LAST week Mr McManus kindly inquired in your letters page as to what I would do for Ealing and Acton.
My website covers a range of national and local issues, ones that people talk to me about when I knock on their doors, be it the two-week guarantee for potential cancer patients seeing a specialist, or the continued investment in our schools which has doubled under a Labour government. These are important to every single resident I meet.
Featured on my website are details of the campaigns I have fought, including saving post offices - such as the time I convinced the authorities that the South Acton Post Office should stay open. Unfortunately the owner opted for retirement.
Also featured was the push to get the council to refund unjustly gained funds through incorrectly enforced CCTV cameras.
Other campaigns, featured on my website and motions proposed by Labour at the council, such as recycling for flats, discounts for local residents and better means of charging for parking, were so popular that the Tories have bowed to our pressure and implemented them.
On the issue of Ealing town centre, which was at the centre of the discussion on Monday night, I hope he was able to see that my response to a problem is to take a lead, as I have done throughout my time as a local councillor, on issues affecting local residents. This is in stark contrast with the Conservatives, who allow developers to dictate terms to the people of Ealing - an approach the divided Conservative panel members could not agree on themselves.
With regard to the insert you refer to, it would be nice to be able to spend £3,300 on a glossy magazine, plus the cost of commercially distributing it as my opponent did.
However, I am not bankrolled by a peer whose residency in the UK has still not been clarified, or a local millionaire councillor.
I have to stick to old-fashioned campaigning, speaking at local meetings and on the doorsteps, and I look forward to meeting Mr McManus and as many residents as possible over the next few weeks. If anyone does have issues they wish to raise with me directly then they can contact me on Bassam@bassam4ealingacton.com.
Cllr BASSAM MAHFOUZ Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Ealing Central and Acton
