Crikey! Get a load of this!
"
They would have employed a monkey"
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SNP says it will win in Glasgow east"
Walking through the door, I met with a sea of rickety tables, dirty plastic cups and piles of promotional leaflets covering every available surface. On one wall a supposedly motivational plea penned by Curran smacks of desperation. It is flanked by two more posters, reminding activists that “Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance” and “Team Work Makes Dream Work.” Some chance!
Charts covering the dingy off-white walls showed every registered voter in the constituency for the purposes of voter ID planning and leaflet drops. On the wall next to them was a list of the areas covered — only a few paltry ticks at this stage.
I learn that canvassing now all has to be done manually after it was discovered that the English computer system, which produces printouts of constituents who have voted Labour in the past, doesn’t work in Scottish constituencies with tenements because it doesn’t recognise the slashed, double-digit addresses.
This was hardly the Mandleson-esque efficiency I had come to expect from the party’s early years in power, when it was at the cutting edge of election technology and organisation, spin and rebuttal were elevated to art forms. I was handed a large bunch of flyers and a map and despatched out onto the streets to save Brown’s skin.
The mood among my fellow, largely inexperienced canvassers, dressed in hoodies and grubby jumpers — most of whom have been drafted from constituencies south of the border — was defeatist and downbeat. Of the three staff I went out with, the eldest was just a year out of university, their only taste of a by-election before this being the disastrous Crewe and Nantwich contest of last May, when the Conservatives snatched the seat from Labour in a by-election, overturning a 7,000 majority.
There is little Braveheart spirit on this side of the political divide. One of our first tasks is going into a “difficult” area of the east end, which a previous team gave up on. The young volunteer plotting our course through the tenements and former council houses describes the experience as “a living hell” and seems hopelessly out of her depth. A young twenty-something leading another expedition simply gave up on whole streets after being unable to make sense of the map issued by headquarters. [....]
I went back on the campaign trail with two staffers from England who had worked in Crewe and Nantwich. On my travels I came across an SNP canvasser. They vastly outnumber Labour volunteers on the street — they have a team of almost 1,000, compared with 200 on a good day for Curran — and they are rewarded with free food and drink. I’d walked about 10 miles a day, knocking at doors, delivering flyers, posting letters, and had never been offered so much as a biscuit. When I sat down in the campaign HQ for five minutes to eat a lunch I’d bought from a nearby bakery, I was handed another bunch of flyers and told to hurry along. I’d also spent £100 on petrol driving party members around the constituency in my own car, but when I asked if I would be reimbursed, I was told Labour didn’t do that. [....]
I suspect that, if the
Sunday Times reporter had showed up at the SNP campaign rooms he'd also have been accepted. I just showed up and walked in, and I didn't see anyone asking "where goest thou?" However, someone recognised me almost immediately so I don't know for sure. It might have been difficult for a complete outsider to successfully feign the cameraderie and shared experiences though.
Apart from that, chalk and cheese. Yes, free food. Someone is making (tinned) salmon sandwiches on an industrial scale. And yes, you can just walk in and start munching. But there is a collection box and most people put in a contribution. The second day I went, I asked them what they were short of and went out and bought it. Nobody is asking for expenses, indeed people are contributing money as well as time, and some are driving themselves to the constituency from 150 miles away.
The computer system works - the SNP have had a programme called "Activate" for quite some time, and it was being used and updated constantly. There are people all over the place, all in the best of spirits, all knowing what they're supposed to be doing. Nobody tries to "motivate" anyone, all that's on the wall is press clippings and some photos of the campaign - oh yes and sign-up lists for people to volunteer their help on Wednesday and Thursday, already overflowing. And you choose when and how often you go out, come and go as you please, and have a rest if you want. When you're ready for another run, you have to find Fiona to get an assignment - she won't chase you.
The temporary rooms are offices attached to a garage, and although it's basic, it's decent enough and someone has hoisted cheerful yellow banners along the road frontage. Labour are using their own premises in the constituency - a bit of a shocker to hear their place is in such a state. Each day I've been out I've seen both the candidate and Alex Salmond, and other politicos including Nicola Sturgeon, Andrew Welsh and Alyn Smith (who is a personal friend from London Branch days). Sounds as if the Labour volunteers are on their own.
SNP-ville is organised. The maps are correct, and anyway there are enough local people to provide "native guides" for teams that need them. A couple of times we ran out of leaflets before quite completing a run, either because we had a better score rate of getting past security entry systems than predicted, or someone just didn't realise how many flats were in some of the blocks. So we reported back and Fiona took a note of which streets or flats hadn't been done, and said, don't worry, they'll get done.
The second time I was there, they were on the third or fourth different leafleting pass. All the telephone canvassing had been completed, and Fiona was now "targeting". The whole thing works. And by the way, I don't believe for a moment that the SNP are contacting Labour to send their activists on wild goose chases, or wrapping their cars in duct tape. The first sounds to me like a backfired attempt by someone on the Labour side to get more proxy votes, and the second sounds like pure vandalism.
They do sound very stretched though. Now I know why I saw no Labour canvassers, and only one single solitary Labour leaflet. There are even markedly fewer Labour posters on the lamp standards.
But most of all, the difference is in the attitude. We were all having a ball. It's fun!
Of course, the SNP have little to lose, and a loss will be little more than a temporary minor embarrassment. It's the third-safest Labour seat in Scotland. We don't
need to win it, ever. Labour in contrast have everything to lose. If they can't hold this, they're history.
But still. I never thought I'd see the day when the SNP would be out-organising and out-campaigning Labour in one of its heartland seats.
The
Sunday Herald has what might be the real deal on the opinion polls, that the SNP are perhaps four points behind at worst, with an awful lot of undecideds. This could go either way, so I plan to go over Wednesday and Thursday evenings and continue having a ball.
Rolfe.
