Finally May 6th Came! First I would like to congratulate Ian Mearns the new Labour MP. It was a pleasure meeting him and speaking with him and I am glad Gateshead has an MP who loves his home town and is loyal to the core.
According to the BBC election 2010 website you the voter increased the Conservative share of the vote in Gateshead by 4.8% . Thank you for your support. Labour votes fell by 7.2 %,the remaining 2.2% of which was split between the Lib Dems and other parties. I am pleased to make an impact on the results and hope this will serve to underscore the messages I have been conveying over the last few months.
I like many other candidates am glad the election is finally over. Tonight David Cameron has become Prime Minister after forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. It feels like a historic moment and a good time to reflect upon my own campaign.
My aim was to give profile to issues in Gateshead which need addressing. The multi-story car park and the redevelopment of Gateshead Town Centre is the first and I am glad Frank Hindle the Liberal Democrat candidate set up a petition as part of his campaign to back getting the redevelopment moving. In true spirit of the Tory –Lib Dem coalition I will be signing it.
I also highlighted the depressing statistics of addiction in the area and the need for political recognition and action at parliamentary level by Gateshead’s next MP. I have had a lot of feed back on this issue and even this week now the campaign is over I will be meeting with a constituent with expert knowledge to continue moving this agenda forward.
You have to have some guts to stand as a Tory in Gateshead. The worst aspects of my candidacy have been receiving the hate-mail and writing to constituents in response to misleading information on our policies from other parties. I have done my upmost to run a positive campaign. I refuse to be dragged in to negative commentary or blogging. I chose not to sign up to any round robin request for pledges or to emails that were aggressive or with questionable origin. I did however respond to most individual requests for information. I have had some technical problems with this blog linking to the email account which has been frustrating, and making contact was tricky because you have to drag the cursor over my email address for it to appear, but hey that is not an excuse that is life with computers!
However the positives surpass the negatives. It was an amazing privilege to be invited to visit local business,charitable organisations and attend regional events. Entering people’s homes and sharing with their lives keeps my feet on the ground and my eye on the goal. Most of all I have loved talking and meeting with residents in Gateshead. It is not Saltwell Park, the Quayside or even the new leisure centre that make the constituency. It is you!
I sign off with the sense of a new dawn in British politics. I hope the new government will be able to deliver new politics, new economics and new society.
Hazel Anderson General Election 2010
