Campaign off to a good start

We kicked off our campaign last Saturday with a meeting of supporters, followed by leafleting and canvassing.

Twenty of us gathered in the Oval ward. While most were locals, some came from as far away as Colchester and Norwich. We started by discussing the big issues of this election: who should pay for the economic crisis, how all the main parties were offering the same, how to get the troops out of Afghanistan.
Unlike the other parties, the Anticapitalists also discussed how we could use the campaign to promote local struggles for public services and jobs and against racism.

Once we started knocking on doors and talking to people, this all came in very handy. One resident I spoke to was instantly in support of our campaign as he was going on strike the following week to defend the civil service compensation scheme.

Together we gave out over thousands of leaflets and talked to hundreds of people. None of us received any abusive comments – even Labour supporters were friendly and respectful. Quite a few residents offered to support us and even more were prepared to think about voting for us. Not bad for a first day out.

If you would like to join us on the campaign trail, please contact us. It’s good fun talking socialism on the doorstep and there’s great camaraderie within our team. From now on, we will be out nearly every weekend and plan activities for weekday evenings, too.