Sir Vince Cable – former Leader of the Liberal Democrats – visited Wellington to address a meeting organised by the local party.
His speech was a mixture of political memories and searing comments on the current Government’s policies.
By strange irony, he had just finished an anecdote about a meeting with the Queen and President Xi Jinping of China when chair Nancy Powell-Brace interrupted with news of Her Majesty’s sad death.
After a brief discussion on what should happen next, the audience decided that the Queen would have wanted the meeting to carry on. It did, with a lively series of questions from the floor and answers from other panel members.
Federica Smith-Roberts (leader of Somerset West and Taunton Council), Sarah Dyke (Somerset county councillor and Lib Dem candidate when the Somerton and Frome by-election is held) and Gideon Amos (Parliamentary spokesman for the Lib Dems in Taunton Deane) were fellow guests.
It fell to Mr Amos to sum up, telling the meeting: “Ultimately it is our Lib Dem values that will help us win this seat and many others, just it was a lack of values that brought down Boris Johnson and infects the current Government”.
Richard Foord, the recently elected MP for Tiverton and Honiton, was unable to attend the meeting as he had been called away to “a conflict zone in Central Europe” on a Parliamentary mission.
