Monday, April 19, 2010

Campaign Diary - Day Fourteen

And today it was back to work ... well, for half the day. We had training in the morning about Safeguarding Procedures and then coursework moderation. After all the campaigning it was an odd - but subtly pleasure - to do some schoolwork.

In the afternoon we headed to Thorpe Hamlet where we discovered a surprising number of people in to talk to. My favourite was a lady who is now voting Conservative because she was pleased to have a candidate who shared her thoughts on educational inclusion practices. There was a lot of movement amongst the left-wing candidates (including former LibDems voting Labour) but a steady and growing number of Conservatives. Other issues raised were transport and road layout in the City!

Then after I joined the other Norwich South Candidates (except the BNP) at a Trade Union meeting. It was enjoyable - the audience was, of course, challenging. The only applause of the night went to the Revolutionary Workers Candidate. I felt a little like groundog day - the RWP candidate said every issue was a symptom of capitalism whilst the UKIP candidate blamed everything (and, I mean, everything) on the EU. The LibDems were challenged about their policies on Trident and tax cuts, the Conservatives about homophobia in the party and Labour about Clarke's external work above being an MP. He stunned us all when he said he took on extra jobs to make up the salary he lost when he quit the cabinet - amazing! As always, the Greens had little or no scrutiny.

And home, to lesson planning, marking, blogging and a film called "Adam" about a couple where one of them has Aspergers. Fascinating film that really highlights the issue.

1 comment:

Red Star said...

I have found the campaigning of the Revolutionary Workers Candidate quite poor in Norwich. I would like to see more effort in trying seriously to get peoples votes.
Socialist politics in Norwich is an interest of mine and feel that more can be done to get the Left's voice heard. Traditionally it was with the Labour party but believe that the Greens have now taken on the Left agenda.
However I do agree with him on one issue, you can locate most of the problems in society to Capitalism with our relationship to the means of production. He might have regurgitated Marx, but remember its theoretically defensible even though some may consider Marxism practically infeasible.

I am buy no means on the hard left of the political spectrum, but feel that if the Revolutionary Workers are willing to stand a candidate they should at least try and gain some votes. Their campaign team do need to think again about their strategies. However I for one will not be voting for them.

I find it also interesting, that someone challenged the Conservatives on the issue of homophobia in the party. Although I know Iain Dale has made some efforts to discredit claims that the Tories are homophobic.