UKIP Daily goes to Wythenshawe and Sale East, to help fight it out on the battleground of the doorsteps! The main aim of this article is to show some photos of the “action on the ground” with activists at work, to try and give some feedback on how it is going, and to perhaps encourage a few more readers to come and join us here, if only for a day.
First stop of the newly arrived activist is the campaign shop, and this is what it looks like: Darryl Pitcher, Lisa Duffy’s deputy at work behind the counter, and the candidate, John Bickley, talking to a voter (off camera).
Then you get tasked, out onto the doorsteps, with a box full of leaflets, a map of where to go, and canvassing instructions. This is where it starts to get interesting – interacting with the voters, trying to sway the undecided into voting for us. The amazing thing (to us political animals) is the number of people who do not have a clue about UKIP, what we stand for, why we are so different to the other parties, and why they should vote for us.
So, when you ask them what worries them, it is usually, immigration, jobs, wages, pressure on local infrastructure and local councils not delivering the services they used to deliver. If they will give 5 minutes to show them how our policies will help fix most of those issues, they begin to see the light.
And the way it feels to me, over a slightly more than 2 days canvassing is that it is a close run thing between the number who say they will vote Labour or “not for us”, and the number who will vote for us. There are precious few who say they’ll vote Tory or Lib Dem, and then there are still quite a few undecideds, but hopefully either our words on the doorstep or their reading of the “What We Stand For Leaflet” will help them decide in our favour.
Here’s a few snaps of “the team” in action. One evening we went on a “pub crawl” – no drinking, just leaving UKIP newspapers and leaflets surreptitious lying around in strategic places including…
Here we see Victoria Ayling (Lincs CC UKIP Councillor) diving into the Ladies loo to strategically place some leaflets there, and “Mike the DJ” in that self-same UKIP-friendly pub proudly displaying his UKIP badge. He played a request for us: “Making Plans for Nigel”
Out the next day, whilst canvassing we came across Peter Reeve (RO Eastern Region) erecting garden boards on one of the main roads out of Wythenshawe & Sale heading for the motorway – in the end he had up twice as many boards as Labour did!.
I hope that gives you a flavour of what’s going on in Wythenshawe this week. If you can, get in your car, head for South Manchester, the UKIP Office, School Road, Sale, and offer your services to Lisa Duffy and she will give you a task where you might be the one swinging that one vote that could win us this By Election and get UKIP’s first MP!
Nice to get an update on what’s going on in Wythenshawe. Hats off to everyone who has campaigned there and good luck for tomorrow.
Of course Cllr Tony Hooke is going out in the wind, rain and cold as per picture above… He certainly isn’t there for his health!
I don’t know anything about Cllr Hooke. What I do know is that if he is leafleting at Wythenshawe for the Party, he is doing something useful and constructive. Unless critics are prepared to go out in the wind, rain and cold themselves to make a contribution to our democratic process, it behoves them ill to attack those who do.
Cllr Tony Hooke! There you are, smiling as always in that final picture. Why have UKIP allowed you to be seen during a national campaign when clearly you are an embarrassment. Your articles have been taken down even from here!!! Why would UKIP want a parliamentary by-election campaign tainted by a local bully who is facing questions over irregularities with his election expenses? I thought the Party was past working with ‘Walter Mittys’ apparently not. Maybe you can tell your constituents about your travels when you return to your division, we are still waiting for you to do something for us….
Is this REALLY the place to post this? Surely there’s a better way to raise your points, valid or otherwise?
This is exactly the place to post this, as I for one want to know if I am being had. And it’s not just me. This question is being asked all over the net, on one blog or another.
Still no answer though eh?
Sorry Steve- are we on about the same thing here? I was replying to
Peter’s post as it seems like a disagreement between two individuals
that would be better sorted out in a branch meeting or something. I
could be wrong, as I have no idea what’s happened. But I still hold to
the ‘don’t air the dirty laundry in public’ mindset. There’s obviously something amiss that needs sorting, but on a public blog? Really? I must be old fashioned, I guess.
Apologies Rob, crossed wires.
I have been led to the floods in Somerset are a direct result of the 2007 Water Framework Directive, but nothing from Farge or UKIP on this.
You have been presented with an open goal. You can come out and say that the EU is responsible for this, and that the liars in Westminster and Whitehall are trying to hide that fact. Yet given this spectacular gift,UKIP are silent. WHY?
As a matter of fact, Nigel was on Sky News a couple of days ago being interviewed by Murnaghan alongside a volunteer helper. He made clear suggestions, including the fact that we should be asking for emergency funds from the EU (get some of our money back at least) and/or using some of the foreign aid money we so lavishly spend abroad to tackle our own disasters at home.
So Nigel and Ukip are not silent, but they are hardly going to score party political points while people in Somerset and elsewhere are suffering hardship.
Btw, Steve, unless you are able to watch, listen and read every available news outlet in this country on a daily basis, you cannot possibly claim that Ukip is silent about any issue.
“…but they are hardly going to score party political points while people in Somerset and elsewhere are suffering hardship”
Pamela raises an interesting point here, which many seem to have missed.
Cast Iron Dave has been busily telling people not to “play the blame game”. The media are reporting this as a “let’s fix the problem and have an investigation later” approach – an attempt to make Dave look like a decisive leader.
What’s really happening though, is that Dave is trying to keep pressure off the Environment Agency for fear that they will use the nuclear option and make public the fact that they were operating under an EU Directive. Dave knows that this will be devastating anti-EU ammunition and he obviously wants it kept quiet.
I know that Nigel is a wiley political tactician, but I do feel that he could be doing more to reveal the real issue here. Once people (particularly in the South West) realise that they are being sacrificed for an EU green policy then surely it can only serve us by undermining the Tories and the LibDems in that area?