LEEDS STUDENT WHO BERATED BLAIR BACKING GREG MULHOLLAND TO WIN!

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 21st Apr 2005

Leeds Student, Jessica Haigh, who gave Prime Minister Tony Blair a humiliating dressing down on a walkabout in Leeds yesterday, has declared she will be supporting Liberal Democrat Greg Mulholland to win Leeds North West at the general election.

Mr Blair was visiting Leeds as part of the general election campaign and decided to speak to some ordinary people in but in a scene reminiscent of the angry exchange outside a hospital which proved to be the abiding memory of the 2001 campaign, he got to hear exactly what some people think of him. He came across Jessica Haigh, a 20-year old student who criticised the Prime Minister and told Mr Blair that he had turned the party into a replica of the Conservatives.

Miss Haigh, a creative writing student at Leeds University, said ?I?ve been feeling this way for a while. I think this was my chance to get it all off my chest and tell him exactly what I think of him.?

She also told Mr Blair she would be backing Greg Mulholland, the Liberal Democrat candidate in Leeds North West.

Jessica told the media that she would be voting Liberal Democrat this time, citing Iraq and the issues of student tuition and top-up fees. She lives in Headingley which is represented which is in Leeds North West constituency, the top target for the Liberal Democrats in West Yorkshire.

Jessica revealed that she had been registered to vote in Scarborough where her parents live but changed to vote here because Leeds North West is a seat the Liberal Democrats have a great chance of winning and she had been impressed by their campaigning there.

The Liberal Democrat student group have been running the 'Make Your Mark' campaign by to encourage students to register delivered 10,000 voter registration forms to student houses and one of these was filled in and returned by Jessica.

Standing for the Liberal Democrats in Leeds NW is Greg Mulholland who is already Councillor to Jessica and thousands of students. Leeds North West has the second highest number of students of any seat in the country at 19,829 and the Lib Dems have been tipped to snatch the seat from Labour in what is predicted to be a very close finish between the two parties.

Greg Mulholland commented, "Jessica was only expressing what thousands of other students would like to say to Tony Blair. Students are angry about the fact that Labour is making higher education the preserve of the rich and are furious that their 2001 manifesto promised not to introduce top up fees then they went and did so!"

With the high numbers of students in Leeds North West, the result could be determined if the students come out to vote in any sort of numbers.

Said Greg Mulholland, ?The message is clear: that the result in Leeds North will be determined by students if they come out and vote. It will such a close election that each vote really will count.

"Like Tony Blair today, Labour are hoping that the students stay at home and don't bother them. If they do come out on May 5th and tell him what they think, the Lib Dems will win here in Leeds North West."