Meltdown

I chose that title as I’m currently baking in the Spanish sunshine on our balcony overlooking the harbour. It’s a tough life eh!

Sitting here I had some more thoughts about the County elections in Notts I was currently involved in. Take the division I stood in. We never expected to come close to winning but we wanted to at least make them work for it. The reason being it would make more winnable areas easier to take.

We won the targets. We won another division. Labour held a seat by just 60 votes and another by just over 100. Then in mine the 1000 votes for an ex labour councillor disappeared plus 1100 votes for the existing Labour councillor leading to their victory margin being slashed from 1400 to just over 280.

My ice cream may be in meltdown over here on my holidays, but I can’t get over how the Labour vote has gone into cataclysmic meltdown.

It only goes to show that even in the coalfield areas of the East Midlands Labour can no longer take people’s votes for granted!

If you ever needed a reason to vote against the Government…

This is it

Video about Brown's Cabinet?

How many more will “bite the dust”?

It's a bullseye!!

My opponent in Worksop was pictured in her election leaflet with one James Purnell. I wonder if he visited Worksop Labour Club?? Just a thought!

They think it's all over…. it is now

The polls have closed, and my feet can now take a well earned break. Going straight from finishing the London marathon into an election campaign may not have been the wisest move. I have worn a pair of trainers out, but loved it, as its the first real campaign I’s got stuck into since the General Election.

Do I think I will win? In all honesty no – but I never expect victory. Let’s look at the stats.

At the last election the results were as follows:-

Labour 2855

Conservative 1465

Independent 1056

Now given the independent was the former Labour County councillor, over 70% of the votes were cast for a “left wing” candidate.

So what should be regarded as a victory. Well the fact that the Prime Minister visited the division shows they took the campaign we mounted seriously. The fact that there was a personal attack in a second leaflet did too. And then of course tonight, the fact that they had tellers in the division I was fighting  (when not many divisions did) again shows the campaign had an effect.

Our objective… to win the target seats we had, and to take control of Notts County council. Unlike a certain US president, I don’t have a sign saying mission accomplished, but the electorate in the division I fought were certainly made aware of a Conservative presence. Now lets just wait for the counting to begin.

Amusing house names part 63

Today I delivered a leaflet to a house with the following name…

… “Soddom Hall”… quite apt given the views many people hold on politicians at the moment.

They don't like it up em… do they

Thanks for the visit Mr Prime Minister

You would think that in a County Council division where candidates on the left of the political spectrum got over 70% of the vote at the last election, the Labour party would have nothing to worry about and would coast to victory.

Well maybe they will… then again maybe they wont. Take a certain ward in Nottinghamshire. In their first leaflet they put out a piece on literature proudly having Labour printed all over it. Even the legal imprint read on behalf of The Labour party.

Following the effective campaign from the Conservative side, it now appears the Labour party must be worried. Why do I say that. Well their second leaflet suddenly is green in colour, doesn’t mention the Labour party, even on the imprint. Surely they aren’t ashamed to be representing the Labour party are they?

Not only that, they accuse their Conservative opponent of not living in the division (whilst failing to mention their candidate doesn’t either) and point out (factually incorrectly) that the Conservative candidate is employed by an MP.

As you’ve guesss – the Conservative candidate is me. I run my own company based in Notts, and since 2001 have volunteered for Andrew Turner MP, but am in no uncertain circumstances employed by him. In fact I have a letter that quite clearly points that out from the House of Commons dated over a year ago… but I really don’t think the good people of Worksop will be fooled by this nonesense.

But things get better. Labour are that desperate to pull the wool over the eyes of local people, that they drag the Prime Minister away from making phone calls enquiring about the well being of talent show competitors to visit the division.

The problem is, I don’t think anyone has told Gordon Brown – he isn’t, has never been, and never will be, an electoral asset. So whilst the PM distracted the local Labour party, we got on with talking to the electorate, and by god they aren’t happy with the Government. First Labour controlled the local authority….. and we took that off them. They currently control the County Council, and in a few days time we will take that too, and there’s nothing a visit from Jonah Brown can do to stop that!