Oli takes a call
She's a young teacher and tells me that she has also been torn over who to vote for, but that everyone in the local community has thought long and hard about what to do.
She says that only the week before, the London Muslim Centre decided to back George Galloway, and that normally the community would follow their lead.
Another, young Bengali comes up and asks how he can Join. I take his address and phone number and say I will pass it on to the local branch.
Tired, and very satisfied I go back to Oli's HQ just as comrades are leaving for the COLBE
I don't find out Oli's result until the next day when I find a text from Liam giving the scores. I'd managed to stay awake long enough to satisfy myself that Galloway had been elected, and promptly fallen asleep.
Oli CalC third after Labour and the Tories with just over 17 percent of the vote. It turned out that there were sharp fluctuations in the voting across the constituency, but Oli is a serious and credible challenge to Fitzpatrick. Next time Jim, your cards are marked.
We also argued
that we didn't
want to build a
party that had
developed out of
the anti-war
movement that was made up only of the white left,
and which wouldn't be representative of the movement as
La whole. Fisher Gate Respect Councillor Michael Lavalette won 2,318 votes, 6.8%, in the general election in Preston. This was a significant improvement on the 1,210 votes won by the Socialist Alliance in the byelection in 2000.
In the local elections held at the same time, Respect stood six candidates winning 2,795 votes, an excellent 10.3%. In two seats, Respect came second - in the City division, former Labour councillor Elaine Abbot, took 20.2%, while in the South East division, anti-war activist Sumera Rizwan took 18.5%.
The scandal of the election was the thousands of people who were disenfranchised and unable to vote.
Preston City Council had purged its electoral register of everyone who had failed to return a registration form, with the largest drop in electors - 14,000 voters -in the country.
The Council had failed to campaign adequately for registration, particularly among those whose first language is not English.
Many hundreds of Respect supporters turned up at polling stations to find they had no vote. A major task for Respect now is to conduct a voter registration drive to enfranchise its supporters.
Respect ran the most energetic campaign of all the parties 1n the city. Attractive high quality leaflets were delivered across the City to houses and at events.
Canvassing teams visited neighbourhoods getting the Respect message across on the doorstep.
Among the highlights of the campaign was the Make Poverty History' week of action.
candidate, Michael Lavalette was the principal organiser and chaired a public meeting and a rally of several hundred people. Over 1,000, many of them young people, turned up to a demonstration to 'encircle' the Town Hall with a white band. Respect will be building on this event to take a large contingent from Preston to the demonstration in Edinburgh on 2 July during the G8 summit.
The local football club manager - Billy Davis of Preston North End endorsed MPH and agreed to a photo of himself and players being used in a Respect leaflet distributed to the 20,000 crowd the weekend before the election.
Respect also organised a trade union demonstration against the closure of a local tactory, working closely with the Amicus trade union.
Councillor, Stephen Brooks resigned from Labour in protest at their refusal to do anything about the take-over and closure by a multinational of a local engineering firm in his ward.
The demonstration and action attracted excellent press coverage highlighting the work of the two Respect councillors with local trade Respect also had the endorsement of a number of significant local trade union leaders, including the local Fire Brigades Union
Respect also
organised a trade
union demonstration against the closure of
La local factory,
working closely with
the Amicus trade
union. brigade seciclary. The former Green Party parliamentary candidate also endorsed Respect.
Respect supporters from across the North West, particularly Merseyside and East Lancashire, flocked to Preston during the campaign.
One even travelled over 100 miles from Cumbria several times. This enabled people to get to know one another and experience campaigning together, boding well for the building of Respect across the North West. Lavalette won much support within the churches for his role following the Tsunami disaster and MPH. But undoubtably Respect's strongest support came from muslims, and the local mosque committee endorsed Respect.
The result was a significant improvement in votes, but not a historic breakthrough. The main problem experienced was the portrayal in the national media of the Lib Dems as an anti-war party.
This •was completely untrue locally - the Lib Dem candidate stood as a local conservative candidate during the war and on Preston City Council the Lib Dems consistently support the Tories!
Nevertheless the constant dripfeed of this message was difficult to counter.
Arch-Blairite and Labour MP Mark Hendrick had a reduced vote, and has now lost 12,000 votes compared to his predecessor, the left winger Audrey Wise.
Some of these have gone to Respect but some also went to the Lib Dems, who increased their share of the
by 3.5 percentage points.
Given the twin effect of the Lib Dems and the voter deregistration, it was particularly difficult to hold up the votes in the inner city wards in the local election but scoring around 20% was still an excellent result. Overall the campaign was a success and there is much for Respect to build on in the future and turn Preston The battle for