Four weeks to go. Time to change the script from ‘it’s very likely that the general election will be on the same day’ to ‘you have five votes in Hackney on 6 May, please make them all Labour’.
At this increasingly desperate stage of the campaign when you’re exhausted, out canvassing every night and dreaming of the imminent return of weekend lie-ins … the key question at the back of every activist’s mind is: What lengths would you go to for a vote?
1) Step in the way of a rabid, out of control Staffordshire bull terrier
You’re cycling home after work on a Friday rushing to go out again and enjoy your one night off a week. On the way down your street, you notice a rabid, out of control Staffordshire bull terrier, but being scared of dogs, you swerve out of the way and carry on to your front door.
However, being a responsible sort of person, you think it’s not ideal to have such a nasty dog roaming the streets, and make a note to email the Safer Neighbourhood Team the next day.
Then you get an email saying the dog had severely injured a neighbour’s cat. Should you have intervened? Where was the ‘dealing with dangerous dogs’ training session as part of the council’s induction programme? Should body armour now come as standard for councillors?
2) Paint over a single yellow line in the dead of night as this is speedier than waiting for the council to respond
You meet with a group of residents who are annoyed about a two metre long single yellow line that the council has put in on the street to enable cars to pass. There was no notice or ‘consultation’ and there has been an overall loss of parking.
In an attempt to resolve it, you go for a walkabout with the residents, take photos and make a list of concerns. You send in your angry email to the director of neighbourhoods the next day. A week later – still waiting for a response.
Do you get some black paint and in the dead of night paint over the offending line to get the problem resolved there and then, once and for all? At times, a more ‘grassroots’ solution can seem like the best way forward, with more immediate results.
3) Become increasingly relentless in the pursuit of perfection in your ward
Being a councillor can sometimes seem like a constant battle against things that don’t quite make sense. Residents told you they wanted security improved on their block. Hackney Homes moved quickly, bars went up and gates were installed.
Only there was a fundamental flaw in the design. Next to the vast metal security door, was a very low wall, approximately one metre high that could easily be jumped over (you attempted this just to make sure). With immaculate attention to detail, barbed wire had been placed along the top of the door – just in case any potential burglars decided to ignore the small wall and scale up the front instead.
Thankfully it turns out that the scheme was only half finished and a few weeks later it has been completed and your faith in effective security doors has been restored.
But experiences like this leave you wondering how to translate this nerdy attention to everything happening in your ward into a headline message for the doorstep. Something that sounds slightly less unhinged than: ‘Your local councillors are always on the prowl and will literally stop at nothing to get things done’.
You can either laugh or cry hysterically at whatever the campaign decides to throw at you. The bizarre conversations on the doorstep, controlling the rage you feel at each exaggerated claim that goes out on opposition leaflets, the piles of paper to dispatch, the battle of the posters in front windows and shops – there’s nothing quite like it.
Good luck to all the Labour comrades out there fighting the good fight, and hopefully see you the other side!