On Saturday morning Labour’s general election campaign co-ordinator Jon Ashworth MP and I filled a bus full of volunteers from the centre of Leeds and set out for a wintry trip to Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the #LabourExpress battlebus.
The aim of the day was simple. Support the fantastic Melanie Onn in Grimsby and the brilliant Peter Keith in Cleethorpes by speaking to hundreds of local people.
At a fish and chip shop by the sea we were joined by Labour students and activists from Hull, Scunthorpe, Manchester and Barnsley, including two great MPs, Diana Johnson from Hull North and Nic Dakin from Scunthorpe.
With just 109 days until the election there’s no time to waste and we want to do our bit to help get a Labour government.
That means having some of the 4 million conversations that Ed Miliband set out earlier this month.
Jon Ashworth and Gloria De Piero’s #LabourExpress battlebus is a brilliant way of having some of those conversations. Jon and Gloria have taken activists to every corner of the country – taking on the Tories’ glossy leaflets and shiny billboards with the traditional and best form of campaigning – talking to voters.
On Saturday we were in an area that has been hit hard by David Cameron’s Government.
Nearly 1,300 households across Grimsby and Cleethorpes have been hit by the cruel and unfair Bedroom Tax. Two thirds of those families have someone at home who is disabled and the bedroom tax is hurting them badly.
And in Cleethorpes a staggering 48% of people in work are earning less than a living wage – maybe David Cameron can explain why they haven’t had a pay rise for five years?
By 5 o’clock we had talked to hundreds of voters. People like Rosemary in East Marsh who had worked for the NHS for more than forty years. Although retired, Rosemary still supports Marie Curie locally and keeps in touch with former colleagues. She is desperately worried about the creeping privatisation and the strain that the NHS, that she loves, is under. Rosemary’s story and her commitment to our NHS is just one of the reasons why we need a Labour government and just one of the four million conversations that we are all having.
The choice couldn’t be clearer for people in Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
1,300 people paying the Bedroom Tax under David Cameron and Nick Clegg or the Bedroom Tax abolished under Ed Miliband.
People left on the dole for years by the Tories or Labour’s Compulsory Jobs Guarantee which will give hundreds of unemployed people in Grimsby and Cleethorpes a paid starter job.
A Labour Government won’t accept low pay as David Cameron’s government does. We’ll make work pay by getting more businesses to pay a living wage, we’ll raise the minimum wage to at least £8 an hour and will ban exploitative zero hours contracts too.
The NHS. Bedroom Tax. Jobs. Low Pay. It’s a big choice for our country.
You don’t have to travel as far as we did to help reach the 4 million conversations that will help us win the election. There’s probably a key seat on your doorstep or nearby. So come and join us between now and May 7th.
If you get out there on the doorstep in the next 109 days, you’ll prove that money alone can’t win an election. And you can help deliver a Labour victory which will make such a big difference to the lives of people up and down our country.
Rachel Reeves is Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
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