 |
Strong Local Voice, Strong Local ChampionAnnette Brooke, Lib Dem MP for Mid Dorset & North Poole |
 |
Lytchett Matravers Village Hall packed out for Paddy Ashdown
March 12, 2010 3:58 PM
Paddy Ashdown and Annette Brooke MP
Paddy Ashdown, former Liberal Democrat leader, visited Lytchett Matravers on Thursday 11th March and spoke to a 150-strong audience in the packed village hall.
Paddy, together with local Lib Dem MP Annette Brooke, met with the local press beforehand and spoke about a number of issues including Britain's role in Afghanistan, drawing on his personal experience as a former Royal Marine, diplomat and UN representative in the Afghanistan.
In his speech, Paddy spoke about the four great challenges facing Britain as the country in the future. He identified these are the economic crisis; Britain's broken political system; the international power shift from the West to the East and climate change.
He expressed serious doubts about the ability of either Labour or the Conservatives to provide solutions to these unprecedented challenges and pointed instead to the Liberal Democrats as having the right approach. Vince Cable, for example, was the only politician to warn of the coming recession, and he was campaigning against climate change as leader of the Lib Dems in the 1990's, he said.
Afterwards Annette Brooke MP chaired a session in which Paddy answered questions from the audience. This covered topics as wide-ranging as Afghanistan and the threat of Islamist extremism in Pakistan, the devolution of power in Northern Ireland, and the possible democratisation of China.
What would you like to do next?
-
Subscribe for updates
Follow the party's activity on...
- Twitter:
- Liberal Democrats
- Facebook:
- Liberal Democrats
- YouTube:
- Liberal Democrats
-
Help out or donate
-
Tell us what you think