Campaigning in Little Moscow

There is a village in Blaydon constituency called Chopwell which is nicknamed "Little Moscow" because of its previous socialist inclinations. It has streets such as Marx Terrace and Lenin Terrace. Chopwell is still something of a Labour stronghold, though we are not deterred by that and are looking to make in roads there.

So 7 of us, including myself and Peter Maughan, our PPC for Blaydon, headed up there today to deliver a Focus, which also covered the neighbouring village of Blackhall Mill. We delivered about 900 and will complete the rest of the village shortly.

Given that Moscow has turned capitalist and socialism collapsed there nearly a generation ago, I'm not sure whether the tag of "Little Moscow" is appropriate any more. But there again, calling it a Labour stronghold is not the same as calling it a socialist stronghold. After all, under Blair and Brown, Labour and socialism are hardly the same thing!

Peter Maughan and I, and my two ward colleagues Marilynn and John, also paid a visit to the Methodist Chapel autumn charity fayre in my village of Sunniside this morning. I stocked up on cakes and peas pudding (the people on the stall loved my story about taking peas pudding to London for people down there to try it out!) and David stocked up with more plants for the garden.

Now I'm writing more Focuses. A Glen Miller track is playing on the pc and the cooking smells of dinner are wafting up the stairs from the kitchen to my office. How wonderfully civilised!