Monday 22 October 2007

Why Clegg?

Having come out for Clegg early, I've been accused of going for style over substance, and told that I should wait until both candidates have declared their policies. That's a fair point, and here's why I'm voting Clegg. I met Chris earlier in the year, when he came down here to do a bit of canvassing and give an after dinner speech. A very capable and professional performance, but I have no idea what he said, in fact I had forgotten it 10 minutes after he gave the speech. At the spring conference I found myself with half an hour to spare between training sessions, so I wandered into the main Hall where Nick was Chairing a panel. I missed the training, and was engrossed for the next hour or so. Nick told us about new community justice panels being set up in in Taunton, jousted with the journalist from the Telegraph and treated questions from the audience with respect and humour. He seemed to know every ones name.

There are rough edges and Nick will take us out of our comfort zone, and maybe into places that a safer pair of hands might avoid. But we've done the safe pair of hands, we need someone that can deal with the press, someone that will embrace new ideas, and most importantly a leader that people will listen to and remember what he says. That's Nick Clegg

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