By Will Stobart

Last week Universities of Manchester Conservative Future once again embarked upon the rough seas that is political campaigning at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. Over the three days of freshers’ fairs at both universities, around 20 different activists from the University and all over Manchester came down to help out at our three stalls, outgunning the Labour and the LibDems, who struggled to keep even one stall afloat.

This time, despite the usual trend of student extremism, and the trend of students to join the Hard Left, the Conservative Future branch was the only political movement to measure a significant improvement. Labour struggled to recruit, hampered by a lack of interesting freshers items, while students flocked to relieve us of bottle openers and wall planners, seemingly oblivious that they were accepting gifts from the ‘”evil Tories”.

Manchester, perhaps like many northern cities, has always been a difficult place for Conservative Future to make progress, yet this year the doubling of memberships at Manchester Metropolitan, as well as the doubling of interest in the party at both Universities, shows that the CF brand is alive and well in the North West.

Highlights of the week included the Liberals being forced to make John Leech MP to stand at their stall, and the ‘occupation’ of the Labour stall at Manchester Metropolitan when their members decided they had more important things to deal with. In many a university, freshers might have been surprised to see a blue rosette behind a stall decked out in red, but in Manchester, it’s unforgivable.

Related posts:

1. GMCF lead the way at Freshers’ fairs across Manchester
2. CF dominates the UEA freshers’ fair
3. The 2009 CF Freshers’ campaign has begun