Tales from the crypt
A NEWS feature about my afternoons peeking behind the scenes of the Liberal Democrat campaign in Hampstead and Kilburn appears in today’s Camden New Journal. One of the most confidential secrets was the hired crypt under Rosslyn Hill Chapel. As hustings took place upstairs – and jeeeeee there were a lot of them – down in the vaults below, a little Lib Dem industry was whirring away, printing campaign leaflets in the brick basement. It’s craftiness like this that made me liken Ed Fordham’s campaign to unseat Glenda Jackson in the paper today to the famous Guy Fawkes plot. In this pic, you can see gunpowder has been replaced with the little-less-lethal weapon of boxes of A4 paper.
Richard Osley 
Ed should get used to it – at council meetings in 2006 Phil Turner was still using headed noted paper from his unsuccessful bid to unseat the Tories in Hampstead.
He stood in 1987.
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And I thought that it was dodgy statistics that Ed used in his campaign “474 to win”, I now realise it could have been divine intervention, well at least one bit was correct “its a two horse race” in which Ed was a distant 3rd, an also ran!
CK
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Chris, Chris, calm down. Everyone within a 1000 votes is hardly distant even in your book of generosity – 1% eitherway…
Ed
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You sure it wasn’t satanic rituals taking place down in the crypt?
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Err, this wasn’t actually a secret, you know. But never mind.
Fordham’s campaign resembled Guy Fawkes in being a failure, but otherwise I fail to see the similarity. One was a man of principle hoping to do his best for his country. The other is a liberal democrat campaign officer.
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Since CNJ did not publish the below letter on its website, for the record I’m posting it here.
Richard Osley’s election exclusive (“Behind the scenes of the Lib Dem plot that failed …”, 20 May) says that one of the ‘big secrets’ of the Liberal Democrat general election campaign was a ‘hidden vault’ (i.e. actually the old furnace room in the basement of the Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel) where Lib Dem election leaflets were being printed. The fact is that a variety of local charitable, educational, cultural, artistic and other organisations rent space in the chapel for use during the week. Among these has been the Conrad Print Society whose clients have included the Liberal Democrats (the Society has rented the basement room for storage and occasional work).
The article notes that hustings also take place at the chapel and as co-chair of the lectures committee responsible for organising the political question time events, as well as a member of the chapel’s Management Committee, I would like to make it clear that the chapel does not support or favour any political party. As Unitarians we seek not to be bound by dogma and to provide a space that is open for people to explore and express different views and beliefs.
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