A strange day

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Saturday, 6 June 2009, 06:20

I'm feeling pretty strange this morning. For the first time in nine months I'm waking up without thinking what I need to do for the campaign.

It's been a real hard slog particularly because it was set against the backdrop of an appalling political climate. Back in April we thought that we were facing a perfect political storm. The economy was worsening by the day, there was no interest in the European Elections and the lack of local elections in most places meant turnout was going to be low. Then we got hit by the expenses scandal and if that wasn't bad enough certain Labour politicians decided to throw hand grenades into their own party tent.

And yet despite all this - or more probably because of this - thousands of people decided to take matters into their own hands and got involved in the HOPE not hate campaign. I'm not going to speculate on the result but I do believe that we have made a difference. I'm still getting emails and texts from people, most who I don't know, to thank us for the campaign. But it was a collective campaign. It was a campaign of ordinary people who have done extraordinary things to ensure that fascists don't represent us in Europe.

Anyway, I'm going to try to have a break from work today and I've actually got tickets to the cricket at the Oval. The first game is New Zealand against Scotland and then this afternoon it is Australia against the West Indies. However, as I'm going with Jon Cruddas I doubt the talk of politics, elections and scheming will be too far away.