A truly amazing day today. Eddie Izzard, comedian, actor, marathon hero, Labour supporter and all round nice guy, joined us in Horsforth this morning to lend his support to our campaign. We held a hugely successful street stall on the high street with loads of local residents signing our petition to protect Surestart, before Eddie and I gave an interview to the press about our campaign here in Pudsey, the challenges we face and the vision of a fair future that we represent.
I'll post a video of the interview as soon as it becomes available, but until then, here is Eddie's PPB on behalf of Labour:
Well, what an eventful week it's been. The media circus has descended on Pudsey! I'm sure that many of you watching Look North this week will have noticed that our constituency has become the main focus of their election reporting, with a camera crew following me and my team around on a typical day out canvassing. It was a bit surreal at first, but after a while it was just business as usual and we barely even noticed that the cameras were around. Luckily, we got a great turnout of activists and a really positive response on the doorsteps, so hopefully the dedication of our team and the belief in what we're doing really came across on tv.
I'm sure many of you will also have seen my star turn on the local knowledge version of Mastermind this week. I think I did quite well actually. I was worried I'd get all my questions wrong, but somehow I managed to answer all my questions correctly. Mind you, I have spent most of the week having random questions shouted at me by members of my team, so it's to be expected that I picked up at least some knowledge. And of course, having lived here since I was a kid it would have been pretty embarassing if I hadn't picked up at least a little local knowledge!
Today we were lucky to get a visit from David Lammy, the higher education minister, for some doorstep canvassing in Pudsey. Lots of Labour students turned out and we had a very productive morning meeting local residents before David went on to Leeds University to host a discussion with students on the government's policy for higher education.
