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 Anne-Marie Trevelyan,
candidate
for
Berwick-upon-Tweed. It is the most northerly English constituency and since a 1973 by-election has been held for the Liberals (and now Liberal Democrats) by Alan Beith, one of the unsuccessful candidates in the recent Speaker election. He will be defending a notional majority of 8,585, meaning that Anne-Marie requires a swing of 11.8% to gain the seat.
My constituency has 1,000 square miles of unspoilt landscape, from the sea to the Cheviot Hills, with only 58,000 voters. I travel great distances to visit constituents, businesses, schools and voluntary organisations. The fuel bill and poor green footprint is compensated for every day by the warmth, kindness and honesty of my constituents with whom I have the privilege of working for better solutions to many entrenched problems. Here's my diary of the week...
Sunday 28th June
With two kids, we try to keep Sundays as family days – this works some of the time! My daughter and I went to church, a chance to contemplate for a few moments. The coffee after church is now a mini-surgery for me, as friends and neighbours take the opportunity to tell me about local issues and personal problems. Being a PPC is a bit like being a doctor in our rural community – I am never off duty to constituents, whose needs and frustrations continue regardless of the weather or days of the week. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So in typical “day off “ fashion, after church we made pasta salad for 25 for our church annual summer lunch, which we dropped off before heading south to a christening. These young children are the future, these are the ones who make me determined to ensure that we look after our country, our countryside, our villages.
After children to bed, a couple hours on press releases to cover activities of the past few days – wind turbine battles, transport issues, foul smelling manures on local farms...
Monday 29th June
Usual school run start, followed by the tackling of emails and getting letters out for the day – a batch of 18th birthday letters, thank yous for activities and meetings last week, condolence letters to families with deaths last week.
I am preparing a survey in Berwick about the new hospital proposals – which we will deliver to 6,000 homes next weekend. Sorted out the right questions to ask with which to lobby the Hospital Trust about what my constituents need in their new community hospital.
Spent a couple of hours on the phone chasing up council officers on specific data requests and trying to gather more information on the ambulance target times for Category A incidents in my rural postcode areas. I also seem to have a rolling series of Freedom of Information requests in with local public bodies – I am trying to get to the bottom of the PR spending by Northumberland Council – and it seems that they can’t tell me how they spend the £375k spent last year because they use an agency and apparently don’t question what they are paying for.... another FoI heads their way.
I was going to get on with correspondence but Andy Murray started his match and I was still glued to the sofa at 10.40pm! Even PPCs are allowed a few hours off.
Tuesday 30th June
I woke up to hear the UK is in the grip of a heatwave – everywhere but Amble! I spent the morning delivering 1,500 leaflets about the threatened Amble Day Care Centre. As I dropped off this issue’s leaflet, I was asked about other issues I am lobbying about, such as the proposed new A&E facility for our area, for which the ambulance Cat A times are key (and as yet unproven in my opinion).
A quick bite to eat in the local cafe with my team and then back home for a meeting with a client . I do still have a business – financial consultancy for small businesses mostly – it’s that post-election, catch-up with the rest of my life time, talking with clients, planning their needs for the months ahead. I seem to talk politics even with clients these days, as recent political shenanigans gives everyone a view which they need to share.
To school to collect my daughter and we did homework and tennis practice before I dashed back out for the quarterly Association Executive Meeting in Wooler (another 60 miles on the clock). I am so lucky with my Association, who are always supportive - even though there will be more leafleting than ever in the next 9 months as we prepare for the General Election. They all smiled and promised to keep getting out there – 37 years of my Lib Dem MP’s lack of progress for the constituency is a good motivator.
Home to a mass of emails from constituents – some following up with more information for me to look into a problem but - as ever – three or four new issues turning up. I need a researcher, a secretary (to help with all that filing) and MP privileges to sort out some of the more intractable issues, but I can achieve more than I ever thought even now, just by keeping up pressure. It is SO rewarding when we get a good conclusion, it makes all the battles worthwhile.
Wednesday 1st July
There are some days which look like catch-up days, to get through the paperwork which gathers. Just as I was getting going, the phone went, and it was my 10-year-old all excited saying that he has just been asked to play for the cricket team at an away match, and would I come and watch him? “I’m very nervous, Mummy, what if I don’t catch the ball when I should?” So I leapt into the car, drove 2 hours south to an unknown playing field, to cheer on a gallant team of 10-year-olds. They didn’t win, but got 75 runs against 100.
Proud Mum eventually got home after battling with spectacular thunderstorms and lightning on the A1 to that pile of paperwork where I had left it, but I wouldn’t have missed my son’s first bowling experience for the world.
Thursday 2nd July
An early school run with a full car of noisy girls was followed by an (all too rare) coffee with Wendy Morton, my fellow PPC for Tynemouth. We try to meet up regularly to catch up on our respective campaigns. We pre-empt any issues which might cause problems in the weeks ahead, and have a chance for a natter and a decent cup of coffee without having to be “on show”!
On to North Tyneside Hospital to meet with the Director of Community Hospitals to get a plan in place for the start of the engagement with my local population in Berwick about the proposed new community hospital for the town. We made real progress, and I am hopeful that this project is starting to take shape, and that following extensive pressure I am getting them to talk to locals about what THEY want to see.
From hospital to road, on to a meeting at County Hall with officers for a briefing on how they are progressing with putting together the business case for the A1 dualling from Morpeth into Scotland. The Director of Highways is supportive of my A1 Campaign Group’s aims, and understands the need to get all the North East councils on board. The “missing link” argument, as I call it, to the strategic road network of the UK is this short stretch (some 40 miles) of the A1. It is unacceptable that it is still a single carriageway farm track.
The evening saw the arrival of my French cousin and her three children from Paris – an annual visit for them to come and enjoy the Northumbrian air and space to run around.
Friday 3rd July
School run start to the day took me onto the hairdressers for that monthly trim. Quick stop at the art shop for my cousin to buy canvasses (she is an artist). This evening brings our annual Patrons club Summer Party, which raises the funds to pay for my political agent. A half hour spent drafting my speech for the evening, then my agent arrived to do press planning for the week ahead, and the final draft of my hospital survey for Berwick.
Our speaker for the evening, Robert Goodwill MP (shadow roads minister) arrived with his wife – delayed by an accident on the Western Bypass for an hour, and we headed off to Belford for the event. Bizarrely, we were stopped by a road closure and long queue of traffic on the A1 as there had been another horrific accident – the sad truth is of course that this is exactly why I invited him to come and see for himself, and why I am campaigning so hard – and I was able to show the Shadow Minister the grim realities of the state of our A1. He seemed to appreciate the serendipity of the moment.
Saturday 4th July
A houseful of children, sunshine, paddling pool, strawberries from the garden. Perfect summer days. Friends for dinner and a relaxing evening of stories about everything but politics. The only work today was some preparatory research on regional unemployment figures as I prepare for the last politics show of the season on the BBC next week. Wimbledon Final tomorrow – I am determined to watch it all....
Next week's Diary will be written by Andrew Stephenson, PPC for Pendle. Last week we featured a Diary from Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South)
