The Happy Camp(aign)er - Election Post 5

Busy busy busy!   Just last Wednesday a colleague said at work that she knows there’s an election on because I’m so much happier & chattier than at any other time.  Aye, well to say I enjoy elections would be an understatement.  It gives me a sense of purpose & I reckon I’m no bad at it either.  Be it door canvassing, leafleting, street work, tele-canvassing or whatever else.  I can see a bigger picture when I’m doing it.  Every person spoken to & engaged with brings us a wee bit closer to independence.  Every action for the party brings the constituency a wee bit closer to the representation it needs & deserves.  That in turn makes the community a better place to live in because you are helping to improve the lives of every single person in the constituency.  I reckon I’m even happier this time round.  You’re all going to get sick of hearing me say (my close friends & family probably are by now already) how much I love Leith & this constituency.  But I do.  I really do.  Just living in Leith & feeling part of this community motivates me to go out campaigning.  When it’s cold & rain you’ll still see me out with a handful of letters buzzing doors smiling all the time.  Having the right candidate to back helps as well.  It helps having a candidate that knows how to motivate his (or her, but here it is his) activists.  I can’t say that’s been the case in every election I’ve been involved in over the years.  Not that I need too much motivation at the moment.  As you’ve gathered I’m just enjoying this campaign a lot.  But it is nice to feel that one’s skills & experience are being utilised properly & are very much appreciated. 

So, this was meant to be a Campaign Diary.  I did promise that I’d update my Campaign Diary every single time I went out or did something party related.  That’s just not proved to be practical.  So I’ll give you a wee run down of the last couple of weeks.  Many of you will know much of this anyway from my Facebook updates etc. 

Leith Walk Branch have our meetings on the 2^nd Wednesday of the month.  I’ll keep my comments on the branch to a minimum.  I do want to encourage people to come along, but I’m also conscious that branch meetings are for members only so there is only so much I can say.  Not that there’s any big secrets.  But members need to know that they can come to a branch meeting to discuss the politics & business of the branch in a safe environment.  That’s natural.  Besides for all I know I could have a major following on this blog of Labour Party activists.  Doubtful, but you never know, Lesley Hinds herself could be reading this at the same time you are.  20 years ago one of the first things I remember being discussed at a branch meeting was the annual branch plant sale.  I kid you not.  Ask the Justice Secretary if you don’t believe me.  Aye, Michael Matheson was my first branch convenor.  I can’t remember exactly how many folk were there, but back then we’d be lucky if turnout reached double figures.  Quite different nowadays, it would be disappointing if we didn’t comfortably make double figures.  There is a lot more political chat these days too.  For many years we as a party just survived.  Fundraising is still important, it always will be.  But branch survival isn’t so much of an issue now, which frees up a significant amount of focus for actual political debate & action.  At this most recent meeting there were a number of changes within the branch executive.  Again, as this is clearly branch business my comments will be restricted.  I will say that I am now Vice Convenor of Leith Walk Branch, very happily so.  We had a great branch executive before the changes & we have a great branch executive now.  It’s been quite some time since I’ve had an Office Bearing role in the party, but given the massive influx of new members over the last couple of years I do feel it’s important for me to step up & put my experience to the good of the branch.  I hope to be able to help the branch in whatever ways I can & in particular support & encourage newer members, much in the same way I hope this blog does.  Politics shouldn’t be scary, intimidating or boring.   It should be fun, open to everyone & exciting.  Politics affects everyone’s lives, so everyone should feel engaged with it.  Everyone should feel a part of it.  If they don’t then the parties need to do more to change that.  So, political activists should all take a lead to welcome new people into the fold.  I should add that this is something that branches in this constituency are particularly good at.  Although I’d obviously claim that Leith Walk branch is the most welcoming & best branch in Edinburgh North & Leith, other branches are almost as good.  Leith Branch have their branch meetings on the 3^rd Wednesday of the month.  I’m not a branch meeting addict.  It wasn’t that it had been 7 days since my last meeting & I needed my weekly fix.  Last Wednesday I needed to pick up some more letters & canvass sheets to keep myself busy during my annual leave.  So I’d arranged with Rob, the Leith Branch Organiser, to collect said material at his branch meeting.  Who do I bump into as I arrive at Leith Dockers Club?  None other than Ben, our candidate.  I’d only intended on picking up the stuff then going home.  But the offer of a pint is not one I’d often refuse.  Next thing I know I’m being welcomed into the meeting by the branch Convenor & being invited to take a seat.  I’m not going to rattle on about branch meetings any longer.  So I’ll just finish this part by saying how much I appreciate the welcome I got.  If you live in Leith & want to see what all the fuss is about then just come along to a branch meeting.  You’ll only be met with warm, smiling faces.

It’s not just been all  meetings recently.  I have been out doing some proper work.  Each day after work this week I’ve done at least a wee bit of campaigning.  Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday I got a few letters out each day.  No more than an hour or so each time.  I didn’t speak to that many folk, but the letters all got done.  Thursday was sort of a day of rest.  But I did write the blog piece “I love Tunnocks”.  It’s been my most popular post so far.  Thanks for all the kind comments folks.  Then it was back on the campaign trail on Friday.  More letters delivered!  Not just more letters delivered, I finished them off.  No more in Leith Walk ward to do.  I did ask Lewis, the ward lead, for more but there’s none.  We just have to wait for the new batch of leaflets to arrive in the next week or so & we can start pounding the streets again.  I can’t wait.  No, I’m not being sarcy.  I can’t say much of note happened on Friday’s letter drop.  But there was one encounter which I should recall, if only to hopefully put some minds at ease.  One woman came out & handed the letter back to me after I’d posted it through.  She says “Excuse me, you can have this back.  I’m not voting anymore.”

“Oh, you’re not voting at all or you’re not voting for us anymore?”

“I’m not voting SNP anymore.”

Then she turns, head down & closes the door as I try to reply “That’s  a shame.  Can I ask why?”

Now, it would be easy to get disheartened at an encounter like this.  But hey, she wasn’t abusive or aggressive.  Also, she didn’t engage at all there.  If she’d told me why she wasn’t voting then I’m confident enough that I could have responded to it.   But there was nothing I could do.  It was a good reality check to some degree.  When you spend so much time with other Nats & when you see the consistently positive polls it’s easy to get complacent.  If we get complacent then we could well slip up.  Never, ever take the electorate for granted.  That’s one of the key reasons that Scottish Labour are in the mess they are in just now.  They took the electorate for granted in Scotland for decades.  Amazingly they still haven’t seemed to have learned their lessons.  It’s not for me to try to educate them.  I hope their malaise lasts at least until we win the next Independence referendum.

Finally, we get to Saturday Morning.  Activists from all 3 branches in the constituency turned up to finish off the last of the letters & do a bit of door to door canvassing.  I did get a little distracted at the start & didn’t actually start knocking doors until about half past 11.  We’d met up at 11.    Still, no complaints, it was a very welcome distraction.  A couple of friends from SNP Edinburgh Eastern stopped by the stall for a chat, you both know who you are.  There’s probably another blog piece in the next few weeks about the impact that the massive influx of new members has had on the party & myself. 

The canvassing itself went well.  The first thing to remember is that if you have several A4 sheets to work through is that not everyone will be in.  Some folk will pretend they’re not in.  So if a door does get opened then they will invariably give you enough time to ask the 4 questions that you need to.  The very first door I approached already had the door open.  A woman in a dressing gown was standing on her door step chatting to 2 smartly dressed men with leaflets in their hands.  My first thought was that Labour were working the same patch, this’ll be fun.  But nope.  Not Labour.  Jehovah’s Witnesses.   It did flash through my mind that if they’ve converted her then she’ll not be voting at all, not for the SNP or for anyone else.  Luckily their charm clearly didn’t surpass my own.  She was welcoming & supportive.   It seemed like, from what she said, that her whole household would be voting for us.  Result!  1^st door chapped, in effect, & it’s a confirmed SNP voter.  Second door chapped was a little harder.  1^st choice Labour.  2^nd choice SNP.  She’s been impressed by Corbyn.  Primarily, door to door canvassing is about data collection.  But here’s the trick, try at all times to empathise with the person.  Understand & appreciate why they feel the way they do, or at the very least appear to do so.  We have to represent the people to be able to help the people.  So, this elector raised a few issues about politicians all being the same & Corbyn is different.  I in turn, told her I understood why.  But don’t be fooled.  I mentioned that Peter Hain was a good man, who was a good MP, who did a lot of good as an MP & in the fight against apartheid in South Africa.  But since he stood down as an MP he’s taken a seat in the House of Lords.   He’s now trying to force through a Bill that would restrict Scotland’s right to hold a referendum on Independence again in the future.  I can promise you that the SNP have never & will never send anyone to the unelected House of Lords.  Labour still do.  Corbyn will still send people to the Lords.  The Labour Party hasn’t changed.  Corbyn’s not that different from the rest.   The SNP is.  We are.  That seemed to do the job.  I pointed her in the direction of where she can get more info & told her to fire any questions she might have to our local social media accounts.   Jobsagoodun. 

One more anecdote from the canvassing before I finish up for the night.  I did meet one elderly gent who most closely identified with Labour.  No surprise there.  But what did surprise me was that he was now voting UKIP.  The key issue for him is immigration.  This constituency is one of the most ethnically diverse in the country.   It’s one of the things I love about it.  Sadly, not everyone feels the same.  Yet again there’s so much to say on this that it deserves another blog.  But I will say that sometimes you just need to know when to smile & walk away.  On that note I’m over 2000 words so it’s probably time to call it a night.  More campaign chat & blogging very shortly.