DON'T BURY OUR VOTERS!

To Burnley, for a meeting with the Lib Dem council leader, Gordon Birtwistle, who has a chance of becoming the town's first Lib Dem MP. I'm a born Lancastrian, but Gordon is born and bred. He's blunt, dry as a bone, and he creases me.

We stand outside the General Hospital, and he tells me of the campaign he is running to get an A&E facility restored. "What's the service like at Blackburn?" I ask. "Shocking," he replies. "A man ended up there in a body bag the other week. He wasn't even dead. And he puts up a poster for us at election time!"

Apparently the BNP have reported him to the Standards Board. "It's the fourth time," he explains. "I said their councillors were lazy and never contributed anything at meetings. Bunch of idiots."

I want this man on a party political broadcast.