Out and about today with Community candidate Tricia Doran, who is proving to have been an excellent choice, and another activist canvassing doors in Hounslow South ward. Obviously a lot of people were out at work, but the responses we did get were encouraging. A conversation with one resident was particularly worth recording for posterity:
Resident: I'm not interested in politics at all, sorry.
PA: That's good, neither are we.
Resident: Ugh?
PA: We are residents, we are not interested in party politics. We believe in building strong communities with the capacity to fight their own battles, helped by councillors and activists but not ruled by them.
Resident: But if you are fighting the election you must be politicians yourselves, right?
PA: We have had to register as a political party but we prefer to think of ourselves as a community activist group. We don't have a party agenda, we believe in representing the community on the council rather than the council in the community.
Resident: But aren't you still kind of politicians?
PA: Well I guess it's a question of how you would define a politician, but if you say you won't be voting anyway...
Resident: I didn't say I won't be voting. I always use my vote.
PA: Okay. So you have the Conservatives, Labour and us. Of the three, which would you say were the least like party politicians?
Resident: Well you - of course.
PA: So as you say you're not interested in politics, does that incline you towards us or somebody else?
Resident: Well seeing as you put in like that, if I vote I will obviously vote for you.
PA: And you say you'll definitely be voting?
Resident: Of course, I always do.
PA: That's good enough for me. Good day Sir.
A short while later the three of us bumped into Brad Fisher, Conservative ward councillor and once again a candidate for his party. It was nice that we shook hands and had a good natured if rather brief chat. Nerves can become frayed during election campaigns and harsh words are somethimes exchanged, but it is worth remembering that we are all in this to do a job and most of us try our best to do the right thing for local people, whatever our angle or affiliation.
We enter the last three weeks of the campaign with cautious optimism, but if today's canvass was anything to go by we are really starting to get our hands into the meat at just the right time.
Showing posts with label Hounslow South. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hounslow South. Show all posts
Friday, 16 April 2010
Friday, 2 April 2010
Vince Cable MP supports residents' battle against Mogden Pong
Residents of Isleworth and Hounslow South received a very welcome boost yesterday (Thursday) morning when they were visited by Dr. Vince Cable MP, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, who joined Liberal Democrat PPC Councillor Andrew Dakers and eight ICG councillors and prospective candidates at the gates of Mogden Sewage Treatment Works to support our efforts to put an end to Thames Water's callous mismanagement of the plant.
Nearly 1,400 residents are currently engaged in a court battle with Thames in which they are seeking an injunction to compel the water giant to honour its obligations to the surrounding community. ICG councillors Paul and Shirley Fisher have given evidence at the High Court in support of the residents, and Councillor Dakers has attended the court to offer his moral support.
Included in the photo above are Cheryl-Ann Khan (Hounslow South prospective candidate, third from left), Tricia Doran (Hounslow South prospective candidate, fourth from left), Martin Murphy (Hounslow South prospective candidate, ninth from left), Shirley Fisher (Syon councillor and prospective candidate, eighth from left), Caroline Andrews (Syon councillor and prospective candidate, seventh from right), Paul Fisher (Isleworth councillor and prospective candidate, sixth from left), Andy Sibley (Isleworth prospective candidate, third from right) and myself (Isleworth councillor and prospective candidate, far right - no funnies please!).
Dr. Cable's support has always been welcomed by Hounslow and Isleworth residents in the absence of any contact from their own MP.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
As you were
I'd promised to do a spot of "canvasser training" yesterday (Friday) morning and as my assistant was from the Worton estate I decided to follow the route taken there by the Labour canvassers a week or too back. Not that I believe in letting my opponents set the pace, but because I wanted to test what kind of effect, if any, their four-yearly visit to the estate had had on local morale.
In short, the answer was not a lot. Whatever they had hoped to achieve by visiting Worton it clearly hadn't had the desired effect. Residents there remain as loyal as they have been since the days of the protest nearly a decade ago - as you were as it were - and I was enthused by the sense of optimism that pervades the estate and the feeling that, whilst there is certainly still a goodly amount of work to be done, we were all getting there together.
In the afternoon Caroline and I nipped over to Hounslow South to drop some leaflets and were nearly run over at one point by a visiting Councillor Peter Carey - get your eyes tested man! :o). We survived to complete the drop, meeting a couple of residents along the way whom I knew from way back. Both greeted us warmly and with promises of support.
Later it was across to the airport to collect Joe on his return from Greece. Later today it will be back to door knocking, but in the meantime to bed, shattered but happy with my day's endeavour.
In short, the answer was not a lot. Whatever they had hoped to achieve by visiting Worton it clearly hadn't had the desired effect. Residents there remain as loyal as they have been since the days of the protest nearly a decade ago - as you were as it were - and I was enthused by the sense of optimism that pervades the estate and the feeling that, whilst there is certainly still a goodly amount of work to be done, we were all getting there together.
In the afternoon Caroline and I nipped over to Hounslow South to drop some leaflets and were nearly run over at one point by a visiting Councillor Peter Carey - get your eyes tested man! :o). We survived to complete the drop, meeting a couple of residents along the way whom I knew from way back. Both greeted us warmly and with promises of support.
Later it was across to the airport to collect Joe on his return from Greece. Later today it will be back to door knocking, but in the meantime to bed, shattered but happy with my day's endeavour.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
On honest campaigning and muesli
I don't, to my knowledge, suffer from dementia nor any other such debilitating condition that might seriously affect my judgement.
It came as a bit of a shock therefore to have discovered this evening that over the past few days I have been eating with cold milk several large helpings of "muesli", complaining quietly to myself about the quality of the product that Caroline had purchased from Tesco, only to realise tonight upon reading the wording on the near-empty packet that it was actually porridge. I promise I am not making this up.
In the absence of any serious medical ailment to explain away my error I can only put it down to the stresses of everyday life. Those stresses will be the same as those that affect most ordinary people - parenthood, making an income - with the added pressure of having to help to organise a local election campaign. Despite the fact that this time around we have a much stronger team than ever before including some extremely talented and dedicated individuals, many of whom now have four years more experience than they did last time we ventured forth, the hosepipe principle in which the more people we have available to do the work the more work there is to do would appear to apply.
Over the past week or so it would appear that some of our opponents have joined the battle. We always knew they would and we are resigned to having them around for a few weeks until polling day arrives, whereupon they will in all likelihood return whence they came into hibernation for another three years and ten months until the next round of hustings arrives.
In Hounslow South New Labour has been distributing a glossy leaflet announcing the candidacy (in so many words) of veteran party activist and former council leader Dave Wetzel, alongside local stalwart Bob Whatley and a young lady with whom the ICG is not familiar. In Isleworth, residents of a small section of the Worton estate have had to make do with a rather grotty card introducing residents to Sue "Pyro" Sampson, Ed Mayne of Chiswick (who surprised the Poppy Organiser from the Isleworth Royal British Legion when ordering a wreath at last year's Remembrance Day Parade by informing him that he was an Isleworth councillor when, being my own father, said Poppy Organiser knew full well he wasn't), and another new face. The previous week Sue had been out and about on the periphery of the Worple estate delivering her message, whatever that may be.
The promises made by New Labour in both glossy and grotty cannot be accused of lacking ambition. Apparently they are going to put 100 new uniformed police officers onto the streets of Hounslow (which is even more impressive when one considers that employing police officers is not even within the remit of the local authority) and cut Council Tax!
In reality of course this is just another example of the dishonesty for which New Labour in Hounslow have become renowned, and of the contempt in which they hold "ordinary" voters and the lack of respect that they have for their intelligence, which in turn explains their almost obsessive aversion to allowing "ordinary" people to participate in the running of residents' associations and community groups.
It also demonstrates their preparedness even at this early stage to renege immediately upon their promises if they were to be elected, bearing in mind that this particular pledge is one that they will know full well cannot be delivered.
During their previous local election campaign, in 2006, they had claimed in their leaflets to have put an end to the Mogden Pong and to have made the 267s the run on time.
Maybe it is the knowledge that I am resigned to having to spend almost the next two months of my life engaged in a battle of sorts with such dishonest, low-grade individuals to ensure that residents are equipped with the information they need to see through them that has brought about such stress as to render me temporarily incapable of differentiating between muesli and porridge?
But New Labour would consider the above paragraph to be a compliment in every aspect, so if it's all the same to readers of this blog I am going to put it down to old age.
It came as a bit of a shock therefore to have discovered this evening that over the past few days I have been eating with cold milk several large helpings of "muesli", complaining quietly to myself about the quality of the product that Caroline had purchased from Tesco, only to realise tonight upon reading the wording on the near-empty packet that it was actually porridge. I promise I am not making this up.
In the absence of any serious medical ailment to explain away my error I can only put it down to the stresses of everyday life. Those stresses will be the same as those that affect most ordinary people - parenthood, making an income - with the added pressure of having to help to organise a local election campaign. Despite the fact that this time around we have a much stronger team than ever before including some extremely talented and dedicated individuals, many of whom now have four years more experience than they did last time we ventured forth, the hosepipe principle in which the more people we have available to do the work the more work there is to do would appear to apply.
Over the past week or so it would appear that some of our opponents have joined the battle. We always knew they would and we are resigned to having them around for a few weeks until polling day arrives, whereupon they will in all likelihood return whence they came into hibernation for another three years and ten months until the next round of hustings arrives.
In Hounslow South New Labour has been distributing a glossy leaflet announcing the candidacy (in so many words) of veteran party activist and former council leader Dave Wetzel, alongside local stalwart Bob Whatley and a young lady with whom the ICG is not familiar. In Isleworth, residents of a small section of the Worton estate have had to make do with a rather grotty card introducing residents to Sue "Pyro" Sampson, Ed Mayne of Chiswick (who surprised the Poppy Organiser from the Isleworth Royal British Legion when ordering a wreath at last year's Remembrance Day Parade by informing him that he was an Isleworth councillor when, being my own father, said Poppy Organiser knew full well he wasn't), and another new face. The previous week Sue had been out and about on the periphery of the Worple estate delivering her message, whatever that may be.
The promises made by New Labour in both glossy and grotty cannot be accused of lacking ambition. Apparently they are going to put 100 new uniformed police officers onto the streets of Hounslow (which is even more impressive when one considers that employing police officers is not even within the remit of the local authority) and cut Council Tax!
In reality of course this is just another example of the dishonesty for which New Labour in Hounslow have become renowned, and of the contempt in which they hold "ordinary" voters and the lack of respect that they have for their intelligence, which in turn explains their almost obsessive aversion to allowing "ordinary" people to participate in the running of residents' associations and community groups.
It also demonstrates their preparedness even at this early stage to renege immediately upon their promises if they were to be elected, bearing in mind that this particular pledge is one that they will know full well cannot be delivered.
During their previous local election campaign, in 2006, they had claimed in their leaflets to have put an end to the Mogden Pong and to have made the 267s the run on time.
Maybe it is the knowledge that I am resigned to having to spend almost the next two months of my life engaged in a battle of sorts with such dishonest, low-grade individuals to ensure that residents are equipped with the information they need to see through them that has brought about such stress as to render me temporarily incapable of differentiating between muesli and porridge?
But New Labour would consider the above paragraph to be a compliment in every aspect, so if it's all the same to readers of this blog I am going to put it down to old age.
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