Sad news day

News of two deaths today overshadowed all the good work going on. Ashok Kumar, MP for nearby Middlesbrough East and East Cleveland, was found dead today at his constituency home. Although a staunch Labour man he was by all accounts a good constituency MP and a good man. He'll be missed not only by his own constituency but by a number of people in the Tees Valley of all parties and none who worked with him on things that really mattered to the people of the area.
Later this evening we heard that a much less famous person had died. Andrew had been a brilliant worker in Stockton Liberal Democrats in the nineties, working hard and narrowly missing being elected to council, helping to write our manifesto and then helping a new candidate to come very close to toppling a very safe Labour councillor. When he moved north he was a big loss to the local party.
Put against two relatively young men losing their lives so suddenly and unexpectedly, spending a couple of hours working on the election campaign and then spending nearly two hours in a seminar on Building Schools for the Future slipped into perspective. Not that the latter weren't important and interesting, just that they don't stack up against the loss of two lives.
I was going to write more about Sunday at the conference today but enough to say that if you want to watch Nick Clegg's speech it's here.