SamCam volunteers to help George Lee dish up lunch at centre Dobbo helped set up 30 years ago

Published: 15 April 2010
Election diary by Richard Osley

• SAMANTHA Cameron was surrounded by hectoring minders when she visited the Surma Centre in Regent’s Park on Tuesday. “Can I just hold you there?,” one asked me. Oo-er missus etcetera. I’d rather you didn’t. As strictly controlled as the event was, surely her Press people hadn’t kept the voluntary lunch club waiting on purpose. Stomachs were audibly rumbling when she finally turned up an hour late, whipped on an apron and started dishing out the food. It was hard to know whether the room was going wild for the Tory leader’s wife or the long-awaited ladles of lamb curry.

• BY the way, the official line is: SamCam’s visit to this parish was not part of the official General Election campaign, she was just promoting the wonderfulness of voluntary work. For the avoidance of doubt: the man standing next to her in our unofficial picture above is George Lee, the Conservative candidate officially campaigning for your vote in the official constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.

• DAVID Miliband cracked a funny when I asked him yesterday what he thought of his beloved Arsenal’s creaking Premiership title ambitions. This was before they lost at Spurs last night. “Ah,” he clunked. “It’s all about late surges. Late surges.” See what he did there? Here’s a man, you understand, desperate for the Blues to drop points very quickly... otherwise Chelsea will be champs before we know it.

• LABOUR members were clearly irritated by the Conservatives’ swoop on the Surma Centre. Truth is, it’s a popular place for politicians to visit on the (official) campaign trail. Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Jo Shaw is not a stranger to the place, while Labour’s Climate Change  minister Ed Miliband popped in a couple of weeks ago. Frank Dobson, who yesterday (Wednesday) went there for a Bangladeshi New Year lunch (24 hours after Cameron had left), thinks he has the trump card, asking for a check of the history books and railing: “I helped set the building up 30 years ago.”

• DON’T worry Dobbo: you’ve definitely got one vote in the bag. Broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell who lives in Primrose Hill told the Observer on Sunday that she on side. ”He voted against the war in Iraq,” said Dame Joan. “He fights to stop NHS privatisation. He happens to be Labour.” Not the most resounding endorsement for the Labour Party which gave her the role as Older People’s Champion, but a celebrity big-up for Frank nevertheless.

• BACK to Miliband, David. Firing in all directions, he said: “The Tories are abdicating responsibility when they say to parents that if you don’t like your local school you can go away and set your own one up.” I bit my lip hard and repeated a hundred times in my head: Don’t ask him whether he likes his local school or not...

Regular readers will remember he rejected the closest primary school to his home in Primrose Hill for his son.

• STAY in school kids, don’t gamble. Save your money... 

But if you are passing the bookmakers, you will see interesting movements in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency. Glenda Jackson was quoted by Ladbrokes as a money-making 7/2 flutter, trailing both Ed Fordham (Lib Dem) and Chris Philp (Con) in the stakes. To put that in context, Lib Dem Jo Shaw is the same 7/2 odds to unseat Frank Dobson down south.