Well, the Ealing Southall by-election is already underway. David Cameron was there this afternoon. I'm told that a group of around 5 Labour activists hung around outside the station waiting for Cameron and as the group of Conservatives got bigger and bigger they ran away. They left about 5 mins before Cameron arrived. The final straw was when one of the local reporters (innocently) asked if they had now joined the Conservatives. They were pretty annoyed.
Grant Shapps, the MP for Welwyn & Hatfield is in charge of the Tory campaign and he has already introduced a new way of campaigning. He's launched a new website today where party activists can register to help with by-elections, which you can visit HERE. It's calling Campaign Together. The aim is to do what the LibDems do and bus in hundreds of activists from all round the country for the whole by-election campaign. It's a welcome and professional move by the professional party. They've already got several hundred people signed up, all of whom have committed to give at least a week a year to campaign for the party in parliamentary or local council by-elections. You can sign up HERE.
27 comments:
Is David Cameron going to be standing himself? Otherwise can you tell us the name of the candidate? Is she in the picture somewhere?
Can the Tories hold on to third in this seat? that's the question really isn't it?
And to be quite frank the more activists you bus in there the worse it will get. In Manchester City Centre they bussed in rugger boys from Liverpool and Cheshire and they were actually wandering round our city centre dissing our Gay Pride picture saying "that's wrong, what about the rest of us?".
The more you send the worse it will get.
Whats the deal with the "Tony Lit" placards?
Do you think they meant to say, Tony Lite".
For Fu&%s sakes!
Tony Lit is the Conservative candidate's name.
I'll just rate Chris' questions on a moronic scale from 1 to 10, 10 being most moronic.
1. 9
2. 9
3. 10
4. 10+
5. 10++
Chris, the candidate is a Sikh, which will go down well, who owns an Asian radio station (and has many millions to fund the campaign), and whose father got 7,000 votes as an *independent* (whipping the limp dumbs into fourth) in 2001.
In the circumstances, there's no way he won't come at least a good second.
That's very nice of Dave to go and pop round personally to dry the ink on Tony's membership card!
Oh, and you may enjoy this e-mail that the LDs have been sending round today:
Labour are scared of the Liberal Democrat challenge. In recent years they lost Brent East, Leicester South and Dunfermline to us. They have called the Ealing Southall and Sedgefield by-elections at very short notice to try to stop us
building momentum.
Ealing Southall has the second largest Asian community in the country. We came second here in the General Election and must aim to repeat the successful campaign that won Brent East for Sarah Teather. But we have to try and do it three weeks - not the three months that we had for that campaign.
Sedgefield is next door to Hartlepool where Liberal Democrats came close to seizing Peter Mandelson’s former constituency in the 2004 by-election.
Our MPs have cancelled their regular parliamentary meetings in order to free up time for the campaigns. Many other party meetings are being cancelled in order to allow party members to come and help the campaigns.
We will keep posting full details of how to help in both campaigns at
[YAWN}
But the message is that YOUR HELP IS NEEDED NOW !
Ealing Southall have already opened an impressive HQ near Southall station.
This is at Unit 5, Urban Hive, Grand Union way, Bridge Road, Southall, UB2 4EX.
A Sedgefield HQ will be open very soon.
So translated that amounts to an Asian candidate and the usual slew of badly drawn bar graphs and claims of 'winning here'.
If they want to build momentum then they'd be better of putting the campaign team in a shopping trolley and shoving down a hill.
And don't you just love the address of their campaign office...
Urban Hive
So Chris you think Gay rights play well with the voters of southall do you?
Do you have any idea what sort of people live their? 70% of them would gladly have you hung up by the nearest JCB if they thought for one second they could get away with it.
I think you will find, the only thing most of the people voting Labour in southall are interested in is the cash your government forces them to survive on.
I think you will find also that your pride in proclaiming what you like to do with your sexual organs and which sex you like to inflict them on. Is very much lower on their priority list of "important issues to vote in favour of", then you could ever possibly imagine.
But please please please dont take my word for it Chris you know I love you, trust me. Go down to southall with a picture of your favourite muslim, Mohammed or Bin-Larden or something and your biggest most grafic gay pride banner and see for yourself.
So Chris you think Gay rights play well with the voters of southall do you?
Do you have any idea what sort of people live their? 70% of them would gladly have you hung up by the nearest JCB if they thought for one second they could get away with it.
I think you will find, the only thing most of the people voting Labour in southall are interested in is the cash your government forces them to survive on.
I think you will find also that your pride in proclaiming what you like to do with your sexual organs and which sex you like to inflict them on. Is very much lower on their priority list of "important issues to vote in favour of", then you could ever possibly imagine.
But please please please dont take my word for it Chris you know I love you, trust me. Go down to southall with a picture of your favourite muslim, Mohammed or Bin-Larden or something and your biggest most grafic gay pride banner and see for yourself.
Chris, the candidate is a Sikh, which will go down well"
In 2001 there was local politics and he was supported by one of the Group anti to Piara Khabra MP, owning a local radio station does not mean that you own the people.
Though he is a Sikh, Labour candidate will also be a Sikh, well connected with the local Asian Community mainly from India and Pakistan, he/she will not only have support from Skih but from Hindu and Muslim community as well as all the local Gurdawaras, mandars and mosques trustees/managaing committees are labour supporters.
5 strong wards in Southall have all BME councillors I do not know where Toni Lit will get votes. He will only get tory votes, locals will vote for a local candidate.
He has no personal vote bank. Local Gurdawaras will not even support him. Only Parkview Gurdawara has approx 8000 members.
Sonika Nirwal is Labour Group Leader at London Borough of Ealing, non executive director of Ealing Hospital a member of the Board of The Grand Union Village Board, and a School Governor for Dormers Wells High School in Southall. Since completing a degree in Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge University, Ms Nirwal has had a varied career. In addition to a variety of internships including working for Paul Boateng MP, Ms Nirwal has also worked as Education Best Value Co-ordinator for the London Borough of Ealing and is currently Principal Consultant for the Improvement and Development Agency in London. Sonika Chairs the Trust's Equality and Diversity Committee.
If she is adapted as a Labour candidate then she is unbeatable, and if Cllr Gurcharan Singh gets labour party nomination then election will be like bollywood film style.
anon 1:16 AM
"a good second"
So you have already conceded defeat.
What a pretty picture.
But does the poor candidate have any policies on which to campaign?
Anything other than a good second is unthinkable.
Historically the Tories have run second and with the lib dems poll slump they MUST do at least as well as 2005
Might have helped if like other sites you chose not to mention that he was going!
tim-if this poor man manages second place without a shred of policy he will have done the near impossile.
Ealing used to be white lower middle class. Southall was the Indian subcontinent. Interesting mixture.
Does this Campaign Together thing actually work? I have signed up for it twice already (not on the internet) - when it was launched and again when a reminder was sent out. Like many CCHQ initiatives, a lot of hot air but no follow through of actually doing the work. I don't have high hopes and will try the traditional route of helping - calling up and going along.
I have to say it, the "Tony Lit" signs are a fantastic piece of serendipity. They made me chuckle in this context.
I am glad to see the Sikh community is turning out to support the Tories. They were very much onside in 92' and its good to see they retain their admiration for the Party.
I wonder if the Tories can sneak into 2nd?
D/T is saying that Dave is worried about being seen as "losing his grip".WHAT GRIP?
Spelman to replace Maude?
You really couldn't make it up.
dodge...did you mean "hang on to"?
I am glad to see the Sikh community is turning out to support the Tories.
What racist twaddle. Does every Sikh voter get direction from a higher power or do individual voters make their own mind up as do whites, blacks, Hindus, Catholics etc.?
Was Stephen Cowan one of the five who ran away?
an exercise in futility surely? save your money Tony.
Was that photo taken in England or on his Indian tour ?
Anon at 1.16am wrote, "whose father got 7,000 votes as an *independent* (whipping the limp dumbs into fourth) in 2001."
I lived in Ealing at that time. Given the sheer weight of full-colour glossy brochures delivered every day (even though he had no party infrastructure to deliver it, so one suspects paid-for deliveries), I sincerely suspect that he did not keep anywhere near within the spending limits.
Plus: if I remember rightly (I accept that I might be wrong), his father got told off by Ofcom or something for using his radio station to promote his candidature in 2001.
P.S. I just got your "limp dumbs" joke. You'd better try harder next time as that is a very poor pun.
"Ealing Southall has the second largest Asian community in the country."
One wonders what this means?
Anyone care to explain?
Unity, when you say, "the usual slew of badly drawn bar graphs", I guess you mean: the fact that the LibDems came second last time with a 14.4% increase in their vote share - whilst the Tories finished third.
And if you don't believe me, as the Press Association has already stated: "The Ealing Southall seat is likely to prove a stiffer test, with the Liberal Democrats posing the biggest threat to Labour's 11,400 margin from 2005."
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