I started the day at 7.15am at Forest Gate Railway station, E7 handing out USDAW (shop workers trade union) “Vote Labour – Stop the BNP” leaflets with Ellie, West Ham Youth officer. We had on the whole a very good response apart from a bizarre comment from a black man with an African accent who told us that he would never vote Labour because we “had given all the jobs to East Europeans”.
I had to go to meetings during the day and deal with urgent, urgent case work. In the evening we were handing out leaflets outside Stratford Station, E15. We had a weird discussion with TFL (Transport for London) staff about the vexed issue of whether or not we could put our posters on certain metal railings. We thought they were public railings, the TFL said they belong to them (we moved “under protest” to new site – see photo). 4 members of the Socialist Workers Party turned up and set up a stall over something. They were most annoyed that we were handing out other USDAW leaflets and that I was shouting out to people as I was handing out leaflets “trade unions for Labour”. I noted that like last Saturday at our Stall they were all white and middle class while we Labour Party activists actually represent the diversity of our borough.
Afterwards we went “knocking up” in Green Street West ward. There had been a few computer problems with the new Labour Party "polling day" software but it was sorted out. Again, we got a good reception with just a few wry smiles and comments but people pretty solid Labour. We packed up about 9.15pm since we ran out of “Knocking up” sheets. Had a detailed debrief at “The Goose” (world also put to rights) and I came home at 10.30pm to find out that James Purnell had resigned and has asked Gordon to go. Well, at least he waited until the polls closed I suppose.
Anyway, I’ll be at the count on Sunday, the following Sunday we will restart campaigning and we already planning our “thank you” leaflet to voters. We perhaps should be grateful that we do live in interesting times.
