issues, talking about how he had consistently opposed the gravel pits and voted for one responsible and needed housing development in order to save the green space between the towns and villages. He talked about how youth unemployment in Eastleigh had gone down by 20% and how 2100 apprentices had been created in the constituency. He emphasised the tax cuts for ordinary people secured by the Liberal Democrats.

If you have some spare time this weekend, please use it to help Mike Thornton to become Eastleigh's next MP. Wherever you live, you can make a difference to the campaign, whether by phonebanking (which Scottish Liberal Democrats will be doing in Edinburgh tomorrow, or by travelling to Eastleigh and helping deliver leaflets or knock on doors. All the information you need is here.