Douglas Carswell

Clacton spring

Spring has sprung in Clacton. It is a joy to be out knocking on doors.

The daffodils and magnolias are out – and my window posters are going up.

Yesterday we almost completed the delivery of my early leaflet. With around 35,000 to deliver, that's a lot of letter boxes. But with dozens of local volunteers, it's more or less done.

Mid-afternoon a car pulled up alongside me. Two Jehovah's Witnesses wanted to help too. Unable to vote, they asked if they could take some leaflets to give out to friends and neighbours. A wonderful moment in so many ways.....

Back in the office for a quick tea break, a London-based journalist came in to do a short interview. The questions were almost identical to the ones asked by the previous London journalist, and the one before that.

First comes the suggestion – sorry, question - that UKIP is extremist. I point out patiently that it wasn't a UKIP candidate that tried to cut a deal with the racist English Defence League. It was a Cameron "A list" Conservative.

Then there come the set of questions that are really an attack on UKIP immigration policy. I gently suggest that there is nothing unreasonable in wanting to control our borders or limit the right of 400 million people to settle here.  Australia does it. 

Not for the first time, I am struck by how many journalists working for national newspapers don't seem to be in the business of reporting what they see and hear.  Particularly during an election campaign, they seem to be fishing around for quotes and observations that they can insert into a story they had in mind before they left London. Perhaps their editor instructed them on what sort of piece to write?

"Why" ask some of the more reflective ones "is this mood of anti-politics so strong?"

Perhaps, I suggest, it is not simply a revolt against out of touch Westminster politicians. It is a rejection of a smug, self-regarding commentariat, which has for too long sought to define for the rest of us the parameters of public policy debate.

I'm not sure they always get that last point.

Today we start leaflet number two .... Week two, and we are ahead of schedule here in Clacton.

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