Meeting the members...officially!

Saturday was the first 'official' opportunity for prospective candidates like me to meet members and discuss our candidacies and your ideas for making Putney Labour again.

Of course, I've been doing precisely this for over three weeks as part of my selection campaign, as well as counting many members as good friends going back years.

The event at Putney Labour Party headquarters in Felsham Road was attended by nine of the 20 or so applicants and many of the most active members of the constituency. It was both good and bad to see so many familiar faces among the members: good because I've already had a chance to talk to them but bad because it reminds me how much larger a constituency party we need to build in the next two years in order to compete effectively at the general election.

After the meeting we all had lunch and then delivered some editions of Putney Labour News featuring the Conservative Council's shameful efforts to close Wandsworth Museum, before I went back to calling personally on local members - this time in Thamesfield ward (which for those of you who don't think in terms of council ward names is Putney riverside - central Putney broadly north of Upper Richmond Road from Putney Common in the west to the River Wandle in the east.