One thousand pledges

April 30, 2006

1–2 minutes

You don’t often hear legs scream but mine are audible at the moment. “Mercy. Mercy. No more stairs please!” they shout. The pain seems to be worth it. Our ward figures show that half the ward has been canvassed, that is someone has knocked on the door. One thousand voters have pledged for Respect. The rule of thumb is that you discount one third of these but the trend is heartening. It seems to support observations from the public meetings.

It is very rare for anyone to declare loyalty to another party. We had one loyal Lib Dem this morning and a couple of people who won’t vote Labour again. Yesterday and Friday the BNP seemed to be about half an hour ahead of us judging by leaflets in letter boxes but it looks to me that Labour voters who might have voted for them or the Liberals are now voting Respect.

The following conversation is noteworthy because it’s so untypical:

“Can I give you a Respect leaflet about Thursday’s elections?
Respect! Nah. I’m English. English not Bangladeshi.
Thanks for your time (fuckwit)
Yeah English.”

4 responses to “One thousand pledges”

Anonymous

April 30, 2006 at 6:34 pm

Glad to hear it’s going well in Tower hamlets. We’re having a fantastic campaign down in Bristol as well, even though it isn’t getting the same publicity nationally. Thought I’d tell the 5 people that might read the comments on your blog – we’ve got Jerry Hicks standing on one of the estates that surrounds the edges of the city. Jerry was the shop steward who was sacked from Rolls Royce last summer for fighting for union members rights at work. This has gone down very well on the doorstep and we’re really lucky to have such a fanatastic candidate. He grew up in the area and nearly everyone down his mum’s street are voting for him. Today we had a mass canvas which means that the ward has nearly been canvassed 3 times and we’re up to 800 yes pledges – double the number of votes we got in the general election, and more than ‘others’ got in the last local election. It kicked off with a gathering on the square in the centre of the ward and the release of 800 balloons (ran out of gas before the 1000 that had been bought could be blown up – they’ll have to wait til the next election on May 4th). This could have been one of those embarrassing lefty situations with 5 people shuffling their feet with balloons popping around them, but some local kids enjoyed jumping around in the back of the lorry we’d hired knocking them out and 50 people turned out for the canvas. The Liberal Democratics (who currently hold the seat) are running scared, their publicity has suggested that it’s a two horse race between them and Labour, but Labour have been nowhere to be seen. Still to come – mass delivery of a final reminder to vote postcard, delivery of a personal letter to all the people that said they would vote for us, and all the usual polling day palavar that some of us remember from Old Labour days. If you’re reading this, are down in South West, and want to do something in these last few days – what’s the chances of that! – get in touch – bristol.respect@dsl.pipex.com And Liam – if you know somewhere else to post this with a slightly bigger audience let me know.Penny

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Anonymous

April 30, 2006 at 8:01 pm

I hope those BNP leaflets mysteriously disappeared from letterboxes, if you get my drift.

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AN

May 3, 2006 at 8:07 am

That is interesting. I am not surprised that Labour are a no show, as they have given up on Lockleaze, and given the state they are in across Bristol will only be campaigning in wards they hope to hold. Jer is of course a great candidate, and standing in this ward is correct strategically, certainly no one can accuse Respect of chasing the Moslem vote by standing in Lockleaze! Did you get agreement from the Socialist Party that they would not be standing Roger Thomas there this year, or did that just happen?Based upon your reported 800 pledges, I think you can expect a good third place, bearing in mind that Labour got 1542 votes last time, and the Lib Dems 1880. So it is important that expectations are calibrated correctly, that is a great base to stand again next year.It is instructive to look at how the Greens have consistently focused on Southville ward, which they are hoping to win this year. In 2000 they got just 4.94% and the Lib Dems were second with 33.3%. Three years of hard campaigning later, the 2003 election gave the Greens 2nd place with 29&, and the Lib Dems 4th with 10%.So if Respect (or hopefully something better that Respect will be a stepping stone towards) keep campaigning in Lockleaze, with the same energy they have shown this year, in two or three years they could win.

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AN

May 5, 2006 at 8:13 pm

More on Bristol:I have only just started the exhausting number crunching, but would just like to point to the remarkable result in Bristol. which I think shows that respect can break out of the problems of only doing well in Moslem areas:A tale of two cities, compare:Maxine Bowler Respect, Sheffield Burngreave1208/4662 = 26%Ward = 22.9% asian and British AsianJer Francis, Lockleaze Bristol679/2713 = 25%Ward = 5.3% asian and British Asian, 86.2% white British

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Liam redux