At the recent Liberal Democrat Spring Conference, Alex Folkes, the Launceston-based chair of Cornwall Liberal Democrats, was invited to meet Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont, chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the US and the man credited with pioneering the internet campaigning techniques that saw Barack Obama elected to the US Presidency.

Governor Dean was attending the conference to thank the Liberal Democrats for their help in the US elections and to provide campaigning advice.

"It was great to be invited to meet Governor Dean," said Alex. "He told me that Launceston sounded like a lot of the towns in his home state of Vermont and we discussed the disconnection that people often feel when decisions that affect their lives are taken many hundreds of miles away.

"In the US, the Republican Party under George Bush had lost touch with local concerns — just like our own government. Only an active party that talks to local people and asks them what matters to them is going to succeed and that is what the Liberal Democrats are doing in Launceston."