Campaigning Virgins

It's all about blisters really, isn't it? I was chatting earlier to our local master of the campaign trail Dave Hodgson. He had decided that he would have spent less money paying someone to do all the delivery he did in Milton Keynes, than he had ended up spending on blister remedies!

At the other end of the scale was my dear son Ravi. Given our passing like ships in the night over the past week, this evening was the first chance I got to chat to him about his trip to help in..........let's not say where, but somewhere where help was needed! I was in Norwich when I got a text from him saying "don't ever ask me to do this again!" Now Ravi was perfectly happy to help me delivering when he was a little boy, but like most little boys he sadly grew out of it. Anyway, he ended up going to another region to help for a couple of days - the first time for probably 10 years he has done anything useful (in political terms of course!) Sadly the experience appears to have ruined him for helping me next year.

He was not impressed with the organisational skills of our party, and also, unfortunately ended up getting sent to deliver in a white housing estate, where apparently everyone stared at him. Most disturbing was when it was pouring with rain and he asked someone where the nearest bus shelter was. The person he asked was extremely aggressive and swore at him, the bus shelter it turned out was only a few hundred yards away.

The following day he was asked to go back to the same estate, he tried to explain that he had felt the people there were quite racist in their attitude to him, to which the response was "you're a big lad, you can look after yourself". He came home completely disillusioned. He said he couldn't vote for another party because his views are clearly liberal, but he didn't know why he would vote for us. He had also had no thanks for his voluntary efforts and felt completely unappreciated. So, if he feels like this, how many other potential canvassers, deliverers, helpers, candidates, have left this campaign feeling the same way?

We have some great examples of good practice across the country, but it is patchy. We have done OK this evening, but we must bite the bullet and recognise that in some areas we frankly have to get a grip. Or maybe I am being unreasonable?