Anders Hanson

It’s Easter weekend, but unlike the rest of the population who either have time off with their families or go to church, I am spending it at work.  Easter normally falls right in the middle of the local election campaign so I am used to it, but despite being so early I am still hard at work artworking leaflets for the Liberal Democrat local election campaign.

This weekend has been unusually quiet and peaceful.  Normally the Liberal Democrat office is complete pandemonium and is busy with people coming and going either on party business or to see the MPs office.  But this weekend the MPs office is closed and the majority of party activists have been slogging away on the streets all day long.  So I am currently enjoying a a rare moment of peace and quiet to sort out the office, to plan what is coming up next and to do the bits of artwork that need more thought.  I also thought it was a good opportunity to make a little bit of time to post here as I doubt I will have much time for it during the rest of the election.  Unfortunately the quiet will undoubtedly be shattered in the next couple of hours when people return from today’s action day (where lots of people go out and deliver leaflets or knock on doors) to stuff envelopes and to have a campaign meeting.

Talking of action days.  One very noticeable thing this year has been the number of people, many of them members we haven’t seen before, who are turning up to our regular action days.  Today the hoards have descended on Hillsborough where we hope to pick up a seat from Labour again, but no matter where we have had action days whether it’s Ecclesfield in the North or Mosborough in the South, the turnout has been brilliant - the best ever.  I hope this bodes well in a year when we hope to take control of the city council from Labour.

Despite being mid March, the campaign already feels in full swing.  Although Liberal Democrat activists have been working hard for weeks and months (quite literally ‘working all year round’), there comes a point when suddenly it feels like election time.  It is some weeks before the official start of the local elections and it is quite a long way before polling day.  But it is the point at which everyone is working flat out all of the time delivering leaflets, knocking on doors and phoning voters; whilst I spent my time feeding this insatiable appetite for electioneering by writing, artworking and printing leaflets, printing off canvass cards, generally keeping the campaign on track and doing lots of other behind the scenes administrative tasks that are dull but essential.  As someone who has spent years campaigning on the streets and who enjoys doing it, I feel slightly lazy being in an office all day but I suppose someone needs to do it and the very late nights (or should that be early mornings) certainly aren’t an easy thing to do day in and day out.  My housemates must be forgetting who I am as haven’t seen them in over a fortnight now.

For me this campaign is also the final slog of a very long electoral year.  Not long after last year’s local elections came the Sedgefield by-election where I spent a lot of time designing and printing leaflets and letters, then came the extensive preparations for the General Election that never was, then there was the Lib Dem leadership election and then after Christmas it was the build up to the local election campaign that we are now in the middle of.  It’s been a marathon year and I will be glad when it is over on 2nd May.  I just hope no politicians choose to die, resign or anything else that will affect the time off that I definitely need afterwards.