Thank you all.

A huge thank you to everybody who helped supported and voted for me in the last local election.  The months beforehand were a huge adrenalin rush for me, from the media coverage, talking to the voters then culminating in polling day I loved every second.

The support from my family and friends came as no surprise but the way a small army of helpers came together to monitor the media, deliver flyers and letters, put up then take down posters then turn up at polling stations and talk to the people of ward 19 was awesome.  I won’t name you all here, you know who you are.  Thank you, I really couldn’t have done it without you all.

To the voters I am lost for words, who would have thought a newbie like me after a massive smear campaign could have taken it to the wire the way we did. 

A strange thank you to the media.  A major lesson learnt, now I know why nobody talks to them apart from “no comment”.  Never ever talk to any reporter on the phone, they never are who they say they are and they will twist every word you say as they did with my Facebook posts without ever printing these posts complete and in context, and as for the TV coverage, I predicted the BBC would run with the tripe and they did, nowt biased there then?  Political journalism is a dirty job but somebody has to do it BUT it’s what they did not report that speaks volumes particularly Councillor Alan Clinch’s sick joke concerning breast cancer, why did the press print NOTHING and where were the BBC then?  However the media did highlight I had nobody watching my back and for that I am thankful.

A very special thank you to my octogenarian aunt for letting my team use her house as a campaign office and tea room on polling day xx.

Lyall.