The final push begins

Apologies for radio silence. My fingers are too big and clunky for iPhone blogging so have waited till now, in the aftermath of the TV debate to catch up.

One week to go. Jack was on the soapbox twice today, first in the drizzle in Accrington with the very impressive Hyndburn candidate Graham Jones. Thanks once again to the ace north west Labour team for a good visit. Crowd of about 200 stopped by to listen and take part. Some lively encounters, no question, but a good reaction.

Then on to Blackburn College for second soapbox of the day and much chatting to students. Then school gates and on to
more canvassing (still in the drizzle).

Genuinely little reaction to yesterday's events. Just one guffaw directed at my Labour rossette.

It was much the same last night on the knocker.

We'd gone out again after a muted college debate between the candidates, notable mainly for the Conservative saying the Tories would immediately bring troops home from Afghanistan. Not his party's actual policy. They are clearly rattled here, struggling to match the Central Office briefing that Blackburn is theirs. Tonight comes a leaflet saying Jack is anti-Muslim. Desperate stuff.

Yesterday had started with a visit to Oldham with the PM, which went really well. We then peeled off to return to Blackburn while PM went to Rochdale...

Turning up the heat

No pics today as left the necessary lead thing at home (while managing to transport three bags of cat litter all the way from south east London to Blackburn when they were bought for use of cat in - yes, south east London).

But with Jack on the hustings tomorrow, will post some pics from the iphone. We are a fully multi media campaign, obviously.

BBC North West debate today with Ben Wallace for the Tories and Andrew Stunell from the Liberal Democrats. Held in Blackburn Library in a room heated to South Pacific standards so that members of the audience were being handed cups of water to keep them going.

Gordon Burns, genial host, told amusing story of NW Tonight presenters whose trousers occasionally ride up on the sofa to reveal above-sock calves, prompting the plaintive cry in their earpiece: "Flesh".

George Osborne had supposed to have been taking the stand for the Tories but pulled out, clearly so confident of taking Blackburn that actually visiting the place would be seen as excessive.

Debate was fine, a fairly uneventful canter through the main issues. Then canvassing around town till about 8pm before stopping off for a bottle of red and back to HQ. Canvassing very positive, again little sign of a Lib Dem surge or a Tory decapitation strategy.

Strange seeing a Lib Dem poster on one street casting Clegg as Obama. Seemed like the only Lib Dem poster in town as well.

Jack and Jeremy

Chap from the Tory party blogged something about a pic of Jack speaking to an empty street in Wolverhampton last week. It was a terrific picture - indeed you'll find it on this blog - from the Express and Star. Thing was, behind the camera there were about 200 people listening.


The point of Jack's soapbox is that it doesn't matter how many people are there when we set up. In Coalville the other day there was almost no-one around. But once Jack gets going, a crowd gathers. Fifty or so in Coalville, around 400 in Leicester and many more in between. During the course of an hour, probably around 600 people stopped to listen during that brilliant Leicester event.

Thing is, it's not staged in any way at all. It's authentic street politics. We don't put Labour stooges in the audience (apart from me, obviously). The box is a box, the PA is an ancient battery operated relic of the 1980s and the stand to prop it up on is sometimes my suitcase.

Here are some new pics from the tour, from Watford last week where Jeremy Clarkson turned up to listen (see pic above right) with AA Gill, though I failed to get a picture of Mr Gill and his tremendous hat. Not sure what they were doing there, though the shopping in Watford is obviously superb.

There will now be a brief interlude

Jack in Blackburn, I'm in London. Ice creams and sweets available at the back.

Citizen Straw

I missed Jack's soapbox outing in the sun in Tooting this morning, but it went really well by all accounts. Sadiq Khan was his PPS and whip for a while and a great man, one of the best.

I had personal stuff to do, so I met Jack, bananas at the ready, at his next stop, a speech and Q&A with human rights lawyers in the City. Lively debate followed by pea soup and a quick interview with Reuters.

Right now we are preparing for his appearance on the Any Questions programme tonight.

Roll up for the celebrity soapbox

Jack had a celebrity guest for his soapbox in Watford with the excellent Claire Ward.

The seat has become something of a focus for the media given that it's a three way fight and only 20 minutes on the train from Euston. And today's media visitors were Jeremy Clarkson and his mirrored sunglasses and AA Gill and his elegant hat.

Both were clearly transfixed by Jack's soapbox show in the blazing sun (pics later).

Watford Observer report here.

The questions came thick and fast and covered the full spectrum if issues. Probably Jack's toughest audience to date but good humoured throughout.

Cracking flags, Post It notes and the Jenkins Commission

Soooooooooooo.....a conference in sunny Southport, a walkabout in Maghull, a sixth form Q&A in Ormskirk, canvassing at the school gates in Blackburn and in Bastwell ward (where it really was, as the detectives put it, "cracking flags") and now we are back at Straw HQ blogging and writing leaflets.

Jack started the day speaking at the conference of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents at the Floral Hall, Southport, see above for stunning action shot (last time we were there was a POA conference). Lots of good questions and points, particularly about anti-social behaviour and CCTV (which is much valued yet opposed by Tories and Lib Dems).

Then to Sefton Central with candidate Bill Esterson and the great George Howarth. Jack ran George's by-election campaign in Knowsley South in the 90s and it is from there that the great mushy pea-guacamole story - usually attributed to Peter Mandelson - came about. It was an American intern who, in fact, believed that the mushed up pea was in fact mushed up avocado, not then plain Peter Mandelson.
Lively conversation over a bakewell tart with a very friendly non-Labour voter in the cafe near Morrisons in Maghull (near where I used to play cricket for the Echo - Liverpool Business Leagues champtions, 1996), but solid Labour elsewhere.

There will be a new prison here soon, 600 places and massively welcomed locally for jobs.

Then on to Ormskirk School and a great Q&A with the upper and lower sixths - voting reform, the Jenkins Commission (yes, really) expenses, hung parliaments, Lib Dems, the NHS and more in a brilliant new school.

Back to Blackburn for the rest of the day and after an impromptu school gates public meeting, one of those streets you dream of as a canvasser. Everyone was in, and everyone was voting Labour. And this is supposedly a Lib Dem stronghold. Just one let down - and you had to hand it to them - the household with a post-it note stuck to the door declaring: "Tory till I die".

The sun was beating down as well, cracking flags it were (in case you don't know, it means it was so hot the flagstones were cracking).