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Three Lewisham Labour MPs celebrate their clean sweep
of the borough. Bridget Prentice & Joan Ruddock held Lewisham East &
Lewisham Deptford. Jim Dowd easily held Lewisham West with a majority down only
2,000 votes. The election count was held at Sedgehill School in Bellingham and
took an excrutiating 5 hours with the final declarations made at
3am.
The results are at the bottom of the
page.
During that time your webmaster managed to speak to all
five candidates at the count. This is a summary of the
conversations.
Evett McAnuff (Conservative)
Evett lives in
Sydenham and works for Lewisham Social Services. The doorstep issue she
encountered most was crime. People's perception was increasing despite the
statistics suggesting otherwise. Politicians, Evette added, need to work harder
at both cutting crime and making people feel safe which is not the same thing.
She also had difficulty with the immigration issue. As a black person she had
to placate people who were second generation immigrants who felt themselves
threatened by the reporting of the national Conservative message. She said that
her experience is visiting so many deprived homes in the constituency as part
of her job made her committed to try and change the way the system works. She
said in not winning - she would not go away but become a scourge to the sitting
MP. Evette said that the Conservatives had a problem in distributing their
literature due to 'irregularities' at the Royal Mail which is being
investigated.
Nick Long (Green)
Nick is a standard fixture
at Lewisham West. A Socialist Worker candidate who has gone 'Green'. I was
expected Che Guervara in sandals. Instead Nick appears like a genial &
ultra respectable family doctor. He explained his low profile in Sydenham was
because the Green campaign had been concentrated on Catford. His take on the
doorstep was, to him, the amount of extreme anger he encountered about the last
government. Issues were confused but Iraq obviously counted. He did get a
respectable number of votes.
Alex Feakes (Liberal Democrat)
This is a man
on the ascendency - so I guess he will find more a more favourable constituency
next time. He identified his core issues on the doorstep as Iraq, tuition fees
and, surprisingly, pensions. He too appears to have had difficulty getting his
campaign literature out. He felt his major problem was lack of resources (only
3/4 Liberals were visible at the count). He said that his vote had responded
well in the areas they had 'worked'. If only they could have 'worked'
more...
Jens Winton (UKIP)
Jens is a virgin to these
occasions, like me, so we shared some of the learning experience. A friendly
and disarming guy - he is somewhat at odds with the stereotypical view of UKIP
man. The lack of focus on the EU issue had made his campaign difficult. He had
try to identify with local issues but the lack of a supportive party structure
had made it a one man job (indeed he was his own election agent). His major
concern at the count was the £500 deposit which was lost. Instead he now
looks forward to the more favourable ground of the EU Constitution referendum.
He is supposed to be back at work today doing a 'late turn'. So if you see a
very sleepy policeman - ask if he knows how Robert Kilroy-Silk got on. That
will bring a smile....
Jim Dowd (Labour)
Jim arrived late into the
count. But there was a strong force of party members monitoring the count.
Indeed the Labour party members from all three Lewisham constituences being
counted at Sedgehill School outnumbered all the others put together. A well
oiled and experienced machine. As the votes piled up - and Jim 's pile was
twice the height of anybody else's - Jim would not be drawn on whether he would
win. Always the professional politician. His experience was that there was no
dominant doorstep issue. He thought Iraq was not a great factor as the media
portrayed and within his expectations (which is probably supported by only
2,000 or so voters defecting to the LibDems). He emphasised the importance of
local issues and his over 20 year involvement in promoting the ELLX Tube
scheme.
Steve Bullock (Mayor)
Not a candidate but the
ultimate manager of the count. Sadly there was no TV interest in the outcome so
the event was low profile. Steve was somewhat frustrated by the length of the
count (we took 5 hours against Sunderland's 45 minutes). This was largely
because the count was being done by junior council employees rather than
professional bank tellers. Steve did assure me there was no incentive to
prolong the agony as there were not on 'double time' . He left the declaration
to Barry Quirk, the returning officer. This was done in just a couple of
minutes for all three Lewisham constituences. Barry was alone on the stage with
no "Thank You Mum, thank you Dad..." speeches from the victorious candidate. No
TV, no interest. It made a rather anticlimatic end to a long
night. |
