A day to remember

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Sunday, 18 April 2010, 10:26

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I’ve finally been able to reflect on what was a fantastic day’s campaigning, not just in Barking & Dagenham but across the country. The weather was great, numbers exceeded expectations and over 180,000 newspapers and leaflets were delivered.

Our mobilisation in Barking & Dagenham was obviously the highlight of the day. An amazing 541 people attended and we delivered 91,000 newspapers. In fact, we actually ran out of newspapers by 12.30pm – just two hours after we started – and over lunch we had to frantically knock up walks for another two wards in neighbouring Havering just so we could give those arriving late something to do.

We could have quite easily got at least 200 of those attending out again in the afternoon, if we had had the material.

I have to give a big thank you to the HOPE not hate team who helped the day run so effectively. We’ve been working long hours all week to make it a success and everyone played their part. I’ve been inundated with messages from people saying what a great event it was and how smoothly it all ran. At one point we had a queue winding down three flights of stairs and out the front door. This was repeated at lunchtime as people waited to be served a great curry.

We had great turnouts across the country too. There were 94 people out in Morley, south Leeds, again most out with us for the first time. 25,000 newspapers were delivered and several dozen people offered to get involved again during the campaign. There were over 50 out in Stoke and two wards were covered, while in Burnley we had 35 out and 14,000 newspapers were delivered. Despite intimidation and threats from the BNP there were over 30 out in Bishop Auckland and the entire Spennymoor area was covered.

We’ll shortly be releasing a video and gallery of photos of the Barking & Dagenham day but I would just like to add my appreciation to everyone who came. However, there is no room for complacency as the BNP still pose a serious threat to the council. As a result the campaign continues so if anyone has any spare time we’ll be out every afternoon and evening until polling day.

There will also be two key campaign activities before the elections. On Saturday 1 May we will be having a national mobilisation for Stoke-on-Trent while on the following Monday, the Bank Holiday, we will be out campaigning in Barking & Dagenham followed by a HOPE not hate barbecue and social.

Yesterday saw the biggest mobilisation of this general election. I really think everyone should be proud of what we achieved and I hope people can find an hour or two to help again before the election is over.