Having not written my blog for a couple of days – can’t for the life of me remember what I did Friday! Guess it was canvassing and delivering?

Did get several phone messages and emails about a negative letter from the Tory candidate. The recipients are so outraged by its over the top attacks on me that they get in touch to say they will be voting for me. Two of them say they are Tories – but are just totally disgusted with the Tory letter.

Early start on Saturday to hand deliver our ‘good morning’ leaflets to people who will be receiving their postal votes today. We meet crack of dawn and I do a swift four hours pounding the streets of Muswell Hill. You have to cover a lot of territory with only a few leaflets to be distributed in each road – but my campaign manager says it’s got to be done. So it was.

However, I only had a couple of hours sleep the night before as although I went to bed about half ten (knowing I had to get up at 5am), I had just fallen asleep when a friend rang and woke me up at about half eleven. Finally got back to sleep about 12.30pm only to be woken at about 1.30am by my two daughters saying it was urgent and serious and I must come at once.

They are shouting at me that it could kill us if it were to sting us. The ‘it’ turns out to be a hornet. I mumble something about just leaving it – but no – the girls drag me into the hall. And indeed it is HUGE and evil looking. Every time it shifts position, the girls scream and run into my room. Dawn will be here soon and I am feeling moderately desperate about the prospects of sleep.

We reach a Mexican stand-off with hornet flexing wings above the bathroom door and girls and me staring at it. I go to bed. Screams, thumps, running and more thumps. I get up. The beast is dead. Said hornet had temporarily flown to the floor – whereupon youngest daughter (brave) hit with shoe followed by Collins dictionary. It’s only 3am now …

Meeting fellow activists in M & S car park – I go off to do a sturdy four hours delivery. Much heartened in one street by bumping into a long time and active member of the Labour party who informs me that all three of them in her family will be voting for me and that they have left the Labour party altogether.

Afternoon sees hustings at the Alevi Cultural Centre in Hackney. There are nine candidates there from three constituencies. Language is a big issue for the community. Parents have great difficulty supporting their childrens’ education because – if they don’t speak English – they cannot engage properly with the system.

So the Alevi community ran language classes on a voluntary basis with a little funding from Hackney Council. But Labour cut the funding. The Labour hopefuls for Hackney (Diane Abbott and Meg Hillier) struggled with that one.

Then all the Labour candidates (including Roche and Lammy) were attacked over student tuition fees. They all nearly had apoplexy when I got the mike (not easy) and pointed out that they had promised last election not to introduce tuition fees and then had. Civilised veneers tumbled!

Afterwards, back to HQ. A quick rally of the troops – and then home. I try desperately to stay awake – but zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

I don’t have the time to follow much of all the internet coverage of the election – but this one caught my eye as being quite fun!

Canvass, canvass, canvass – mostly sheltered housing – which in inclement weather is a good thing. Morning canvas at sheltered housing in Fortis Green ward. Met a truly amazing woman. She invited me in (and no – if my campaign manager is reading this – I didn’t stop for a cup of tea).

And when we sat down she quoted back to me something I had said two years ago when I had visited and was talking to the residents in the coffee room. Better memory than me! It was about my time volunteering at the Royal Free Hospital and how I had noticed, on a ward of high clinical dependence, that if and when a nurse had a few seconds to plump a patient’s pillow that person (albeit momentarily) perked up – literally from dying. She had remembered every word. Incredible.

Afternoon canvas at sheltered housing in Alexandra ward. Different kettle here – as everyone is out. I am thinking to myself that maybe they are all asleep after lunch? But no – happily one woman who was in said ‘I’ll show you where they are dear’. And took me by the hand to a communal room where we peered through a glass panel in the door. Bingo in progress. I know when I’m beat!

Evening – canvass in my own Muswell Hill ward. Very friendly on the doorsteps as you would expect in what is part of the Lib Dem heartland in the constituency. There are virtually no Tories here at all. Several posters taken and one stakeboard for the garden organised.

At 3pm we had the Churches of Muswell Hill hustings. First time we candidates had met. A UKIP candidate had arrived on the scene just last week – so there were five of us (three main parties, Greens, UKIP). It was such a beautiful sunny day I was amazed that people came – but a goodly number did.

I was gob-smacked by Ms Roche’s opening remarks – something about being socialist MP for a socially progressive party. That must be why she was searching trucks for asylum seekers and voting for the war, for PPP, for closure of Post Offices, for tuition fees – the ‘mantra’ is endless.

On rough sleeping, she was going on about how dreadful it was, and how the Social Exclusion Unit was doing, and how complicated it was – when the questioner said that he had worked in the Social Exclusion Unit and ran the soup kitchen at the church we were in. He had seen no reduction whatsoever in homelessness and rough sleeping in recent years. I was glad he at least put paid to that – as the chair would not allow any discussion amongst the panel so we had no opportunity to come back on anything she said – which was extremely frustrating!

We covered a number of issues – from auditing the EU to fair trade – with a bit of knife culture and school dinners thrown in! The audience seemed to enjoy it – and it is always good to set out your wares in public.

Went off canvassing in Stroud Green – where we stormed to a council by-election victory about a year and a half ago with a 29% swing from Labour to us. Let’s hope it stays that way. This is an area where disillusioned Labour voters may well swing to us. I engage with hunt saboteur – he will
swing to us because of our stance against ID cards and Labour’s raid on our freedoms and rights.

Then back to HQ for some admin work. A Labour leaflet has apparently finally gone out – but its basic content is to republish Ken Livingstone’s flatteringly vituperative attack on me in the Tribune. Ken is furious that Tariq Ali is supporting me and the LibDems in Hornsey & Wood Green in order to ‘defeat’ a ‘warmonger MP’. He wanted him to support the Labour candidate in Brent East against Sarah Teather who won Ken’s old seat in a stunning by-election a couple of years ago – but I think Tariq’s view was that Brent East already had a very good anti-war MP!