It's all about the people...

The Poltimore Arms - unofficial Labour HQ in Pinhoe!

The best thing about this stage of the campaign is the sheer number of people that I and my Exeter Labour team get to meet. I enjoy the banter with our rival parties, and this week I enjoyed myself at a hustings, but it is talking to the very people I want to represent that really spurs me on and reminds me why I want to put myself through all this. I am finding that the people of Pinhoe have got a lot to say, and many are finding things very difficult under this current government.

My little local Exeter Labour team has been out at some point every single day over the last few weeks, knocking on doors, posting leaflets and stopping people in the street. I cannot praise them enough - they have been giving up evening after evening, and their weekends, to come and support me. Even the times I haven't been able to be there in person, they have still organised the tasks, and gone out without me. It's a wonderful sense of being part of something, and over a pint (or two) in the Poltimore Arms after our evening's labour (excuse the pun) we have had a debrief. It's there that we have shared some of the stories that we've heard. I have never known, in all my years in local politics, a council election where so many national issues have come up. People want to talk to us, to tell us how these Westminster policies are hitting them hard "on the ground" in Exeter. They may be "national issues", but they are very much playing out locally. So this blog is about just a few of the people we have met this week, and their stories.

The Chief Exec of the charity Mind has resigned
in protest at the government's "inhumane" policy

Mr J is a married man with teenage kids in the Summerway area. He suffers from spondylarthritis (arthritis of the spine) and is in early remission from prostate cancer. "It's a joke," he told me, "I've had an assessment with the benefits service and I've been told I'm being moved on to Job Seekers' Allowance. Look at me. How am I going to get a job? Even if I could work, there's loads of people looking work just now. I mean, would you employ me over someone else?" The government has commissioned a French I.T. company, ATOS,  to conduct controversial re-assessments (Work Capability Assessments) of all the cases of all people on incapacity and disability benefits in a computer-led process. These assessments have been questioned in terms of both their accuracy and the impersonal and insensitive way they have been administered. Last week the Chief Executive of the mental health charity Mind resigned from a government panel in protest at the "inhumane" tests.

Remember this promise?

Mr & Mrs V live in a large private house on Park Lane, in Pinhoe village. As I looked up their drive, their home did not exactly look like that of someone from the "core Labour demographic". One glance at our Voter ID sheet confirmed their previous voting intentions: Conservative over the last five elections. However, I had spoken with Mrs V on the phone a week before, and I was keen to meet her. "I never thought I would hear myself say this," she had told me on the phone, "but I'll be supporting Labour. It's what the government is doing to the NHS. It's just wrong." A week on, and her opinion had not changed. "We both work in the NHS," she explained. "Don't get me wrong, we're both in roles which probably means we'll have more income ourselves, but it's simply not right what they are doing. We can both see where this will end. We might be better off, but we can see this is bad for patients. It's bad for the country. And the thing is," she added, "they promised they wouldn't do this. That's what gets me." Mr and Mrs V are not alone. Others who have never thought they would be politicised have found that the NHS is just too important to stay silent on. See Professor Robert Winston's video about the NHS here.

Are hot school dinners about to become a thing of the past
in some parts of Devon?

Mrs G is a jovial, no-nonsense lady in her 70s living in the Beacon Heath area of the ward. She is - I later found out - a retired Deputy Headteacher, and had recently moved into the area when I called on her. She is one of those people you might describe as "larger than life", and she had a friend over when I called. "Oh good!" she called out to her friend when she answered the door, "It's a young man!" I liked her already. 
Had she ever voted Labour before? "Never!" came the sharp reply, but then, "I might now though - I'm so very cross."
Mrs G is cross about education. The lack of investment, the move to "free schools", and the failure in Exeter of Devon County Council to invest more in schools to keep pace with a growing population. "There just aren't enough places!" she exclaimed, "It's not fair, these poor mums don't know if their child will have a place nearby or not. And then this fiasco about school dinners - I was reading some schools are stopping them altogether. Unbelievable. Children need nutrition. It's daft!" Mrs G was referring to the 10 -year private contract DCC had awarded to a company that then put the prices of meals up to £4 in some schools, causing some schools to opt out saying the meals were "unaffordable". Mrs G said that for the very first time she would be voting Labour this year, and requested a lift to the polling station as she has problems with mobility. A member of my team suggested we offer her a postal vote, so I popped back to see her to drop in a form. When I went back a third time to collect her completed postal vote application she had a twinkle in her eye. "Third time here today," she said, "That'll get the neighbours talking!" 

Crime in Devon is up 6.4% already as the cuts bite

Law and order is another seemingly national issue that is playing out locally. I called on Ms B in her home just off Harrington Lane. Both Ms B and her partner work for the police. There was a natural opening for a chat here as my partner works for the police in their child protection service. Ms B was reluctant to say who she supported - there is a protocol that police officers are politically neutral, publicly at least. Yet she was scathing of government policy. "They try to paint themselves as the party of law and order," she said, "but they haven't got a clue. These cuts are massive for us. We have a huge patch to cover - two counties - and it's not like we had that many officers to start with, but they want us to lose hundreds. We are losing good, experienced officers. It's criminal," she laughed at what she had just said, "excuse the pun." Devon & Cornwall police are facing the fifth highest cuts to any constabulary in the country. Already the local police have lost over 100 officers. the result? Crime overall is up 6.4%, but more worryingly robberies were up 12% and domestic burglary up 16%. 
Ms B looked down at my clipboard. "I don't know what you're going to write on there," she said, but then added with a grin, "but let's just say I won't be voting for either of the parties that are cutting us."


LABOUR, I scribbled on my sheet as I walked back down her path.