Richard Baum

Last night was what canvassing should be all about. A warm evening, my coat left in the car, a cooling breeze, only the occasional quasi-rabid growling horse-dog charging me, and a great reception from loads of local people on the doorstep.

Unfortunately though, everything warm but the reception has stopped. Spring has lasted all of 18 hours, and today is greyer than a concrete prison cell with only a table, a chair, and John Major in it.

Last year there was only one night in April when canvassing and rain came together in the most ill-advised marriage since Catherine Parr looked at Henry VIII and thought “Well, two beheadings out of five seems a reasonable percentage to me. I’ll take my chances…” Luckily for both Catherine Parr and me, she survived and I got elected last year. But this year, the weather refuses to be quite so kind.

The problem with canvassing in the rain is a biological one. God simply has not endowed us humans with enough hands to hold an umbrella, a clipboard, a pen, some leaflets and a few posters all at once. Attempting to do so means looking like a cross between a one-man-band and a Barnum and Bailey circus act. And adding gate-opening and/or doorbell-ringing into an already complicated equation means that it just becomes easier to stand still, study the house from the outside, and judge voting intention by the colour of the curtains rather than going through the rigmarole of asking.

Yesterday I obtained the dubious distinction of enduring the longest stare-out between Man and beast of the campaign so far. I defy anyone from any other party to have stared at a dog through a letterbox for longer than I managed yesterday at one particular house. The sun moved visibly in the sky, I was there so long, pitting my iron will against the dough-eyed, floppy-jawed, speedboat-sized mammoth dog within. Obviously he won, and I didn’t risk sticking my hand into his lair to deposit both the leaflet and my fingers in his mouth. But, for a time, Humanity and the Animal Kingdom faced-off, right on your doorstep in Prestwich.

The election is a week tomorrow. If you have signed up to receive a postal vote, it should now have plopped down on your mat along with the pizza menus, St Mary’s Focuses etc. So don’t forget to fill it in and return it! It needs to arrive by election day, so it’s probably wise to send it off before the weekend, just to be sure. Or remember that you can hand it in at a polling station if you forget to post it off. If you post it late, it might not arrive in time and it won’t be counted. It’s going to be very close between your Lib Dem candidate Mary D’Albert and the Labour Party candidate, so make sure that your vote counts.

Look out for us on the streets between now and the election. I’ll be the one with the yellow rosette, dropping his leaflets, clipboard  and posters into a puddle, grappling with giant umbrellas, being chased by dogs and shaking my fist at the sky. Come and say hello. It’ll make me feel better.

Rick