Paul Gregory's LJ - The Power Of The Leaflet

Didn't answer the leaflets question. I think we got one leaflet from everyone. The Green party had the most prominent lampost signage, can't remember seeing any for the Conservative and BNP candidates, and not many for the Lib Dems. I should have answered that quantity of leaflets did have an impact, since I thought the Greens didn't give me any. I'd just not spotted it.

The most prominent advertsing locally was those little A4 posters that people put in their windows - Labour, almost exclusively (who also won by a comfortable margin in my ward.

We received a grand total of one leaflet - which arrived on the day of the election. Seems that nobody's really campaigning in our area.

I don't recall getting any leaflets, but that may be because they all got swept up into the recycling bag.

One of the downsides of not actually spending a lot of time in my home.

We got one from everyone I think. This year was different due to there being only one party who were guaranteed to be able to keep the BNP from taking first place so tactical voting rather than anything to do with policies came into play.

Normally I do pay quite a bit of attention to leaflets. This stems from a general lack of interest in politics and therefore they must tell me why I should vote for them.

This is typically how I use leaflets during campaigns..

1) Did you send me a leaflet. If not I'm unlikely to vote for you as I don't know why I should.

2) If you do send me a leaflet how much column width do you dedicate to slagging off other parties rather than telling me what you are going to do. I once got a leaflet that had nothing in it except slights against the current elect party. That's as bad, if not worse, than not sending a leaflet at all. Ok, you don't want me to vote for the party that you're slagging off and they may in fact be rubbish. But you're not telling me why I should vote for you over the remaining parties.

c) If after this I have any leaflets which actually tell me about what their policies are I'll read and digest.

I can't answer the first question, because I am not sure who out of the Tories and NuLabour sent round the most leaflets - or when one is supposed to start counting from. They certainly put out more than the others - and came first and second in my ward.

Labour send things out sporadically throughout the year - there's usually some sort of Christmas card - but quite frankly I couldn't be sure as to whether that is from the ward reps or the MPs or both/a combination thereof.

The Tories, as I have discussed elsewhere have suddenly started trying to get their voice heard. Again, a great deal of this has come from the PPC, who looks like a thoroughly decent woman. She was the person who invited me to complete a questionnaire on what irked me, and about 6-ish weeks later I got a follow up leaflet telling me what issues people had stated they were concerned about, with Tory policy statements about what they intend to do about such issues when/if they win a GE. This, from a shufty round the Tory website would seem to be a common theme - they invite you to get a load of mates together, discuss political issues that concern you, and then tell them about them. I guess that this is good as it means they are getting an awareness of how people feel, but I also suspect it could be open to abuse by people from other parties trying to skew the results?

Other leaflet points - the BNP sent 2 leaflets, IIRC - a black and white one and a colour one. I read both of them, and they are obviously trying to widen their focus onto areas other than immigration.

The Lib Dems, Green and 'You' sent nothing. 'You' are very new, and I suspect have bugger all money to do a leaflet drop, even if they wanted. At this point, they could get away with a generic 'who we are' type leaflet.
The Green sent a leaflet last year, and I would have been tempted to vote for him under different circumstances. I guess that sending out leaflets people won't read isn't very environmentally friendly, maybe that's why he didn't bother this year?
The Lib Dems, I suspect, have probably just managed to get a name on the ballot paper - but it is the same name as last year, and I would expect something from them if they are serious, especially given that the Lib Dems have managed to achieve almost no media platform for any of their policies (as far as I can recall) for some time.

My vote for 'specific local issues' concerns the Anti-social behaviour. i think re-cycling where I live is good. I am extremely happy that they now take cardboard - a good 50% of my waste generally!

In our area, the Independent candidates have been grabbing local government seats left right and centre. I think it's because rather than some tosser who employs his wife as his secretary and then pays her £96,000pa and charges his family holidays to the party account (our local MP has been investigated not so long ago as one of the MPs who overpay their spouse for doing pretty much nothing), these are people who the locals in their ward see in the pub or the cornershop and ask them questions, get answers and can actually see these guys trying to implement suggestions because they truly are part of the local community.