Rumble in Rammy

Anticipation 

The debate last night was billed as “The Big Debate” by the people at ramsbottomonline.com, and maybe considering the fact Ramsbottom is not the largest of places, you could argue they were right. The three main general election candidates were asked to put their views forward to the electorate and try and convince us all why they should replace disgraced MP Daivd Chaytor as the representative for Bury North at the Theatre Royal in Rammy. With the election campaign only a few days old, this was the chance for the three candidates to really show us what they were made of. Would Labour candidate Maryam Kahn be the feisty, young thing that we’d heard so much about on the political rumour mill? Had David Nuttall turned around his image of simply being an empty suit to fill with Tory policies? And could Richard Baum really convince a place that weighs Tory votes in stead of counting them that the Lib Dems really are a credible alternative? The audience at the Theatre Royal was buzzing with these questions at 7pm last night and the evening didn’t fail to give us answers to those questions. 

 

  

David Nuttall, Conservative. Improved, but still lacking charisma

Lighthearted 

 

The debate got off to a good start with the chair for the night Arif Ansari (from the BBC’s ‘The politics show’) keeping things real by putting the candidates very much in their place. Pointing out that Nuttall had lost his last four elections on the bounce and that Maryam Kahn had given up the law for politics whereas her predesessor had given up politics for the law (David Chaytor is one of the big three in court for fraudulent expense claims) the audience were warmed up nicely. No merry quips about Richard Baum – maybe Mr Ansari couldn’t think of anything funny, maybe there was a little bit of “Oh – and here’s a LibDem” itis, but nevertheless we were off. Questions came thick and fast about the economy, the cuts to public services, the way that the candidates would engage with their local communities. It was politics as it should be – open, transparent and in front of people. 

Apathetic? 

Politicians all over the country often scratch their heads as to why so many people are turned off by politics completely and disengage with the process that is there to serve them. “We knock on their doors and give them thousands of leaflets but they still don’t go out and vote?”. Well last night we all witnessed a concrete example of why many people have just given up on the process altogether. The room (which was very nicely refurbished – well done people of the Theatre Royal!) was filled with activists of all political colours, as well as local people who were very much of the mindset that they didn’t know who to vote for, so were going to see for themselves. What that second people saw was the true nature of some (not all) local activists, who think that politics should be a gladiatorial debate and not a process of getting the best from your community. There were jeers, heckles and outright abuse coming from some parts of the room as the candidates tried to give their answers. 

The most worrying thing was that this was not from some young upstart who didn’t know better, this was from local councillors, many of whom have senior positions on Bury Council. When I raised this point with the chair and the audience as it was not helping those floating voters with any chance of making up their mind, I was told roundly to “Shut up” and “Get a life” by the boo boys behind me. I’m thick skinned, but if that’s the way they talk to their opponents in front of the electorate, it’s no surprise that turnout has been steadily falling for so many years. That kind of behaviour is for the Stretford End, not the debating chamber in my opinion although from many years of witnessing events like this – it doesn’t really shock me anymore. 

The boy did good 

And so how did the candidates get on? Well, that’s hard to me for say in a balanced way, as you know full well that I’m 100% behind our candidate Richard Baum. From my point of 

Maryam Kahn, Labour. A real dissappointment, failed to show up

 view, I thought he ran rings around the other two candidates. Using humour to soften the audience but then immediately backing it up with some solid information about policy, he’d obviously done his homework. There was warm appluse from all sides of the room for what he was saying and he seemed to be the only candidate with real debating experience. Clearly his three years as a St Mary’s ward councillor has paid dividends and he was in complete control throughout the evening.

David Nuttall has improved in five years since I saw him debating last election but he was clearly struggling to get his point across to the audience as there was very little in the way of policy that the Tories have announced in their campaign as yet. He did well with the little he had to work with, but you really do need the charisma of David Cameron to get an audience on side with so little substance. He’s a nice man, but charismatic David Nuttall is not.

The biggest shock for me was the performance of Maryam Kahn as the Labour candidate. With the questions being given to the candidates in advance, I would have thought that she would have done much more research into party policy as well as ensuring that she knew more about the local area (she has only moved back here recently to be a candidate). Struggling with her notes, tripping over herself on many occasions and failing to answer at least two of the questions put to her, she looked at one point like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. It was uncomfortable to watch at times and from speaking to some floating voters in the pub after has definitely failed to win over any of the people that came with an open mind. 

The best they can do? 

The real thing that the debate showed to me is that the problem of having the wrong  people for the job of local MP will continue for a long time to come. We all know that the Lib Dems have a mountain to climb if they are to win a seat like Bury North as there are so many ‘core’  Tory and Labour voters who would not have witnessed the debate last night, nor will they hear about it other than from political wafflers like me. The glossy leaflets which are costing tens of thousands of pounds from the two Labservative candidates will make no mention of Maryam and David’s lacklustre performances in front of their electorate, nor will they give an idea of how poor either would be as a representative of the people of Bury North. The Lib Dem campaign – funded entirely by activists (ie on the cheap) will always look third place in comparison, leading to the assumption from voters that we are not to be taken seriously as a party. With no union backing and no tax dodgers ploughing millions into party coffers, that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, so the status quo looks set to rumble on. 

Richard Baum, Liberal Democrat. The winner in the room on the night

My major worry is that if this is only target seat number 46 for David Cameron and the 46th most marginal for Labour, then what is the quality of the candidates like for seats no 100 & 150?  These people are clearly not good enough to hold this office, yet are statistically likely to do so. More than worrying. 

A footnote 

Completely aside from all this – last night I also had the pleasure of meeting the pirate party candidate for Bury North. Contrary to popular belief, he had no parrot or wooden leg and didn’t start every sentence with an ah-hargh! apparently they are a serious political organisation. How disappointing…..

And we’re off….

Shleepy 

This post WILL be short as I’m dog tired already, and we’re only at the end of day two. Maybe working till 11:30 last night stuffing envelopes for a supporters mailing wasn’t great in terms of my grabbing enough shuteye…

This could also have something to do with being up at the crack of dawn to speak to a researcher from Radio Five Live about the possibility of having some sort of local voice from the Lib Dems on their Breakfast programme that this morning came from Bury . She nervously enquired with her producer, who politely informed me that Sarah Teather MP was going to be doing our bit for adding balance to their programme from London. (Which to me defied the point of the Beeb sending a whole crew up here anyway…) And after I’d got up to get down there for 6.15am as well – how rude! Still our girl Sarah did well, even convincing an online listener to switch allegiance live on air! Having caught her speech at confidence, she is a very safe pair of hands and good at getting people on side.

Nominations are now finally in for the candidates in the locals (I am now officially ’The Ramsbottom candidate’)  and now we have to have our candidate here in Bury North’s parliamentary papers to be done as soon as possible. Will these pointless pieces of paperwork ever come to an end?? By the way if you haven’t had the time as yet to discover why you’d be silly enough to vote anything but Lib Dem in Bury North as yet, I suggest that you check out Richard Baum, our candidates website. He’s a man on a mission!

As you can tell, now Gordon’s hit the green light, everyone’s on the go – but trying to fit all that in with two kids on school holidays is not that easy either. I’m feeling a little guilty that I’m not out there with the troops tonight, but have been filling my time with my real job (exam marking waits for no man!) and doing the artwork for a campaign leaflet in one of our target wards. With only 29 days left (hooray for the facebook countdown calendar!) there are still plenty of jobs to be done. Including of course waflling into cyberspace for no good reason…

Chuckle

To finish I thought I’d share this with you, as it made me laugh at just the right time today. Sums up everything we already knew…  

I've seen many of these floating around, but this was the first to make me chuckle out loud...

I hear you knocking….

No need to ask he's...

 

Perma-grin  

It was Tony Blair who was the first to really nail the technique of smiley inanely no matter what cataclysmic events were going on around you. Love him, loathe him, voted for him or not, you have to admit that the man knew how to put on a public face. There’s reason Gordon has dragged him back onto the campaign trail this week. Who else could have seen his approval rating shoot through the roof in the week following the death of our nations ‘treasure’ – the ‘peoples princess’ as he dubbed her… (one of these days I’ll get round to writing a post about that awful week… Best not to do that when we’re mid election though…Might just see my chances getting votes in double figures plummet…).Blair is a politician who knows how to turn on the charm, even when he’s marching you into countries you have no right to invade. In the words of Sade, he’s a smooth operator. 

Aside from all my general loathing of the chap, learning how to put a brave face on it has been directly nicked from Blair by yours truly and its been put to good use this week as I seek hunt down nominations for our candidates for the local elections. Between my new permagrin and the inevitable implementation of 24 years of stage experience, I have played the role of keen yet likeable, community minded gent pretty well, despite a number of fairly big obstacles this week.  

Life don’t make it easy  

The week started badly with the car officially conking out on me. My little Meg is no more and it put me well behind schedule in getting out to electors for nominations. For those of you that don’t know the process, each local election candidate will need to be nominated by ten eligible voters  in that particular ward. If you can’t get to them to sign your bit of paper then you’re having trouble. Bearing in mind that we’re working to a strict deadline to get all the papers to the town hall by a Noon on April 8th delays are not something that are useful.  

So with no car I go swiftly out and trade my rusty 13 year old 3 door blue Fiesta for a rusty 13 year old 5 door sick green Fiesta (that’s it’s official colour on the dulux chart). Back on the road I get ready to go out and face the public…And then get straight back in the car as a deluge from the heavens that Noah would have been proud of appears.  Mother nature clearly not a fan of democracy this week.  

When I eventually did get out of Harry (note -when you name a new car, get a 5 year old to do it – they inevitably choose somthing sensible) I was ready for the task ahead. The image had been carefully chosen – (smart, but not annoying politician smart) the clipboard was at the ready (from my recent shopping spree at Lib Dem image) and my Blair-esque smile was on, filled with the knowledge that I would meeting some new faces, collecting a few signatures  and going on my merry way. I was clearly in a naive little bubble. And as my fellow Hammers will tell you at the moment, Bubbles are very easily burst.  

Fortune’s always hiding  

The first fifteen or so houses were no shows. No one home or the television is deemed too important to leave your chair for. You wouldn’t believe how many people will just take a glance at the window, see that it’s someone they don’t know and not bother to get up. I could have been delivering a cheque for £1 million pounds and they wouldn’t have shifted their inactive backsides. I suppose ‘Home and Away’ is just too important to drag yourself away from sometimes.  

But eventually I get off the mark. A nice lady in her eighties allows me to come into the hallway away from the intermittent drizzle to sign the form, she spends a good twenty minutes telling me her stories about what she wants to see changing locally – simple stuff, the things the local politicians can do something about, bins collections, street lighting, tidy the place trying to find something for the kids on the estate to do. She’s pleasant, she compliments me on doing something to try and change things and sends me on my way. Okay, so in a time and motion study I’ve spent twenty minutes getting one signature, but I don’t care, I feel like I’m a bit more informed about the challenges that this particular part of Bury faces. I’ve done something that matters so I walk away, bubble very much intact.  

The part of "man who will think twice before threatening me on a doorstep" will tonight be played by an actor, as taking a picture of him might be considered 'provoking' by a court.

 

Swearing  

I don’t like casual swearing. I don’t mind it in a comedy routine. I don’t mind it in close company and I definitely know the cathartic value of using guttural words in short bursts when you stub your toe for the nineteenth time of the same piece of skirting board. It’s got it’s use and I’m certainly not an angel in that sense. Working in a secondary school also immunises you to a lot of ‘catharsis’ so I guess I should be less taken aback by the use of the expletive deleted in everyday conversation. But I don’t think I’ve been ever been verbally attacked in a way that made me so ashamed to be a member of the same genus as I was on the doorsteps this week.  

I knew there were going to be people who were disgusted by the actions of the MP’s embroiled in the expenses scandal well  in advance. Being in Bury North, David Chaytor the outgoing MP is a member of the big three who are currently involved in the criminal trial over fraudulent mortgage claims. I know people have been let down – hell, I have and it does make me angry. But would I try and take out my anger on a stranger on my doorstep by telling someone “to f*** off, you p*** in the same f****** pot!” (slam). No I wouldn’t. Partly because I’m a grown up and partly because I check my facts. There have been very few times that I have done as he’s suggesting, but I don’t recall any of the candidates for Ramsbottom ward sharing my potty, let alone Elliot Morley and David Chaytor, all of whom are of a significantly greater age than myself. Maybe I just forgot.  

I won’t deny that there was after that a little bit of me just wanted to give up and go home at that point. Why should I put myself on the line for abuse when I don’t appear to have any means of registering a retort? Well, luckily for all involved I took a deep breath and carried on.  

The rest of the street was as we’d begun. Twenty odd out, nice people here and there, signatures from most who were politically minded enough to want to get involved and more outbursts almost identical in nature from men in their fifties who should by now have learned better. I was quite proud of myself at one house towards the end of the route when I managed to sneak in a bit of a fightback. Bizarrely, he used exactly the same wording as the first old grump that answered the door further up the street. Word must have got round about my toilet habits. He wasn’t as physically intimidating as the first Neanderthal but did have an equal amount of venom in his voice. But he wasn’t as quick with the door and that was his downfall. When informed that I metaphorically contributed to political detritus in a colloquial manner I came straight back in my best teacher voice with a very firm “Actually, I don’t”. There was a brief pause as the the shock of someone arguing back with a coherent statement dawned on his ill informed face, followed by “Have a nice evening sir, please take the time to vote on May 6th”. A flash of permagrin, 180 degree turn and away. I didn’t actually punch the air, but we all know that in my heart I felt just a couple of feet taller.  

Small victories.  

Now first of all I don’t advise getting into petty arguments with people who are likely to lamp you if you don’t get the timing right, nor am I going to get into any silly arguments when I’m canvassing on doorsteps over the next three weeks. It’s a fruitless task that doesn’t help anyone. But I do think that we need to do something about the negativity surrounding politics and politicians in general. The connection between everyday people, local campaigners, councillors, MP’s and the government has been completely broken, with nobody knowing if they are coming or going. I’m pretty sure that I have never raised the level of VAT on goods back to 17.5% in my life, but I actually got blamed for it on a doorstep this week. Because politicians did it. It didn’t matter to that person that it wasn’t my party doing or that economic decisions of that nature are not taken by people standing in local town council elections. Politicians have become ‘them’ and apparently the nation has even provided us with a collective bucket to relieve ourselves in.  

Fightback  

So the fightback needs to start. No more hairshirts because of the actions of the few, I’m going to be pointing out to people the positive things that my colleagues and I do that are not part of the general nastiness floating about in the media. We get stuff like roads and pavements fixed for people, we work closely with people like the police service to try and make things just a little bit safer for people, we organise local events to raise the profile of the area, we fight on people’s behalf when they come to us with a problem that no-one else seems to be able to solve. Local politicians and campaigners are still doing the same job they’ve done for hundreds of years.  

And for some of us who have not yet reached the lofty heights of being elected, we do it for no financial reward. I’m out here knocking on your door, because I want to make our local area a little bit nicer. 

Please don’t slam the door in my face.