Somerton & Frome parliamentary candidate news

Happy New Year

I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year, with family and friends. For me it was a good break from work and politics, and recharge batteries, and it is now time to get stuck in again! It was a busy November and December…

Opposing harmful County cuts

Over 60 people attended a meeting of the Mendip Trades Union Council in Frome, about the damage being done to community services and jobs by the Conservative cuts at Somerset County Council and continued Tory Government defunding of local government. I along with representatives of three unions, Labour the Green Party, and fellow Lib Dem councillors Tessa Munt and Damon Hooton were given the opportunity to speak. We all agreed that the cuts – to 70 areas of work including family services, Citizens Advice funding, winter road gritting, and libraries, are very harmful and should be opposed.

Later that week I launched a cross party campaign to ‘Save the Key Centre and stop cutting family support services‘. This campaign opposes SCC’s proposed abolition of the Getset ‘early help’ service based at the Key Children’s Centre in Frome and elsewhere. GetSet supports families having parenting problems before they reach crisis. After a quick campaign meeting I wrote and publicised a cross party letter (signed by Lib Dem, Green, Labour and Independent councillors), and launched a petition here which has been signed by over 500 people, and my team has made a video here of parents describing how Getset has helped them through life. The video has been viewed thousands of times. I have also submitted a response to the SCC consultation based on the comments received from people. I will keep the pressure up. We now have hundreds of people supporting the campaign. Please see here and get in touch to help and find out more.

I am one of those lobbying both Mendip DC and Frome Town Council to mitigate SCC’s cuts, with some success, including Citizens Advice funding (see here) and I am keeping an eye on the libraries. Local ‘friends of the library’ groups and town councils have submitted expressions of interest, to establish Community Library Partnerships to help save Somerton, Bruton, Castle Cary and Milborne Port libraries, which would otherwise have closed due to Somerset County Council slashing funding. Some of our members are heavily involved in these – thank you for all you are doing for your community.

Plastic planet

In early December I ‘returned the plastic‘ to Sainsbury’s in Frome with a jolly band of plastic free campaigners.

I also took a small group of Lib Dems (SSDC cllr Henry Hobhouse (Castle Cary), MDC cllr Tom Ronan (Plastic Free Wells) and Gordon Czapiewski (Plastic Free Wincanton), to meet Protomax, an innovative plastic recycling company in Frome, to hear all about the inspiring work they do in turning any sort of plastic waste (including from the sea) into a vast range of useful products (construction hoarding, furniture, emergency housing, and even the office the meeting was held in). The company’s business model is based on turning waste plastic into a product. Waste plastic from companies and organisations produced by them can be turned into useful items and returned them. Protomax are always looking for new businesses that they can help reduce waste plastic landfill. The company provides a solution to the huge global problem of plastic pollution in the ocean, recently highlighted by BBC’s Blue Planet 2 and Drowning in Plastic TV programmes. The huge environmental impact of using plywood hoarding around construction sites which sees wood from millions of trees imported into the UK then dumped in landfill sites can be alleviated by using the Protomax service. We are calling on local businesses, councils, events and festivals, and Government to see how Protomax can help save money and save the only planet we have.

Opposing Fracking in Mendip

In December at Mendip District Council, I supported cllr Damon Hooton’s motion on fracking, which was passed by a majority. This reconfirms Mendip’s 2013 motion opposing fracking on local environmental and climate grounds, and supports the Local Government Association’s objection to the Government’s proposed bypassing of local democracy on fracking decisions. I also spoke on BBC Somerset radio about this (please see here).

A People’s Vote

I was out campaigning for a People’s Vote on the Brexit deal with our members in Frome and the Mendip European Movement, and we also had a team out in Somerton. 11 volunteers handed out hundreds of our ‘Bin Brexit’ leaflets and stickers to shoppers at the Frome Independent Christmas market, the town’s biggest shopping day of the year (see here). We gathered a big cross-party crowd to meet the big yellow Brexit bus in Frome on its national tour just before Christmas – I said a few words we met campaigners Madeleine Kay and FauxBoJo – they were great fun and made a good point. The videos of these events have been seen by thousands on our Somerton and Frome Lib Dem Facebook page, if you have not seen them please view and share at https://www.facebook.com/somertonandfromeLD/. Thanks to everyone who came out in support. Parliament will have the delayed meaningful vote in mid January, and it is still likely to be rejected, which means a public vote on the deal with an option to remain in the EU is looking increasingly possible. I know not everyone agrees, but we are a tolerant party and we must always be civil in our arguments.

Out and about

Elsewhere, amongst other things I enjoyed a good ‘evening with Nick Clegg’ with Yeovil Lib Dems and their PPC Mick Clark, before Nick went to California – Nick’s speech on Europe and young people was a source of renewable energy for the future. The annual Castle Cary Quiz was good fun and very well attended, and raised considerable funds, long may it continue! At our party AGM in Bruton I gave a speech to update members on our campaigns, and a new Executive was chosen for 2019. From this month I will be out and about canvassing with councillors and selected candidates across the constituency.

Getting involved

What matters to you, what needs changing in your area? You could be just the person to stand up and change the world? Please see https://beacouncillor.co.uk/. To find out more or express an interest please just reply to this email.

Remembering Paddy

Sadly we heard the terrible news about Paddy Ashdown before Christmas. Paddy was such an inspiration to so many of us who knew him or of him. He had immense energy and enthusiasm for politics and for helping people, winning respect within and outside the party, and was always looking to the future and how to improve it. His legacy is immense, and will live on in the strength of the party he led, rescued and grew into a powerful force in British politics, in the local party he built into a real force in Yeovil and South Somerset, in the constitutional reforms he helped make reality in the late 1990s which modernised British democracy, in the lives he saved and the peace he worked to build in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in the inspiration he gave to so many of us to campaign and work for a better society. Some of us were privileged to meet and dine with him in October (please see here). Paddy was great form, sharing his views on national and international politics as well as discussing his epic historic research and his new book Nein, about the German resistance to Hitler, and the disturbing parallels with today – please see a write up here. Three years ago Paddy encouraged me to stand for election again, and in October he signed my copy of his book with a ‘Go Adam!’. I think the best way we can honour Paddy is to keep fighting for what we believe in, with renewed heart and determination. Please will you also join me in signing and sharing your memories in the book of condolence here. Please also see Vince Cable’s message here. I hope his wife Jane and their family can find some comfort in the warm and loving words from all who knew him, and in the knowing that he inspired so many of us.