Another high profile Liberal Democrat politician was in Wokingham yesterday (Monday) in advance of next week’s general election.
Layla Moran, most recently her party’s spokesperson for foreign affairs and international development, joined parliamentary candidate Clive Jones, local councillors and supporters for a spot of canvassing in Winnersh.
Jones and the Wokingham team had supported her in the 2017 election campaign that saw her win the Abingdon and West Oxford.
Speaking exclusively to Wokingham Today, she said it would be “.. absolutely amazing” if Clive was to win in Wokingham.
Asked about her experience on the doorstep, she said: “I’ve been touring sears around the region.
“I’m having conversations with people who are saying they’ve voted Tory all of their lives, and this time they don’t know how they’re going to vote.
“And you can see the pain in their eyes, as they say it.”
She described the three main issues that keep coming up.
“It’s the cost of living crisis, the NHS and a lack of ability to get GP appointments, and sewage.
“What I’ve found about sewage is that it’s an issue for young and old.
“You’ve got the people who remember what it was like to frolic in their local chalk streams as children.
“But I had a hustings recently with a local secondary school, and it also came up there as one of the most prominent questions.
Both Moran and Jones are heavy favourites to win their respective seats, but she dismissed the idea of complacency.
“What needs to happen now is no complacency. “I would beg Labour and Green voters to consider what the world would look like on July 5 if they didn’t return a Liberal Democrat in Wokingham this time, and instead got a Tory and so cemented John Redwood’s legacy forever more.
“Imagine that you had that opportunity here in Wokingham to say to John Redwood and his party, ‘we don’t want you in this seat’ and you didn’t take it.
“And that’s, that’s what I’m worried about.”
