(Internet) Famous me—Ealing Southall
2007-Jul-09, Monday 13:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matgbRight then, while I digest me lunch, brief bit on yesterday. I actually managed to drag myself out of the house before noon on a Sunday, went into Wimbledon to meet the local Lib Dem chair and others, and went of to Ealing Southall for a bit of by-election campaigning.
Ealing Southall is a constituency which is, apparently, over 90% non-white, and very (very) Labour. Which is of course why on the 100+ doors I knocked on, more than half were Tories, and only two of those that answered were asian—we'd been given the Toriest of Tory wards. Still, a fair number of positives, a few posters and some very (very) knackered legs. It's been a long time since I went out doorstepping; some experiences in Exeter had put me off it a bit, and I actually did enjoy it; helped that the company was good and I was working in a team of fairly experienced activists, whereas before it'd usually just been me and one other. Biggest complaint by those we'd disturbed wasn't the local hospital, nor the tram scheme, nor the crime rate. It was the timing of the call; Men's Singles Finals at Wimbledon. Given we were all from Wimbledon and had no interest at all we sort of kept that bit quiet.
After the doorstepping, we went back to the HQ, a spare unit on a business park, but very well equipped given the incredibly short noticed, and stuffed envelopes for a bit. Not bad, some good company, and I got to meet some fairly well known/well read bloggers. In fact, specifically, there's a picture of me on a top rated Lib Dem politics blog; here on Pink Dog! Look, I'm clearly there, I'm the bloke in black behind the dog and Millennium Dome, Elephant, definitely the starring role for sure. Also there was Alex of Love and Liberty and a few others including the infamous Mark Pack; several MPs stuck their head through the door, Susan Kramer came to our table, Nigel Bakhai got himself photographed with the Elephant, Vince Cable and Chris Rennard were about, etc.
Overall, a good day, came back utterly exhausted but I'd finally put some names to faces and got back involved in partisan campaigning on the ground; still not really my thing but I ought to do more than I do. Very difficult to read the likely results, the local Labour party appears to be split with internecine strife, the Tories selected a non-member as a candidate and had a few defections both ways, and there seem to be a lot of undecided swing voters. A by-election in which all three main parties are in with a chance, but the Lib Dems are the only ones not (yet) hit by some sort of scandal. Interesting times...
Pink Dog is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
pink_dog_fd, Millenium Elephant is elephantfeed and Alex is alexwilcock. I especially recommend Millenium's recent series of articles on Doctor Who, in which he gets a bit of help from his daddy Richard...
Ealing Southall is a constituency which is, apparently, over 90% non-white, and very (very) Labour. Which is of course why on the 100+ doors I knocked on, more than half were Tories, and only two of those that answered were asian—we'd been given the Toriest of Tory wards. Still, a fair number of positives, a few posters and some very (very) knackered legs. It's been a long time since I went out doorstepping; some experiences in Exeter had put me off it a bit, and I actually did enjoy it; helped that the company was good and I was working in a team of fairly experienced activists, whereas before it'd usually just been me and one other. Biggest complaint by those we'd disturbed wasn't the local hospital, nor the tram scheme, nor the crime rate. It was the timing of the call; Men's Singles Finals at Wimbledon. Given we were all from Wimbledon and had no interest at all we sort of kept that bit quiet.
After the doorstepping, we went back to the HQ, a spare unit on a business park, but very well equipped given the incredibly short noticed, and stuffed envelopes for a bit. Not bad, some good company, and I got to meet some fairly well known/well read bloggers. In fact, specifically, there's a picture of me on a top rated Lib Dem politics blog; here on Pink Dog! Look, I'm clearly there, I'm the bloke in black behind the dog and Millennium Dome, Elephant, definitely the starring role for sure. Also there was Alex of Love and Liberty and a few others including the infamous Mark Pack; several MPs stuck their head through the door, Susan Kramer came to our table, Nigel Bakhai got himself photographed with the Elephant, Vince Cable and Chris Rennard were about, etc.
Overall, a good day, came back utterly exhausted but I'd finally put some names to faces and got back involved in partisan campaigning on the ground; still not really my thing but I ought to do more than I do. Very difficult to read the likely results, the local Labour party appears to be split with internecine strife, the Tories selected a non-member as a candidate and had a few defections both ways, and there seem to be a lot of undecided swing voters. A by-election in which all three main parties are in with a chance, but the Lib Dems are the only ones not (yet) hit by some sort of scandal. Interesting times...
Pink Dog is
pink_dog_fd, Millenium Elephant is elephantfeed and Alex is alexwilcock. I especially recommend Millenium's recent series of articles on Doctor Who, in which he gets a bit of help from his daddy Richard...
