Canning Town Canvass

Today we split up into 2 canvass teams outside St Luke’s Church in Tarling Road, E16. It was quite a positive canvass. There were a large number of east European residents who did not know that the election was on and that they could vote. A lot of people were also out because of the good weather.

I met up again with local residents I had talked to on the Rathbone Market stall the other week. I discussed “succession” rights with an elderly tenant who was worried that her son would be evicted if anything happened to her. It was a one bedroom flat. He had the bedroom and she slept in the living room. Her rent book said that her flat was big enough for 3 adults to live in.

The local housing estates seemed to be well managed and looked after.

We stopped and had a chat in the sunshine with two Police PCSO on push bikes from the local Safer Neighbourhood team.

It struck me that so far there had been no sign whatsoever of any other political parties campaigning in Newham during this election.

The MP expenses issue did come up but again most people who mentioned it expressed disappointment rather than anger. The mess the government had made over the Ghurkhas was brought up as well. An elderly resident was quite rightly very critical of the government over this matter but he did admit that the Labour government had done a lot for him financially over the years.

There were a relatively high number of people who said they would not be voting. However, the most often heard remark by those who spoke to us about Political Party preference was “Yes, we’re Labour, we have always voted Labour”.

We also had another resident asking us how they can join the Labour Party (as well as the two on Saturday).