The first post

I have decided to start a Weblog, or Blog, for short. It is a type of online diary and I will use it to track my campaign to try and get elected onto Morley Town Council. There is already a month of activity since deciding to stand but I will try to pick up on the story & fill in the gaps as I go along.

So far, I have written to the local papers to correct the spelling of my name, sent them my photo & biography, persuaded some of the other independents to help me drop leaflets, found a printer, found a publisher (the irrepressable Cllr Judith Elliott), designed the flyers with a lot of help and advice from other Councillors and planned when to start leafleting. There are 2,200 houses in Elmfield Ward so I am going to pick up 4,600 leaflets tomorrow from the Printers, a very helpful place in Queen's Road near Morley high School.. I'll not sleep soundly until I see that they are correct, they never did show me the proofs as promised but the Boss personally corrected the typos so I'm not really worried...

I am entitled to spend no more than £400.30 on my campaign, based on an allowance of £242 then 4.7p per voter (& there are 3,368 of them).

In reality, I don't want to spend even half that as it is my money, out of my own pocket. The Party Candidates will probably have it covered by their Constituency offices but other than holding a Jumble Sale, Independents have to fund themselves.

I met one of my opponents at the Town Council Meeting last night, Jean Lancaster standing for Labour. A very pleasant & friendly lady, well known in the community and likely to be a worthy opponent. We wished each other the best as we are both new to political participation and have essentially the same goals in mind, party politics aside. I'm not sure that her first visit to the Town Council was entirely what she expected, being based on formal rules of debate & ceremony at the full monthly meetings.

Jean has already managed to get onto the front page of the Morley Advertiser although the banner headline was

"Anti-privatisation petition branded as electioneering

SPORTS

CENTRE

OUTCRY"

Alas, I don't have a friendly MP readily available to provide a photo-opportunity!