Campaigning for deaf children at the Lib Dems: day 3
Posted by Ian Noon on September 16, 2008
It’s been a windy day, as evidenced by my lame attempts to take a photo of a Liberal Democrat flag. But, despite the disappearance of the sun, it’s been another successful day of lobbying Lib Dem MPs. We met three today – Norman Lamb, Malcolm Bruce and Bob Russell. Again, Laura did a fantastic job of explaining to MPs some of the challenges she’s faced. She won effusive praise from Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for Health, who seemed impressed with her confidence and her ability to explain what it’s like to have a cochlear implant and some of the challenges faced in getting one. Malcolm Bruce, who is Vice-President of NDCS and has a deaf daughter himself, also took the time to learn about some of Laura’s thoughts on deafness. Having met ten MPs over two days, I’m exhausted but pleased that it’s all gone so well. Laura has done a fantastic job – and she’s not even 16 yet. She still wants to be a social worker though, so I don’t need to worry about my job being stolen by a young upstart…
We also took the opportunity to catch up and share notes with other charities, including RNID, who have also been lobbying in force at the conference for deaf children and adults.
But it wasn’t all hard work – we took some time out to play some crazy golf! Or, in my case, I took some time out to be comprehensively humiliated and beaten at a game that involves tapping balls into halls by a 15 year old… Darn kids.
So that’s Bournemouth. Next week, the NDCS campaigns team head to Manchester to lobby Labour MPs at their party conference.
