Canvassing

Yesterday Michael Garrard came over and we drove to Susan Kramer's campaign HQ in Richmnd, then went out canvassing on a long road of mainly large detached houses, at first sight Conservative territory but as it turned out with quite a few LibDem supporters. The residents all agreed that Susan was a hardworking and effective MP. But as we all know, the personal qualities of a candidate very seldom outweigh the general swing, and normally one would expect that to count against us in Tory-LibDem marginals. In Richmond Park, however, there should be some tactical voting by former Labour supporters who see the necessity of preventing a Tory win. And I think a lot of people may resent the way that Ashcroft's money is behind the Tory campaign