Tuesday, March 23, 2004

I went out canvassing in Bowthorpe tonight – very-interesting results. Why do opinion pollsters not include “labour waiverer” in their results? Very, very few people admit to voting Labour at the moment – although one very, very brave person admitted to being a Labour member. However they fall into two categories. The first is those who have switched directly to the Conservatives. One lady, on the verge of retirement and with a serious disability, said she had voted Labour all her life but no more thanks to Mr Blair. She said that she was voting Conservative because we are the only party locally to show her that we are working hard on the side of the community. Another, a middle aged man, said he was considering voting Tory for the first time since 1992 because Mr Howard was a PM in the making.

However, there are still a lot of ex-Labour voters not going to vote. Now I have 18 months to convince them that I am worth trusting with their vote. I simply don’t believe the media that they are all switching to the Lib Dems. Or at least it isn’t bearing out on the doorsteps of Norwich. It can be done, but we (as a party) need to prove that we are ready to govern again.

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