Out Campaigning Across The Country

If you're a keen reader of my blog I bet you have been very disappointed and possibly close to suicide with the lack of activity over the last week. But don't worry, I haven't died, I have just been very busy campaigning up and down the country.

Last weekend I was in Newark helping out with the parliamentary by-election there. Working with the local Newark CF and nationally with Colonel Cooper I am trying to get a good presence in the area for CFers. I hope with the election day countdown approaching people from London, Manchester and Birmingham will come and help.

Myself and Oliver Rainbow the Newark CF Chair.

The Newark candidate is Robert Jenrick who is currently very busy travelling across the whole of the very large constituency of Newark. Our campaigning paths crossed last Monday in the beautiful village of Normanton where he met several locals and delivered lots of his local newspapers.

That same day I also met the leader of the Conservative group on Bassetlaw council, Keith Izzard. Bassetlaw council elects in thirds and Keith's seat is one chosen this year to be up for election. Keith seems a great councillor who has done a lot in the community. He was born in the ward and has stayed there for the large part of his life, if not all. He also knows the best pubs to go to for a lunchtime break.

On the Monday I also went campaigning in Tuxford with Therese Coffey MP, one of the first MPs to come to Newark. We started out doing some canvassing and later in the day switched to deliveries. We got the whole of the town covered which was very good going for our small team. I was also present when Therese got bit by a dog, which resulted in national headlines on the BBC.

I genuinely hope that our efforts will pay off and that Robert Jenrick will be elected to serve the people of Newark. Robert is hard working whilst the UKIP candidate, Roger Helmer, is not.

I suspect this picture will be put on many leaflets about UKIP in Newark.

Later on in the week I went back to Wisbech to help in the Roman Bank by-election against the local UKIP threat. You'll be pleased to know we won and achieved a swing from UKIP in comparison to the county elections last year when they won the seat. From what I saw people beginning to become fed up with UKIP locally because they are doing stupid stuff. This includes voting against a local train station*, wanting to charge for parking in the market square, bullying adopted children, using racial slurs at a fire station and being guilty of benefit fraud to mention a few things. It's a very long list of cock ups. Also it's virtually impossible to contact the UKIP county councillors by email, letter or carrier pigeon. No wonder the electorate are turning away from them.

Sam is a friend of mine and I know she will do a lot of work for all the villages in the area. This is why I did lots of extra campaigning for her until the sun went down on the days leading up to the by-election. It's great to see all our hard work paid off.

Photo courtesy of the Wisbech Standard.

These were the results:

Clark, Samantha (Con) 763

Lay, Alan (UKIP) 537

Diggle, Barry (Lab) 193

Murat, Erbie (Ind) 70

Court, Stephen (Lib Dem) 24

Turn out: 29.7 pc

Photo courtesy of the Wisbech Standard.

*A universally popular idea in Wisbech.

Campaigning Photos With Samantha Clark

Over the last few days I have been out with Samantha Clark who is the local Conservative candidate for the Roman Bank by-election. Sam and her campaign team have been all over the area leafleting, canvassing and posting letters. I have been struck by how well Samantha is known in the ward. No joke, around 50% of all the people I call upon know who she is. Her family and friends live in all the villages, especially Newton where she is a parish councillor.

Here are the photos from the last few days of campaigning:

Samantha was campaigning in the estates just off Sutton Road on Tuesday. She got a good response from the locals.

On Wednesday Sam spent more time in Leverington with helpers from across North East Cambridgeshire. She is that liked and respected.

Sam stopped for a quick drink at the Rising Sun after a long morning of canvassing on Tuesday.

Sam was on High Road in Gorelfield earlier today seeing what was going on.

Sam also visited the local shop in Gorefield and treated us to a snack.

Sam was also out with a team of helpers in Leverington to do a mass leaflet of lots of houses and deliver postal vote letters.

Sam was joined by more helpers later on today.

Sam has really been putting the effort in these last few days and will tomorrow be spending time seeing and talking to people across the ward who she has not yet had contact with. Sam and her team will hopefully have seen everyone in the area at least once soon.  It's good to see that local people are getting behind Sam because she really cares about the villages of Tydd St Giles, Newton, Gorefield, Foul Anchor and Leverington (as well as all the people living in the houses in between). She does live there after all. Her concerns are your concerns. 

Residents of Roman Bank, please choose Samantha Clark to be your district councillor.

Canvassing in Newton

Today I went out with a group of local Conservatives to canvass for my friend Sam Clark who is standing as a candidate in the Roman Bank by-election. She hopes that the people of Leverington, Newton, Tydd St Giles, Foul Anchor, Tydd Gote, Gorefield and Four Gotes (yes that is a lot of villages) put their faith in her to become the District councillor for the area. It was a lovely day and we had an equally good response from the people we spoke to.

Sam with Cllr Steve Tierney in Newton.

The team split up into half with myself, Sam and my Cllr Steve Tierney canvassing in Newton whilst the others leafleted Tydd St Giles. Newton is a lovely village with some equally great people. They also all know Sam. Seriously, I knocked on so many doors today and virtually all of them knew who she was. Sam is a resident of Newton and also a parish councillor. Sam also organises lots of the villages events and helps people in the community with her job as a carer. It's no wonder why she is very well known then. Sam is also very well known in the surrounding villages for her community efforts. She is a real champion of the people and does a lot for them. Just think about all the other things she could do if she was elected as a Fenland District Councillor.

As you can probably can guess, we got a very good response  on the doors. People are very keen to vote for Sam and the Conservatives, which is always good to see. The leafleters also had a very good day doing a large portion of the ward. All in all we probably canvassed 1/5 of the ward and leafleted 1/4 too. A very successfully day. But we will not stop until all the votes are in and Sam has hopefully been elected to serve.

Residents of Roman Bank please vote for Sam Clark on the 8th May. She is a local champion who will help sort your issues.

Fletcher, By-election and Budget: #ThingsElliottSays is Back

Yes, after a fairly long break with not much going on, #ThingsElliottSays is back. We shall continue to show up the socialist oppressors, Europhiles and CF wannabes.

You are probably wondering what has been going on for me to take a long period of time off? Well I was working very hard on the Clifton North by-election, which we sadly lost, and on my essays. I could tell you some wonderful things about the Carolingian Renaissance, Peter the Great of Russia and Stalin but we must move on.

I'm all clued up on Charlemagne.

So in celebration of #ThingsElliottSays' return let's do a quick summary of three things that have been going on. Firstly, do you remember Cllr Sam Fletcher, the woman and gay hating UKIP councillor from Keighley? Well he has decided again that Facebook is exactly the right place to publicly air his strange views. Cllr Fletcher has called Trans-Gender people "part-time homosexuals" and admitted he was "a bit confused by them". You can see all his delightful comments below and read about them further on the Pink News, The Backbencher and International Business Times. I think the people of Keighley will be demanding a right of recall soon.

On Thursday I was also at a by-election in Gamston, in Rushcliffe. I was out there with Ken Clarke and co. campaigning to get the Conservative candidate Jonathan Wheeler elected to serve on Rushcliffe Borough council. This was a seat we needed to hold and I am glad to say we did so. Jonathan got 444 votes with Labour coming second with 218. UKIP also ran and received 173 with the Lib Dems 4th with 170 votes (this was a much better result for the Lib Dems than the Clifton North by-election where they were beaten by Elvis). I hope Jonathan does well on the Borough council, in the time that I got to know him he seemed to know exactly what needed to be done in the area.

Jonathan, Sam and I just about to go out into Gamston to campaign.

And lastly I want to talk about the budget. The word BINGO could be heard across the whole of England (most notably in Harlow) due to the great work of Robert Halfon MP in getting George to cut Bingo tax by half. Rob is very good at making sure the Conservatives attract that 'white van man worker'. But after Petrol and Bingo being slashed, what will Rob and his team, led by the wonderful ex-University of Nottingham student Emily Burditt, be planning for next year?

Eyes down Rob.

Good work was also done by Michael Ellis MP for his pot hole fund. £200 million has been put aside by the government to help with all those potholes that have been caused a record breaking wet winter. Praise all around to Daisy and Ben, the campaign manager and TCO for Northampton North, who helped massively on that campaign. People back in Wisbech will be very pleased as well as the people of Northampton North.

Michael Ellis MP has got a £200 million government grant for pot holes.

But most importantly, George has made my pint cheaper. Beer duty has been cut twice in a row under this government, something to definitely raise a glass to. Cheers George, students across the country thank you.

Cheers George!

So to end up my summary of the past few days here is one of the best parts of the whole political show around budget day. A song commissioned by Sky News about their coverage of the events.

Massive Campaign Day in Clifton North

Last Saturday saw a big campaign day launched by the Nottingham Conservatives in order to get the votes of the people of Clifton North. Over 50 activists were busy trying to get Andrew Rule, the local Conservative candidate, elected to Nottingham City Council. We canvassed all of Wilford, Silverdale, the Grove and a fair portion of the Clifton Estate. We also leafleted virtually the whole ward.

Nadim and Alex out in the ward.

We had people from NUCA, Trent, Derbyshire and people even as far away as Dorset come and help make Clifton North a well represented ward with a local Conservative Councillor. There was of course the usual Conservative team out there led by Andrew as well.

Luke Stevens, Chair of Dorset CF, travelled hundreds of miles to help us.

I didn't see the vast majority of the helpers that day as we broke off into smaller teams. But one of the teams did catch sight of Pat Ferguson, the Labour candidate, and her lovely dog. One of our activists asked Pat if she would be voting in the up coming by-election but she said no. This is not surprising as Pat lives in Aspley which is on the other side of Nottingham. I wonder why she has been parachuted into Clifton North then? Pat then said to the group of activists that she is "far better looking than Andrew". I'm not one to judge beauty but that's quite a weird and ego-centric claim to make in a by-election.

Other teams were out in Clifton.

Pat however does seem to be going a bit barmy at the moment. She wrote on the Clifton Facebook Group recently, insulting the people of Wilford, 'It seems to me that geography, never mind grammar, is perhaps not the strongest in that part of the ward with some members of the WCG'. Not a very wise thing to do. Its no wonder that someone on the same Facebook group has said about Pats comments "Oh my goodness! Iv just saw this post and I must say, I'm actually disgusted in how Pat Ferguson has responded! ... you've made yourself look like a silly and rude woman!!!!" It seems the people of Clifton are not very happy with Pat's actions.

Wisdom meets youth with great Clifton North Cllr Roger Steel and NUCA Alex and George.

But despite Pat's rude words about Clifton North we had a great day campaigning. The sun was shining and I got loads of responses on the doors when canvassing. Virtually all the people were favourable to Andrew and I hope that lots of people will turn out to vote for this great local champion. Andrew is chairman of the Wilford Community Group and Secretary to the social club so he knows what needs to be sorted out in the ward.

Andrew speaking with a resident.

People of Clifton North please vote Conservative and for Andrew Rule, a great local choice, on Thursday.

A Long Day in Clifton North

I have just spent a very long a tiring day helping Andrew Rule, the local Conservative candidate for the Clifton North by-election. It started early and finished late. Quite frankly I am surprised I am up now writing this at 10pm.

Off to talk to the residents of Clifton North.

We started by campaigning in Silverdale along some residential roads with a large team of activists. We got lots of good responses from the people there and they were very pleased to see that the Conservatives are putting a lot of effort in locally. I think Andrew really cares a lot about the people of Clifton North and what the council does there. It effects him as much as everyone else in the ward so he is very in touch.

We then heard that Lilian Greenwood MP was having a coffee morning/surgery for the people of Silverdale and we thought it would be nice to say hi to all those people who were coming out as well. We thus positioned ourselves at the gates with leaflets to give a balanced view of Nottingham politics. The people we spoke to were very receptive and some were pleased about how we had asked them about issues.

We also managed to speak to Lilian as she came out. She gave a friendly hello but said she would not sadly be voting for Andrew Rule specifically because she didn't live in the ward. Indeed Lilian then specifically said she lived in Southwell, almost 20 miles from Clifton North. Lilian Greenwood the 'local' MP for Nottingham South is thus fairly distant; she should really remove all her implied local connections in her literature for example her work with 'other local MPs'. Lilian therefore sadly cannot vote for Andrew but she did leave open the chance that she'd support him. It would be great to see a Labour MP achieve a cross party consensus in backing the Conservative Andrew Rule for Clifton North. Working together is best.

Out in a small sub team.

A strange thing happened at Lilian's coffee morning/surgery as well. One of us spotted Pat Ferguson, the Labour by-election candidate, come out of the coffee morning/ surgery. This is most strange because Pat doesn't live in the parliamentary constituency of Nottingham South let alone the ward Silverdale is in. As an Aspley resident her MP is Graham Alllen, Nottingham North. Why was Pat there at the surgery/coffee morning? Was she campaigning? I hope Lilian wasn't using tax payers money on that coffee morning/ surgery because that would then be illegal.

Just some of the Conservative team that helped today.

After this we campaigned in some more streets before a break for lunch around 1:30ish at the Wilford Harvester. We then hit the pavements again and knocked on over 500 houses with a big group of activists in the rest of Silverdale. We made good progress but it was made hard by the very bad wind and appalling rain. I was drenched and so were the canvass sheets I was holding, luckily they have been salvaged. Let's hope for better weather on the by-election day of 6th March.

It was really great campaigning in Clifton North again. I hope to get back out there soon to try convince more people to vote for the local Conservative candidate Andrew Rule.

Out and About in Clifton North

Today I was out with NUCA and the Nottingham Tories highlighting to the good people of Wilford, Silverdale and Clifton the abilities and asset of Andrew Rule, the Conservative Candidate in the Clifton North by-election. Everyone has been really keen to help Andrew because he is a great local champion who knows exactly what is going on in the ward as he is currently the leader of the Wilford Community Group.

Campaigning in the rain.

Today we did some canvassing; one of our NUCA members had never been out canvassing before and was excited to get going. However today was not the best day to learn the ropes as it was pouring with rain. We were soaked. But Andrew and the team soldiered on and despite the rain we actually made some good headway in Wilford. We had a good crowd of people out there and we got a large number of voting intentions.

Drenched but still happy.

But we decided to go the extra mile and do some telephone canvassing afterwards so we could speak to residents about local issues. Andrew is very keen to do everything he can for the residents of Clifton North and has already started compiling a list of things residents would like to change, many things are small but they are still important. Today we had issues raised about the tram works, littering, anti-social behaviour, parking, dog poo, pot holes and sleeping policeman; Andrew will investigate all these problems if elected as councillor.

Andrew and the team spent a lot of extra hours concentrating on the issues raised by residents.

Please vote for the hard working local Conservative candidate Andrew Rule on Thursday 6th March in the Clifton North by-election.

#ThingsElliottSays Campaigning in Clifton North and with William Hague

Yes after a short break #ThingsElliottSays has returned. I have been ultra busy over the last few days and I'll tell you about two of the things which happened to me.

Photo of William Hague in full flow, taken by Alex Bright.

First off on Thursday I went to see William Hague at East Midlands fundraising dinner for the European elections. Our NUCA treasurer, Alex Bright, sat on the top table with the Foreign Secretary, if only Mr Hague knew how many times Alex has told us the Burmese Embassy story. The food was pretty good and William Hague gave a very good speech under difficult circumstances (the PA system was terrible and he had to shout his speech due to the terrible echo in the hall). Hague said some very important things firstly that even with budget cuts the foreign office is doing more than ever and has opened up a large amount of new embassies and is pushing for more trade with countries across the globe. You would never have seen David Miliband doing that. Furthermore Hague confirmed what we have all suspected; when the new EU referendum bill is put to the commons the government will use the Parliament Acts to get it past the House of Lords, who have shown themselves to be very democratic of late.

Just some of the Conservatives out last Thursday.

There was no rest for me however as the next day I went out campaigning with NUCA members for the Clifton North by-election. There we met the Conservative candidate Andrew Rule, who is a great local champion, and several other Nottingham Conservatives. We leafleted a very large area of Clifton North in a very short amount of time; it's great to have a very large amount of people helping as it shows how much confidence people have in Andrew. Afterwards we went to the pub (this is how all campaigning sessions should end).

Sam delivering a leaflet.

Andrew has specific local knowledge and cares for everyone in the ward. He is the Chairman of the Wilford Community Group and spends a lot of his time helping his neighbours in Clifton North. Andrew told me whilst campaigning that he is very much aware of the problems effecting businesses and people caused by the tram works and if elected will help to ease the congestion and fight for the council to compensate businesses.

NUCA members out campaigning with Andrew.

Andrew is far better and more in touch with people of Wilford, Silverdale and Clifton than the Labour candidate Pat Ferguson. Pat doesn't even live in the same parliamentary constituency as the residents of Clifton North. Pat lives Aspley, miles from anyone who lives in the ward. I personally think it is disheartening when major political parties cannot stand candidates in seats who live in or next to a ward. the Labour candidate has no real demonstrable connection with Clifton North, what a shame.

Andrew is the local choice for Clifton North.

I thus think Andrew Rule is the best choice for Clifton North; I encourage everyone in the ward to vote for him and the Conservatives.