On the campaign trail with Garth Frankland

Left Alliance candidate for Chapel Allerton, Leeds

Two years ago Garth Frankland gained over 1000 votes as the Left Alliance candidate for Chapel Allerton ward in Leeds. Today he is having another go against my old university chum and former President of Leeds University Student Union, Neil Taggart.

On paper Neil should have an easy task going into the election with a 1000-vote lead. However over the last two years and especially over the last six months there has been a growing disillusionment with New Labour. Neil's problems are multiplied by his complete identification with the ineffective and lacklustre Blairite Leeds City Council. And despite a number of high-profile media appearances, which some cynics say are really part of his election campaign, he has not been so visible inside Chapel Allerton. West Yorkshire Police are perceived as having let the electorate down over real policing. Despite this he has run a typically laid-back campaign relying on his identification as the Labour candidate. This should be enough to give him victory and to enable him to spend more time away from Chapel Allerton.

Garth campaigning in Leeds with Liz Davies

Garth too is taking it fairly easy. Over the last three weeks he has attended services at the Roscoe Methodist Church and Church of God Easterly Road. He has also visited the Sikh Temple.

The only time I really saw him come to life was at the city-centre demonstration on Palestine organised by the Grand Mosque and others.

The campaign has encouraged Garth's ability to stop whatever he is doing and gossip. I saw him screech his car to a halt to chat to George Mudie, MP for East Leeds, who was campaigning on Shepherds Lane. George thanked Garth for his support in the Yorkshire Evening Post for tenants to be given the right for a ballot on Council House privatisation.

Further up Shepherds Lane he met the leftist (and thoroughly nice) Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Teare. He too was friendly but busy chasing housing problems.

Garth and his small team have mainly been leafleting and then more leafleting. This exercise has had to substitute for some of Garth's visits to the gym.

In a campaign that has mainly been characterised by hard work and very little to show for it, Garth has had the occasional success. For instance, a fair number of residents came to one of his "meet the candidate" events in St Mary's Road. They raised concerns over vandalism and the decaying former Hindu Temple. This building, along with its front portion owned by the Sikh Temple, was once an important non-conformist church. In the 19th century the Vicar was very impressed by Das Kapital, and another important minister was the Rev Stowell, who wrote the famous Chapeltown novel The History of Button Hill.

One major feature of the leafleting side of the campaign has been the blood. Malcolm has been attacked three times by dogs, Brian once, and Mike by a cat! The electorate obviously doesn't trust Mr Taggart's law and order policies in practice.

Celia and Garth took part in the Vaisakhi procession from the Sikh Temple to the Ramgarah Board. At the Board there there was a range of wonderful snacks and Garth had to be persuaded hard not to go round again for seconds. That would really have destroyed his hopes in the marathon. Garth went on to Millennium Square where he addressed 3000 Sikhs, bringing greetings from the Left and Socialist Alliances. He shared the platform with three New Labourites and representatives from the Sikh community of Leeds. Afterwards he mingled with the crowds. Later that day he returned to the Sikh Temple for the wonderful firework display and then on to the social at the Barbados centre till the early hours of the morning.

And then on the Sunday more leafleting.

Spotted

Our old comrade from Harehills Labour Party, Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon ... his private vehicle was seen in Leeds, "B4 OON".

A tale of two meetings

Chapel Allerton Left Alliance meets at Chapel Allerton Primary School on the first Tuesday in the month. To avoid any embarrassment the semi-reconstituted Chapel Allerton Labour Party meets on the second Tuesday. However occasionally because of school holidays they clash.

This happened at the latter's inaugural meeting, where over twenty members of the Labour Party met just after Christmas, swamping the handful of LA members who had turned up to listen to a very interesting and worthy talk on Leeds education. However in April, the next time the meetings coincided, the situation had completely reversed. Only a handful of dispirited New Labour party activists turned up while there was a large and lively meeting of the Left Alliance which heard John McDermott, Senior Unison Steward in Leeds Housing, and Steve Skinner, a leading activist in the successful 'no to privatisation' campaign in Little London, speak. The Labour Party members couldn't even be persuaded to go out and leaflet which used to be the tradition in the old Labour Party. They looked rather sad.

-- Half-Celestial Khan

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issue 40 * wednesday, april 24th, 2002

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