Royal Docks By-election – The Final Countdown

This weekend the weather was very kind to friend and political foe. It was warm and there was lots of bright spring sunshine - perfect for canvassing.

I was delivering targeted letters to addresses across the ward yesterday and this morning. This delivery was really complicated and quite a headache. Thankfully our super efficient organiser, Lisa, had arranged the route and marked the map. I was trying to puzzle out where an address in Pier Parade was when 3 Tory canvassers walked past and one said to me “it's the man with the Blog, Mr Gray!” I responded with my best cheery North Walian “Hi yer”!

This is a really a diverse and complex ward, yesterday outside the ultra modern City airport I saw two horse and cart “trotters” charge by - both driven by young women drivers. In Britannia village a black cat ran across the road in front of 2 young black teenagers one of whom asked the other if this was lucky? The other responded by saying “why does it has to be a Black cat - why not a white one?” Why indeed? While coming down in the rather small lift in one tower block with a young family, who had a very large Shar Pei dog with them, I asked what was the dog’s name? They responded it was “R....” and that it was a “Tory dog”. I replied that it was far too nice a dog to be a Tory and that it must be a “Labour dog”. The father said it would be a BNP dog but they did not want to lose their home. The dog then started to bark enthusically at me. I took it as his agreement that he was a Labour dog - but maybe not.

Today on the way to telecanvass in Stratford I saw Jim Fitzpatrick MP “on the knocker”.

While ringing residents this afternoon I managed to have really serious conversations about the election and why they should vote for Labour. Hopefully these “promises” will turn into actually votes. I've mentioned this theme before. What I think is important is while there is nothing better than actually speaking to people “face to face” there are other effective forms of communication. Telecanvassing can actually reach people who may not be comfortable talking to us directly and will just close the door, but they will speak to us honestly on the telephone. This is interesting stuff.

Some faces in the main college are of course Steve himself, John Saunders on the phone, John Whitworth and Cllr Sharaf Mahmood.