I’M WRITING this on the one day off in my two-week Kick Out The Tories tour, which started in Norwich a week last Thursday and ends with an election-night party at my lovely local Duke of Wellington in Shoreham next Thursday.  

I only started planning it three weeks ago and was overwhelmed by the response — I have 13 gigs and was offered double that number.
 
It was inspired by the amazing, dedicated canvassers of my local CLP, East Worthing and Shoreham, just one bunch in thousands of you all over the country giving everything to get a Labour government elected.

It’s my tribute to you all — I’m playing for expenses only, raising funds and, I hope, raising spirits.
 
I’m not the best canvasser in the world. Confronted with the inane parroting of right-wing tabloid editorials by modern day Ragged Trousered Philanthropists I can wax sarcastic and, confronted with abuse, I invariably respond in kind.

That is obviously not what is required — I’m far better standing on a stage talking to people than I am standing on a doorstep listening, so that’s what I’m doing.
 
We’re a veritable army out there, outnumbering the Tories maybe ten to one. But they don’t need to canvass because they have 80 per cent of the press and the vast majority of the broadcasters to do it for them.

Even by their own abject standards, the mainstream media have plumbed new depths of biased Tory brown-nosing this time round. If this election were a football match, we’d be trying to beat the opposition with a referee bribed by billionaires and the bribes declared perfectly legal by the game’s governing body.
 
I did two gigs with Ed Miliband in and around his home constituency of Doncaster last Saturday and had a fascinating conversation with him about the personal effect on him of the disgusting abuse he and his family received from the Tory press before the 2015 election.

Such treatment of Labour leaders has been constant over the decades, the only exception being Blair who flew to Australia and begged Rupert Murdoch to support him — “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, Rupert, I promise...”

This isn’t democracy. There’s no point in sucking up to the Tory press, and well done Corbyn for standing up to them.
 
I started in Norwich North, one of the most marginal seats in the country, backed by a brilliant reggae sound system and we raised hundreds of pounds for local candidate Karen Davis’ campaign.

Then to Wakefield for a sold-out gig at the legendary Red Shed and a big wedge of cash for Pauline Town’s wonderful We Shall Overcome project; Doncaster where over £8,000 was raised for the flood victims; Coventry, where local poet The Archbishop did a great support set and hundreds of pounds were raised for Coventry North West candidate Taiwo Owatemi’s campaign; Margate in the beautiful Old Market for North Thanet candidate Dr Coral Jones, and last Wednesday night I was in Whitehawk at a fund raiser for the local food bank.
 
Last night I hit Aberystwyth, tonight Pembroke Dock, then the long, long drive to Hartlepool on Sunday, Monday Newcastle, Tuesday Long Eaton, Wednesday Harlow and home for a big election-night party and, I so, so much hope, a Labour government which can heal the pain of the last nine years of Tory rule.
 
Whatever happens, I know that next Thursday I will have done everything I can. If you feel as I do, get out there and help in your local constituency or nearest marginal.