Kitty Ussher, Labour's parliamentary candidate for Burnley has been giving us her perspective on the state of play going into the election. We'll be hearing from her regularly over the coming weeks of the campaign. She reckons there are clear signs of progress under the Labour government:
"So at last the starting gun has been fired. Last night I hosted a tea and samosas party in one of our target areas. It was a good turnout and a positive atmosphere and I simply didn't recognise Ed Vaizey's description of events in what people were telling me."
Kitty Ussher writes:
What Burnley has seen in the last few years is action in precisely the areas that people want. Whether it's cash to regenerate our rundown housing, £150m to build five fantastic state-of-the-art brand new secondary schools, investing in new hospital buildings or a new shopping centre, Labour is regenerating Burnley in a way the Tories never bothered to do.
The next election is not a referendum on Mr Blair, it's a choice between building on this progress we've made or going back to being run by people who weren't just incompetent in economic policy but proved by their actions that they just didn't care about public services or regenerating places like Burnley. I'm looking forward to making the point forcefully that Burnley needs to vote Labour to help our town move forward, not back.
