09 May 2007

Solihull

Solihull used to be the sort of Conservative constituency that would lend support to neighbouring constituencies at election time. When we lost the Parliamentary seat to the Lib Dems in May 2005, severe questions needed to be asked. So I decided to help out in Solihull in order to repel the yellow peril. It didn't quite work out like that.

Our small, but committed leafletting team covered a large area in the Shirley wards in the final days before the election, but to no avail - we lost every marginal ward. Full results here. The only silver lining is that the six seats that we won have massive Tory majorities, but even that factoid is a bit irritating in a way.

Would it be unfair for me to mention that with just a few days until polling day the only candidate for council that I came across was Shay Parekh (pictured) in Elmdon? Maggie Throup PPC and Caroline Spelman MP know what needs to be done and I hope they will be supported to make sure we get back on track in Solihull. I know I'm probably preaching to the converted, but activism should be at the heart of what it means to be a Conservative Party member.

3 comments:

Andrew Allison said...

You are preaching to the converted, but unfortunately people like us who roll up our sleeves are all too rare in the Conservative Party. I keep banging on about this all the time. Unless we get some new blood in the East Riding in the next ten years, or at least get some more of our existing members to do more, we could be talking about Tory meltdown. The time for action is now. We are not looking at the elections in 2011, we have to look at the general election, probably in 2010.

James Higham said...

...I can't claim to have assisted in any way...

That's not my reading of you, PT. I'm with Andrew on this one.

Matt Dean said...

Hey, another Tory campaign in another Tory marginal called Shirley!!!