Hello. Just a quick post to find out who’s been knocking on your door lately. Alex Grant (Labour councillor for Greenwich) appeared at my door last week. Unfortunately I was hungover, grumpier than usual, and whilst was quite happy to talk about the local council, started to see red when he asked me about how I would vote in the national elections. I said I really didn’t know, and that whilst I’d always voted Labour in the past, I simply couldn’t bring myself to vote for an MP who was in favour of the Iraq War, in favour of Trident, for ID cards, etc, etc. When I claimed that Nick Raynsford spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about property development in the house of commons, this was disputed. I pointed out that I regularly look at what Mr Raynsford is speaking on, by using theyworkforyou.com, and I think you’ll agree there is a fair amount about property development, and not so much about our ridiculous privatised rail system.
Anyway, I now feel slightly guilty for giving him such a hard time. He seemed like a good guy, and at least he turned up and was willing to talk. And today, Anne asked on twitter:
@blackheathbugle why are people in Nick Raynsford’s constituency being canvassed by Clive Efford? He’s not our MP…
I have no idea. I haven’t seen Clive Efford at my door (he’s the MP for Eltham, with Labour – although you’d have to look very carefully at his website to spot it). And I haven’t seen Nick Raynsford either.
So, at the risk of opening the floodgates of political ranting – who’s been knocking on your door, and how were they?
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The Blackheath Bugle 
Although I have voted Labour in the past, the thought of voting for Nick Raynsford makes my stomach turn. Does the bugle have a view as to which way is the best to vote tactically for the removal of Raynsford?
Nope. And I’m not even necessarily sure that that would be a good idea. Looking at the election results in Greenwich for the last three elections, it has been strongly Labour. Go to http://www.election.demon.co.uk/1997LB.html , and search for “raynsford”. With Conservatives coming second in all but the most recent general election. In 2005, LibDems came second, but with 20.7% of the vote, the Conservatives got 20.1%, and Labour 49.2%. I don’t have an easy answer. And I’m not saying that Nick Raynsford is necessarily a bad politician either! Just that there don’t seem to be many options, when you look at the numbers.
You are entirely right in both your judgements. – Alex Grant is a good guy; I’ve seen him in action at planning committees and was impressed, he’s insightful and pretty sensitive.
Nick Raynsford is definitely a bad guy; perhaps it’s simply the fact he has such a safe seat which allows him to spend most of his time in bed with property developers, and flaunt openly his disdain for the views of his constituents by encouraging a Market development that will rip out the heart of Greenwich.
That is the problem with safe seats. The MP’s can spend their time schmoozing with the big boys and forget their constituents pretty quickly. They take us for granted.
I would love to see our local labour MP’s kicked out – ain’t going to happen unfortunately. Won’t stop me from trying to get rid of them though! I will vote LD because I am horrified at the thought of Labour having control of the council/ mayorality & Parliament. I just wish there was more checks and balances.
And no one has knocked on my door. I am ready for them if/when they do!
I don’t know if we got doorstepped or if this was just post, but came back to some kind of questionnaire/survey thing from him, which is what inspired the tweet. It confused me rather.
We have had mailshots from Labour in the past few weeks and that’s about it. Which is kind of funny just because Mr Anne and I are both Labour voters and I am sometimes involved in promoting Labour in the course of my work as a writer so they’re the only party that doesn’t need to maildrop us.
The Greenwich & Woolwich/ Eltham constituency boundary dramatically changes from this election – great chunks of Blackheath and Charlton (and most of Kidbrooke) are now in the Eltham constituency.
If your council ward is Kidbrooke with Hornfair or Middle Park & Sutcliffe, then you’re now in Eltham constituency. That takes it as far up as the Old Dover Road bridge over the A102. Which is a bit odd, but there you go.
As far as Blackheath’s concerned, from Indus Road, Charlton the boundary runs along Shooters Hill Road, Old Dover Road (oddly looping around Blackheath Bluecoat to take that in), the A102 to the Kidbrooke Interchange, then along the Kid Brook, and then Blackheath Park to Lee Road, so the Cator Estate is split north/south.
In the other direction, Greenwich & Woolwich gains most of Plumstead and a bit of Thamesmead, so it looks like entrenching G&W as a Labour seat and pushing Eltham towards the Conservatives, but obviously that’s just guesswork. I’d hope those affected by the change were consulted first…
We rarely get anyone knocking on our doors down here in the poor end of Lewisham, unless they are offering cheap phone calls or religion.
That Nick Raynsford, eh. What a bad, bad mother. “In bed” with developers. How awful. All he’s ever done is drive social housing investment for the last couple of decades. Should be taught a lesson. Bring back Rosie is wot I sez.
I’m absolutely in favour of social housing projects. I’m not so sure I’m in favour of an MP who earns £64k a year from being an MP, also earning an additional £148k per year from other organisations, if this Torygraph story is to be believed. And I really would like him to speak on issues other than housing next time he stands up in parliament.
I’m the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Eltham – including the parts of Blackheath that are now included in the new constituency boundaries.
I hope some readers of this blog have met me on their doorstep – I have knocked on plenty of doors in your part of the constituency! Last week I brought the shadow cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell with me, today I came with a local resident, Aru Sivananthan, who is one of our ward candidates for Middle Park & Sutcliffe. We’ll be knocking on doors again tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll meet some more of you then.
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Oops – that was meant to have my actual name on it.
Regarding Clive, I emailed him and he emailed me back, very quickly. He seemed very nice.
To Mr Gold: you haven’t knocked on my door yet. I’m almost disappointed, because it’s kind of amusing arguing with Tories, though also hugely depressing. I think it’s great you’re commenting on local blogs. I also think it’s crass to have a blurb on your website about how Cameron’s philosophy is “to stand up for the responsible majority, for people who contribute to society, who work hard…” given the current unemployment levels mean plenty of people who want to work cannot. I could go on but I won’t, not here.
I will look forward to you knocking on my door, though… oh, that’s going to be funny.
The Lib Dem guy, Pete Pattison, came round last night. Seems a nice guy, lots to say about the local area, and things he’s already done as a local councillor. I was leaning towards voting LD anyway: as much as I hate the tories I can’t quite bring myself to vote for a party that went to war in the face of however many million protesters and the UN, and as a politics teacher I’m excited about the prospect of a hung parliament…!
Anyway – Pete Pattison seemed very nice, lots of good answers.
At a national level, not a local one, until I see a reason to vote someone in rather than voting to get the other lot out, you can consider my ballot spoiled.
I am in Lewisham East, Pete Pattison dropped by last night and I have to agree he seemed like a good guy, interestingly I can not seem to figure out if the conservative candidate Jonathan Clamp actually lives in Lewisham east?
I too have just discovered that I am no longer in Greenwich and Woolwich but in Eltham. This is really ridiculous. Greenwich and Woolwich was bad enough but Eltham? No offence to the people of Eltham but it’s hardly my local community and I do not see what affinity it has with Blackheath.
Blackheath has a strong centre and community and if you ask local people they say they live in Blackheath and not Greenwich, Lewisham, Woolwich or Eltham.
I do not find it at all democratic or representative of the local community that Blackheath has been carved up into 3 constituencies.