GINGE CALLED ME A WANKER!

I went to my local shop this morning to purchase a daily newspaper. Something I do every morning because.
               a) I like my daily paper
               b) I have a bit of banter with the guys in the shop and usually come away smiling.
               c) It is set in a row of shops, food outlets etc, which serve the estate on which I live. I  
                   usually meet some of my friends and we have a bit of a natter, share local gossip and news
                  and generally put the World to rights.

However, this morning I happened to ask "Ginge", the shop assistant, if he was going to vote for UKIP in next years Local County Council Elections.
"I have never voted and never will. They're all a load of wankers!"
"Tell it like it is, Ginge". I replied, somewhat taken aback.
It wasn't what he said, it was the way he delivered it. Eyes alive, head thrust forward and then a verbal salvo directed straight at me.

"Hang on a minute there Matt (his given name), I'm standing next year as the UKIP Candidate for this Ward. Does that make me a wanker?" I asked.

"Will you be able to change anything? No!"
"Will you make a difference to me and my wife? No!"
"Once your feet are under the table, will you be the same as all the other wankers on the Council?  
  Yes!"

I came away from the shop with a lot more than my daily newspaper to think about. The first thing that I realised was that 'Ginge' was not alone in his thinking and that I needed to get out and about to test public opinion. Even the fact that I would be standing as a UKIP candidate didn't sway him from his core belief. In his words;
"Unless you get a majority on the Council nothing will change, so why should I vote?"
"Because." I said. "If you don't vote nothing will ever change, that is the whole point of the Democratic process."

I live in a Close which has thirty dwellings, made up of one-bedroom bungalows and one or two-bedroom flats. Some are single occupancy and some are dual occupancy making a population for the Close of forty seven people. We are all retired or, just coming up to retirement and incomes vary according to circumstance. My wife and I have only lived there for a short time so I thought that it would be an excellent place to take a 'straw poll'. So, having dropped my newspaper off at home I went out to do some research.

We all know of each other but, we do not know each other so it was refreshing to go out and introduce myself properly to my neighbours. The next three to four hours were very productive and enjoyable. Apart from my research, I garnered invites to six barbecue's, four coffee mornings, a birthday party and a car boot sale.

On a more serious note, my Local Council is lead by a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The breakdown is thus:

• 24 Conservatives
• 5 Liberal Democrats
• 28 Labour
• 1 Democratic Labour party
• 2 Independents.

The Labour Party are about to make a bid for control after the Bank Holiday by putting forward a vote of No Confidence in the ruling ConLibDem coalition. The decision as to who will hold power come down to the DLP and the 2 Independents.
I mention this because I felt that I needed to be armed with as much information as possible when I did my survey. It is also worth noting that UKIP contested eight Wards in 2012, managing to make their presence felt  but, as you can see, failed to take any seats. However, in next years CC Elections UKIP will hope to contest all twenty Wards. 

Of the forty seven people whom I spoke with, seven people said that they would not be voting next year. The reasons that they gave were interesting. Two said that the Local Council was run from Westminster and no matter what or who they voted for the Councillors would toe the Party line and so, in their opinion it was not worth voting.
Three echo'd "Ginge" and the remaining two declared that as the Tories always won this Ward what was the point of voting?
The frightening thing about those seven people is that they represent 15% of the target group.
Of the rest,
23 said that they would vote Conservative.
9   said that they would vote Labour.
7   said that they would vote UKIP.
1   said that they would vote Liberal Democrat.

The other frightening thing of course is that I only have eleven months to convince the people in my Close to vote for me and the United Kingdom Independence Party.

However, they only represent 0.32% of the population of my Ward so I have a real battle on my hands between now and next May. This Ward is a traditional Tory stronghold but the turnout for Local Elections has dropped dramatically over the last ten years, it was less than 30% in 2012.
That said, I'm helped by the fact that the ruling coalition in the Council are doing badly and are seen to be doing badly since they came to power in 2012.  I believe that my biggest enemy will be the postal vote.

However, I do not intend to let that deter me. Just over twenty years ago I set up a business in commercial and industrial glazing and prior to that I had spent many profitable years selling double glazing as a door-to-door salesman. Door to door salesmen got a lot of bad press but, despite that, some of us sold an awful lot of windows. It is all about turning a disadvantage into an advantage. The first thing that you need is a strong belief in your product and your industry then comes knowledge, in that instance it was product knowledge and I knew all there was to know about the product that I was selling, not only that, I believed that it was the best on the market. Knowledge is confidence and people relate to confidence because confident people exude sincerity.

I strongly believe in UKIP and the vision the party holds for the future of Britain, that is why I became a Party member. The important lesson I learned when running my business was to not only know my product but also to know all there is to know about the product and services of my opposition.
This is true in local politics and so, I am in the process of learning the policies of the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats on Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council. Not only the policies but the failures and the controversial projects that they have agreed to undertake. All handy ammunition for the doorstep challenge.

My main task over the next couple of months is to turn 'Ginge' into a voter and from there into a UKIP voter.

Watch this space!