Getting used to it all...

It is Sunday morning and whilst Gordon Brown is proving that he’ll lose the next election on the BBC, I am really coming to terms with being a Councillor. With a wife, one child, another on-the-way, Union Rep, School Governor, full time job, Tory Deputy Chairman, applying for parliamentary seats – it’s a full life. But I love it that way. I’ve been campaigning for so long that the though of not standing in elections for the next three years is quite scary. Before I’ve even got my feet under that proverbial City Hall desk, I have two requests for help from people in Bowthorpe. I want to help them now but I know how slow the machine is – we have to be sworn in on Tuesday, have our training on 19th and then have the Mayoral making ceremony on the 23rd May.

My next-door neighbour is shocked. He couldn’t believe that, of everywhere in Norwich, it was West Earlham, Larkman Lane, North Earlham and Bowthorpe that had a Tory Councillor. I’m not. Those are the areas most taken for granted by Labour and the area that is most in need of change. People used to vote Labour to make their lives better, but it always suited Labour not to improve things so that people would have more reason to vote for them next time. No longer – it really is time for a change on that front.

I wonder how the Bowthorpe Labour Party will react to all of this?