High Peak members help out in TIVERTON and HONITON

Margaret Weaver (High Peak Treasurer) and her husband Chris are in Devon this week helping the Tiverton and Honiton candidate Richard Foord to win the by-election on Thursday. They've been busy delivering leaflets in Honiton and today met Richard who was very appreciative of their support.

The staff are really on the ball running an efficient machine. The small office was packed with volunteers who were despatched in a matter of minutes with their leaflets and instructions, with a queue of people outside waiting to get in to take their place.

On the wall is a whiteboard with the locations of everyone who has been up or down to Devon to help, with people as far North as Aberdeen - and with plenty from the Manchester, Hazel Grove/Stockport and East Midlands areas!

High Peak Chair Ray Atkins and his wife Beth were down there earlier in the campaign. Everywhere throughout the town were folks sporting day-glo orange badges or displaying the familiar diamond posters in their cars.

The Tory office just a few yards down the hill appeared to be closed! Chris and Margaret visited the little church across the road from the office to see if they could help with admin work but the place was packed to the brim with people stuffing envelopes - and there was no room for them!!! Volunteers ranged in age from teenagers to octogenarians.

Chris and Margaret will be taking turns at polling stations on "the day" and are acting as stand-byes in case people booked in can't make it. In the meantime they will be delivering leaflets every day.

Chris recalls the last time he travelled a long distance to assist in a by-election, which was in 1973 when Alan Beith won the seat for the Liberal Party in Berwick-on-Tweed, overturning a Tory majority of nearly 30 years by just 57 votes. It can be done again on Thursday, to show Boris Johnson and his party that the British public will not put up with his view that he can disregard the laws of this country to suit his own ends.