Alasdair MURRAY

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who voted for me last week. The fact that we substantially increased our vote to more than 13,000 bodes well for the future. I am also greatly heartened by the enthusiasm and new support we generated during the campaign. We do not intend to rest here but will continue to build towards the next election with the first (anticipated) step, the battle for the Council next May.

Yesterday I had the immense pleasure of of talking to Harry and Liam on Nerve Radio, the Bournemouth University Students' Union radio station. It was for their "Party Political Playlist" series of features, which all of the local candidates have taken part in.

As well as selecting some of my favourite tracks to be played, we discussed a wide range of issues including the election, immigration, the digital economy bill, tuition fees and local housing. Those discussion parts of the piece have been uploaded to youtube and I'm also embedding them below.

I did a very short piece for The Bay Radio, an excellent community station based out of West Howe and serving Poole and West Bournemouth (in fact they pretty much mirror the constituency). You can download the mp3 here (its only 1'30 long).

Nick Clegg and the battle bus paid a flying visit to the constituency today to speak at the Royal College of Nursing conference at the BIC. Lisa Northover, our candidate for Bournemouth East, and myself managed to steal him from the media scrum for a few minutes and grabbed a photo and a chat. He was looking amazingly relaxed and confident for the third week of the campaign. Next stop Birmingham and the third leaders debate tomorrow evening.

So Gordon has been to the Palace and the phoney war is finally over. Now there is just a month to persuade people it is worth getting out there to vote.

To kick things off, here is a short election message I have recorded via the Winkball video site.