Sunday, September 27, 2009

Operation Fight Back

I arrived at the end of Ed Miliband MP speech during the “General Election campaign” report but “Operation Fight back” is obviously on course.

Ed was followed by the co-ordinator Douglas Alexander MP. He noted the success that Hasting Labour Party had enjoyed by contacting a massive 16,000 voters. The national Party has done twice as well on voter contacts as last year.

Also that the Tories membership is down by 40,000 since Cameron took over as leader. He is still convinced that we can out organise and then out poll the Tories with 3 approaches.

1.Direct contact with public and earn the right for their support
2. Personal communication
3. Be rooted and reflect local communities.

He argued that new media is not so much a new medium but empowers traditional electioneering processes. For example “Virtual phone banks” get people to ring at home for the Party who simply would not do otherwise.

The General Secretary Ray Collins started his annual report to conference by promising that he has never knowingly kissed a Tory!

Conference finished with a “Candidates fighting to win presentation” which featured the Prime Minister amongst a backdrop of young Labour Prospective Parliamentary candidates. I thought this was quite clever but some “mature” delegates were complaining that this was ageist!

I thought that Gordon’s first speech and Q&A to conference was confident, comfortable and measured. A key theme seems to be to compare and contrast the Labour way of dealing with recession with that of Tories.

I will post next on the various fringes and events. Posting will be a little erratic not least that I hope to make a speech tomorrow.

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