Chris Galley

What a week, and an outcome no-one predicted. My overseas friends are somewhat surprised that a deal was sorted out so quickly. It took Angela Merkel the best part of 40 days to get her first terms negotiated.
One of the few odd moments in our Hexham campaign was a young lad, with presumably Liberal Democrat [...]

This is it – Election Day. I go to my polling station to vote at exactly 7 am when it opens. Not surprisingly I am the first voter. It is one of England’s smallest polling station in terms of electors, but there are quite a few in that category in the Hexham constituency.
Afterwards I head [...]

This is the weekend round up. On Saturday we spent the morning in Ovingham and Wylam, and the afternoon at the top end of Hexham’s Beaumont Park. Sundays have been frowned about in Tory circles. I can well remember as a kid seeing Tory campaign calenders with Sundays blocked out with the phrase “Dies non” and [...]

One of the things that make elections so interesting is when something happens quickly. Believe or not, the picture shown left was almost a spontaneous demonstration! The back story is that we had planned for Theresa Villiers (Shadow Transport Secretary) to visit us possibly next Monday to talk about the A1. The Conservatives have promised [...]

On a number of fronts it has been a strange few days. Yesterday I was in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (BRS) constituency, which is just over the border from me in Scotland. Currently held by the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative candidate John Lamont is hoping to win the seat, and there’s certainly a lot going [...]

Today I’ve been campaigning for Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who is standing as the Conservative candidate against Sir Alan Beith in Berwick upon Tweed. This is (like Hexham) a massive constituency, it takes multiple hours to get from one corner to the other. My canvasss and leaflet round was based on the left hand side of the [...]

On Friday we packed off to Carlisle to help out John Stevenson, who is fighting to win Carlisle off Labour – we call it mutual assistance. We canvassed a lot of houses, but it was only a small chunk of what seemed like a huge estate. Being Tories, we benefit from top flight canvass board managers, [...]

Today’s highlight was undoubtedly the Hexham Abbey hustings. Personally I also greatly enjoyed the Sung Evensong beforehand, using the Book of Common Prayer. The language of that service is familiar to many, many generations of my family. There’s a line in it towards the end: “by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers [...]

The secrets of canvassing won’t be revealed here. Other than that we use various letters to describe voters. So C is Conservative, P for potential Conservative, L for Liberal and so on. Labour’s code letter is S, as in Socialist, which sounds perversely quaint now. Actually those who get an S in this election’s canvass [...]

I know this will get more feedback than any other picture I put up this week. I’m a dog lover in a big way, and this puppy is the latest addition to the farm. She has the working title of Precious, and is now 6 weeks old. She spends her whole time sleeping or eating, [...]

Today’s crowd of supporters come from Ogle, which is not one of the larger villages, so it didn’t take long to get the place canvassed. It was deceptively cold this morning and so we were glad that mugs of coffee in the heated conservatory were laid on, though I managed to leave my camera there [...]

Given my taxi services to the Tory frontbench, I’ve been – let’s say – a bit more careful about keeping my car spick and span of late. One friend of mine saw it in the back of a regional TV news bulletin and rang me up: “Have you bought another new car?! It’s very shiny.” So last night [...]

Canvassing everywhere it feels. First off was Wylam, then Ovington. After that I went with Guy, Fiona and Bev to Ovingham, before ending up in Horsley.
Then we did one good canvassing chunk of Corbridge with the assistance of this motley crew! Plus a camera shy Penelope. Lovely warm day, tanned if not burnt.

Not many orgies in Corbridge, or so Guy Opperman was told today by an 85 year old resident, and who are we to challenge that? Location will remain anonymous to protect the guilty, and I am sure Guy’s blog will tell us more in due course. And not many Liberal Democrats either, it would appear, [...]

Here’s is today gratuitous shadow minister shot, Jim Paice, shadow Minister of Agriculture.  This came at Darlington Station at the end of a long, long day of driving, from Berwick down to the North Riding of Yorkshire, and quite a few points in between. There were 4 farms involved, all very different from each other. The [...]

By popular request (well one person has asked me), here is a sheep picture. Knowing about the general election likely timings, I sent the tups (rams) in a few weeks early, to get the lambing out of the way. This is my main Zwartbles tup, Poseidon. Quite a hefty character. One down side of early lambing [...]

I guess Chris Grayling gets fed up of people commenting on his height, but he really is tall. He is also cool, cerebral and likeable, particularly on a one to one basis. Today I was asked to take the shadow Home Secretary around the North East, which we did at break-neck speed.
First stop was Alnwick, [...]

And so to Gosforth to help out Nick Holder, who is standing for the Conservatives in the new seat of Newcastle Central. Newcastle also has local elections for its unitary authority, and so for the first time I came across Labour and Lib-Dem election material. Incidentally I’ve still not seen a single poster for anyone [...]

I spent the whole day in Prudhoe. Now this is unlikely territory for us, but we rolled in with 18 helpers and got 85% of the town leafletted and canvassed. Not sure where the other parties were, not much evidence of them on the ground. I was with a team of 6 and we really [...]

One enormous privilege I have already had out of this election campaign has been to take shadow cabinet ministers around the area. For a number of reasons I was particularly pleased that Nick Herbert was able to visit Belsay and then Berwick, speaking at farmers’ meetings in both locations. Nick is the shadow secretary of state for [...]

My first VIP job. Today I am driving Ken Clarke around the North East. We started at BBC Newcastle, went around to Tynemouth to see Wendy Morton, then off to Sunderland to support Lee Martin, before ending up in Durham. Luckily he made his train back to the Midlands, since we were running horribly late in [...]

Today we finish off Otterburn and Tarset. The weather is very pleasant and I meet a few residents pottering around in their gardens, or farmers busy with lambing. I’ve been asking whether our leaflet is the first one to get out, and everytime we’ve beaten the competition, so far at least. One local character, when I [...]

Shaking off a bad cold, picked up last week from our PPC, Guy Opperman, I race up to Byrness as soon as the Gordon goes to Buckingham Palace. I’ve only got 820 leaflets to deliver, but covering a vast area, nearly 500 square miles in all. Byrness is an easy one, 50 houses built by [...]