Each week a different PPC provides us with an insight into life as a candidate and gives us a flavour of their own campaign and interests. If you are a candidate and are keen to be featured, please email Jonathan Isaby.
This week's diary is written by Pauline Latham,
candidate for the newly-created Mid Derbyshire constituency. The parliamentary candidate for Broxtowe in 2001 and a candidate for the
European Parliament in the East Midlands in both 1999 and 2004,
Pauline was selected for this seat in June 2006 and will defend a notional Conservative majority of 5,329. She has been a member of Derby City Council for most of the last two decades, serving as mayor between 2007 and 2008.
A complicated new seat
This last week has been really interesting as the PPC for the new seat of Mid Derbyshire because alongside all the normal things I am doing, there was the Budget and then the Conservative Party Spring Forum at the weekend.
I am now spending the last few months - possibly a year - before the next General Election getting around Mid Derbyshire, a complicated new seat because it is made up of parts of four different constituencies: Derby North, West Derbyshire, Amber Valley and Erewash. The only town in it is Belper, known for its association with the late George Brown.
Instead of being a Labour stronghold as it was in his day, it is now much more Tory with all sixteen town councillors being Conservative. It has three different Police divisions, four different councils, two PCTs, two different education authorities, eleven Town and Parish Councils, making it quite a difficult constituency to have any cohesive identity. I am undertaking a series of ‘Latham Listens’ meetings involving schools, the Police, doctors' practices, Parish councils and others.
Meeting the police...
During this week I have spent a lot of time looking at Law and Order issues. The problem is having three different Police Divisions, meaning I can’t just listen to what one Police District Commander is doing. I had a meeting early in the week following up on a Derby City Council Commission meeting where we had discussed the Gang and Gun culture in the city. I also met with the Derby Divisional Commander, Andy Hough to discuss this. He was exercised by the possibility of the Force being capped by the Labour Home Secretary which would mean he would lose up to fourteen officers in Derby alone, causing him a real headache and making our area more difficult to police.
Fortunately the Guns and Gang Culture in the poorer suburbs of Derby doesn’t impact at the moment on Mid Derbyshire, but by learning more about it I am able to understand more about Police priorities. I have to say it is an area completely outside of my experiences and is quite frightening. It puts into perspective anti-social behaviour and speeding, although these are very important to the people in Mid Derbyshire and are priorities as far as the local neighbourhoods are concerned. Fortunately, when I spoke to some local Police officers at their Street Briefings and the new Sergeant at Belper Police Station, they are still focused on the more local matters of burglary and thefts from cars which have risen since we have experienced the ‘credit crunch’.
...and visiting primary schools and parish councils
I have been visiting Primary Schools recently and this week it was the Pottery Primary School in Belper, where I found the staff very angry indeed and almost at breaking point, having had years of new initiatives added to an already crowded timetable with no extra resources or help. I was so pleased to hear at the Spring Forum from Michael Gove MP, our Shadow Secretary for Young People, that he
plans to relieve them of the necessity of having such a busy timetable because they will be able to become Primary Academies and opt out of some of these worthy but difficult areas to fit into the curriculum. I am trying to get Michael up to Mid Derbyshire to hear first hand what the teachers of the local schools think about their current position and our proposals. I hope he will be able to make it.
My programme of ‘Latham Listens’ includes attending as many of the Parish Council meetings as possible, so this week I managed to get to the Stanley and Little Eaton (where I live) meetings and in fact met with the Erewash dog and litter warden, who I hope will have an impact on the amount of dog fouling in the whole of the Erewash area. Unfortunately dog wardens actually have to witness the fouling taking place before they can do anything about it, but she seems determined to catch as many owners as possible.
During the week I managed to deliver some of my leaflets and get out canvassing for the local elections and the Euro elections on June 4th. Whilst out we managed to recruit two new deliverers who are totally fed up with this Government and as one man said, ‘I’ll do anything for a cause I believe in’! That wasn’t said a few years ago! How things have changed now that New Labour is dead.
Project Uganda
I am involved with a Social Action Project, now called Project Uganda. I am taking eight students and a deputy headteacher, from two different secondary schools in Mid Derbyshire, to Uganda this summer for nine days. It was originally designed to show relatively well off students who have education ‘done to them’ how children in a developing country value every minute of the education they get. It has changed the view of life here for the students that went last time.
We will be following up our first visit two years ago where we took out a lot of money to help one school complete its buildings. We supplied cement, a water tank to collect water from their roof and we bought all the materials needed to furnish a new lab with science equipment. This was a rural school in the Mukono District about three hours drive from Kampala. This time we will revisit that school but also help another school which is being built by the local community. They have not only run out of money but also the enthusiasm to carry on. With our help we hope to give them a shot in the arm to keep going. The students who are going are a great bunch with unlimited enthusiasm and energy to undertake lots of fund raising including bag packing in supermarkets, washing cars, a charity fashion show and lots and lots of cake stalls at local churches. It is hard work but it is fun. Who says all young people are anti-social layabouts?
This week we have been given a laptop to raffle and went along to Orchid IT who had donated it, to meet Brett Critchley the MD. He donates a lot of things to charity and helps wherever he can. He duplicated 200 DVDs from the last trip to send out to potential sponsors and people who have helped us. Brett wanted us all to have a photo taken to send out to the local papers with a press release.
Immediately after that we all had to rush up to one of the schools in Mid Derbyshire, Woodlands School in Allestree, to launch the Project Uganda website which one of the parents has organised. In case anyone is interested they can catch up with what we are up to on www.projectuganda.co.uk.
The Budget
Well, we have had Gordon Brown’s Budget. Although the Chancellor is in fact Alistair Darling, I cannot imagine that Gordon has allowed him to completely write his own Budget, having been so involved for so long. He is a man who can’t let go.
I don’t propose to go into the budget in any great detail because the papers and the broadcast media have dissected all parts of it. What I do want to say is that we will, if we win next year, have the hardest job of any newly elected government ever. This isn’t the Second World War, this isn’t the depression of the 1930s, but Gordon is determined to keep on spending either to try to win the election, then cut spending drastically, or to leave the Conservative Party with such an economic mess that it will take years to recover. I do, however, have confidence in David Cameron and George Osborne to be honest with the people of the country about the very hard decisions they will have to take.
Off to Cheltenham
Finally, the Spring Forum in Cheltenham, a new venue for us with absolutely wonderful weather. It is always enjoyable catching up with other PPCs and hearing about their campaigns and hearing from Shadow Ministers. Personally I felt the content a little bit thin, and the venue not ideal, because we all had to get to and from the racecourse either by car or by taxi and weren’t able to walk home after the dinner. Having said that, I did enjoy Boris’s speeches both at the candidates' session and at the dinner - as well as Dan Hannan’s speech on Sunday. His fame from the YouTube speech is now legendary and he didn’t disappoint.
George Osborne and David Cameron made excellent speeches telling us how it is, how they will tackle the mess we will face from Labour, and sending us out in very good spirits to fight this year’s elections and the General Election whenever Gordon Brown dares to call it.
Farewell to Catriona
Over the last three months I have had the help of an intern who wanted experience in order to get a job working in some form of policy or lobbying organisation. Sadly for me, she has fulfilled that ambition and starts on Wednesday. She has been invaluable and has had a variety of different things to tackle, not least this week stuffing 600 envelopes to send out to members and supporters, inviting them to a fundraising lunch in May. I don’t know how I will manage without her so am looking for a replacement. She certainly managed to have a varied few months, without which she may not have had the offer of the job to which she is going. Good luck Catriona for the future.
Next week's Diary will be written by Tim Archer, PPC for Poplar & Limehouse. Last week's was written by Gareth Johnson, who is PPC for Dartford.
