From Barking to Barnes and a Battersea Barn Dance

Yesterday I was in full campaign mode, thankful that the London weather is unseasonably mild and sunny. In the morning, I was out delivering residents’ surveys in Eastbury ward in Barking and Dagenham, which the LibDems used to hold, before the recent local surge of the BNP — a situation  London region is keen to reverse. Then to Barnes in Richmond, out and about meeting party members and admiring people’s gardens. On to Greenwich, where Councillor Harry Potter (sic) hosted a delightful ‘Meet the Candidates’ event, though only three of us ten Euro-hopefuls had showed up by the time I had to move on for the grand finale: the Battersea and Tooting party’s barn dance (actually held in Clapham).  On such an occasion, one becomes a child again, getting hopelessly tied up in knots and tangles, as couples prance in lines and make figures of eight under the eyes of an indulgent caller. I hobbled home through crowds of partying South Africans, once more marvelling at London’s extraordinary diversity, and musing that after Barking and Barnes and a barn dance, all that had been missing was a bar mitzvah in Barnet for a perfectly alliterative campaigning day.