A Message from Sal Brinton - President

Last week we published our latest membership number and with 44,680 members at the end of 2014 we've grown for a second year in a row.

That's a simply stunning achievement for a party in Government but then the Green Party announced that they now had more members than we do (although their number includes Northern Ireland, which ours doesn't). There are a few things I wanted to say about that.

Firstly, well done to them. Getting people to join a political party is, as we know, hard work. If they've convinced so many new people to do that then I'm pleased for them. We also know that it is a damn sight easier being in opposition than in Government. The Greens haven't spent the last five years clearing up Labour's mess and having to make some frankly very difficult choices along the way.

But they also haven't been able to cut tax for millions of the poorest working people, or give every infant a free hot meal every day, or make equal marriage legal for the first time. In fact, they haven't been able to do anything at all - and you know what? They won't be able to in the next parliament either.

As hard as it is for us at times, whenever I visit a school and see a child who is guaranteed a decent lunch for the first time, I have no doubt which team I'd rather be part of. The Greens are very different to us for a variety of reasons. For example, they're anti-Europe and support the SNP's plan to break up the United Kingdom, which we campaigned so hard against.

We know only too well that one good week in the media can bring a lot of people to the cause who don't hang around when things get tough. It's those who stay that make the difference and for us, that's our members

We have the General Election in 108 days, where we can show people exactly what the Liberal Democrats are made of. Here are three things we can all do right now:

• Ask someone who supports us but isn't a member to join. Just forward them this link: www.libdems.org.uk/join
• Become a Team 2015 Volunteer and help a target seat near you.
• Make a donation. Every pound you give goes to our election fund and will be spent on our target seats.

There are going to be a lot of numbers flying around in the next few weeks. There are only two that matter: the number of Liberal Democrat MPs and Councillors that are elected on May 7th, and I know that we can make that story a good one.

Thank you,

Sal