A Big "Thank You"
I would like to say a big “thank you” to those 1,118 souls who voted for myself and the Community Group in Brentford & Isleworth yesterday.If I am being honest I must say that I did expect a higher vote, however contesting the general election was very much an experiment and was always going to be a sideshow to what we do best – fighting and winning local elections. This is why we deliberately made no predictions, and set no targets.When we announced our intervention I expressed the view that Ann Keen’s majority would be too much for either the Conservative or the Liberal Democrat to overcome. Whilst it would seem I was correct in that view, it must be said that both candidates fought very polished and professional campaigns and did better than I had expected they would – considerably better in the case of Andrew Dakers, the Lib Dem. As well as demonstrating great professionalism their campaigns were clean, and this is to their credit. I enjoyed the exchanges which they, John Hunt (Green Party) and I had at the hustings meetings, and the smiles and handshakes which took place between us after the result had finally been announced was in stark contrast to the infantile behaviour of the little plastic gangsters who escorted The Presence into the count at 2.30am in an obviously choreographed demonstration of their innate greatness from which all that was missing was a fanfare of trumpets. What pillocks they made themselves look, and what a shame the voters could not have been treated to a preview of this hilarious and ludicrous display before being asked to mark their ballot papers. In retrospect I am glad that my vote did not make the difference between victory and defeat for either of the two main challengers. The vote for the ICG taught us what many of us had suspected already, that there is a vast gulf between people’s priorities at local and national elections. Our campaign attempted to bridge that gap, but clearly most voters had different priorities. We have already accepted this.At the same time the goodwill shown towards us by so many of our “hometown” voters in Isleworth in particular, even those who admitted that they would not support us in a national election, made it clear to us that our support base is stronger than ever. Other than for a chap who berated me on the eve of the poll for not having put a stop to night flights, we did not encounter one solitary constituent who had been disappointed by our performance as councillors.Also, it has become clear to us that the Royal Mail failed to distribute a significant quantity of our election communications as they are obliged to do and, whilst I doubt whether this had a major effect on our vote overall, we will obviously be taking this up with them.The lessons learned from the campaign will help to fine-tune an already quite awesome campaigning machine in good time for next year’s local elections. I am looking forward to them already.Many thanks once again to those who supported us yesterday and placed their faith in us. Now for the real battle…
Phil Andrews ● 7295d33 Comments