I've never seen anything quite like the mayhem in Mill Hill Broadway last Saturday morning. There was a French market, myself and the Mill Hill Music Festival crew were distributing Festival programs, the Jehovahs witnesses were also out and we had large teams from The Tories, Labour and The Lib Dems. There were also a team from Mill Hill Bowls club dishing out leaflets.
One irate lady started shouting at me, as I tried to get her to take a leaflet. She said 'I'm UKIP, why aren't UKIP here?" I apologised and said 'sorry we're from the Music Festival so I can't help you with that'. She then said 'it's disgusting having a French market, we should have British one instead!'. I asked here if she'd met the UKIP candidate for Hendon. She said 'No'. I replied that he's a very nice chap, I knew him when he was a Lib Dem and it's great that UKIP had selected a Somalian. She called me an idiot and walked off, perhaps not realising I wasn't joking. A member of The Lib Dem team informed me that they'd got pictures of the Tories parked illegally on a yellow line. I tutted thoughtfully. When I mentioned this to the Labour team, they sneered 'we don't do gutter politics '. I had a chat with Mill Hills elder statesman, Tory candidate John Hart, who told me he was off to Cooksleys to buy a pound of sausages for lunch. No metric sausages for John!
I'm looking forward to leafleting for the festival on June 10th in The Broadway, all of these politicians will be back in hibernation for another five years. People won't avoid eye contact with us handing out leaflets, then turn back and take on when they realise we're not political.
When it comes down to it, I find it sad that so many people put in a shift to canvass, but when election time goes, won't lift a finger for the community.
*Cough*
ReplyDeleteNobody took any pictures. Rog came over to me and said did I want to take a picture of the Tories on a double yellow. I went over and had a friendly chat with Val Duschinsky and her husband Peter who were packing their car up after the Conservative stall by Barclays on the road by the bank. I teased Val and said you better hurry up or you'll get a ticket! They drove off and that was it.
ReplyDeleteAlso a lot of the people on the various stalls aren't just out during election campaigns. A lot of the Lib dem activists helping out on Saturday are very active in their local communities. I know that Sian John and Mike Barker on the Labour stall are very much involved in the creation of the neighbourhood plan for Mill Hill, Sian is a school governor. Roberto and Carolina Revillia are very much involved in making Millbrook Park a vibrant community to live in. Val and John on the Conservative side give up a lot of their time on the Neighbourhood Forum and the Allotments respectively and as school governors. I'm the acting chair of the NW7 Hub and a school governor too. I think your comments were unfair on all of us political activists regardless of our parties.
Richard,
ReplyDeleteFirstly you are wrong, as pictures were taken by me. The reason? As a Millway resident, I am heartily sick of people who selfishly park on yellow lines, obstructing the end of my road and regularly delaying myself and my wife for several minutes. It hadn't been my intention to publicly name and shame the culprets, but as this has now been done, I think it is only fair to mention that shortly before the parking offence was committed, I'd actually been discussing selfish parking with the culpret and a member of the Mill Hill Music Festival committee, in response to another car parking in an inconsiderate manner. I had rather hoped that a mild ribbing may impress on the culpret that the law applies to us all and if you are going to campaign for a political party, obeying the law would be a good idea.
Secondly, my comment regarding activists was a direct response to a member of one of the teams who proudly commented to me that "it's great that we can always get so many activists out for elections". I'm sorry you feel slurred, but I really felt that this comment summed up the attitudes of many people who "do a bit for elections" and then do nothing the rest of the time, especially when they give out what I consider to be rather misleading leaflets.
I really didn't want to start a row, just make a couple of points to comments and behavious of specific individuals. You are of course correct that the people you named and many others are thoroughly good eggs and very community minded.
Rule 240
ReplyDeleteYou MUST NOT stop or park on: a road marked with double white lines...except to pick up or set down passengers, or to load or unload goods.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/waiting-and-parking-238-to-252