I’ve been away helping with the local elections in Lewisham, currently in an internet cafe in Rushey Green. Full update in a day or two, but I can’t resist logging in to say we won!

The Lewisham Council LibDem group is now 17, up from 4 in 2002 and 7 last week (three of whom were gained in by-elections). Lee Green ward, where I was helping on polling day, now has three LibDem councillors; Blackheath also has three, including our mayoral candidate Chris Maines, unseating the Labour Deputy Mayor. Chris came a good second in the mayoral election, pushing the Tories into third. Councillor Dan has been joined by two more LibDems in Whitefoot, and Forest Hill was a clean sweep too. Thanks to the Greens taking two wards and the Tories picking up one seat, Labour no longer have a majority on the council – although they do retain the executive mayor, who can continuity to rule Lewisham like a king.

The full results are on the Lewisham Council website.

As alluded to earlier, I was in London at the weekend. Long train journey down and a long train journey back.

Delivered hundreds and hundreds of leaflets, visited Blackheath (right) and had a great time at a quiz night run by Lewisham LibDems. The weather was “changeable” – sunny one minute, spitting with rain the next. Sadly it was raining a little which stopped me taking a photo with my phone of a van I saw covered with grocers apostrophe’s: it was advertising work on “Lock’s, door’s, kitchen’s” etc.

On Sunday afternoon, while finishing a delivery round, I got caught in such a torrential downpour that I got completely soaked through. I don’t think I’ve ever been so wet – not fully clothed anyway. With no spare trousers or shoes – and my trainers in particular were drenched – I decided to spend an extra night in London to let my things dry out, as preferable to spending 8 hours travelling in dampness. Monday was a write-off, then, with most of the day spent on a crammed service north.

Despite consuming a fair amount of alcohol over the weekend, I did feel virtuous from all the leafleting and walking, so, as it’s a bank holiday in Edinburgh on Monday, I’m flying back down to the smoke tomorrow to dispense more leaflets.

Once again, quite unnecessary embarrassment has been caused for the LibDems by dubious campaign advice, this time suggesting rounding up children on council estates and getting them to deliver election leaflets.

Anyone with a bit of political nous could surely spot that that was asking to be picked up and made into a “Pied Piper” story. But despite what’s implied in the BBC story, this isn’t a centrally-produced party guide – it’s published by the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, and therefore no more a Cowley Street publication than an LDYS drugs campaign flyer. Nonetheless, it has the capacity to look bad by association and the party should distance itself from it.

The biggest crime in this case is that it’s actually an appalling piece of advice. Rounding up strangers on an estate and trusting them to deliver your carefully written, neatly printed and fastidiously bundled leaflets is lunacy.

Update: James notes that this guide was published 12 years ago. So why not point that out rather than trying to defend it?

…is the new Deputy Leader of the LibDems (or, more accurately, of the parliamentary party).

He won by just two votes, beating Matthew Taylor. David Heath, who I suspect many bloggers and activists (including this one) would have preferred, went out in the first round; three of his voters didn’t express a second preference.

Full result is on Wikipedia.