Written by Friday and we join a mass of volunteers, the Progress team on their last ‘Final countdown’ campaign days and Jess Asato our candidate. You can read more about her campaign here.
Winning Norwich North and we are in overall majority territory so key to our national campaign as well as giving Labour voice to those who live in a constituency that is a classic mix of city and rural fringe, as our door knocking areas illustrate. There are plenty of places where houses abut the fields of rural Norfolk and are part of the District of Broadland, such that the District Council is responsible for the running of the parliamentary election for Norwich North.
We’ve enough volunteers for five or six teams of six or more, and are soon out enjoying the sunshine and decent levels of voter contact for a Friday. Proof of Labour capacity for voter contact is soon apparent, our team of seven (average age 35) meets a pair of Tories (average age 55); a few pleasantries later and the next door has a resident soon making very clear he’d rather talk to us than them – another vote for Jess! Three hours later and it feels like we are definitely ahead – there are some Labour – ukip wavering, and some who think voting green is the answer – more opportunities to remind them it is only Labour that delivers workable, sustainable policies from the National Parks to the growth on renewables we see today.
A quick bite to eat and every team is out again, further north. More sun, more stakes and more Labour support keep us going through the afternoon, before heading home.
On the train we get to read this fascinating piece by Nick Pearce, considering the variety and energy in the politics of English regional identity, by way of an exhibition of the work of Eric Ravilious. We agree with Nick, England is much more complex and varied than the north, the midlands and the south east; and that every part of England has its radicalism to balance its conservatism – responding to and supporting the descendants of those radicals across the country is why we created Labour: Coast & Country.
Hywel Lloyd is a Co-founder of Labour: Coast & Country
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, the Labour: Coast & Country