Adrian Collett says "Thank You" (Aldershot Constituency Liberal Democrats)

Aldershot Constituency Liberal Democrats <info@aldershotlibdems.org.uk>

Adrian Collett says "Thank You"

June 4, 2010 10:30 PM

Adrian Collett "I would like to say "Thank you" to everyone who supported me at this year's General Election campaign and helped achieve a remarkable result which bucked the national trend.

It was a tremendous result. Naturally we wanted to win, both here and nationally, but while we didn't win this time, we are well positioned now for a new Parliamentary Candidate to take over and go on to make sure we do next time!

I know that the Coalition has been controversial. We would prefer to have been in power on our own - and we fought very hard locally to beat the Tories. But we were thwarted by many people who decided in the last week of the campaign that getting rid of Gordon Brown was their number one issue and that was enough for Gerald Howarth to hold on to his seat. Up until then it had looked very promising indeed.

With the results that then emerged nationally, there was only one combination which provided an opportunity for stable government. Lib Dems together with Labour didn't add up to enough seats and many of their big hitters made it clear they wanted to go into opposition to lick their wounds.

So we now have Lib Dems in Government for the first time in many decades - and while I don't feel comfortable about a number of the Tory policies that our MPs are having to support as part of the deal, I am excited about many of the Lib Dem policies that we are managing to get agreed. This was always going to be a difficult period for whoever was in power, but it's already clear that the influence of our MPs is making sure that the weakest are protected from the worst problems of the economic situation - and that wouldn't have happened under a solely Tory Government!

My goal was to fight for Aldershot, Blackwater & Farnborough in Parliament, but to see Lib Dems fighting for more fairness in Government is a great step forward even though there are many issues where our views remain very different from the Conservatives.

I had hoped to thank many of you personally over the summer months but my wife broke her foot the day after polling day after being up all night at the Count. As she has not been allowed to put any weight on her foot while it recovers, our lives have been dominated by coping with this while I catch up with the mountainous backlogs of work that built up while I was fighting the election. So I am sorry that I have not been out and about so much to thank you personally."