This morning we published the first three reports from our panel of candidates on how the first week of the campaign had gone. Here are the other three...
John Lamont - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
After
months of preparation, we have finally started! As ever, the planning
paid off. We delivered 30,000 leaflets in the first 72 hours of the
campaign. We had Liam Fox out on the doorsteps in Galashiels on Tuesday
night, the Scottish Conservative Blue Bus visited many Borders towns on
Wednesday and on Thursday we had a visit from William Hague and
Scottish Conservative leader, Annabel Goldie MSP. A great start.
On the doorsteps, the state of the economy and the size of the national debt were the main issues. All of the canvassing teams were reporting switchers from the Lib Dems to Conservative. The choice for Lib Dem voters is clear - it is either a continuation of Gordon Brown's administration or a fresh start with David Cameron and the Conservatives. So far, we seem to be winning that war. Interestingly, we also seem to be picking up voters who had gone SNP in the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections. It is very clear that the anti-Labour voters do understand that only the Conservatives can beat Labour.
On Saturday, we manned several street stalls across the constituency and the response was tremendous. The consensus seems to be that we have won the first week of the campaign. The backing of the business leaders has given us extra credibility at this important stage of the campaign.
Louise Bagshawe - Corby
I've
always rolled my eyes when confronted on a blog with the "I'm a
lifelong X voter who has now turned to Y", as it's almost inevitably
some sad activist for Y, but this first week, campaigning on the NHS in
Irthlingborough, I actually met a union member who said he'd always
voted Labour - hated Maggie and what she did to the unions - but could
not stomach Brown and this government. He didn't promise me his vote
but he said he was considering it for the first time ever. I invited
him to the public meeting we're holding in the town. If people like him
are actively weighing up the Conservatives, I think we'll outperform
the polls.
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