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A music festival without mud, crowds or queues
09/07/2007
Down to Ealing again for the by-election
campaign. This time, we are breaking a big story: five Labour councillors
– all British Asians - are crossing the floor to join the Conservatives and
support our candidate Tony Lit. We all make statements from the steps of
the town hall before heading off for a walkabout on Ealing Broadway.
Chatting over coffee with my new recruits is
fascinating. They really feel that the Conservative party is their
natural home: pro-family, pro-community, pro-enterprise, but Labour had reached
out to them when they first arrived in the
UK and until recently the
Conservatives seemed stand-offish. They believe – and I hope they are
right - that this could be the start of a realignment among voters from ethnic
minority communities.
As Friday involved visits in
Liverpool,
Cumbria
and a trip to Sedgefield for the by-election there, the weekend was sandwiched
between by-election campaigns, with some of Saturday taken up by an interview
for the BBC’s Marr programme.
But I did have some break time and even
made it to the local Cornbury Music festival to see the
Waterboys, (one of the many acts, along with Blondie, David Gray
and Echo and the Bunnymen, designed to appeal to the over 40s). This was
not
Glastonbury
– a few thousand people, mostly local, no mud, no big crowds and no big
queues. But as I discovered this
morning, not much street cred
either. When I mentioned the
Waterboys
to my press minder on the way to Ealing her reaction was: “who on earth are
they?”
Posted by canvas 09/07/2007 19:50:10
Subject:
Waterboys - "The Whole of the Moon" is classic though! :)
Posted by tonymakara 10/07/2007 17:47:03
Subject: Labour took the Asian vote for granted
For decades Labour have taken the Asian vote for granted and it's now clear that the situation has changed dramatically. What I find most interesting is that this was a collective defection away from Labour and to the Conservative party.
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