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 Richard Merrin,
the recently selected candidate
for Hornsey and Wood Green. It was a Conservative seat until 1992, when it was won by Labour, but it was gained by the Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone in 2005.
Monday 20th July
Whoever said that the summer months meant that there would somehow be a slow down in work was clearly not living on the same planet as the majority of us.
Yes, business is busy, which for a small businessman like myself is critical especially given the state of the economy. But as I prepare for the week there are two overriding political issues. At a national level this is the week of the by-election in Norwich North, at the local level it is the first full Council meeting in Haringey with a Conservative councillor after an absence of seven years.
I spend the morning at work, however by lunchtime it is clear that the rest of the day needs to focus on how we work with our new councillor – the former Mayor of Haringey who has only just defected to the Conservatives – and what should our tactics be at the Civic Centre tonight. Emails, calls and meetings dominate. I know that my role here is to build up the Conservative presence and this defection has delivered just that but it needs nurturing, building on and growing.
The previous Friday I had held a meeting with the Haringey Leaseholders Association. They are due to demonstrate at the meeting tonight as well as make a delegation to the councillors over the insane costs of new digital masts being installed across the Borough’s housing stock.
By the time I get to Haringey we are clear on what our stance will be. Now the only thing to focus on is ensuring that our new councillor gets all the support he can get. After all, he has just defected from the ranks of Labour, bypassed the vapid Lib Dem group and come straight over to us – one man on his own! The public gallery is packed with Conservative activists, ex councillors and supporters. Labour is not happy as Councillor Alan Dobbie takes his seat as the first Conservative in the Borough in years (He is pictured here flanked by me and Sean Sullivan, the PPC for Tottneham).
If anyone ever needed proof that Haringey is the worst run Borough in London this meeting proved it and in spades. Bad tempered, rude to the point of obscenity, full of personal abuse and plain aggressive, this is a Council with a Labour majority that simply is not listening, does not care and believes that is has some sort of divine right to rule. As for the opposition, well of the Lib Dems that actually attended, I am not sure why they go. Ill thought out speeches, badly researched, shouted down and ultimately ignored. This was politics in the raw and it was ugly.
Tuesday 21st July
I promise myself I will go to Central Office tonight to help out at Geneva.
However a call comes in from one of my most dedicated activists, Marcin, who has become very active in Woodside Park, a critical ward in the north of the constituency, currently dominated by Labour but rapidly delivering some of our best canvass returns.
He is – like many of his neighbours – originally from Poland. Hornsey & Wood Green is incredibly diverse. Spend ten minutes in the High Street and you will hear Polish, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian – in fact an astonishing diversity of language and race.
The question is simple – can we meet up tonight to discuss what else he and his colleagues can do to help? By 6.00pm I am parked up with 2,000 leaflets in the boot of the car, hot off the press from the printers.
Two hours delivery follows with a great team and a chance to talk about multi-lingual literature, direct mail campaigns, and standing for the local council. Off then to Noel Park ward to drop off the latest In Touch to our new councillor and home.
Wednesday 22nd July
The day job jumps in again. To manage the working day I am at the office now by 7.30am. I - like many candidates - need to be able to juggle the diary and time is the rarest commodity. Tonight I promise myself I will go to Central Office to help in the by-election.
By noon my phone is ringing off the hook, one of my clients is an administrator and when a company goes into liquidation I end up in crisis management mode. This one is high profile and the press are being even more demanding than usual as there is a royal involved. I make the Mandrake column in the Daily Telegraph!
By the evening I am out again in Hornsey and Wood Green. I have meetings to go to with residents groups ranging from the Ally Pally Trust to Neighbourhood Watch Community Associations. Being selected in March has meant that I need to meet local influencers as fast as I can.
I am home early at 9pm and immediately have to focus on my website. I have invested time and energy in making it both easy to follow and easy to update. The latest technology has been used from Facebook to Twitter to blogspot. It is something I am really proud of but it does take time to update. I do this myself so another hour goes.
Thursday 23rd July
I will make it to Central Office today – I must, otherwise David Douglas will have me for toast.
By 12 I have had a host of calls with residents and activists. I have been rolling out a three-ward survey to 15,000 households this week and so far it is going smoothly.
Meet my new DC Political at 4 for coffee in Highgate, run through the campaign plan for the next month - street stalls, surveys, canvassing sessions and the like, hand over a box of surveys for delivery and head off to CCHQ.
And then the call comes through. My mother had had a mild op at the Royal Free in Hampstead but she is in no fit state to drive, she will not be able to cook for herself and she needs me. I know what my priority is and head off to Hampstead.
By the time I get home is it 10pm. Only now can I sit down and run through the email from the day, deal with messages and start the planning for the weekend delivery of an In Touch.
Friday 24th July
I find myself hosting a business roundtable at lunch with the heads of some of the leading names in IT in the UK. The talk around the table is of change – of PM, of Government, of the economy. And then the news we have been waiting for comes in – Chloe Smith’s victory in Norwich. The mood lightens – there is in the business world an overwhelming desire for change.
Off to the Scots Estate this afternoon to meet my local delivery team and get out a further 2,000 surveys. Half way through I get a call from Vicky Ford MEP absolutely insisting I take a break this summer – I know she is right and one is booked but it feels someway off.
Saturday 25th July
Up at 7 and out to deliver the Commerce Road estate with its four 14-storey blocks.
Then some down time. Following a check on mum I head off to lunch with my long suffering other half. This was a Christmas gift which we have only just been able to take – yes, I know it is nearly August.
The race is then on to get home as we have invited four of our closest friends over for dinner. This is so important for me as it keeps me grounded and not totally focused on the politics and campaigning that so often dominates.
And yet at 10pm in comes a text from our newest councillor who has attended a street party in Wood Green. He tells me the news that the Lib Dem MP failed to show and that he was asked to open the event. He has received so much support from his ward and his local residents that this news really heartens me.
Sunday 26th July
The afternoon is dominated by email as we build a database of email addresses for activists and members. Once done I settle down to stuff 500 letters I am getting out next week to small businesses. My aim is to create a Business Forum for local businesses to share experiences and concerns over local and national economic issues. With 84% of those in work in Hornsey working in businesses of less then 20 employees this is one project close to my heart.
8pm and an email pops in from the chair of a residents' association and one phrase pops out: "I am pleased to see the Summer 09 In Touch. This is the best piece of literature issued by the local Conservatives for some years.”
It has been a long week but it's feedback like this that makes it worth it.
Last week's Diary was written Keely Huxtable, PPC for Birmingham Northfield.
