Well, here we go!  The next 20 days is going to be a very busy time.  But I am really excited by the campaign ahead and looking forward to it. We have had a good result in the local elections here and the campaign team are fired up ready for the challenge ahead. 

I want to keep you in touch with the campaign - and so will be making regular postings on my blog to let you know what we've been up to and how things are going...let me know what you think!

Yesterday afternoon I met David Davis and together we went to see local residents on Meredith Street which is just north of Crewe town centre.   Local residents there have set up a new anti-crime initiative called Home Watch which they have been running for about 6 months.   It's similar to neighbourhood watch schemes but the idea is that it involves more local agencies.  They meet about once a month and discuss the issues that come up with the Police. The reason that they set up this initiative was that the situation in their area was just getting so bad that something had to be done.  It is interesting that when a group of local residents like this take a lead and set up their own initiative, you get a lot of local enthusiasm and start to see results quite quickly.  It's a demonstration of the fact that people really can make a difference if they try.  That is what is happening in Meredith Street.  We talked about the introduction of new "alley gates" to try to reduce crime.  It's an initiative from the local Conservative Council which is really starting to help.  They also explained some of the problems they have with graffiti - and they are working with local families and residents to try to pinpoint where the problem areas are.

Then this morning, I have had a day of campaigning out and about in Nantwich.  It's market day.  It was great to meet the market traders - I know some of them because I sometimes shop there.  We were very well received there today - even though both the other parties were also out.  The Lib Dems hadn't blown up their balloons properly and so they were all deflated.  There was one lady there with a deflated orange balloon tied to her pram, bobbing along behind on the pavement.  She was more than happy to swap it for a nice big blue balloon and on talking to her she said that she was going to vote Conservative.   I visited the fish shop where they had a fantastic selection on display.  We had a number of MPs out with us this morning including Francis Maude and Stephen O'Brien.  We then have David Cameron up for the third time this afternoon...

This morning we start off with some canvassing and campaigning in the Doddington area before heading over to Wyche Primary School.  We will be dropping in on the school assembly to say a few words about what politicians do - and after that we will then be doing a short Q & A with some of the Year 6 children.  This afternoon David Davis is visiting.  We are going to a Home Watch scheme to hear about some of the work they do in combatting crime - more on this later...  

The busiest and longest day of the campaign so far.  An early start with few early morning meetings - then I went with Theresa May to Market Square in Crewe.   We had a lot of Party members out supporting us again and it was another scorching hot day. 

We then went into ASDA and met the manager and staff there.  There was some interesting feedback from them.  They had noticed that in the last few months the shopping habits of people had changed significantly.   People are moving towards value brands and own brands because they are finding it hard to cope with rising prices.  This is not just in certain sectors but across their product range. It seems that people are struggling to find savings anywhere they can to try to keep their weekly shopping bills under control.  It would do Gordon Brown good to listen to some of this.

We moved on to Nantwich and had a good lunch in the Red Cow pub before launching into a full afternoon of canvassing - in both Nantwich and Crewe.  We have had huge support from the parliamentary Party again today, which has been fantastic.  I also popped in to see the landlord of the Cross Keys pub in Crewe.  He has kindly put up some posters to support us. 

Then we headed back to the station this evening to hand out new leaflets to commuters as they leave work.  The possible re-location of Crewe Railway Station is causing quite a bit of concern locally.  I want to have a full public consultation on this issue. 

Finally,  I am now about to head of to public meeting tonight at Wybunbury.

The days ahead will really matter.  Every last hour is crucial and so we have got to keep up the hard work!

I had a final day off yesterday.  It was good to spend a bit of time with the family and re-charge the batteries in preparation for another busy week ahead.  After lunch I watched the football - the final day of the Premier league season. 

David Cameron is up again today - his second visit of the campaign.  We also have many other Shadow Cabinet members coming up to help including William Hague.  We start off this morning in Nantwich - I am going with William Hague to Malbank School where we are doing a Q&A with some of the pupils...

The headteacher at Malbank School is Jeannette Walker and she escorted us over to the 6th form college at the school - there were probably about 50 students in total.  The purpose of this was not to set out a party political case for the Conservatives - but rather to talk more generally about the important role that politics and political debate plays in our democracy.  This is something I feel very strongly about and I really enjoyed discussing it with this group.  There are challenges coming up that they are going to have to face - whether its higher education, passing their driving test and trying to find the money to buy a car or trying to get on the housing ladder.  And these are all challenges that can be directly affected by the government - and so if they are passionate about something then they should try to make a difference.  If everyone took the attitude that "nothing can be done about it", then nothing would ever get done.  They were a very intelligent, engaging and forthright group and their questions were well thought out and researched.   It was invigorating.  I told Jeannette Walker after that I would be happy to come back on a regular basis.

There was then no let up - on to meet David Cameron and then to Crewe Police Station to meet John Armstrong, the acting Chief Superintendent there, to discuss some of the challenges they are facing.  We also had a brief tour of the station - I actually knew Crewe Station from the time when I used to practice criminal law in the area.

Then we finished in Nantwich for a walkabout meeting local people.  The reception there was very good and we popped into a lot of shops along the way to discuss issues affecting them.  We left just enough time at the end for David to visit our Constituency office in Nantwich to thank the local activists for all the hard work they are doing, before getting him back to the train.

First things first - a huge thank you to the three hundred volunteers who have come to Crewe and Nantwich to help us today.  It has been really humbling to have so many people coming to help me from across the country - especially after all the hard work already done for last week's local elections.  I have met so many different people.  We have had whole families turning up to help and spirits have been high.
 
But we still need as much help as we can get. We have already completed several key deliveries and a lot of canvassing was underway today - but we are now in the last half of the campaign and every single hour is crucial.  Next week is going to be particularly tough. There will be good support from the parliamentary party but we also need as much support as possible from other volunteers - particularly during the week.  So even if you can only pop in for an hour or two, please do try to make it up here.  You'll enjoy it!
 
A lot of people ask me whether I am enjoying it -  and I can genuinely say that I am.  There is no doubt that there are long days, it's hot out there and it is hard work.  I think probably the most stressful (but also exciting) thing about campaigns like this is 'the unknown'.   Each day is different and you just don't know what to expect.  You never quite know what challenges you're going to face and who you're going to meet - but they are challenges that I am really relishing. 
 
I am seeing as much of my family as I can but I would like to see more of them. The children are normally in bed by the time I get home in the evening but I still pop my head around the door to see them - because we have light evenings now they still tend to be awake and chatting to each other.  I do see them every morning at breakfast and I'm hoping to be able to have a family lunch tomorrow...

I went with Chris Grayling this afternoon to meet the committee of the Northern Pensioners Association in Crewe (Hugh Emerson was there - I remember he also campaigned against the increase in hospital parking charges).  The top issues on their mind were Council Tax and the 10p tax rate, which is actually affecting some pensioners too.   They clearly felt that they were getting a very raw deal at the moment and were interested in what we had to say. 
 
We have had a lot of MPs up here today - around twenty in all.  It's a big boost to have so much help from the top and I am really hoping that other Party members and supporters will follow their lead.  Later today I was canvassing in Wistaston.  There were quite a few undecided people there and previous Labour voters wanting to hear what we had to say.  The environment also came up a couple of times today.
 
I have a short break of about 5 minutes now - but then will be back out for the final round of campaigning this evening.

Today we have a lot of MPs coming up to help us.  I will be going with Alan Duncan and Charles Hendry to Post Offices in Crewe and Nantwich.  We have lost four very important Post Offices here recently under Gordon Brown's compulsory closure scheme - 2 in Crewe and 2 in Nantwich.   Local people here are very angry about it and don't know why Gordon Brown is refusing to listen to them.  We had a petition signed by 3000 local people last year which I delivered to Downing Street but he didn't take any notice.  We are going to speak to the Sub-postmistress at Shavington.  I know her quite well and have met her a few times now.  She is worried about the future and fears that her Post Office may be the next in line for closure.   There is a close knit community in Shavington and the Post Office plays an important role there.
 
I am also told by my campaign team that Nick Clegg is dropping into the area today.  There was a big group of Conservative supporters handing out newspapers at the station as he arrived.  The car that was driving him was parked on double yellow lines.  Chris Rennard, who runs all the Lib Dem campaigns, has also been spotted briefing journalists.  The talk around all the journalists up here is that he doesn't think the Lib Dems can get anywhere in Crewe and Nantwich and so he wants to divert all their resources to Henley instead.

We did a little bit of campaigning early this morning handing out newspapers at Crewe train station.  But it is Gwyneth Dunwoody's funeral today and so, as a mark of respect, we will be pausing all of our campaigning from 11 am and there won't be any more leafleting done until late this afternoon.  Gwyneth Dunwoody was a real one-off.  She was proud of this area and wasn't afraid to speak her mind and always stayed loyal to her beliefs.  In an age of spin, she was what a politician really ought to be and she'll be a tough act to follow.  My thoughts are with her family today.

We have had people helping us from all over the country today.  This afternoon we did a big canvassing operation for over three hours in Baroney Weaver with a team of about 10 volunteers.  A group from Nuneaton had brought up a good team and they joined up with local volunteers to get things done.  We came across some really interesting people. One guy who was concerned about the way things were going for businesses in Crewe and Nantwich and he thought that only the Conservatives would be able to bring enterprise and regeneration back.   Another was really worried about the sharp rises in petrol prices because the cost of the school run was really starting to take its toll. 

All in all a pretty exhausting day and it's been very hot -  but we got a lot of miles under our belt and its been really productive...a few final meetings now and then back for a good night's sleep! 

Caroline Spelman has been down today and kindly brought with her a group of Party volunteers from her constituency in Solihull.  We have been out and about in Crewe East canvassing around Market Street.  It was a scorching day today - hotter than yesterday.   We headed in to town for lunch at the Grand Junction Pub where I had a very nice baked potato before going on to do a radio interview about the regeneration of the town centre.
 
After lunch we went on to the Jubilee House day care centre on St Pauls street in Crewe. Its quite a big facility but they are at capacity and actually have a waiting list for people who want to use the centre.  Today they had Wistaston primary school there to put on a perfomance for them - with some wonderful singing and dancing. 
 
The elderly people at the centre had raised a lot of concerns about the polyclinic at Rope Green.  The two worries they had are that the transport links are not great and so they were worried about how they would get there. The second concern was that they were not sure which doctor they would be able to see, having got used to having their own GP in the local surgery.  The staff were also worried because they often used to pop around the corner to get prescriptions for people at the centre but they would no longer be able to do that.
 
It reinforced my view that Gordon Brown's plans to shut down local surgeries have just not been thought through properly.

I have had dealings with the media before but I have never faced a media scrum of the scale we saw today.  There was a very strong turnout from local Party supporters with balloons and banners.  Morale was very high and there was a lot of noise.  David and I walked through Crewe and spoke to a lot of local people.  We had a good reaction going around and went into a couple of shops.  There was a little coffee shop there that I know well and use a lot and the lady there came out to chat to us.  We were told that there might also be a few Labour activists around who were apparently going to try to disrupt the visit but it didn't come to much.  I saw the occasional red placard early on but they were massively out-numbered and so I think they felt a bit silly and diasppeared as quickly as they came.   
 
After all of that, I went back out leafleting with other activists later this afternoon to finish off a busy but productive day... more of the same tomorrow I hope.

OK - so we have been out on Ruskin road in Crewe this morning which is just off the Nantwich Road.  I met lots of local people and had some interesting feedback.  The weather has held up really well.  It's a beautiful sunny day here with a refreshing breeze. 
 
I came across someone who said that they had voted Lib Dem in the local election but would definitely be voting Conservative in the by-election.  Encouraging.  The Lib Dems were way behind in the local elections and can't win in this by election.  I am hoping that some life-long Lib Dem voters will lend me their support this time and rally round to make sure that we can send a message to Gordon Brown.
 
I also came across a young couple who have previously voted Labour but were feeling very let down.  They wanted to know what we could do for them.  They were concerned about the level of crime in the area and recently had someone break into their garage.  They were interested in our plans to cut anti-social behaviour because they said that was one of the reasons they were afraid to let their 11 year old out at night.  I talked about the ideas we have locally for alley gating to try to reduce crime and also alcohol free zones and getting the police re-claim the streets.
 
Off to meet David Cameron shortly....

This morning we are going to be out and about in Crewe meeting local people and finding out what issues are affecting them at the moment.  Then later on David Cameron is coming up and we are going to be meeting the Chronicle which is one of the local papers here.  I have worked quite closely with the Chronicle for the best part of a year now since I was selected as the candidate last summer.
 
There has been a change for the better in the weather.  The sun is out and it looks like it is going to be the nicest day of campaigning so far - so we are hoping there will be a lot of volunteers out and that we will cover a lot of ground and have a successful day.
 
We will be back on the campaign trail this afternoon...

The traffic on the way to Stapeley Water Gardens was absolutely horrendous and there were thunderstorms again today.  But it's a great place - a good wet weather option.  Others had obviously thought the same because it was very busy with a lot of other parents with the kids looking for something to do.
 
We managed to find a puppet show (not Punch and Judy) and Elizabeth was straight in.  Absolutely fascinated by it - especially when the music started.  She has a good sense of rythmn and was tapping away to the beat of the music and joining in enthusiastically.
 
They have a little zoo with reptiles and spiders which are real favourites with Sam.  Elizabeth's favourites are the parrots.  We were going to get their faces painted at the end but they started to get a bit tired by that stage so we headed off.
 
This afternoon I have a lot of campaign planning meetings. There is a lot of draft literature that I need to turn my attention to and we have a busy programe coming up.  There are so many people coming up to help, it's fantastic - morale is really high.  It will be good to get going properly again tomorrow when we have David Cameron coming up.