Council elections 2006:

Great response in Lewisham

"Thank you for all your hard work on behalf of the council tenants - keep it up, some of us can't afford to buy our own homes!"... "I'll vote for Ian Page till I die." These are just two of the many positive comments that we've received from people in the Telegraph Hill ward in Lewisham, south east London in our first few weeks of canvassing.

Chris Newby

When Socialist Party candidate, Chris Flood, won the by-election in Telegraph Hill ward in 2003 to join Socialist Party councillor Ian Page, this was the first time that the ward covering the Telegraph Hill area did not have a single Labour councillor.

We are determined to make sure it stays that way - as well as keeping it a Tory and Lib Dem-free area too - by getting Chris and Ian re-elected and our third Socialist Party candidate, Jess Leech, elected.

Our first canvassing has been amongst council tenants using two leaflets on the local housing campaign. One is aimed at tenants the council is aiming to transfer to an 'arms length management organisation' and the other is for tenants faced with transfer to a housing association.

Most tenants we speak to are keen to sign our petition, which argues for tenants to have the right to have a vote to stay with the council with full public funding for the improvements necessary for council homes.

We have been getting a great response from people saying they are definitely voting for us and we also have 18 people who have shown an interest in either joining the Socialist Party or finding out more.

One person who received a leaflet on lunchtime Sunday, emailed in about three hours later asking for more information and saying that they would be coming to Socialist Party meetings. At a recent meeting, three came along as a result of receiving our leaflet on housing.

We have now sold 125 copies of the socialist and raised £90 for the Socialist Party fighting fund. We ask people for donations on the doorstep and they are willing to contribute to the campaign to get socialists elected who will fight housing privatisation.

We are determined to make sure that we increase the Socialist Party's representation on Lewisham council and that by the end of the campaign we will have built a strong base for establishing a second thriving Socialist Party branch in Lewisham.

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