Saturday, October 21, 2006

Hating Your Opponent Is Wasted Energy

Hats off to Nich Starling, a LibDem councillor in North Norfolk for THIS. Nich sums up what it's like being involved in the maelstrom of a campaign and only seeing the bad things in your opponents. Like him, in the past I have found it far easier to campaign if I actively dislike my opponents. But the older I get the more difficult I find it is to do this. I guess it's called political maturing. I have always got on with people in other parties and intend to continue doing so.

I remember several occasions when I encountered Nich at meetings in North Norfolk and could sense real hostility from him. His Blog post helps me understand why. I think we've both learned from the experience.

6 comments:

Gracchi said...

Yeah that shows that you have the maturity to understand that people can disagree with you for good reasons- a good thing even if bad for campaigning.

Anonymous said...

Its all very "nice" being nice to Liberals but its good to remember this.

The Liberal party in the seventies joined the LIB/LAB pact. This kept a very unpopular and horribly failing very socialist government in power for long enough to destroy this country almost for good.

Since then I have never known what a Liberal stands for, still dont, and trust them even less.

Hopefully this may be a small sign that Liberal supporters have finally started to work out what a liberal is. Because one thing one most certainly is not is socialist.

Strange that this liberal chap did not work this out at the time and still seems to be unsure that you Iain Dale are more of a liberal then he will ever be.

I think 3 terms of a Labour government is begining to concentrate their confused and irresponsible minds. Lets hope.

dizzy said...

Nich is an Evertonian.

Anonymous said...

In my experience the average political party activist of whichever party probably has more in common with activists from other parties than they do with a voter of their own party.

Anonymous said...

Campaigns are a test of character. I remember when Michael Foot, then leader of the Labour party, referred to Tories as "the enemy". I was a determined Labour supporter until that idiocy. I've never been back.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Iain. Apparently I am now "sucking up" according to words on my own blog left by Mr Anonymous, so I'll have to learn to become more hostile again !!

Still, I think Dizzy puts it best when he simply puts it all down to me being an Evertonian !