Hitchin Nub News was first to break the story this week that the official Liberal Democrats' Parliamentary candidate to fight the Hitchin seat at the next General Election will be Sam Collins.

While Nub News is resolutely non-political we are also acutely aware of local feeling on matters that mean so much to so many local people - who are also our readers and Hitchin voters.

With Hitchin's parliamentarian Bim Afolami MP sitting on a majority of more than 6,000 following the 2019 election - cut from 12,000 in 2017 - and down from 20,000 under his predecessor Peter Lilley in 2015, councillor Collins argues that our town should now be classed as a marginal seat, thanks to the exceptionally large voter swings at recent by-elections due to Tory sleaze.

Read on for councillor Collins take on the situation.

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About two years ago, on a very rainy night in December 2019, I stood up on a stage in a leisure centre sports hall in St Albans and sent a clear message to the people of Hitchin & Harpenden: "You now live in a marginal constituency."

As I spoke I saw a Conservative activist shaking his head and mouthing 'no' at me, and I understand that what he was hearing was a truth he simply did not accept.

The Lib Dems had just come incredibly close to winning what was then considered a safe conservative seat.

Just over 20,000 people had voted for me to be the new Member of Parliament for the constituency, something nobody who did not wear a blue rosette had ever achieved before.

But that Conservative Party member, along with everyone else must now realise that I was simply stating facts.

Recent by-election victories against the Tories by the Lib Dems, firstly in Chesham & Amersham and then just a few days ago in North Shropshire, show that there is a big shift happening in British politics.

People who have for years, perhaps an entire lifetime, always voted for the Conservatives, have said that they have had enough.

The mishandling of the pandemic, lies, apparent corruption, parties at No10 when the rest of us were locked down, raw sewage pumped into our water course and the never ending mess of Brexit, has seen so many people just become utterly fed up of this Government.

Those voters in seats like Chesham & Amersham, North Shropshire, and indeed Hitchin & Harpenden are looking for an alternative and they are finding that alternative in the Liberal Democrats.

Even before Boris Johnson's calamitous conduct of the last two years was even a factor our area was shifting away from the Conservatives, and now surely they face an embarrassing defeat here.

It is now even more true than ever that in Hitchin, it is fair to say, you live in a marginal constituency.

Read Hitchin Nub News for our unrivalled depth of coverage on the Hitchin and Harpenden Parliamentary seat, as the battle for Westminster gears up ahead of the next General Election.