Observations from a morning's blitz-campigning in Harrow

By Paul Goodman MP

For 23 Conservative MPs, David Cameron's big push begins in Harrow a day before the Commons reconvenes.

I count the following colleagues: John Randall, James Arbuthnot, Cheryl Gillan, Dominic Grieve, David Lidington. Andrew Rosindell, Shailesh Vara, Theresa Villiers, Andrew Mitchell, Eleanor Laing, Richard Spring, Alistair Burt, Crispin Blunt, David Jones, John Horam, Edward Garnier, Maria Miller, Damian Green, John Penrose, John Maples, David Gauke, Eric Pickles - suit-and-tied, and dropping in from a Luton campaign poster launch - and myself.  I apologise to anyone I've missed and for having no camera.  And in no sense am I suggesting that the 30 or so bright - and mostly young - activists also there were any less busy.

We are survey canvassing for Rachel Joyce and Bob Blackman, our candidates in Harrow West and East.  Damian, Edward and I are despatched to Roxeth, a Labour-held but marginal ward in West.

This is John Betjeman country - Metroland, as Damian reminds me, muse of "Harrow on the Hill", "The Metropolitan Railway" and a score of other poems. It is also diverse.  Within viewing distance of Rayner's Lane tube, there's a Zoroastrian Centre, Lakshmi Metals and halal meat.  In one road, English clearly isn't the first language of many we survey canvass.

Damian is gloved-up against the cold and Edward is wearing a tie - purple with white spots, for the detail-addicts.  Is the temperature really minus five?

I'm always suprised how little Christmas decoration survives New Year's Day.

We do two and a quarter hours on the doorstep, and I stop at 12.45 or thereabouts. Three observations:

1. It being morning, we find very few voters.  This doesn't matter, since Rachel's survey canvass gets out and about, and it's a good thing to get MPs working in this way.
2. Many of those who open doors pull bolts and turn locks as they do so, even mid-morning.  Some TVs are left visibly on but no-one seems to be in.  Consciousness if not fear of crime is everywhere.  A lot of respondents give nothing away when asked how they'll vote.  "Don't know.". "Thinking about it.".  "Haven't made up my mind yet.". The sense of disengagement from party politics is almost three-dimensional.  And ask yourself: if I heard a knock on my front door, would I relaxedly assume that a neighbour was calling, or go tense for a micro-moment?
3. All this raises questions about the degree to which canvassing - as opposed to e-mail, voter profiling, mosaics and all the rest of it - is now subject to the law of diminishing returns.

One last point.  Always push your leaflet right the way through the letter-box.  This usually stops the LibDems removing it.  Even in - who knows? - Con/Lab marginal Harrow.