Week one!

The new picnic (feasting?!) table at Arena Park

It's been a funny old week. On the one hand, a lot has happened - or at least there has been a lot of activity - on the other, no "proper" meetings have started at the Council yet. Last weekend I spent time with the family, and sleeping a lot, to get over the exhaustion of the campaign. That said, I still stopped by the family fun day at a rather blustery Arena Park with my partner, Jenny, and Cllr Moira MacDonald where the new outdoor sports cage and the stunning new picnic tables (courtesy of Carving Communities) were unveiled. I was quickly put to work by David & Cathy Coles who were telling me about the area's community composting scheme. The estate has two large composting bins, but as we enter grass-cutting season, these are insufficient, leading to people simply scattering their cuttings on verges and in hedges, which in turn leads to rancid odours as the vegetation rots openly. I am now working with the County Council trying to find a way to secure two more bins for the area.

Best thing I've seen at the Bike Shed Theatre
this year... and that includes a hustings!

On Monday night, Jenny and I went to see the Exeter Blitz Project at the Bike Shed Theatre. If you haven't seen it, it is on until 19th May and really is excellent - please do go and watch and support this important local work. The production is based on interviews with survivors of the blitz attacks on Exeter in 1942, and the excellent characterisations really brought home the impact of the war on ordinary civilian households. It is also hugely interesting to hear how those bombing raids have shaped the modern face of the city - and as I was to learn later in the week, also shaped the economics. Large areas of Sidwell Street and Newtown, South Street and Fore Street were badly bombed. These areas were subsequently rebuilt by the City Council, and the council retains the freehold on the sites, deriving a healthy rental income from the city centre businesses that now occupy them.

Dodgy Council photo!

After the Bank Holiday, on Tuesday I went in to meet some of the Member Services team - the team from Exeter City Council that help support councillors' work, and arranges and offers administrative support to the Council's committees. The days immediately post-election are a busy time for this department as new councillors need setting up with I.T. and new email accounts,   security badges, parking permits, web pages and organising councillor inductions and training. However, the team were very welcoming, and after I signed my declaration and submitted my various forms, we chatted about the role of councillors in Exeter, and how best we as elected representatives could work together with officers for the best outcomes for the city. It was a very positive meeting... except the quality of my now "official" Council photo on my profile page!

Tuesday evening was great. Exeter Labour HQ in Clifton Hill was buzzing with 24 Labour Councillors, 5 of us newly-elected. This was the meeting to sort out who would serve on which committees, who would hold which portfolios, and who would hold which offices within the local Labour Group for the next civic year. The results of the meeting (and all appointments) will become public after tomorrow's (15th May) Full Council meeting...

Looking forward to working with Sarah Ward
again... a fellow refugee from W&PBC!

On Thursday, 5 new Labour councillors, plus Pennsylvania's new Tory councillor, Jake Donovan, attended an introductory meeting with the Exeter City Council Directorate team - Philip Bostock, the Chief Exec; with Karime Hassan and Mark Parkinson as strategic Directors. It was good to hear some of the things from Council officers that we had been saying on the doors just weeks before: Exeter is "bucking the trend" as far as the national economy is concerned, and is growing, attracting business growth and start-up investment. Furthermore, Exeter has the lowest district Council tax in Devon, and the 5th lowest in the country. Real value for money for local tax payers! I was also pleased to be hearing that I will soon be joined at Exeter City Council by another refugee from the shared-services Councils of Weymouth & West Dorset as Sarah Ward, a very able Housing Manager joins ECC as Assistant Director for Housing. Sarah is a very able manager, and I look forward to working with her on Exeter's significant housing challenges, but also I hope she embrace our enthusiasm for new housing solutions, including co-operative models of housing for the city. 

Pinhoe Pantomime - one of the highlights of America
Hall's year, every year.

Finally for now, it was a privilege to be approached by Angela Roberts, Hon Sec of the America Hall committee to be asked if I would join the committee. America Hall is a valuable community facility and hub in Pinhoe, but like any community venue, it needs to have one eye on its own future survival. I know that community resources like that are more often than not kept alive by the hard work and dedication of a few community activists, and I look forward to joining them at their AGM on 31st May. If you would like to get involved in helping this great project why not drop Angela a line at secretary@americahall.co.uk? 

So now what...?

Early tension at the count soon eased as it was clear this
was Exeter Labour's night

As the dust settles on the stunning Labour results in last Thursday's elections, I have been catching up on sleep, and spending some time with the family after months of hard campaigning. I have been grateful for the many messages of congratulations I have received on the street and by emails and Twitter. However, my favorite was a message from my new friend John Maclean. John is a former serviceman, a successful businessman, and a former Lib Dem Councillor and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate. He is a straight-talking, no-nonsense Scot, and has no party allegiance any more. Like many, he has become deeply sceptical about party politics, but he has nonetheless been very supportive of my campaign after I got to know his son, Steven, who is a "free journalist" and activist. In the early hours of Friday morning he sent me this Tweet:

I could almost hear him say it!

What we know about the result in Pinhoe is that while turnout in the ward overall was the highest in the city at 43.34%, turnout in the more "traditional" Labour polling districts of Whipton village and Arena Park were significantly lower, in the mid-twenties. Given that Labour had a frankly startling majority of 280 something significant has happened in Pinhoe. It's not the UKIP effect either - even if you add the Tory & UKIP votes together Labour still would have won in Pinhoe. The only explanation is that there were a lot of people in the traditionally Conservative-voting Pinhoe village  and White City areas voted for Labour, and for me. People who would normally vote Conservative are instead trusting me to represent them. Some people who would normally vote Labour, chose to stay home and not vote at all. Yet also people like John, who view all politicians with a healthy degree of cynicism, actively supported my campaign. 

John is right - it is now time to get working. I want to show those that voted Labour against their natural voting instincts that their trust in me and in Exeter Labour was not misplaced. I want to show the voters of Whipton village and Arena Park that their voice does matter, it is worth voting, and that Exeter Labour councillors are working for and with them to improve our communities. I want to show John, and the many people like him, that not all politicians are self-serving and that the best politicians can be community activists too. 

Cllr Dawson, one of our colleagues from
neighbouring Mincinglake ward

This week I shall be inducted into Exeter City Council life and find out what committees I will serve on and any specific responsibilities I will carry, but already I have been talking to my colleagues about how we can work better for those we represent. Cllr Catherine Dawson, from our neighbouring Mincinglake ward, wasted no time in suggesting that all the Labour councillors for Pinhoe & Mincinglake get together monthly with our County Councillor Saxon Spence to take a joined-up approach to tackling issues in the area - an idea that was embraced by all of us. We acknowledge that many of our communities "straddle" the somewhat artificial boundaries of the city's political wards, so by working together we will be able to achieve far more.

I have committed to having a dedicated website where residents can report issues to me, and to be able to see openly what action I am taking to resolve it. I will continue to use social media as a quick and convenient way to communicate, but will also be available in person at surgeries to talk. I intend to alternate surgeries between the Pinhoe "end" of the ward, and the Whipton "end", and will suggest to my colleagues street surgeries at Pinhoe shops and Whipton shops so people can informally tell us about what matters to them.

Communities working together can achieve amazing things,
like this picnic bench at Arena Park

I am very proud that Pinhoe had the highest turnout in the city, almost double that of some wards. I believe it is not politicians’ jobs to “fix” things for communities, but rather to work with communities to improve and develop them, and I am delighted that the Pinhoe ward has so many people who are active already. So I shall be particularly pleased to hear from you with your ideas and to hear about your projects, and if you would like to make a difference within Exeter Labour Party itself, why not consider joining us? See  http://www.exeter-labour.org.uk/ for more details, or call the office on 01392 275004.

Thank you

I have a definite case of the "morning after the night before", so forgive any incoherence or spelling / grammatical errors! But what a night it was. Exeter Labour had gone into these elections hoping that we could pick up the two additional seats we needed to take overall control of the city council. The two seats we had identified as the most likely targets had been Alphington and St James - anything else (including Pinhoe) would have been a bonus.

In the event, Labour won 5 seats in the city. St James and Alphington were won comfortably by Keith Owen and Rob Crew respectively, but there was also a surprise win in St David's for Sarah Laws who unseated long-serving Lib Dem Councillor Philip Brock. In Polsloe, Rachel Lyons achieved something of a "decapitation", by unseating the Tory Deputy Leader, Councillor James Taghdissian. And then there was Pinhoe.

At 10pm last night, we could have done no more, the team had given everything. Months of campaigning, canvassing, delivering leaflets, and phoning, and then yesterday's frenetic activities and last minute "knocking-up" (nagging and dragging every last voter we could to the polling stations) ended as polls closed at 10pm. On the surface of it, things did not look good. Turnout, it seemed, was particularly poor in our "core areas" of the Summerway estate and Arena Park. Turnout was markedly higher in the polling stations of the Hall Church in Pinhoe village and Pinhoe School - traditionally areas where the Conservative vote is stronger. The mood in our Committee Room was sober. We all knew how much every member of the team had put into this campaign, yet the indicators were not great. I was exhausted and convinced we had not made it, but Jenny took me home to get changed, and we headed to the count at the Corn Exchange.

Cllr Ian Martin, who had earlier looked quite grim-faced, came to find me in the bar of the Corn Exchange. "It's not looking too bad for you," he said. Ian has done a wonderful job of keeping my feet firmly placed on the ground throughout the campaign, frequently reminding us all of the scale of the task. For him, "not looking too bad" comes close to exuberance! I walked through to the counting area, where a row of Tories, including my opponent and her husband, had taken every seat at the counting tables. Piles were building up nicely in the trays, and I noted a significant chunk going into the UKIP tray. In previous elections, a strong UKIP vote had been at the expense of the Conservatives, so I wondered if this might be a factor here. As the counting staff began "bundling" the votes into 100s, my opponent left the table, soon followed by her Conservative chums. Cllr Ian Martin leant over to me. "If you hit 950, Dom [our election agent] reckons you've got it," he said, "and I think there's over 1000 there." The counter looked up from her work at us, and nodded.

The final result was that I had polled 1022 votes, to the Conservatives' 742. A majority of 280 and far beyond anything we had expected. Even if all of the 240 UKIP votes had gone to the Tories, Labour still would have won. Furthermore, turnout across the ward as a whole was the highest in Exeter, and higher than most recent elections here, at 43.34%. 

I was hugely helped by the fact that there were no elections in Mincinglake this year, which meant that my Labour branch (Mincinglake & Pinhoe) were able to focus solely on my campaign. I had the most incredible team behind me, and everybody played a part. I remember shortly after my selection being nervous as I was introduced to local party "matriarchs" Cllr Saxon Spence and former Cllr Val Dixon. What they do not know about Pinhoe and its political make-up is not worth knowing. Every so often I would informed by one or other of them that there was a library meeting, a coffee morning, a play that "it would do you no harm to be at" - so I quickly met community leaders and activists, and started to become known. Cllr Moira MacDonald showed me a few areas in the ward where she had been particularly busy with casework, and together with Cllrs Ian Martin, Catherine Dawson & Rosie Denham gave me some useful introductions to life within Exeter City Council.

Rose Gander has the gift of administration. What an organiser! Rose worked tirelessly on timetables, rotas and lists of actions, emailing instructions and timelines to every member of the team so everyone knew what they needed to be doing. She was a regular link with Dom, our local party organiser, who was joined later in the campaign by his predecessor Eddie Lopez. Dom and Eddie have a very effective good cop / bad cop double act. Dom will not let any complacency or laziness creep in, not even for a moment, and would regularly email round graphs of which ward teams were performing best at contacting their voters and securing promises of votes. Whenever I asked Dom how it was looking, I got the same answer, "It's going to be tough." His direction and advice ensured we all stayed working to the last minute. Eddie has seen it all before, and in the run-up to election day he was a relaxed presence in HQ, smiling and staying positive while providing intense analysis with Dom of the latest indicators; and I shall always remember him whistling "The Internationale" as he went off to the kitchen to make me a cup of tea while I was phone canvassing.

My delivery team, co-ordinated by Rose, were stars. Geoff who single-handedly delivered for me in Monkerton throughout the campaign was incredible, as were Gareth & Angie who drummed up support on the Summerway estate. The whole ward was often covered in under a week. My canvassing team included some "wise heads" in Peter, Dereen and Ted but were joined by local Labour student Kit. Other local councillors came to help including Tony Wardle, Greg Sheldon and our Council Leader Pete Edwards. Several times I was also joined by local MP Ben Bradshaw and his team. Des would input the canvassing data, and Dom would then give us a strategic steer based on what that data was telling us. On election day, we had teams of "tellers" collecting voter stats at  the polling stations, and this included Susan who did several stints and was also featured in the election address leaflet together with Val as my endorsers. Last, but yesterday was by no means least was, Julia who played "hostess" in the committee room keeping the team fed and watered every time we checked in. Julia had also acted as something of an "intelligence officer", often scanning and emailing the latest Tory leaflets, so we knew what tactics they were seeking to use in their campaign. I know there were many others who phoned, knocked, delivered, stuffed envelopes... it was a huge, huge team effort, and I would not have won without them. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to support me.

Thank you too, to the voters of Pinhoe. We know turnout was low in the areas that most traditionally vote Labour in the ward, which means significant numbers of people voted for me in Pinhoe village - possibly against their usual voting patterns. I am under no illusion that trust has been invested in me by people who are "giving me a chance", and who will see what I can do for them. I acknowledge that responsibility, and will work hard for - and be accountable to - my residents. I am only too pleased however that I do not undertake that task alone, but do so as part of a unified Labour team of two Labour City Councillors, a Labour County Councillor and a Labour MP. I look forward to working for and with you.