Withington Lib dem demise Manchester Withington is a seat that Labour should retake at the next general election. This wont be to much to do with national issues though the Lib Dems are so treading water waiting for Ming to pop his clogs it's beyond a joke but rather to do with the utter waste of space who is the Lib Dem MP John Leech. The last local elections in the constituency saw Labour get a 6% swing when we only need a 1% one to win the general election next time.

Also the women who bankrolled the Lib Dem general election campaign to the tune of 20k has defected to Labour so he is going to have to stump up quite a bit of cash if he is going to mount the same kind of campaign as last time.

There is lots of juicy lib dem bashing gossip and it has to be admitted some defence of the lying scoundrel on the excellent John Leech Watch.

Here is a post from the comments section for flavour.

Withington Observer Monday Dec 04, 21:47 There is a hint in one or two of these posts that the estimable John Leech MP is somehow directing some of his record expenses to his party political activity. Others say that people in all walks of life, including MPs, fiddle expenses. But surely we need some evidence for such allegations and insinuations don't we?

All I can say is that I remember seeing in the Evening News that John Leech MP had produced what he called a "Parliamentary Annual Report" afterabout eight or nine months, including the long recess and that this wasdistributed just before and possibly in the early days of the local election period this year. This was a glossy number and in Chorlton it included TWO count em pictures of the local government candidate for Chorlton for the Lib Dems. So the tax payer was paying for something which clearly had a party political component and perverse timing for an annual report but useful timing for an electoral effort.

But that is not all. Yes, it was paid for by the taxpayer. Yes, it was excessively like Lib Dem campaign material. Yes, it included two pictures of the local candidate just before an election. Yes,it was rather nauseating. But what's this? It was also distributed in parts of the Chorlton ward for muggins the local candidate but which fall outside John Leech's current constituency. Which is bang to rights. There was even talk of the guy being reported to the Speaker for deliberately going over the constituency boundary - and apparently he has done the same sort of poaching casework in two or three other neighbouring constituencies. This was not the first time we've seen mistaken distribution from Leech'scrack team. Surely the Christies leaflets shoved into the poor faces ofterminally ill cancer patients in waiting areas was another example? Even if the leaflets had not been full of fibs this was bang out of order. And I'm sure that in his heart of hearts Mr Leech knows that.  ¶ 2:08 pm