OF course there is a golden rule. No Tory supporter sees any evidence of Labour canvassing and vice-versa. Was ever thus. Prospective candidates knock on the door and are told that residents never see their councillors all year round. We can only surmise that people see what they want to see.
Critics of the Labour campaigns last year said that they started really well but tailed off in the vital last few weeks as if the David Cameron appearance at Palmer’s College gave them a sense of foreboding.
This year, there is not just a spring in the step but a sense of organisation, structure and coherence. Much of this will be down to the work of campaign director Richard Speight, who is also standing in the Homesteads, one of their (outside bet) target wards.
YT will be covering the whole campaign comprehensively and will welcome invites from candidates out and about on the trail.
We caught up with Labour’s Ockendon candidate Aaron Kiely to assess how campaigning had been going in the six weeks since we last spoke to him.
Bit young for a politician isn’t he? I would recommend having a career doing something else before going door to door preaching politics to grown ups.
Good for you Aaron. You can’t do any worse then the ones we voted in last time. Good luck to you, and don’t worry about the old grown ups! Most of them are set in their ways and boring!
But we are voters nonetheless and I am not sure that this young lad has enough experience of the real world to be able to convince people to take a punt on him. Still, I guess we will see come election time. After all, most Labour folk would vote for flying pig if it wore the red rosette.
If you listen to what Aaron has to say you will hear that he wants to represent the community that he grew up in, went to school in and still lives in. i take on board that at his age lots of young people would not be right for the role but he he obviously is and that comes across loud and clear. Who says you have to be old to be a councillor – get real.
I never said you had to be old, where on Earth did you get that from? Oh, I forgot, you are keen on politics so like to invent stuff to create a stir. I am referring to life experience. No matter how enthusiastic the lad is he can’t have the maturity and experience you can only get from a good few years in the real world. In my opinion he is too young. But hey! What do I know? Like I said, he will get the Labour vote come what may and it could be enough to get him elected.
gray64. and thurrock tories would not recognise a public service that needed protecting from privatisation if it was on their doorstep. Like they didnt last week.
Residents need to be aware that all 3 of the Ockendon councillors voted to close Grays Adult education centre, privatise Grays beach, thameside theatre and all of thurrocks community and village halls. All with no consultation with you their constituents.
And no Labour didnt vote to get rid of PCSO’s as printed on Cllr Johnsons election leaftet. what was agreed was not funding the vacant positions anymore that Essex police had not filled since becoming vacant. There would be no PCSO reductions in Ockendon under the budget Labour proposed.
Sting, assumptions once more! Good grief man is there no end to them? Once again you assume I am a Tory and blather on about Tory/Labour policies. For the record, and not for the first time on these pages, I could not give a rats posterior about either Labour or Tory policies or politicians. I believe that party politics is a malign influence on society and that politicians shouldn’t be trusted even when you are looking right at them. Hopefully that clears the matter up?
Lets hope if Aaaron gets elected he doesn’t get drunk and abscond with a few bottles of wine…
One observation, nowhere do I read that the Thameside Theatre, Village Halls and Grays Beach are sold off and privatised. From what I can understand what the Tories propose is exactly the same to what Labour propose for Grangewater Activity Centre and Youth services in Thurrock.
When Labour do it it’s an inovative money saving idea to provide public services.
When the Tories do it it’s privatisation.
Both Labour and Tories are proposing the same thing for various public services in Thurrock so why the pathetic point scoring?
There must be an election coming!