How to lose voters

During the 1983 general election, I campaigned every single day with great zeal and avidity. I knocked on quite literally thousands of doors enquiring of people if we, the Labour party, could count on their support on 9 June. I would start at 9 o’clock and finish 12 hours later, taking a break at about 7 p.m. because interrupting Coronation Street was considered a vote loser.

I did all this with my hair spiked up in jagged tufts held in place by gallons of hairspray, and with a little bit of eyeliner and maybe a streak of blusher on my cheeks. My favoured shirt was fluorescent blue stripes on a pale blue background. My jeans were ripped at both knees. A pair of ragged Converse baseball boots and two badges – one promoting the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the other pledging my affection for a band called Cabaret Voltaire – completed my outfit.

I reckon I must have singlehandedly lost my party a good 5,000 votes. Cardiff West – Labour in every election before 1983 and indeed in every election since – fell to the Tories in the shape of the ‘eccentric’, not to mention borderline deranged, Stefan Terlezki. These days I like to imagine what the predominantly working-class voters thought when they opened their front doors to me. ‘Vote Labour and make absolute tossers like this happy’ is the obvious answer.

It was a depressing campaign for me, as well as for Michael Foot, of course. I remember only one moment with fondness. Towards the end of the fourth week of campaigning, I had been sent to a very affluent area of the city. I was absolutely knackered, desperate for a pint, and the last house on my list was the grandest of them all.