James Morris: From the frontline in Camden

In the first of our local election Canvass Returns, James Morris reports from Camden.  If you would like to tell other ConservativeHome readers about your doorstep campaigning please email [email protected].  Please feel no need to follow James' format.  Please express yourself in your own way.

While the wider world debates climate change, ending child poverty and solving the problems of Africa the issues coming on the doorstep in the local election campaign here in Regents Park (in the London Borough of Camden) are a little more prosaic but no less important: the state of the common corridors in a council block which haven’t been cleaned for weeks; hypodermic needles littering a local alleyway; the inefficiencies of the Council housing department.

I am standing in the local elections in the London Borough of Camden in the Regents Park ward. It is rock solid Labour ward.  It is a ward which encompasses one of the most affluent areas in London – the outercircle of Regents Park where Sven Goran Erikkson lives with Nancy D’Olio and the Arsenal footballer Robert Pires (don’t think either of them are on the electoral register!) and some of the capitals most socially deprived areas in and around the Regents Park Estate. The ward also contains a substantial Bengali community.

This week I’ve been mainly talking to Conservative members in the ward of which there are a few.  They are quite upbeat about the prospects of the party under Cameron. Two contrasting canvassing experiences illustrate the social topography of the ward.  I meet a Conservative Party supporter in her eighties who lives in one of the council run blocks. She has been a Conservative supporter all her life and always votes. I get lost in the block trying to find her flat and get into several lifts that don’t work. Sweetly she thanks me for coming to see her; but really, I say, the thanks are all mine. She says she always votes and though she can hardly see she will vote for me on May 4th. I have a momentary flash of optimism and hope.

Over on the other side I am standing outside a palatial residence in Cumberland Gate waiting for the concierge to let me in. I am met by a very posh man who takes me into his sumptuously furnished living room with a spectacular view of Regents Park. He quizzes me as to why I am standing in the election. I say that it is important for the modern Conservative Party that there are perceived to be no ‘no go’ areas for us and that we are seen to be representing the interests of local people throughout Camden even in areas where are electoral chances are poor.  He nods sagely, pledges me his vote and says, with a sympathetic look on his face, ‘Well, I suppose someone’s got to to do it!’

I pick up a copy of the Camden New Journal, the most widely read local paper in the ward and across the borough.  Apparently Labour in Camden have brought in Alistair Campbell to help with their campaign and was a high profile presence at their manifesto launch.  The Evening Standard runs a story saying that Labour is in meltdown in London. This makes me nervous as I think that it is dangerous for our prospects to be talked up so early in the campaign and suspect that Labour is carefully managing expectations so that anything other than complete meltdown can be portrayed as some kind of triumph. Perhaps we can see the hand of Mr Campbell in this. 

The electoral reality of the election in Camden is that in order to deprive Labour of control for the first time since the 1960’s we need to win the critical wards of Bloomsbury,  Highgate, Gospel Oak and to pick up additional councillors in Hampstead Town. We are working hard to achieve this.

Related links: Camden Conservatives and James' Platform article on The Tories and Open Networks.

Comments

[Suggestion]

Thanks for this. Great report and good job. I also agree that Labour are talking up their meltdown rubbish. A friend of mine is doing telephone campaigning at CCHQ and he says he is encountering lots of resistance canvassing. Here on the coast I am getting positive signs. We should hope for a solid but not a massive advance and New Labour should hope to hold steady. They are only trying to shift the goalposts now, so the media declares any loss of theirs a win.

[Andrew Woodman]

I'm delivering for a by election on the 20th April in the Labour heartland town of Swadlincote. Not getting too bad a reception. Might help give an indication of future results as we are making a fight of it.

[James Schneider]

This is an excellent idea and should cetainly be a regular article. I live in Camden (Primrose Hill and Camden Town ward) and have received no information from the Tories. They have been non-existant. The LDs have been canvasing and growing support for a long time now. Even Labour have condescended to get votes. The Tories need to be more active and discuss the local issues more. I believe there are a lot of voters who are really Conservatives but will vote LD because they are more active and seem to care more about local government.

[Chris]

Well over in St Albans the canvassers don't even seem to be listening to residents answers when asking their voting intention. The Lib Dem that visited our house put me down as a maybe, even after I told him that I was a Conservative Party member!

[Richard North]

"The Lib Dem that visited our house put me down as a maybe, even after I told him that I was a Conservative Party member!"

So what's the problem?

[Chris]

""The Lib Dem that visited our house put me down as a maybe, even after I told him that I was a Conservative Party member!"

So what's the problem?"

Well, generally after telling someone that I'm not voting for them, and I'm voting for the other guy I don't expect to be counted as a possible supporter.

[Andrew Woodman]

It's the Lib Dems though Chris. You need to be an optimistist to join them in the first place.

[James Cleverly]

James S

We never have enough people to cover all the areas we need to cover.

If you want the Conservatives to have a higher prifile in the area where you live, give the Camden Assn a call, grab a few thousand leaflets and put you walking boots on ;-)

[Annabel Herriott]

Richard, Chris and Andrew, you just gave me the best laugh!! I've been out leafletting, so no canvas results to report yet.

[Andrew Woodman]

Glad to be of service Annabel. Hope those dogs didn't get you. I delivered to 3 houses the other day which had a sticker saying 'I love rottweilers'. I was extra careful placing the leaflet.

[matt wright]

Great to see people getting out doing things and not whingeing. Thats what it is all about,

Matt

[Richard Shackleton]

Down in Greenwich (London Borough of and Labour since 1972)- its only the Tories who seem to be doing anything...sweet FA so far from Labour and LibDems. Even meeting some support in our most hopeless wards....

[Biodun]

I was extra careful placing the leaflet.
Usually, they start barking before you get to the door but I've developed this two-hand system of pushing the letter box and throwing the leaflet in.

Sometimes I wonder if the dogs eat the leaflets...

Great to see people getting out doing things and not whingeing. Thats what it is all about,
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks we have too many whingers on CH.
Quite often, I leave feeling dis-spirited and discouraged from doing anything at all!

[Chris Palmer]

I was bitten on the leg by an Alsatian while out campaigning once. A most unpleasant and painful experience.

I might do one of these local frontline campaigning write-ups at some point. If enough people do so, it will be interesting to compare experiences, especially between distinctly different areas, rural and inner-city for example.

[Richard North]

"I was bitten on the leg by an Alsatian while out campaigning once. A most unpleasant and painful experience."

Bugger the politics... the most essential skill in campaigning is how to deal with dogs.

If a dog comes at you, stop at once. Face the dog, squat on your haunches (your height is then less threatening), clench your fist and offer it your extended arm. Usually, it will stop short, and then sniff your fist.

Give it time to get used to you and, when it is settled, stand up very slowly and back off, or continue on your way.

If the dog goes for the bite, it will go for your fist. If it is serious about it, let it go for your fist and, as it does, push your fist down its throat, which will stop it closing its jaws on you.

Works every time, but don't try it on the owners as well.

[James Maskell]

My experience is that dogs when attacking wont go for the fist. Instead they go for the throat... Dogs are either cute as hell and will be very friendly (a terrier locally gives a sign of friendliness by sitting down next to you), or they will be of the rabid type going for the throat!

[Annabel Herriott]

OK! Dogs. Fold the leaflet LENGHWISE. Essential. Then feed it through until the mut grabs it, and pulls it in. I've lost a glove before I figured this out. I got bitten on the shin,last year, the late Patsy Calton bye election, I didn't see the beware notice, and there was no barking. This was a Cheadle Hulme dog. I had gone over for a by election help request. The old lady thought it was my fault! My tetanus was up to date, so I just flashed my battle scars for a few days! But you do have to watch it.

[Phil Taylor]

I was delivering in Ealing on Saturday. I had one of those silent killer dogs. You hear nothing as you approach. You do the two handed insertion and "bang", some huge creature hurls themselves at the door, grabs the leaflet in its slavering chops and you flee to the sound of leaflet being shredded.

[Annabel Herriott]

Does it make you wonder if these people ever get a newspaper or any birthday cards? Do they spend hours and hours on their knees gluing their invitations together, so they can know where they are supposed to be going? Is the dog holding them hostage?

[verulamgal]

Can't you lot get anything right? 'Canvass 'in the sense of soliciting for votes is spelt with a double s. A mis spelt heading gives a very bad impression

Careless and slipshod and symptomatic of today's Consevative party. Does correct spelling no longer matter under the regime of the 'heir of Blair'?

[Annabel Herriott]

Aw come on Verulamgal! They are all "Typos"!!!

[Geoff]

As a typo, isn't DC the "Hair of Blair"?

[Deputy Editor]

Thanks for pointing it out verulamgal.

I think you exaggerate the importance of that one typo - spelling mistakes are a personal hobby horse of mine but with the amount of original content CH churns out I would expect the odd one to slip through! This rarely happens though.

We are not officially linked to the Party.

[Annabel Herriott]

Well, Verulamgal, we are off canvaSSing on saturday. Jackie Firth is standing for Golcar ward, and she has spotted one hell of a single issue round here. There is a steep road, used as a back double, which folks are always scraping on when they hit the main road. Idiot large lorries get completely and utterly STUCK . traffic held up for hours, lifting gear needed, the whole load of crap. We are asking for it to be made one way (UP!) at least, and/or the bottom to be narrowed, and a very large notice put at the top saying no can go. Jackies leaflet says Are you sick of this? and she had herself photoed standing in front of the latest stuck HGV. So I can report on the reaction. And we got there before the dimlebs.