The LibDems' Titanic revival

Five years ago I made a prediction about the fate of the party in the General election in 2015.

Sadly, I was right.

Early last week I made a prediction about the fate of the Medway LibDems in the local elections which drew heavily on a metaphor of von Spee's fleet with the two Councillors leading the three candidates and despite wild inaccuracies from our opponants we were out gunned despite a valiant show went down with all hands.

Sadly I was right again.

Last Friday night as we sat waiting for the Local vote mulling over the General election the Titanic soundtrack came onto my I-pod and I pictured the scene where Thomas Andrews, Titanic's

designer  was explaining to Captain Smith, Bruce Ismay and collected deck officers how the vessel would sink.

She would go down by the head with water flowing over the water tight bulkheads - There would be no stopping it.

This got me thinking about the National party. Clearly we have hit a big 'burg and after the loss of a swathe of very talented MPs we were going down by the head and it would only be a matter of time before people were abandoning ship enmasse and only a few loyal members would go down with the ship still tirelessly working in the Engine room.

This prediction is looking, thankfully, to be unfounded.

Greg Mulholland MP - Fighting back

Over the weekend whilst I was mulling things over and having these dark thoughts the strangest thing happened.

Out of nowhere thousands of supporters rose up and joined the party, including my friend Caz and I'm working on my wife still. These people are angry at the treatment of a party who had given so much in government and was being punished for Tuition fees and for putting party before country and joining the Tories in a Coalition to reverse a horrendous financial deficit. They were also the compassionate side of the Coalition for the most part having passed many reforms and measures (such as 20 free nursery hours, free school dinners, income tax threshold etc) to help working families.

The big question of who to lead us is also hanging over us. With so much talent lost to the parliamentary
party there was an inherent fear that there would be a vacuum but this is not the case. Tim Farron, former president and one of the leading lights is being touted as a serious leadership challenger as is Norman Lamb who has worked closely with Nick Clegg over the years. Behind the scenes as well is Greg Mulholland who is tweeting frantically about change within the party and getting leaner, keener and meaner as well as getting up out of the dust immediately and pushing forward with all its might - a sentiment shared by many of us!

This party is not deceased, nor is it mortally wounded. It has escaped the fate of Titanic and is looking like the engineering crew will get her back afloat and going again and I am very excited to be a part of this!