JO WOOD CAMPAIGN REPORT.

May 31: After weeks of campaigning, "You can see there's growing awareness in the UK that there's an election coming up", reports Jo Wood, one of the Socialist candidates for a European Parliament seat representing the South-East England constituency. Highly-publicised delays in printing ballot papers (the UK is experimenting with postal voting in four constituencies in this election), and the intervention of celebrities such as former "Dynasty" star Joan Collins on behalf of the anti-EU UK Independence Party are generating interest - even if people on the street "are still confused about whether they are voting over the European Parliament, a referendum on the EU Constitution, or on joining the Euro". And "the UK media are starting to cover the election in a generally balanced way", she adds, with evident relief. But the main issues Jo encounters on the doorstep or on the hustings are still immigration, the popularity of Tony Blair, and local matters, rather than European issues.

But the UK election for the European Parliament is inevitably coloured by local issues since it is taking place at the same time as local elections across the country. Jo has been criss-crossing her part of the constituency with local party activists, leafleting, canvassing and taking part in public meetings - often with a strongly local flavour, from Thame to Bicester, from Wycombe to Oxford, and often pushing leaflets for the local elections through letter boxes alongside her own election material.

She features on a new leaflet profiling the ten Labour candidates for the ten...