Last nights Hertford and Stortford CLP meeting, my view

Well last nights Local Hertford and Stortford CLP meeting was very interesting. This was my first time to Bishops Stortford and i enjoyed this visit to Pearces House on the outskirts of the town.



The meeting started slowly as so often these CLP meetings do i have found in my short time attending local ones.



The main topics of conversation were assessments from Steve Terry who was our local parliamentary candidate in the last election. Sadly i thought but i accept his reasons Steve is stepping down from this position citing the fact he has served longer than he wanted to he only initially wanted to stand for 6 weeks it turned out he stood as long as two years.



I would like to personally thank him for taking his time and working with us for the last two and a bit years. ALthought i am new to the party i can already recognise the hard work he put in. It is not a easy job to do fighting against such a strong tory majority in this area. It is very demoralising if your loosing everytime and goign into the election knowing yuo will not win.



I wish Steve all the very best in whatever he chooses to go on to do.I hope to meet him again one day.



As for the future of the party, Steve left the abiding message that we must appoint someone as our parliamentary candidate from within and someone who knows the area very well.



This in my view should be a young middle aged person who has lived in the area all their life. It is a tough job i admit but i would love to one day go for it. It will be good experience if i could ever get into the position to stand.



The point was raised last night that we may not be facing a 5 year term with the coalition, we could be being lurred into a situation where the tories call a quick snap election next year to reafirm their position while they ahve the publics support on their side. I hope this does not happen but can see the tories trying to ram home advantage and bunking off the lib dems in the same go.



The lib dems could well be inialated if they are not careful. Currently the polls stand at 45 percent for the tories, 35 for labour and only 15 percent for the lib dems. If the tories can grab those lib dem votes while there is much love between the parties they may well be able to form a overall majority and really sink home their deep harsh cuts with no trouble at all.



This is worrying and a little depressing i found last night. I was left wondering where is the fight left in this party and where do we go from here, Our CLP came to the decision not to nominate a leadership candidate this i found disapointing a a sad reflection on the 5 candidates we have standing for labour leader. Where do we go from here, i hear messages from the 5 candidates ut are any of them seriously leadership material and good enough to take on David Cameron who lets be f air is a very good and clever polititian. He has all the tricks in the book and i just cant see many of our 5 candidates standing up to him. THis was the feeling last night and i still think it is the overall feeling amoungst the party as a whole.



So we all take a break now for a month or so, both at CLP level and at national level with the MP's i hope whoever gets voted in as labour leader in september has the fight and the passion in them to bring more members to the party and get a movement going again. If not i really fear for the future of this party, which joining recently i really hoped i wouldnt be saying.