HOPE hits the streets

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Saturday, 16 May 2009, 19:42

Against a backdrop of blustery rain and intermitant sunshine, hundreds of people devivered HOPE not hate literature across the country. I was in Manchester, where over 150 people had gathered in five locations across the city. By tomorrow night we expect to have covered 15 of the cities 31 wards, with another nine wards already allocated to organisations who will do them in the coming days. This equates to about 130,000 newspapers out of a possible 165,000 properties in the city. We are confident that the remainder will get done over the coming two weeks.

There were some equally impressive turnouts elsewhere. Over 100 people turned out in Liverpool and an astonishing 105,000 newspapers have been delivered or allocated. In fact by shortly after 11am I was getting calls from Cheryl Pidgeon, the GMB organiser who was co-ordinating the main Liverpool base, that they had run out of papers.

About 60,000 leaflets have been handed out in Sheffield over the past two days, with almost two whole constituencies covered. Numbers were boosted by almost 50 students and dozens of new people, out for the first time. Nowhere did we have more new people than in Wigan, where over 110 people have been involved in delivering already. Almost 50 people came out in Wigan today and a dozen in Leigh. However, 40 people from a local church in Ashton came together to cover two wards. There were 32 people out in Oldham, including many new people.

In the East London borough of Barking & Dagenham almost 90 people have delivered 25,000 leaflets in the past two days. Local HOPE not hate organiser is confident that the remainding 25,000 leaflets will go out over the next ten days.

There are several more activities planned for tomorrow, with the largest likely to be in Leeds. Burnley is holding its day tomorrow but just as a warm up Jason went out on his own today. Yesterday he handed out 546 leaflets in Manchester and today he did 500 newspapers. He would have done more, he tells me, but firstly he spent much of the morning queuing for tickets for Burnley’s play off match and then he left his rucksack at his office in Manchester so instead of taking 700 newspapers in a trip he could only carry 200. Anyway, the Huntometer now stands at 2,250 and as he said to me the other day, he hasn’t really started yet.