I make no apoligies for this post, it is a personal post and if you don't like it tell me I am big enough to cope. I am contactable by email over on the left, or post a comment to this post.

Hilary Armstrong voted for the War in Iraq, but not only that it was her job to force others to do so as it was a three line whip.

Just to remind readers what this lead too I have a link for you to look at.

Now I must warn you this presentation contains graphic and disturbing images of death and trauma. It is not suitable for children, mothers-to-be or those of a sensitive dispositon.

Watch it, remember it when you vote. Share it with others, make people watch it.

Hilary Armstrong is backing blair. Are you?

Yes that is right, you are not miss reading the title...a Libdem poster was spotted this morning in Fir Tree.

On my kitchen table...


Now I would put this up in my window, why I requested it, but the "winning here!" is just plain wrong and would be look silly.

I also have a letter saying that Alan Ord will be sending me leaflets for delivering around Fir Tree, I did reqest these as I am a Libdem supporter.

Now I've been in two major towns of North West Durham today, Wolsingham and Crook.

The only posters I saw was one building near crook market, either it was Labour H.Q. or someone has ran out of curtians..shame I forgot my camera.

Labour's leaflets are a Tony-free zone

In a story about Tony being missing from some leaflets, I wonder if he is in ours..yet to see any, Hilary Armstrong is given a mention.

Bob Marshall-Andrews QC, the Labour candidate in Medway, a Labour marginal, has a photograph of himself with Gordon Brown on his website.

Mr Marshall-Andrews was a leading anti-war campaigner and after he rebelled against the Government in the last parliament, the Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong, threatened that cabinet ministers would not visit him in the election. He told her he wanted a guarantee they would not visit.

I'm sorry that last bit made me laugh out loud...I'll repeat it just for "effect"...

He told her he wanted a guarantee they would not visit.

Some data from the nice folks over at Electoral Calculus now they use a universal swing calculation to work this out, plus local factors if any, hence why they have included "other". As far as I am aware no "other" parties are running...unless I start a "None of the above" party that is!

MP Hilary Armstrong (LAB)

Electorate	67,062	Turnout	58.49%
	2001 Votes	2001 Share	Prediction
LAB	24,526	62.52%		56.68%
CON	8,193	20.89%		23.35%
LIB	5,846	14.90%		16.43%
OTH	661	1.69%		3.54%
LAB Majority	16,333	41.64%	Pred Maj	33.32%

This will probably by about right with the usual +/-2% error factor, unless the other parties get their fingers out and get some serious campaigning done.

The first in a series focusing on the core election issues, and where our candidates stand on the issue.

Unempolyment has fallen in the last few years in our area like accross the country but still the North-East has one of the worst economic activity rates, with 26.5pc of the working population classed as inactive compared to 17.9pc for the South-East.

I would like to know what our candidates are planning on doing to improve this in our area.

I will try and get a response for each of the candidates, or if not put words in their mouth by looking at each of the parties policy if they have one...or asking an active member in a near by constituency their opinion if I can't find a satisfactory answer.

Jamie Devlin on Jobs:

Jamie responds on jobs.

Hilary Armstrong on Jobs:

Hilary Armstrong has responded to this on her official website.

Alan Ord on Jobs:

Looks like Alan can not be bothered running let alone respond to my email....

Now I am really struggling to find out what policies libdems have on this, the problem is that our area is quite unique and to find a Libdem actually trying in an area like ours is hard, Durham City do not count as Durham City is quite affulant. The closest I come to finding "local" policy on this is on Jody Dudds website for her election campaign in Hartlepool.

The only thing I can find so far is: "real jobs for the people of Hartlepool"

Righty ho then what a policy that is.

To the candidates, think of this as door stepping me but with time to respond. (Plus the few readers I am picking up..I am getting somewhere with search engines now...see not bad for a week old site)

Black hole engulfs debate

Ah ha..found her.

Durham North West Labour candidate Hilary Armstrong, the party's chief whip, said the effect would be soaring interest rates and cuts to public services - a claim strongly denied by the Tories.

She said: "The Tory promises are hollow and cannot be paid for from their own figures - no new schools, no new hospitals, no new police, as these are completely uncosted and depend upon fantasy economics.

"These are the same plans John Major tried and led to yet another Tory recession that devastated lives across the North - that is why it is important that the Tories come clean and admit that their plans mean the North would go back to the bad old Tory days of repossessions, high unemployment and misery."

We also have a rebuke from the Tories, but its not our Jamie, it is the Hexham Conservative candidate Peter Atkinson..how odd.

But Hexham Conservative candidate Peter Atkinson said: "Hilary Armstrong's negative distortions are just claptrap.

"Mortgage rates will continue to be decided by the independent Bank of England, the only cuts to public services will be to the back room boys and the bureaucrats that would never be missed.

"We Conservatives have fully costed our tax and spending plans and have found ways of putting taxpayers' money into the people's priorities. For example, we'd cut the democratically rejected North-East Regional Assembly, freeze civil service recruitment, and reform or abolish 168 quangos.

"Labour will say anything to distract from their woeful record of 75,000 manufacturing job losses in the North-East, 66 tax rises, people dying of infections caught in hospital and chaos in the immigration and asylum system."

Should it not be Jamie doing the responding to Hilary?

Now a bit of an educated guess this one. Yes Hilary was in London yesterday for the manifesto launch and returned to the constituency in the afternoon (Thanks Neil)

No mention of it on the official site, I'll probably give her Campaign Co-ordiantor an email to confirm.

I am guessing that as a member of the Cabinet she is one of the Ladies on the stage:



But it is hard to tell from my maths there are 22 members of the Cabinet but I count 21 heads on stage. I think Milburn is missing from my squinting at that photograph.

Thought I would share this little gem and my results (Basically my children should be running around naked while I hug trees):

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -16
Conservative -77
	Liberal Democrat 110
UK Independence Party -20
	Green 33

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

When I said the Hilary Armstrong campaign

Achivements page seems a little "copy & paste" with enter constituency here and enter local figures here...

I didn't think I would actually find this to be true, probably because I forgot to look..but it is true.

Its not copy and paste though, its a New Labour generate achivements gizmo.

Here is our version:

#2218 North West Durham

And some more..just change the id:
#2216 Easington
#2210 Penrith & the Border

Hardly earth shattering I know but it just feels that very little effort went in to Hilarys achivements page...feel to me like:

Hilary: "Right what did I achive in my Constituency again"
Campaign Co-ordinator: "Hang on..what is our constituency id again"
Hilary: "Erm...is it 2218?"
Campaign Co-ordinator: "Thats it!"
etc

God I'm a cynical old young sod.

Now I thought I would do a vox pop while walking my dog on the campaign in our area North West Durham.

Or actually, ask my neighbour as it was 10pm and its usually only me and him out and about at that time of the night....

Anyway, I asked him if he could name the Tory or the Liberal candidates. After much thought he said he could not.

Now he is a 58 year old steel worker, lived in Fir Tree for 30+ years and has met Hilarys dad on a few occasions when his work was threatened with closure so he is political.

He is a traditional Labour voter, and is looking forward to Hilary Armstrong popping by Fir Tree so he can tear a strip off her about the state of the pensions.

I didn't ask him who he is voting for, none of my business but if he can't even name the other candidates there is not much hope for them!

Right not to be left out, oor Hilary...

Thought I'd help out the Liberals with some material.

Ok it is not really Labour campaign material but I thought it was amusing.

No news updates on the two official PPC sites, It takes me a couple of minutes to do this it is not rocket science.

Anyway, other than the updates from Hilary Armstrong yesterday it is all quite from the other two.

I have decided I will help out and make some campaign material, starting with Jamie Devlin...as it is nice and easy to do that...stay tuned.

...Hilary Armstrong has responded...or should I say her Campaign Co-ordiantor has...to my request for information.

Today Hilary was in Crook market (just over the hill from me) with their own Stall.

Well I am not sure if Hilary was there herself, any one care to confirm, but that is where todays campaigning was focused.

Good to see that they are putting in the effort.

It seems that oor Hilary (Like Oor Willie) is being targeted by the New Statesman.

In an article How to give Blair a bloody nose it wants us voters to vote Liberal to cut Labours majority and get rid of "blairites"...and "poor" Hilary has been picked...

Shame that the Liberals don't want to play ball up here, and the New Statesman don't recommend voting for the Tories either.

This is like the "backing blair" campaign that I am interested in..but they recomend voting for the party with the most chance of beating (or getting close to) Labour...which at the moment is the Tories.

Right something to amuse myself during my lunch break, using google to find out more about our PPCs.

I thought I'd pick on Jamie Devlin first as he is the same age as me, does that make me old enough to run for Parliament or Jamie a bit young, and is young enough (not old yet) to have grown up with the internet...

Now it seems that Jamie has a liking for Japanese anime but as that Jamie says he is from Texas maybe a case of mistaken identity.....

On to some other finds:

It seems that Jamie once stood as a prosepctive Conservative Maidstone Borough Councillor in 2003 losing out to the Liberals by 470 votes, fat chance that happening here!

It also seems that a Jamie Devlin is a director of a scottish pest control company. Argh, I'm Scottish....

Not as interesting as I would have thought, kept me amused during my lunch break though.

..there seems to be none.

No updates on the either Hilary Armstrongs website or Jamie Devlins..and Alan Ord doesn't have one. (Still a bit peeved off about that one).

What did they do yesterday, any one know (I am starting to get people searching on google now so I have some visitors and I am no longer talking to myself).

Spot the candidate would be a good game to play, if you have a photo camera handy take a shot of one of our PPCs and email it to me and I will post them up here.

I have spotted my first Labour poster on the rat run last night in Bowburn, so thats probably 20 Liberal ones and one Labour one...

On my "leg work" I found this site.

The current site is a bit odd, nothing really on it I can see as its all protected but...more leg work..

I found this which is an old snap shot of the site and it says the following:

This site has been built by group of young people, with the aim of giving those living in the Wear-Valley a chance to voice their personal thoughts about issues that are close to their hearts, and then hopefully we can get the message across to the people that can do something about it.

Robin Oliver

And also says this:

North West Durham has been a labour constituency for years, and despite my young age, I have seldom witnessed changes for the better. I fear that unless something changes now, we will continue to drop from the priority agenda, and we will continue to be ignored.

When have we ever been asked what WE want for OUR constituency without terms and conditions?

Now you have the opportunity to discuss what you need. The Conservatives want to listen.

This isn’t about politics, its about finally getting what we, as a constituency, deserve.

Rebecca Brunskill

Now this seems like a campaign...where are they now as those are old quotes.

I'm off to do some more "leg work" on these two to see what they are up to.

Update- Rebecca Brunskill seems to be a HypnotherapistsRebecca Brunskill seems to share the name with a Hypnotherapist, every PPC fighting in a safe seat should have one though, "Now repeat after me 'I can win' "

Now after my initial success of getting replies back from the Tories, and also the Labour party I am now being ignored.

I am more supries that they replied to me in the first place to behonest.

Looks like I will have to do all the leg work and try and find out what our PPCs are up to.

I have google news alerts on the go, links to the left if you want to use them, to keep me notified if any of our PPCs turn up in the news websites.

I am really interested in the "effort" our PPCs will put into getting votes.

From my first few days I get the feeling:

Labour know they are going to walk it and are just doing the motions.
The Tories are giving Jamie a test run, so he is putting in some effort but knows he is not going to win.
The Liberals don't have enough money to fight the Tories for second place and are not bothering.

You wonder why people can't be bothered to vote!

I have emailed all 3 candidates asking them to provide me with a campaign diary (even if its delayed by a day or so) and all campaign material.

This is so I can share it with the people who have missed it and also give it critique on here.

It would also be interesting to know where our candidates are going or have been to get an idea of what they see are key battles in the area.

As Jamie promised the website for the Tories campaign has been updated.

Good to see that Jamies name is a little more obvious than it was before, I'm helping the Tories..what ever next voting for them, we will see.

Right then, lets get to the meat of his campaign...his election policies.

Again it seems a bit cut and paste, but I guess this is how things are in a general election. I do have to say that it has more of a personal touch to it compared to Hilarys "achievements" page.

Now this, look at what we've done...no look at what we could do, they are rubbish..tit for tat stuff reminds me of a little flash cartoon, now if you don't like bad language then don't click.

Well Hilary Armstrongs campaign website is live and it is very slick and to the point.

Nice up to date news page, hopefully this will be kept up so I can track her campaign more easily.

Now I know this is not a local election and I guess this is how a general election works but the:

Achivements page seems a little "copy & paste" with enter constituency here and enter local figures here, I may have a root around a few other Labour PPC's websites to check that one out...probably is and we shouldn't be suprised I suppose.

A nice Action Centre area where you can Volunteer to help etc good touch.

A profesional well thought out job, and in terms of a campaign tool/website it is slicker than Jamie Devlins very good website...and the Liberals don't have one...I am working on that one!