St John's Gardens

Within the city centre St Johns Gardens which runs between the Museum of Science and Industry and Granada more or less is the part of town which has been properly serviced by the parties for the last twenty years.

This is because, unlike most of the centre, these homes have good old letter boxes by the front door. The rest often require guile or luck to gain access. And for years most of them have been neglected.

When I first take on the City Centre campaign for the 2004 campaign - it is ranked 32 out of 32 in our list of winnability - I am told that printing more than 2000 leaflets is a waste of time and money. We print 5000 anyway. And we find 5000 doors to put them through. In fact by adding in the student halls we are eventually able to do an edition of 8000 and get them all through doors as well.

And in all in that campaign we distributed 45,000 pieces of print including about 15,000 Unite Against Fascism/Manchester Against Racism/Anti BNP letters.

I text Jim who is Tony Lloyd's main agent and he joins me, taking an early lunch as soon as he can get away from his Unison duties. We get round St Johns Gardens in no time and move on to Liverpool Road. Letterboxes here too. 500 more leaflets of two flavours are out and before the expenses clock start ticking as Tony Blair is still on his way to Buck Palace.