I got a bit wet this afternoon and very wet this morning, doing various campaigning things.  In the morning I was out in Broadfield doing some canvassing.  It felt a bit weird doing that when we don’t have a parliamentary candidate at the moment, but of course we do still have a candidate in the local elections.It started well, with enough of us to split up into four groups, and no rain.  After a while there was a very fine, gentle mist of rain which is actually quite refreshing when you are traipsing the streets.  Over the course of an hour the rain got progressively heavier by such tiny increment that I hardly noticed until realising that it had reached the point of being serious rainfall.

We finished off the road we were doing and called it a day, but for me it was only a break to dry out before heading into town to join my UAF colleagues for some leafletting in the town centre.  When I got down there I found out that it was a popular day for non-aligned pressure groups to go to Crawley town centre: there was already a stall for the Power2010 campaign and the NO2ID lot as well.

During the afternoon I did have a chat with both of them. NO2ID had invited me to speak at a forthcoming event in Crawley so I introduced myself and explained why I probably will not accept.  Partly it is a reluctance to share a platform with the BNP when the subject is civil liberties: a party whose policies could hardly be more opposite to the idea of civil liberties.

Of course, the organisers are worried that they could end up without the Labour party’s point of view being represented, but I’m not sure that my presence would make much difference: I would only represent my point of view which is not the same thing.  More to the point it may be different to the point of view of whoever is selected for Labour in Crawley.

While handing out leaflets I also had a chat with the Crawley Liberal Democrat candidate, John Vincent.  He seemed OK really and not too down-hearted about having the same sort of prospects that I have in Horsham.  He is a serial candidate, having stood in a couple of other places before. Very short though, possibly even shorter than Henry Smith.

The leaflets themselves were quite well-received.  I even had a couple of people asking what they could do to help, so gave them some details about future events they might like to join in with.