Each week a different PPC provides us with an insight into life as a candidate and gives us a flavour of their own campaign and interests. If you are a candidate and are keen to be featured, please email Jonathan Isaby.
This week’s diary is written by Simon Kirby, who was selected in November 2006 as PPC for Brighton Kemptown, a seat that the Conservatives haven’t won since 1992. Simon has a notional Labour majority of less than 2,000 to overturn after some minor boundary changes. Simon writes about his week as the Labour Party converged on Brighton for their last annual conference before the General Election.
Sunday 27th September
As the Labour Party arrive in Brighton today, the KIRBY for KEMPTOWN team are limbering up for a massive survey delivery across the whole constituency. We have had teams of volunteers folding and stuffing envelopes since Thursday and we now intend to deliver over thirty thousand surveys during the Labour Party conference.
I am starting the day as usual - out at 7am in East Brighton Park walking the dogs and thinking about my very busy week ahead. Several other dog walkers recognise me from a dog show that I was asked to help judge in last week. One of the great things about standing for Parliament is that it gives you an opportunity to meet lots of different people from different walks of life - there’s never a dull moment!
I spend the whole day delivering with my small but enthusiastic team of helpers. Sunday is a great day to talk to people who are washing their cars, doing their gardens or just enjoying the autumn sunshine. Brighton Kemptown is nearly all hills and many of the houses have steep steps – I arrive home exhausted at 7pm.
I watch the film, This Is Endland on Film4 with my two oldest two children – it’s a film about skinheads in 1983 and is a lesson to all of us about tolerance.
Monday 28th September Today I am delivering in Woodingdean after having walked the dogs in the wonderfully named Happy Valley. It can’t help wondering if Gordon Brown should come here – he always looks so miserable! I am then off to a meeting to discuss the Brighton Marina Act (1968) with a friendly barrister – I am doing my very best to support the thousands of local residents and local Conservatives on the City Council who are against a massive over-development at the marina which the developers have taken to appeal. Our local Labour MP appeared in Private Eye some years ago when he supported a previous high rise scheme at the marina.
The Labour Conference didn’t really impact on local people today.
Tuesday 29th September
As Gordon Brown prepares for his speech, we are off to Peacehaven delivering yet more surveys. Peacehaven, Telscombe Cliffs and East Saltdean are in Lewes District, part of the Brighton Kemptown constituency, but not in Brighton. It’s very confusing, but we have a great team here – both County Councillors, all 9 District Councillors and 27 out of the 30 Town Councillors! I am also a school governor in Telscombe Cliffs, so it’s an area I know well.
Gordon Brown’s speech today was awful. He continues to treat people like fools. He didn't acknowledge the mistakes he has made or that his Government has run out of money. He talked about change and a new age – but this speech was full of the same old political attacks and was firmly stuck in the past.
The news that the The Sun was switching support must have had the delegates crying into their guacamole. I was surprised how many local people texted and emailed me telling me that they would now be buying The Sun. Kenneth Woodcock, my very hard-working Campaign Manager has been invited by the BBC to the Setting Sun pub (in my Queen’s Park ward) to discuss Gordon’s speech. Do you think the BBC’s choice of venue was apt?
Wednesday 30th September
Off to meet my Chairman, the redoubtable Mrs Pat Smith, to discuss General Election planning. Pat is very supportive, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Brighton, and used to be the Brighton Kemptown agent when I first joined as a member way back in 1990. We are both pleased with the progress of our deliveries this week but are not at all complacent. We will have to continue working hard right up to ten o’clock on Polling Day itself if we are to remove Labour from the seat.
Next I am off to the University Freshers’ Fair which is being held at the Racecourse (which is in Kemptown but not to be confused with Kempton!) – we have a stand for our Conservative Future and have signed up literally hundreds of young people who want to see a change of government.
The afternoon sees me off to the village of Ovingdean to help a team of deliverers from the far away safe seat of Arundel and South Downs who help me on a regular basis. They are as desperate as us to win this marginal seat and I really do appreciate the help that they give. I remind them that we lost the seat in 1964 (the year of my birth) by only 7 votes and they tell me about the 7 recounts that happened on that eventful night when Labour won its first seat in Sussex.
Early evening, I watch my son Finnian train at the Brighton rugby club – I talk to some of the mums and dads who have received my survey. It’s a full time job being the PPC.
And yes, I did buy The Sun today.
Thursday 1st October
The Labour Conference is still on – but you wouldn’t know it. Nearly everyone seems to have slunk off home. We have received many hundreds of replies to our survey already – I will write back individually to each of them after our Manchester conference – I really like to know about the issues that local people care about.
I have written an article for the local paper’s website about the Conservative Party’s attitude to films. My favourite film? It’s A Wonderful Life. The movie character who has inspired me? Jefferson Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - James Stewart (pictured) plays a naive young man who is appointed to fill a term in the Senate because the politicians in the state think he will be easy to control. He makes some foolish decisions at first but his honesty and concern for the boys of his state win him the support of his staff. When the corrupt politicians find him less easy to manipulate than they thought, they try to smear him. But he will not back down. His moral courage is what makes him a hero.
I find time in the evening to have dinner in a local pub with my lovely wife Elizabeth – candidates’ wives need to be very understanding.
Friday 2nd October Have a long telephone conversation with my friend Mike Weatherley (with whom I am pictured here), our excellent PPC for nearby Hove. We touch base on a regular basis to make sure we are aware of City-wide issues. Today it’s about housing and the desperate need for more family accommodation. We both welcome Caroline Spelman’s pledge to get rid of housing targets. What we need to provide is what local people need, not what Gordon Brown says they need.
Today we are looking at the survey replies – we have over 1,000! But there’s no complacency here – I unload two pallets of my latest Lifestyle magazines into the office. As one project ends we move onto the next!
Saturday 3rd October
Watching my younger daughter play Hockey today and then meeting with Cllr Mary Mears, leader of Brighton and Hove City Council. I have known Mary for over 20 years and I value both her opinion and the help she gives me.
So to summarise, Gordon came and left. He didn’t really make much of an impact, his speech was irresponsible, with no vision and no argument – just a long shopping list with no price tag. It was a speech for his party, not for the people of Brighton Kemptown or the country as a whole.
I am delighted that The Sun has come out and said it's going to support the Conservative Party because we are setting the agenda in British politics. They have seen that the Government is exhausted, divided and out of ideas and they see a regenerated, refreshed Conservative Party ready to serve.
And that’s what it is all about really: to serve. And with the help of my hard-working team, whose efforts I very much appreciate, we will continue to try our best to win this marginal seat, and to serve the people of Brighton Kemptown. From the Palace Pier to Peacehaven and from Moulsecoomb to the Marina – I will do my best.
Last week's Diary was written by Conor Burns (Bournemouth West)