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 Robin Walker,
who was selected in August 2006 for Worcester, a seat untouched by boundary changes where he requires a swing of 3.4% to overturn the Labour majority of 3,144. You can read more about his campaign to win back the seat once represented by his father, Peter Walker, on his website.
Sunday 11th October
Sunday is for resting, but I always try to spend it thinking through the lessons from the previous week’s campaign and assessing what can be done better in the week ahead. Canvassing over the weekend has shown that some people were inspired by what was said in Manchester at the party conference, but it was a salutary reminder that our here in the real world, many more had heard little or nothing from it. One of my main focuses for this week will be translating the great speeches and the strong policies from Manchester into campaigns relevant here in Worcester.
Monday 12th October
Like many candidates, I keep up a full-time “day-job”, working four days a week to make a living. Combining being a PPC with being a partner of a leading financial communications company, I’m lucky to have two jobs that I find fascinating, challenging and exciting. Being in business means I speak with more conviction and substance to a business audience, but work doesn’t let up just because it’s a busy time in politics and most of this week I am starting at 7am, leaving the office after 6pm.
In lunchbreaks and evenings I work on my next leaflet, bringing the themes from conference home to Worcester and picking up some of the highlights that will play well here.
"Getting Britain working" has real resonance as it's only too often nowadays that I meet people on the doorstep who have recently faced redundancy: they almost always want to work and want a government that will help them into work, rather than keeping them on benefits. Other key themes are providing care for the elderly, supporting our armed forces and restoring public finances, which sit alongside local campaigns for cancer care and opposing the Regional Spatial Strategy.
Affordable housing matters in Worcester. We need new houses to meet local need, but the Government’s top down plans call for tens of thousands in a short space of time - far more than the local need - including building on green fields and flood plains. They are undemocratic, and driven by unelected regional assemblies and Whitehall departments which seem to ignore local feedback. I’m campaigning for local choice and using brownfield sites to meet real local needs.
For this reason I was keen to attend a briefing for PPCs from the National Housing Federation, but unfortunately I have to cancel: my father is currently in hospital being treated for stomach cancer. Being part of a big family it is wonderful how everybody has rallied round, but there is no substitute for visiting personally. I decided that family must come first and sent my apologies. I have met with my local housing associations many times and have good relationships there, which are important when it comes to helping constituents living on their estates.
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