Mary Reid

The local election kicks off officially today, hence the bit of legalese in the header.

I should state that the three current councillors for Chessington North & Hook are all standing again on 4th May and hope to gain your support.  We are Sue Baker, Ian Reid and myself, all Liberal Democrats.

Running a blog during an election will be interesting - very few councillors around the country have tried it, so there will be much to learn.

I'd like to set myself some election blogging principles and would welcome comments on them.

1. I will put forward the Liberal Democrat vision for Kingston for the next four years, cross referenced to the manifesto.

2. I will not attack members of other parties personally, although that will not, of course, preclude me from criticising their policies.

3. I will try to respond to questions and comments, but my capacity to do so will depend on the volume of questions and the time I have to give to it.

4. I will remove any comments that include personal attacks on other people.

5. I will remove any comments that could be offensive to other people.

6. I will remove any repetitious comments that are stifling debate.

7. I will remove any anonymous comments, or any of dubious origin. If I can be brave enough to put myself in the political arena then so should anyone who wants to disagree with me.

8. I will not remove comments putting opposing political views unless they violate points 4, 5, 6 or 7.

9. I may turn off comments entirely if I am unable to moderate them effectively. I would prefer not to do this as it removes transparency. If I have to do so, I will invite comments by email and will try to answer any points in my postings.

Later

I'm having some technical problems with the comments moderation function on this platform - probably my own fault, as I haven't used it before but have relied on reactive moderation.  I have turned off comments temporarily to avoid legal problems. In the meantime do use the Contact Me link to email me and I will respond to comments online if possible.