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 - in addition to a Diary from West Worcestershire PPC Harriett Baldwin published earlier - we are featuring Richard Graham, who is candidate for Gloucester. He will be challenging the sitting Labour MP, Parmjit Dhanda, who has to defend a notional majority of 6,063. You can read more about Richard's campaign on his website.
Monday 18th May
Walk to the station at Gloucester, as I do often early in the morning. The gulls are calling and there’s that lovely fresh May feeling of a day ahead.
This rare tranquility in a candidate’s life is quickly shattered. Sky News rings to ask why there’s a four letter obscenity on my website blog, and did I know that he (the Labour MP) had asked David Cameron to sack me? Pause. I think is this is a nightmare, a late April Fools Day or what? Hoping that some virus hasn't hit the website, I can only say it's a mistake, it's unacceptable, I'm sorry, and it will go immediately. I ring to check if the word is really there. It is. The sentence makes no sense and the offending word certainly isn’t directed at my opponent - but it’s there. I change it to what it should have been (councillor) when updating it late at night. Thought I had saved a draft, but no - I had published. I can only share with other candidates the obvious – you can’t proof read enough.
Various papers and radio grill me and I make calls to apologise to political colleagues, and publish a mea culpa on the web etc. On this day of high political drama at Westminster, with Speaker Martin looking desperately vulnerable, no-one needs this sort of embarrassment.
Tuesday 19th May
By 2am in the morning I’ve finished office work and candidate emails and read a balanced article on the MP v The Candidate from our award winning local paper, The Citizen. Local papers are struggling – advertising revenues a fraction of what they were two years ago, as well as structural issues. I suspect we only miss our paper when it’s no longer there, like a pub or a Post Office. I may not always appreciate its coverage of me, but thank goodness for our daily Citizen.
Onto my 125cc motorbike of 13 years. A great hound leaps out of the bushes and knocks me off at about 30mph, in a suit and thin waterproof covering. After a while the dog picks itself up and limps off and I do the same later, after reporting the incident to the police. Walk - hobble - home pushing bike. This isn’t yet my week.
Work, a few hours later, next day is awkward. Can’t lift my left arm, and my right thumb is swollen and out of action – bad for blackberrying. The doctor cheerful prophesies that I will feel a lot worse soon. The X-rays show, miraculously, nothing is broken.
Later that evening spoke with a lonely woman in Gloucester. She's confused by the 16 page paperwork for pension credit. At least my colleagues laugh, and my family is anxious, when things go wonky. Many don't have others there for them.
Wednesday 20th May
Try and juggle political and home life diary for the Bank Holiday w/e. There’s my elder son’s school speech day, my mother in law’s 80th birthday, and my wife is doing the catering for a dinner dance not far away. All three children have major exams and I separate canvas cards from GCSE revision papers. This candidate would at times like to be Ganesh, the Indian elephant god with about eight trunks.
The new Polish Association thanked me for joining a recent committee meeting. The Poles have a good reputation in Gloucester but in a recession attitudes harden to migrants, so a forum for dialogue is good news. I speak 8 languages but Polish isn’t one of them so there’s another challenge..
Candidate conference call with David Cameron at lunchtime. He lays out his determination to sort things out and I know my constituents like this. We candidates just have to just keep engaging, and understand their feelings.
Thursday 21st May
Put a church hall and a construction company in touch. The former needs TLC, the latter has the know how and not enough business. Even in a recession there are corporates prepared to help the community and this is wonderful.
Back home by train. I love this journey in summer. Read reports of good causes I’m interested in – Gloucestershire Alzheimers, the Cathedral, the Friendship Café’s Newsletter, the Civic Trust report and double taxation on bingo.
As we tumble down the Cotswold escarpment, I gaze around: "What is this life if, full of cares, there is no time to stand and stare?" (William Henry Davies). For over 40 years I’ve had a base in Gloucestershire and we’re spoilt by city and countryside alike.
The railway itself though has issues. We need a dual track on the Swindon/Kemble line, an update to our 1970s station – and a solution to the vast acreage of weeds and fading buildings from a paint ball warrior's dreamland known as the Railway Triangle. After 12 years of a Labour Government, the Railway Triangle is even more run down than it was before. We must, and I will, do better than this.
Time for a drinks in the handsome Conservative Club after their committee meeting with a group of martial arts experts who hire a room regularly.
Fri 22nd May
Walk across Gloucester Park, a glorious sight in all seasons, and City Council planting this year has been outstanding. My Jack Russell, Twiglet, comes with me to door knock. There’s a good mix of political views – including communist, won't vote, ‘won't vote for Labour ever again’, ‘you’re all the same’ - and at least one vote for my dog Twiglet. A man calls from his window that he'll vote for Yakub (our hard working candidate). Twiglet wags her tail in appreciation.
On to the formal opening of Gloucester Quays – our new designer outlet centre in this most inland of England’s ports. I'm delighted that Peel and British Waterways stuck with it despite the recession, and that the City Council and others helped make it happen.
After the opening I went round with my daughter, an all too discerning 16 year old window shopper. She thought it looked and felt like London, better than Cheltenham or Swindon. This is only the start, but what a start.
Sat 23rd – Sun 24th May
Brief meeting in Matson & Robinswood, with our inspiring candidate Ruth Jacobs, who takes no hostages when things need doing for residents. Two teams, aged 16 to 66, go off to deliver/canvas.
Get to my son’s final Speech Day in time to see him get an award. Hurray! The guest speaker has a light touch and gently urges pupils to Form Teams, Make Things Happen and Volunteer. I am incredibly lucky in the Gloucester team, which laughs rather than cries its way through an election, and we have a superb agent to keep us up to the Mark.
Watch Robin Hood with my younger son. Epic, and not a programme for those advocating higher taxes.
The children then tease me about being mentioned on the 9 O’clock News. So when I update my website I proof read with even more care than my last effort (and the child who missed 2 pages on his mock exam paper).
Monday 25th May
Triple rations of canvassing today: morning, afternoon and evening, with a total of about 30 people. Am joined all day by City Council Leader Paul James, in the afternoon by MEP candidate Zehra Zaidi, and by Gordon Taylor for two sessions – with a campaign meeting in between. A long day, with a welcome break in one of Gloucester’s jewels – a garden of olives and vines of a lovely Italian couple who brought a sunny outlook with them 30 years ago from Naples.
The disillusionment with this government is HUGE, and there’s some with us ALL. I met dozens of people who’ve seen their working prospects shrink and their taxes rise, and in some cases local issues just not sorted. We’re working straight away on the garden pictured hon the left here.
The overall results were striking, although we still have much to do. The country is fed up and the number of people who said it was time for change – of government, of Prime Minister and of their MP – was extraordinary.
After 9 hours of canvassing and delivering, time to eat and hear the children’s news. I didn’t get to church or Rotary this weekend - but when I’d finished this at 1.30am, with a train to catch at 6am, it was too late to regret. A candidate is a busy bee, his work done while others sleep – a life, after all, we chose.
