Annette Brooke has been made a Dame in the dissolution honours list.

Annette is the longest serving female Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament in history and has served the Mid Dorset and North Poole constituency tirelessly since she was first elected in 2001 right up until she retired earlier this year.

The Liberal Democrats have elected Tim Farron to be their new leader.

After fantastic campaigns from the two candidates, nearly 34,000 members voted in the leadership election - Tim Farron received 19,137 votes and in second place Norman Lamb received the backing of 14,760 people. 

Tim said, "To say it is an honour is an understatement of epic proportions."

Liberal Democrat leadership hopeful, Tim Farron, visited Broadstone last week to listen to local members and supporters as part of his mini tour of the Western Counties.

In his bid to become leader of the party, he spoke passionately on a number of topics including Britain’s housing crisis, climate change and poverty.

Today Vikki Slade urged the people of Mid Dorset and North Poole to back a Liberal Democrat campaign to save the Human Rights Act.

So far more than 25,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Conservatives to scrap plans to abandon our commitment to human rights.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was in the constituency again yesterday to support candidate Vikki Slade and to highlight the party’s key education policies on a visit to Tops Day Nursery, Blandford Road.

Vikki Slade, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Mid Dorset & North Poole, has today pledged a commitment to support Women in Prison's Manifesto which calls for a new approach to criminal justice, where the abuse, marginalisation and poverty at the root of so much of women’s offending is addressed and custodial sentencing is used as a last resort.

Liberal Democrats will give people give 910 carers in Mid Dorset and North Poole a £250 ‘Carer’s Bonus’ for looking after loved ones who are older, disabled or seriously ill.

Baroness Shirley Williams visited Corfe Hills School today to speak about her life in Parliament and answer students’ questions. She was accompanied by Vikki Slade, the Lib Dem candidate for Mid Dorset and North Poole and the former Member of Parliament, Annette Brooke.

It is true that, in Poole, we have less than a dozen people at any one time sleeping rough and while that is 12 people too many it is only the tip of the iceberg.  The plight of rough sleepers should bring shame on us all, you can see people turn away as the dishevelled looking person asks for the price of a cup of tea.  They are making assumptions – that they are an addict, that the money will be spent on alcohol or that they must have done something awful to end up on the streets.