“Labour of love”: The official launch

Last weekend was the official launch of my campaign. Setting out the best china and freshly baked cakes caused me to remember Sunday afternoons as a little boy at my nana’s, when I drank tea from clinking china and stuffed myself with fancy biscuits. I used to love the bus trip across the city, knowing what tasty wonders awaited me, and on the way home my mum and I would play I-Spy from the front seat on the top deck.

“I hate the buses” said Hilda, as several grandchildren swarmed around her legs. I’d already suffered a door slamming in my face and the irony of being turned away by a Jehova’s Witness when I got to Hilda’s house. “I’ve got arthritis and it’s a 3 hour round trip for me to get to my monthly appointment at the hospital. And, If I’ve got to go the specialist unit, it’s 3 buses and most of the day gone.”

More members of her family joined her. “One of my sons has depression, so he needs a lot of looking after.” I glanced behind her at 2 grinning men and wondered which one it was. “The bus only comes once an hour,” she continued. “It’s a nightmare in winter.” Just then one of her sons leant round her and pushed a book of “Giles” cartoons under my nose, open at a page featuring a sleeping elephant squirting water from its trunk. “You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?” he said.

I was still trying to figure out if there was connection between the bus service and the elephant cartoon whilst waiting at a house in the next street. A woman in her mid-thirties opened the door wearing a short sleeved top and shivered in the autumn cold. Across the road I could see a Rottweiler’s head surreally appear and disappear above a wall, as it bounced on a trampoline in its desperate attempt to escape the confines of the garden.

“Hi, I’m Simon Buckley, your Labour party…” Before I could finish my introduction the woman folded her arms and spoke in a soft, but deliberate, voice. “I hate coming home from work in the dark.” There’d been an attack on a woman a few weeks earlier which had, obviously, spooked the estate. Despite her body warmth clearly dropping she continued to talk for some time about how she wanted to see more police on the streets, better lighting and CCTV cameras.

As soon as I got back out onto the street I excitedly began writing down everything I’d been told. She’d lived on the estate for twenty years and had given me loads to work with. My wife, who was taking pictures of the day, saw me scribbling like a school swot and raised the camera. “That’s a good one” she said “ Simon, writing his Christmas list.”, causing my team to snigger. I added a note to the bottom of the sheet reminding me not to invite my sarcastic wife out again.

After about 2 hours of canvassing we’d visited nearly 400 houses and the sheets of notes were forming a daunting pile of work for me. One of the decisions I took when I became a candidate was that I should try to actually achieve something, rather than just tout for votes. The result of that is, of course, that I’ve volunteered for a load of hassle.

Seeing the amount of paperwork waiting for me was playing on my mind as I knocked on the final door of the day. A young man answered and, as I explained who I was, he started stroking his chin and fixed me with a dead stare. My voice trailed off. “So. MPs,” he began, “ They’re on the take. They’ve even got credit cards for £100,000 and so how are we all in it together? When you get into Parliament are you going to put all that money in your pocket?”

I delicately tiptoed around his argument, agreeing that MPs had in some cases behaved badly, and I seemed to genuinely shock him when I told him that I was doing this voluntarily and wouldn’t be going to Parliament. He had no sense of the difference between local politics and those in Westminster. But, as he’d never in his life seen an MP, or a councillor for that matter, there was no reason why he should.

When I got home I read through all the issues raised and 2 things emerged. Firstly, people had a lot of problems that could only be fixed by councillors and MPs. Secondly, they had very little faith in the ability of their elected representatives to achieve anything.

It’s going to be hard to fix their streetlights if all that the residents want to do is put me on the first bus out of here.