One Week With John Gullliver - Time out for the One O’Clock Club

Published: 29 April, 2010

• A TORY leaflet has got up the backs up of three mothers, I hear.
Amber Wood, Naomi Bloomstein and Fran Evans, all regulars with their little ones at the One O’Clock parents and children’s club on Hampstead Heath, were involved in a campaign last year to save it from closure. They duly appeared at a demonstration and had their pictures taken by the New Journal.
This week they were “mortified” to find an almost identical picture appear on a leaflet, boasting that the Tory candidate Chris Philp had played a leading role in saving the club.
Amber rang a colleague saying she had received a phone call from a friend expressing  disbelief that Amber had turned true blue.
“We were all utterly horrified to see ourselves standing next to the Tory candidate,” she said. “None of us knew who he was, and had never seen him at the club. For him to claim he helped save it is complete nonsense.”
Mr Philp said: “I was simply highlighting a campaign I was happy to support. There is no indication that the people in the picture support the Conservatives.”
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems have also raised the ire of voters with their leaflets. Pam Gilbey, the respected former chairwoman of the South End Green Association, had campaigned to keep her local post office open. She then found herself displayed on a Lib Dem leaflet – a party she says she does not endorse.