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 Tim Archer,
candidate for the newly-created Poplar and Limehouse constituency, which is made up of a large chunk of the existing Poplar & Canning Town seat (represented by Labour's Jim Fitzpatrick) and a part of George Galloway's Bethnal Green & Bow constituency. Tim contested Poplar & Canning Town in 2005 and is deputy leader of the Conservatives on Tower Hamlets council.
Monday
I’m off to the House of Lords to a seminar on how the new government of Bangladesh is performing. Charles Tannock MEP and Anne Main MP are speaking on behalf of the Conservatives. Both are extremely well informed on the current situation in Bangladesh. Anne is particularly knowledgeable and it’s always good to catch up with her. Anne and I spent a week in Bangladesh last year getting a better understanding of the political situation. The controversial Labour peer Baroness Uddin turns up late.
Approximately a third of my constituency is made up of Bangladeshi Muslims and they are a community that has historically supported Labour. The truth is that I’ve no idea why – they have been treated with contempt and complacency by Labour locally. The Bangladeshi community has much more in common with traditional Conservative ideals like strong family values and support for small business. In Tower Hamlets we now have our first Bangladeshi Conservative Councillor, Ahmed Hussain, who is being instrumental in getting our message across to this key group.
Monday evening is spent canvassing in Wapping where to say the response on the doorstep is positive is an understatement. We’ve got one Conservative councillor in St Katharine's and Wapping, Cllr Dr. Emma Jones, and missed getting numbers two and three by 50 votes and 100 votes respectively. Most of Wapping at the last election was in Bethnal Green & Bow with only a sliver in the old constituency of Poplar & Canning Town. Thanks to the boundary change, the new constituency of Poplar & Limehouse contains the whole of Wapping up to and including the Tower of London - where people do actually live and vote! The new constituency has a notional Labour majority of just over 3,500 and requires only a 5.5% swing - in the last election, based on the old boundaries I achieved a [12%] Labour to Conservative swing (the largest in the country). My biggest challenge is to ensure that residents know how close this constituency is and that’s it worth voting Conservative in the East End. You can’t beat conversations on the doorstep to reinforce that message.
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