They'll want to take their time to try and establish whoever is Boris' successor in the minds of the voters there to give them the best chance of winning a by-election.

Time for Henley - upon - thames is soon upon us
What will convince this party that we field a candidate in Henley, hinges on one other important issue, how many activists have we. There are several that have contacted me, by definates to date will be myself, Bill, and ofcourse the candidate (Dane-we hope). Please contact me if you can give some time: karljlangford@hotmail.com

Getting a good team in place would certainly help things in a campaign. I'm sure the Liberal Party would be able to put together some good people for it.

Henley By-Election
I do not think Boris can hang on that long so we are looking at late Summer rather than Autumn. The Conservatives stratigists will want a By-Election sooner rather than later - despite what they say. The main thing is our party needs to be ready and this means campaigning as soon as we are able. First to try and get Dane his £500 deposit. Whilst campaigning to collect this in Henley we would explain to contributers that should we not obtain the deposit contributions would be used to fight the Party's Euro Elections. We could be already near the top of Google & Yahoo about a possible By-election if the Executive could be made aware of how a carefully worded entry would gather the party free publicity from the Internet.

campaign officer
The Lib dems already have a campaign office in Henley. They realise now, what power this by-election has, and we have too also. Karl-James

Are there any party members in Henley that can provide a physical base for the campaign?

Yes. Dane Clouston actually lives in the constituency. He is a member of the party's NEC and is at the moment the most likely Liberal candidate.

base in henley
We can't go as far as a campaign office, but myself and bill with more on the team can put up a fight. remember Richmond 1989!

How many people are members of the Oxfordshire Liberal Party along with Dane Clouston? Actually how many members does the Liberal Party have?

NoNot sure Karl-James, that “Remember Richmond 1989!” is an idea battle cry for the Liberal Party. If memory serves me right David Owen’s continuing SDP beat the Lib Dems into third place coming second, they had a very popular local candidate (Mike Potter ?). A year later after the Loonies beat the SDP in the Bootle by election, Owen threw in the towel and closed down the SDP. Watkins the official Liberal candidate came last with an embarrassing 71 votes. Throughout the 90’s despite the Liberal Party receiving generous backing by David Blackburn, enabling the Liberal Party to spend as much on by elections as the (then) cash-strapped Liberal Democrats, the party performed badly compared to its local government standing. The fact is the Lib Dems will flood Henley with activists, and deliver hundreds of leaflets, even the freepost the Liberal Party will qualify for will be eclipsed by the avalanche of literature from the Lib Dems.

Talk of a June election here. http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/12/is-the-henley-by-election-being-planned-for-june/

stop talking about bootle
The SDP, had a few more votes than those you quoted, and hey we had 474, with a strong Social Liberal Democrat challenge Bootle By election 1990 results Labour Michael Carr 26,737 75.4 + 8.5 Conservative James Clappison 3,220 9.1 − 11.0 Social Liberal Democrat John Cunningham 3,179 8.9 − 4.1 Green Sean Brady 1,269 3.6 N/A Liberal Kevin White 474 1.3 N/A Monster Raving Loony Lord David Sutch 418 1.2 N/A Social Democrat Jack Holmes 155 0.4 N/A Independent T. J. Schofield 27 0.1 N/A

It is up to you guys to decide if you fight Henley, I don’t want to come across as a doom-merchant, but… Karl James, you got more votes in this year’s council election, than the Liberal candidate in the whole Richmond constituency! It really isn’t a rallying cry. There were two 1990 by elections in Bootle, at the second in November, the same Liberal Party candidate (Kevin White a very good candidate I might) only got 291 votes suffering the same fate as the SDP in the earlier by election being beaten by the Loonies. On the same day in the Bradford by election the party only got 187 votes again beaten by the Loonies. In the 1991 Ribble Valley by election the Lib Dems won, the party only got 133 again being beaten by the Loonies (Karl James you got more votes standing for Barry Town Council). The only publicity the party got for its efforts was five seconds of derision by Dimbleby at about 3am on the election special. This was at a time when the Lib Dems were much weaker than today and the Liberal Party had the benefit of a generous sponsor. The moral of the story is the Liberal Party continues to punch above its weight in local government, and conversely doses disproportionately worse in parliamentary by elections. Even with the set backs of this year the Liberal Party has a very strong local government base.

I was looking back through some papers yesterday in connection with my dealings with David Green - we were writing some articles together . At that time David was the Director of Communications and worked out of an office at 1a Pine Grove, Stockport. Is this office now closed? Is there any central administration remaining? It seems to me that if the party wants to extend into new areas it has to have an up-to-date web site at least and some central administration. The last entry on the web site was Nov 07 - to the casual observer, it looks as if the party has ceased to function - not the best base for extending its areas of operation.