Campaign up date from around Norwich...

Nelson Ward: Strong canvassing team out tonight around the Earlham Road, plenty of good Tory support to be had. The Park Lane and Earlham Road junction remains a big issue with a lot of people. The Green Party posters have started to go up, but far fewer than we’ve ever seen before. Interestingly one voter commented on how little the Greens seemed to be doing, whereas the Conservatives were getting extremely active. No sign of LibDem or Labour activity whatsoever.

Mancroft Ward: The double election here has put a spring in a few people’s steps. Issues regarding anti-social behaviour continue to dominate our campaign here. We were door stepping around Queens Road and Surrey Street tonight and got a good reception. Even people who weren’t planning on voting Conservative were really nice and said how pleased they were to see us.

Thorpe Hamlet Ward: A daytime excursion took us deep into the City and the blocks of flats around the Riverside. Despite the fun and games of getting into the blocks it was well worth it. Very little opposition activity. We have signed up a lot of Postal Voters today, which was good. High name recognition for Trevor Ivory, who stood here last time, which is also encouraging.

Bowthorpe & Earlham Ward: Another visit to Chapel Break and the roads around Harpsfield. A lot of LibDems switching to us, knowing that only we can beat Labour. I’ll just leave you with one comment: “For Labour in Bowthorpe, this is their 1997. I’ve voted Labour all my life but they need a spell in opposition so I am going to vote for Antony Little.”

Campaign starts today!

Tonight is the AGM of the Norwich Conservatives and the first day of the election campaign. From now on, I'll be blogging over at the NorwichConservatives blogspot until the election. Hope to see you there! I shall return here on Friday 5th May.

If you require a postal vote or have any election queries please contact Antony at norwichconservatives dot com

New Campaigning Blog

You should take a look at the Conservative City 06 blog - the first time that a whole set of candidates has blogged a single election. We hope for regular updates on campaign issues, stories from the doorsteps and election material!

The people behind the surveys

There are three kinds of people who return party political surveys. The vast, vast majority are good, community minded people who want to have their say on the local issues that matter. We have received literally hundreds upon hundreds of these in the last two weeks.

Then there are the two surveys I received yesterday. One was filled with abuse – I cannot imagine what kind of person has the time or energy to do such a thing and then pay himself to post it back. Some of the references to Tory sleaze go back so long I had to look them up on the Internet. It was an amazing work of a seriously troubled mind.

Then there are those with genuine grievances whom we’d like to help but can’t because they’ve either ticked the DPA box and thus we cannot legally get back in touch or have ripped out their details from the letter. I find that totally bizarre as why ask for help or action and then prohibit us from giving it?

QT Round Up: Sir Digby floors 'em

Sir Digby Jones is the head of the CBI and has held that job for a number of years. I had always thought that, for a business leader, he had a rather tame attitude towards the government. That was, until last night’s Question Time on the BBC.

He absolutely tore into the government, politicians, the Trade Union Movement and poor old Tony Benn (who trades on the fact that nobody opposes him).

You can always rely on good ol’ Boris for the laughs and no doubt he won Dave Cameron a dozen or so votes last night. David Laws is good value for a Liberal Democrat and Shami is rapidly becoming populist-in-chief for the BBC but always good to watch. But it was clearly Sir Digby who stole the show.

I thought that his blast on the paymaster Unions and their relationship with Labour was long overdue, and Benn’s response about the numbers involved shows a deep naivety of the way that modern Unions run themselves. For me, the best bit was the attack on politicians themselves … business leaders fall on swords right, left and centre and often do so because there is the merest whiff of something up. Politicians cling to office like limpets armed with super glue. What’s more, claimed Sir Digby, politicians scapegoat business leaders all the time whilst continuing to abuse their trust. He also took Tony Benn and Shami to task on everything they said. Well Done, that man!

Winner: Sir Digby Jones
Loser: Unusually I have to say Tony Benn – he was way out of step on the religious dress issue
Audience Member of the Week: The guy who said that school uniform was authoritarian in its nature and said that pupils should come dressed to school how they like, including as devil worshippers.
Question of the Week: Talk about Iraq without slagging off the US, Blair or Bush. If only they could do with without mentioning the word “illegal”.
Answer of the Week: Boris Johnson avoiding disclosing who the Tory donors are.
Joke of the Week: Tony Benn on the House of Lords.

One electoral victory secured, now onto Bowthorpe & Earlham...

Good news from the key electoral battlefield of Notre Dame High School where a strong swing towards me had produced a sensational Teacher Governor result! Yes people, the masses have plumpt for yours truly, winning a 50% turnout election with bang on 50% of the vote. Two things are worthy of note.

Firstly the speed at which your life changes. New MPs always say that the speed of the transition is incredible. So too for governors it seems. The forms were on my desk before I reached it again after the result was announced. I was on committees within 6 hours and have a gallon of reading with 24 hours.

Secondly is the degree to which campaigning matters. The first two days I went for it like a madman (posters and the lot). Then I calmed down and forgot about it. When the votes were opened, my main opponent got 11 votes before I had scored a single cross on the ballot paper. The votes further down (those cast first), were 90% for me, because my supporters voted early.

Well, regular reports from the educational battleground coming up!

Disgraced LibDem quits in Norwich (finally)

Disgraced LibDem Councillor Samantha Allison has finally resigned, promoting a by-election in Thorpe Hamlet. The poll, which I believe will be called for 4th May, adds to the by-election caused by the resignation of County Council Leader Alison King in Cringleford & Colney.

Although this is clearly a personal matter for former Councillor Allison, I am glad that she has chosen to go because to hang on would merely damage the political debate in Norwich – especially as the paper would run this story day-after-day. I think, however, two issues do spring to mind.

Firstly questions must be asked about the wise ness of Council Leader Ian Couzens giving her 110% backing the whole way through. It certainly says something about his judgement.

Secondly, 24 hours ago she had a splash banner headline in the Evening News declaring “I won’t quit” and then promptly does. Pushed or jumped? Maybe Cllr Couzens threatened to disown her if she failed to go. At least a by-election on the same day as the City election saves both money and the embarrassment of the LibDems losing the seat, which I believe they would have done if the by-election had been at any other time.

The LibDems really are a shambled internally and it should make every LibDem voter think very hard about if these people are really worthy of their support.

Canvassing Today

Today’s canvassing efforts were heart warming to say the least. We went with a group of 1st year students to the UEA to Chapel Break and found a very warm reception. Name recognition is still very high and, despite doing a mixture of areas, we seem to be polling well ahead of Labour. Issues ranging from dog mess to anti-social behaviour and double-parking today. Also we got the first real direct criticism of the Labour Councillors for the area. People sometimes say, “I’d not vote Labour”, but you don’t know if that means not Tony Blair, not Labour or not the local councillors. Today people directly accused them of being lazy and stay-away in their attitude to Bowthorpe. Quote of the day, from Jay Gardens, was “it doesn’t matter how many pretty pictures of them, smiling and pointing at the road they do, we know they take us for granted.” Interestingly very, very few people around Chapel Break voting either LibDem or Green – everyone polarised between the two major parties.

Nationally the LibDems seem to have taken an interesting right-turn in the first few days of Sir Ming’s leadership. Firstly he backed the privatisation of the Post Office (of which we said he would at the last general election only for local LibDems to go apoplectic … apologies can be e-mailed to me). Now ITV report that they are set to slash the lone parent benefits.

Update on those pesky LibDems

Apparently North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb is set to be Sir Ming's Chief of Staff ... a curious move there really, I might have thought a front-of-house job was best for good media-performer Norman.

Another brick in the wall

Congratulations to Sir Ming Campbell for his impressive majority in the LibDem Leadership election. I wondered how foolish Simon Hughes feels after another public declaration of “I’m on the verge of winning” (a la the London Mayoralty) only to be crushed. Anyway, now all eyes turn to the Campbell leadership.

The man most pleased is, of course, David Cameron because the LibDems have chosen somebody that nobody under 55 could vote for. Sir Ming is a well-respected authority on foreign affairs but lacks the dynamism to be a forceful political leader. Pleasingly my colleagues all seem to agree, and the LibDem voters amongst them seem most angry with this choice. I always said that voting Sir Ming simply puts off the Orange Book Liberal versus SDP choice that the party must make for another few years and so it does.

Cue the bookies lengthening the odds on a LibDem victory at the next election and, more surprisingly, the decision of senior frontbencher Norman Baker to quit. Mr Baker has been the Environment Spokesman (and a jolly effective one too) for many years and claims he wants to spend more time being a constituency MP. Huh? Norman’s majority in his Sussex seat is one of the biggest in the country! Anyway, there is some speculation around Westminster that he has jumped before he was pushed as apparently Mr Huhne has his eyes on the Environment portfolio.

Compare the media hype, the opinion poll jump and the unity that surrounded Dave Cameron’s victory to that of Sir Ming’s.

I'm voting YES!

David Cameron today launched his Tory beliefs document, Built to Last, and with it a series of websites asking people to comment on various policy areas. This is what I have just posted on the public services site:

I am a state school teacher and a former Conservative PPC. We need to recognise that working conditions for teachers is as (or more) important than pay & conditions. School buildings, stress of inspections, behaviour management, classroom resources and time allowances all need to be addressed. Give us the tools and we'll do the job. Accept that the government was right on the Workload agreement but wrong on TLR - and work on ways to bring teaching & learning to the fore without shunning the pastoral duties of the teacher. The Conservatives are a growing force in educational thinking, let's be bold in our policies next time!

I think Dave is somewhere on the right ball park here, the document is well thought out and broad in tone. BBC's Nick Robinson doesn't miss out on the significance of some of what is said (MPH in a Tory document?!?) though I am sure that the cynical press will have a field day.<

Worse than being canvassed in not being canvassed at all...

With great apologies to one blog reader from Sheffield who e-mail to protest that the only thing worse than being canvassed is not being canvassed...

Hi there. Read your article via Iain Dale's blog. Forgive my sarcasm; I
have a very good friend who stood as the Lib Dem candidate in East
Oxford and I've already harangued him at length with much the same
points*...

> Canvassing is one of Britain’s great political traditions. We live in
a country where a near stranger comes onto your land and asks you about
your civic right to vote in a secret ballot and then leaves to record
that information on a database. *

Or they don't, as the case may be.

*> In many countries, such as France and the USA, canvassing simply
isn’t done.*

In many parts of the UK it doesn't appear to be done either. Sheffield
Hillsborough, for example.

*> However, these days there seems to have been a culture shift. During
much of the previous 50 years not voting was frowned upon and even if
you didn’t vote you didn’t admit to it. Nowadays people wear the “non
voter” label like some kind of badge of honour. It’s almost as if some
of them say, “you can’t hold me responsible for the state of the nation
because I don’t vote.” *

I vote. I'd quite like the chance to discuss candidates' policies on the
doorstep. They just don't seem particularly bothered about bringing
themselves to me.

*> Rather like the curious argument that “I’m too old to vote” (no word
of a lie, people do say that) this is a bit of a cop-out. If people like
that gentleman had voted (plus 13 more), I’d have been their Councillor
for two years and I think things would have been different.
*
Rather like the curious argument that 'this constituency's going to be
won by Labour, so we won't bother even trying to win any votes there.'*

> Also there are the people who say they don’t vote but just lie. After
elections the parties are given what is called a “marked register” which
lists who did and didn’t vote. It doesn’t tell us how you voted, just if
you did or not. During the day 23 people told us that they never vote
but had done so only last May. We know that they almost certainly wanted
to hide the fact that they weren’t voting Conservatives (in fact the
common view is that people like that vote LibDem but are utterly ashamed
to admit it) but why feel the need to lie? Canvassers don’t attack and
if you tell the truth then we don’t come back.*

If, indeed, anyone ever came round in the first place.

*> If you say, “I might vote for you” when you don’t mean it, then we
will come back! *

Promise?... :)

*> In total, we met (no word of a lie) 136 people who said they weren’t
going to vote. That is more than the total number of pledges for Labour,
LibDems and Greens added together. It seems all politicians have more
work to do.
*
Yup. So knock on more doors!

*> During our Friday and Saturday canvassing sessions we came across a
variety of issues. Youth provision needs improvement and people want
real street policing to be re-introduced. Council tax is too high but,
sorry LibDems, there was no appetite to replace it with the
higher-charging Local Income Tax. Roads and speeding came up and also
the development at Three Score was a big concern.
*
Good stuff. At least people are telling you what they think.*
*
*> We got 2 new members, one new poster site and a collection of very
angry dogs.
*
:) I hated delivering to houses with dogs when I was helping to
distribute our Village Appraisal.

*> We saw one naked woman, one naked male UEA student, two babysitters,
three builders, three people unable to speak English, one person who
didn’t know what the Conservative Party is...*

..possibly because he'd never met anybody from it....
*
> two people clearly still drunk from the night before, two of my
ex-students, one Chairman of the Bowthorpe Labour Party, one Labour
Councillor, two domestic incidents, one police van, two cleaners from
the UEA and (amazingly) three people who claimed to work for the British
Nuclear Authority – all in different houses. All we need to do now is to
get them to vote.
*
Good luck!

Tales from the Canvass Trail

Canvassing is one of Britain’s great political traditions. We live in a country where a near stranger comes onto your land and asks you about your civic right to vote in a secret ballot and then leaves to record that information on a database. In many countries, such as France and the USA, canvassing simply isn’t done. I think it is a great way of bringing the feet of politicians back down to earth. This month we’ve delivered a leaflet across the whole of Bowthorpe and Earlham and sent out roughly 5000 questionnaires. But nothing prepares you for the direct views of the population.

There are three groups of people who are, though, making life tough. The first are those people who simply won’t open their doors. I think that’s running at about 5% at the moment. They are in, the windows are open, the TV is blaring out and they ignore you.

Then there’s the next group, I think touching 10% who don’t care why you are there but want to be rid of you. One look at somebody they don’t recognise and it’s “no thank you,” then slam! Is that a “no thank you” to politics, the Conservative Party, me personally or simply anybody in the world you don’t yet know?

Lastly there are the group who tell you they simply won’t vote. Now I’ve never accepted the argument about not voting. The parties aren’t the same and yes your vote will make a difference (Labour majority in Bowthorpe and Earlham is 14 votes). However, these days there seems to have been a culture shift. During much of the previous 50 years not voting was frowned upon and even if you didn’t vote you didn’t admit to it. Nowadays people wear the “non voter” label like some kind of badge of honour. It’s almost as if some of them say, “you can’t hold me responsible for the state of the nation because I don’t vote.” Actually, it is those people I DO hold responsible for the state of the nation. As we went down the streets in West Earlham, two gents were washing a car. They enquired what we were doing (well, half a dozen people clutching clipboards and discussing what Thatcher would say about the state of the pavements in Earlham). When I explained who we were, they both said they never vote. Then one ventured the idea that no time or money was ever spent in Earlham whilst places such as Lakenham, Mile Cross and Marlpit get all the investment (never mind if this is true, it is what he thought). When I explained that if he felt like that he needed to change the people in charge – Labour have won the area since the 1960s – he said, “oh, no, voting’s not for me”. Rather like the curious argument that “I’m too old to vote” (no word of a lie, people do say that) this is a bit of a cop-out. If people like that gentleman had voted (plus 13 more), I’d have been their Councillor for two years and I think things would have been different. Also there are the people who say they don’t vote but just lie. After elections the parties are given what is called a “marked register” which lists who did and didn’t vote. It doesn’t tell us how you voted, just if you did or not. During the day 23 people told us that they never vote but had done so only last May. We know that they almost certainly wanted to hide the fact that they weren’t voting Conservatives (in fact the common view is that people like that vote LibDem but are utterly ashamed to admit it) but why feel the need to lie? Canvassers don’t attack and if you tell the truth then we don’t come back. If you say, “I might vote for you” when you don’t mean it, then we will come back! In total, we met (no word of a lie) 136 people who said they weren’t going to vote. That is more than the total number of pledges for Labour, LibDems and Greens added together. It seems all politicians have more work to do.

During our Friday and Saturday canvassing sessions we came across a variety of issues. Youth provision needs improvement and people want real street policing to be re-introduced. Council tax is too high but, sorry LibDems, there was no appetite to replace it with the higher-charging Local Income Tax. Roads and speeding came up and also the development at Three Score was a big concern.

We got 2 new members, one new poster site and a collection of very angry dogs.

We saw one naked woman, one naked male UEA student, two babysitters, three builders, three people unable to speak English, one person who didn’t know what the Conservative Party is, two people clearly still drunk from the night before, two of my ex-students, one Chairman of the Bowthorpe Labour Party, one Labour Councillor, two domestic incidents, one police van, two cleaners from the UEA and (amazingly) three people who claimed to work for the British Nuclear Authority – all in different houses.

All we need to do now is to get them to vote.

A LibDem mystery

Apparently the ballot paper for the LibDem Leadership lists the candidates names (as would, I suppose, any ballot paper) with one curious exception.

There is a surprise last minute candidature from CAMPBELL, Menzies.

Is he by some chance related to "elderly toff" (Labour MPs words, not mine) Sir Ming Campbell? Or is Sir Ming embarrassed by his knighthood fearing it might put off a large section of the left-wing of his own party?

Following on from a LibDem defection in Suffolk to Cameron's Conservatives, news from Iain Dale's Diary is that Loughborough's LibDem candidate has switched to Labour now.

Why is it that LibDems struggle to keep hold of their defeated candidates? Or is it that those candidates, once defeated, choose to make a new political home where they can win?

So the government did in fact get its ID card proposals through the Commons and with a half-decent majority too. This size victory was quite well known - if the government were really in trouble I think they'd have had good ol' Tone back from SA by hook or by crook (probably, given this government, the latter). He wouldn't want to see another piece of cornerstone legislation lost by a vote and miss voting himself! The BBC Reports 20 Labour rebels, and I fear the normal mix of lefty Bob Marshall-Andrews, former Cabinet supremo turned looney Clare Short and Hayes & Harlington's very own John McDonnell.

Today the big vote is on the smoking ban.

It’s been quite a week for poor ol’ Tony, currently stranded in South Africa. Tonight the government won a key vote on ID Cards, maybe because of the last minute appeal by co-Prime Minister and Chancellor Gordon Brown for rebels to shut up and get in line. One rather irate Westminster insider has been going around spouting off to anybody who’ll listen that Brown is about to accept a job switch to DPM, but I’m not sure I believe that. You might have though that following the slaughtering at Dunfermline that Brown would keep his head down, but apparently not! I suppose I’d better add congratulations to LibDems for that one, a good result for everybody who is anti-government. Can the Tories win any by-election? Probably, but the LibDems are now so good at it that they could started a distant eighth place with few votes than you need signatures on a nomination paper and still find a bar chart that proves that only they can win here! And they’d probably go on to do it! Over on pb.com one LibDem candidate in a by-election where the Tories score 70% to Labour’s 30% and no LibDem candidate asks how he can create a bar chart to spin that one! Answers in the comments section.

The LibDem leadership contest rumbles on, livened up only by random attacks on each other. Chris says it’s between Sir Ming and himself, Simon says it’s between Sir Ming and himself. Both Huhne and Hughes magic up YouGov polls to prove their point. One ex-colleague from Hillingdon Borough in West London tells me that Hughes “two horse race” predictions are worthless in the capital after he predicted that the last Mayoral election was between Red Ken and himself – before slumping to a pathetic third behind Tory “Shagger” Norris.

Locally we had our first major campaigning session out in West Earlham last Saturday. This has always been tough Tory-territory but the good result last time (we lost out by only 14 votes) is encouraging more and more Tories to get postal votes and pledge to vote this year. What is interesting is the number of people willing to listen to Cameron’s message – far more than last year. Labour are still ahead in the polling district but well down on where they were last year. We then spent the weekend in London seeing my new Nephew! Hurrah!

Blog Spam

I have been blog spammed twice today (those people who make generic comments on your blog to advertise their own). They were from a person dedicated to BBQs and somebody looking at the rights of rodents. Nice. If you have had any good ones on your blog, add them to the comments section!

A week in politics

Simon Hughes and his bedroom activities aside, politics is returning to normal for those of us who can see beyond the LibDem Leadership contest.

First David Cameron takes a poll lead according to ICM, and then YouGov show him 1% behind Labour. Either way this is pretty good news for the Tory Leader as he seems to have shifted the party out of the 29-33% box and into the 38-39% one. Ideally to have a realistic majority at the next election we need to on 42% and 10% ahead of Labour so Cameron’s going in the right direction. What is interesting about the YouGov poll is that Labour have surged at the expense of the LibDems, who are just about fighting off minor parties with 13% of the vote.

Secondly campaigning is up and going from the Dunfermline & Fife by-election in Scotland. The row about job losses spilled over into the Commons this week too. The LibDems were second to Labour in this seat, with the SNP a close third and the Tories a rather distant third. What makes it more symbolic is that LibDem wannabe Sir Ming Campbell is one parliamentary neighbour and so is Chancellor Gordon Brown. The LibDems are trying to keep their shape despite a leaked letter showing them desperate just to keep second, let along win! Needless to say I’m back Tory candidate Dr Carrie. Nice!

Thirdly Peter Mandelson had made a scathing attack on Cameron by accusing him of being a carbon copy Tony Blair. Er, does that mean that even the Prince of Darkness will come out for Dave? Well, if it’s good enough for Sir Bob Geldof!

Also Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt demands health MOTs for everyone, Ann Widdecombe rejects a slot on strictly come dancing and Britain commits more troops to Afghanistan.

LibDem response

As I have said on a comment here, I don't believe that voters really make political judgements on individuals like Mr Kennedy, Lord McNally or Mr Oaten. However they do help (like the Tories in the 90s) to form a general opinion of a party. The LibDems always saw themselves as above party politics and I fear that is no longer true. However, quite rightly, both the Sunday papers and the politics programmes today granted Mr Oaten his wish to sort out his issues in private. That is except the News of the World of course who go way over the top. Both Sir Ming and Chris Huhne have been exceptionally gracious in their response - I have heard nothing yet from Simon Hughes. The on-line community is always the worst on these occassions and I urge readers to get their news from Iain Dale rather than the vast number of annonymous nay-sayers who inhabit the world wide web.

Another political day

A bizarre day all round really.

Firstly I receive a consumer questionnaire about the treatment I received whilst in an ambulance and A&E (following a nasty foot and tree-root related accident). The NHS is not a profit company and whilst I appreciate that they appreciate my views why should taxpayers (yes, Ms Hewitt, taxpayers) money be spent on this? To prove government targets perchance? Why isn’t the cost of the lovely glossy letter, survey and reply-paid envelope going into actual front line care?

Then Mark Oaten quits as LibDem Home Affairs Spokesman for “personal errors” without saying what they are. Hmmm…

UPDATE: Sky News reports it has something to do with a rent boy.

UPDATED UPDATE: Mark Oaten has confirmed he has had affairs with a 23-year-old rent boy in 2004 and 2005, which included 3 in a bed sex. Source: Sky News Website