Yesterday, I received a complaint from our MP, John Mann, about a Facebook Group I run on behalf of Bassetlaw Against Fracking.  It seems he has taken exception to some of the posts there, particularly one about David Cameron.

I am a believer in free speech and have tried to let members post to the group anything about the anti-fracking movement both locally here in Bassetlaw and also further afield.  Apart from references to any political party (including the Lib Dems) I have not interfered unless asked to.   In this case, as with any complaint about a post on any Facebook Group I administer, or indeed any other website I am involved with, I took action.  I checked that there was no reason not to remove the offending post and then deleted it.

Nothing too complicated in all this you might think, local MP contacts local group about a problem post on Facebook, no big deal.  However I wasn’t contacted directly by John Mann, no he made his complaint directly to Nick Clegg (John Mann’s letter to Nick Clegg), not only complaining about the FB group but also asking for me to be removed from my role as vice chair of the local Lib Dems.

Mr Mann seems to be too scared to contact me directly.   I know I don’t agree with him on a number of issues but I have always been approachable to people from other parties, indeed have a number of friends in the Labour Party.  Its either that or John Mann thinks that I & the Lib Dems are gathering strength locally and are posing a threat to him.

Well, I have news for him, Bassetlaw Lib Dems are going from strength to strength.  This year we will be fielding a record number of candidates at the District Council Elections, our membership continues to grow, up over 15% in the last year, and everywhere we go in the District, people welcome us and are glad that at least one party is willing to make the effort to go out to talk to them.

Maybe John Mann is right to be scared of the Lib Dems here in Bassetlaw as we pose a threat to Labour’s cosy way of doing things.  We want to involve people, not exclude them; we welcome people who have ideas and opinions, not try to shut them up with party discipline and most of all we want to work with the people not just take their vote at election time.