Good natured agreement says no to negative campaigning in South West Devon. Anna Pascoe's week

By PRSD, on Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Anna Pascoe, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for South West Devon, met up with her Labour counterpart, and they agreed not to snipe at each other on Twitter. Catch up with what else a PPC gets up to in a long week of politics

Monday, November 9
Began the day with a run round Roborough before heading over to Plymstock for a day of getting to know local residents. There’s been much anti-Citybus sale chatter recently and rightly so. One would think that after being “led” by a Tory government during the last recession, they might have learned that selling off public assets isn’t a viable long-term solution. I had a pleasant ride on the new Citybus route 5 that goes through Plymstock and chatted to a Goosewell resident about how relieved they are to have a proper bus service back to this part of Plymstock. Lunch was some tasty home-made soup in Plymstock library before heading back out in the chilly but bright winter afternoon for some more campaigining around Elburton.

Tuesday, November 10
A short-lived respite from the driving rain was brought to an abrupt halt this morning. As a young candidate who combines full-time work with political campaigning, my to-do list is ever-burgeoning and so when rain stops play outdoors, it’s just a case of getting on with some campaign admin indoors. This morning it was some prep for a fundraiser I’m organising and putting the finishing touches to last week’s PRSD diary. Met a volunteer interested in helping out with my campaign for lunch (well, if a diet Coke counts as lunch) and made it to an understaffed Plymouth station in time to be treated to the familiar feeling of being ripped off by FirstGreatWestern. A convincing victory at netball this evening cheered me up though.

Wednesday, November 11
Dropped my poorly sick car off to the garage in the hope that they could find a reason why my brakes didn’t really live up to their name on Friday. Wandered in to town as I had an hour or so to kill before work. Today’s liquid lunch was a hot chocolate (this is not some kind of bizarre diet, just the lot of a time-starved parliamentary candidate) as I took a call from a lady in Plymstock about a problem with the city council. Had a chat with the SW Devon Lib Dems about the campaign strategy and then got absolutely drenched on the scuttle to work!

Thursday, November 12
Busy day at work and was excited to receive a call from the recruitment agency letting us know that there were loads of good-quality applicants for the latest post we are advertising. Looking forward to browsing through them all tomorrow. Had a good chat with my friend who is designing www.annapascoe.com for me and all going to plan, the site should be up and running by the end of November. Had a town council meeting in the evening, where I began to mildly panic as the mayor fixed me with a steely gaze and declared that he needed to ask me if something was true. Thankfully it was just his way of getting round to congratulating me on being selected as the SW Devon candidate.

Friday, November 13
Feverish sift through the applicants for the marketing manager job at work yielded some great candidates on the shortlist. I’ve been working on an environmental policy for my campaign, which should be finished next week. One of my commitments is to using public transport as much as possible, to support local bus companies and to cut down on carbon. I’ve noticed that whenever I do actually drive to Devon, the weather punishes me and today was certainly no exception, with severe weather warnings across the South West. The journey that normally takes about an hour took nearer two as I dodged debris, avoided aquaplaning and stared in bemused terror as a traffic bollard was uprooted from the ground and blown across the carriageway on my way up. Picked up some casework in Woolwell to work on and then went to a Devon Lib Dems fundraiser to round off the evening.

Saturday, November 14
Attempted a short and ill-fated run round Woolwell this morning as the wind and hail prevailed. Huddling under a bus shelter, soaked and freezing, I concluded that today exercise could consist of some indoor stretches. Heading over the the Marsh Mills Novotel for the Devon and Cornwall regional conference, it was good to catch up with colleagues and work on developing new policies. The workshop on how local and central government can help local communities better was a real highlight and I look forward to it being presented to the next conference when the work has been finished on the paper.

Having followed him on Twitter for a while, I met the Labour candidate, Luke Pollard at teatime in Plympton. I really don’t see the point in negative campaigning for the sake of it and the meeting ended with a good-natured mutual promise not to snipe at each other on Twitter. Then it was back to campaign HQ for some more casework, with a liberal dose of Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor on in the background of course.

Sunday, November 15
Spent the morning at a thanksgiving church service for the Feast of St Martin and had a good chat to one of the parishioners about her work as a Street Pastor. It was interesting to hear that she had developed a passion for running later in life and she may have – almost -– convinced me to enter my first half marathon next year! Over the thanksgiving lunch topics of conversation ranged from BBC Question Time to military interventionism and I suddenly realised I was fast approaching Need To Go To Work O’Clock. Burned a bit more of the midnight oil after my shift to finish my weekly update for the SW Devon local members and to work on some more text for my new website.