Cllr Julian Gallant is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Ealing Council.

Anyone who thinks a local election campaign is a lightweight warmup for the general election hasn’t done one!

We’ve just been out for the last few days talking to postal voters and burning shoe leather. Lots of Ealing members and other friends are coming out to help in the target wards. Ballots landed on Tuesday and most of the people I’ve spoken to have already sent them back. Ealing Council spent a lot of money getting residents to sign up for postal voting, so there is some truth in the notion that the results are decided well before polling day.

Our Ealing campaign has taken a whole new turn. Conservatives currently hold four seats on the council, which we’re defending of course. We’re also advancing in areas that haven’t been considered viable before, like Greenford and Southall. It’s amazing to see a blaze of blue literature in traditional Labour areas where Labour barely bothers to knock.

People are really switched into local government. I have a feeling that’s down to social media elements like Next Door, resident Whatsapp groups, and good old Facebook, where people share stories about local life, incidents and neighbourhood concerns.

Local authorities know all about this. That’s why Ealing has been divided into seven towns of very different sizes, with funding for community projects open to competitive bid. We’ve been through that process for the first time now, but we won’t see the deliveries until well after these elections.

Political campaigning has obviously evolved. I once thought social media postings were hot air that rose in the wind and evaporated, but people are now saying they’ve seen my video on our election pledges, or the one dramatically pointing to a development we disagree with. Or the other one taking credit for fixed potholes. New road surfacing. Tree prunings. Genuine achievements, the lot of them.

Not to say the social media has somehow replaced print. We’ve been producing a steady stream of literature, in A3, A4 and A5, some printed, some handwritten, but always with very focussed content. If someone says they’ve “had enough”, you might just be getting the message through. There’s no room for playful variety or new topics, once you’ve fixed the main pledges.

There’s no better platform for Conservatives than public safety. We can offer more CCTV coverage, better lighting and support for crime detection measures that make other parties’ wince. We say that you can’t complain about criminals and about facial recognition technology that detects them in crowds.

We can confidently piggyback on existing sanctions for flytippers, yet go further and promise to remove all such tips within 48 hours. That links up with our support for our high streets and local economic vibrancy, which Labour ignores. We’ll clean up the streets much more regularly but also make it easier for drivers to stop for a minute and patronise Ealing’s small businesses.

The Shadow Chancellor’s pledge to abolish business rates on high-street shops and pubs has gone over well; a former Deputy Mayor for the current London Mayor recently said out loud that he thinks business rates should be abolished completely. I’m dreaming of national consensus on this, because such measures will kickstart the country’s entrepreneurial motor. Conservatives are proud capitalists.

Other pledges are more localised. Labour has failed to build a new leisure centre; we’ll move earth by the end of this year. The Borough is struggling to enforce licensing of over 20,000 Houses in Multiple Occupancy; we’ll put more 10 more council officers on the job. Labour has made major planning errors; we’ll keep planning decisions firmly in the control of the local authority and fast track a planning application service for construction of affordable family homes.

Those are the plans we are putting across on the doorstep every day. It’s no job for snide cynics, because the public want to see a positive plan.

And then there are the hidden rewards. Out on the doorstep, you always learn something new, another perspective, a problem you couldn’t have foreseen but one you can potentially solve.

There’s no complacency, just quiet confidence that our vote will crystallise.

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