Nick Clegg wins by a mile at the Eastern Region Hustings...........

............well that was the verdict of my 20 year old daughter. I should make it clear, despite vigorous attempts by her mother, this was the first party political event Lara has ever attended. Now, she did lead her school out in protest about the Iraq war and as a result spoke at the first STWC people's parliament.........but, like her brother, she has never been one to go along with her mother............on anything! (I guess that is the price you pay for raising independently thinking children). So, taking her to the hustings I went knowing the risk that she would take an opposing view to me on who would make the best next leader of our party.



So, as you can imagine I was delighted that she spent the whole of the journey home totally animated by the hustings and her verdict that Nick was the one who could communicate with young people. Now, as someone who readily admits to having previously been turned off learning, she freely admits to not being overly academic...........the word she didn't get tonight was "bureaucratic" . Her difficulty with Chris was that she didn't understand what he was on about and as she says, "I know I have turned off when I find myself daydreaming, I try to stop it but I can't, I found myself daydreaming a lot when Chris was speaking". In contrast she said she listened to every word Nick said, she understood what he was saying and as she put it "Chris seemed to be talking to the audience, Nick was talking to me".



I took my Blackberry with me for a very good reason. When I take my notebook I only understand every other word I write, but the Blackberry is usually foolproof...........except tonight when I have exceeded my limit and can't email myself my notes. For that reason I will leave writing up my notes until tomorrow as I am far to tired to start re-transcibing. Suffice to say it was a really great evening. Both candidates did well from my perspective (as an anorak), it was also great to see such a huge turn out.



On the way out I took the opportunity to get this pic of Nick with Lara. He had already let me know how off putting it was having me pounding away on my Blackberry while he was speaking so he asked Lara what it was like having such an obsessive blogger as a momma. She was gracious as ever, she told him that all her friends thought she was very lucky to have me as a mum..............but that she had found me very embarrassing when she was younger! Nick was his usual charming self, telling her that he thought he would have liked to have me as a mum too. Hmmmm, I know I am old, but not really quite old enough to be Nick's mum!