So, maybe John Leech took some story about Christies and exaggerated it. Well yippee. A politician exaggerating a story for political gain. How novel. That's never happened before, has it? Saint Keith never did it, did he? Come on lads, show me a politician that doesn't do that! It's how politicians function. All of them. Yo are all presumably Labour Party supporters. You are also presumably sincere and committed to Labour ideals. You therefore know a thing or too about politicians telling lies, don't you? I don't want to rub salt into the wounds because privately I'm sure most of you feel grossly betrayed by what your party's leaders have done over Iraq, don't you? And you must realise that it is very difficult at the moment for any Labour supporter to talk about exaggerating a point, "sexing it up", or lying? Because you guys have just been betrayed by your party's leaders. You've been taken for fools. When it comes to lying for political gain, Labour has completely blown its credibility over Iraq. I'm not having a go. I sympathize. I've been a Labour supporter all my life, and I'm appalled too. I simply cannot come to terms with the party I supported all my adult life taking this country to war by lying to the people of this country in order to give support to a US President who personifies everything that I -AND you - despise. So don't knock John Leech for indulging in a bit of exaggeration for political effect. The sad thing is that people would begin to doubt Labour so much that they could believe Labour to be capable of such a thing in the first place. And don't kid yourselves that the Chrisities affair had any great effect on the outcome. I don't believe it did. Number one effect has to be Iraq and how it played. THat lost you massive ground. No doubt there were other localised things like student fees and so on, but I think you have to accept that the rest of the huge swing comes down to long, hard, sustained grass roots work by Lib Dems in a way that Labour basically neglected, and you don't seem to realise that. I know a lot of people who voted for John Leech. And most of them would have voted Labour a few years back. I heard plenty of people talk about Iraq, plenty talk about how John Leech was always there at local residents meetings, protest meetings etc. Those things obviously mattered to them. But I promise you I never heard snybody, other than you guys, even mention the Christies story. So I do not believe it registered on the political radars of most of the voters who turned to John Leech instead of Keith Bradley. So my point to you is, whether JL was truthful or not, whether the threat to Chrisities is or was there or not, was irrelevant to the outcome of the election, and you are clutching at straws if you think otherwise. If you want to get the initiative back here, then you'll have to get back to grass roots, find out what makes people tick at local level and get stuck in. I dou bt if you can do it, because a lot of the time that will pitch you against your party at Town Hall and National level. But I wish you well. I've made these points before and people have scoffed asking "what did John Leech achieve?" That misses the point. Of course he was limited. Manchester Council is solid Labour and he hit brick walls much of the time. But he was there fighting the local corner. I'll give you one small example that justy happened - AFTER the election. THe developers of the Withington Hospital site are trying to sell off the paupers' graveyard in blatant contravention of the spirit of what they undertook to do. So local residents pitched in to try to stop it and keep it for the community. John Leech came along to help. No fanfare , no photo opportunity . He was asked and he came. And helped.And that is what he has done , week in and week out for years. And that is how he has won respect over the years in large sections of the community. He was viewed as fighting for us, whereas Keith Bradley was perceived as doing nothing. No doubt that was unfair on him and you will argue that he did plenty. But I never saw him at any meetings. Think about it. And figure out how to regain the initiative. One final small point. A lot of you talk about the fact of JL's literature over Chrisites alarming people. I'm involved in direct mailings for a living. Take it from me as a professional that on average 2% , and never more than 5%, of direct mail ever gets read. 98% is binned without being looked at. You all read it because you are activists. Civilians chuck it away.

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