UK Politics V

[Night Watchman]

First time voter, here! This is pretty exciting.

[Chaldanya]

Our Lib Dem candidate finally got back to me on Tuesday about volunteering, and said "It's OK, we've got the flyering covered, you don't need to do anything". Aha. So that would explain the vast number of Lib Dem leaflets and posters I've seen on my doormat and around the town then (last count = still 0). After the election I may have to go over and give em some basic lessons in actually campaigning, cos this is pathetic.

That's cause they're all at our house. And I do mean every single one of them. In the last three weeks we've got a leaflet on most days and something like a 'personal' letter from Sarah Teather. You know it's personal because it was in that handwriting style!! (Same from Nick Clegg).

N

[Slick Mongoose]

In the last three weeks we've got a leaflet on most days and something like a 'personal' letter from Sarah Teather. You know it's personal because it was in that handwriting style!! (Same from Nick Clegg).

I got one of those from my MP. Love the personal touch of a pretend handwritten letter.

[Lummel]

Despite the leaders' debates, the shock that Cameron has (allegedly) spoken to a black man and the, impossible to believe of a politican, bad mouthing of a voter by Brown this has seemed a fairly flat election.

Strange when we are in this apparently endless war in Afganistan, have a slight problem with the good old national overdraft, apparently adverted financial meltdown, expenses scandel, unemployment...And where are all the women, still only 20% of MPs.

[paddington]

So far the Tories have sent me 3 leaflets, and come around for a chat. had 1 Labour flyer, 1 UKIP flyer. Nothing from the Lib Dems.

[Slick Mongoose]

Lib Dems resources are very targetted, I mentioned it in the last thread. All these leaflets cost money and they don't have much. They're focussed on defending their gains from the last few elections (on the assumption that they'd get 1-2% fewer votes than last time and the tories would get 6-7% more).

They don't really have the resources to switch to the attack mid-election, let alone do it nationwide.

[Daeric]

I've just got around to taking a actual google based search gander at where my polling station is, and damn them seems like a 5 minute detour from my normal route into town instead of on it, yes I'm being lazy :P

[MinDonner]

Still. How hard would it have been to send me some pdfs and say "Would you be able to print these out yourself?" I mean FFS, I was prepared to spend my bank holiday delivering the things, I can stretch to a few reams of paper. Poor effort on their part.

[Slick Mongoose]

Still. How hard would it have been to send me some pdfs and say "Would you be able to print these out yourself?" I mean FFS, I was prepared to spend my bank holiday delivering the things, I can stretch to a few reams of paper. Poor effort on their part.

Tell them that if they lose - can they win in your constituency?

[Lummel]

It's shocking when I think about it.

After all the action plan for mobilising and campaigning in an election is going to be exactly the same in every constitutency for every party. I don't quite see how a national party can not be organised enough to send out guidelines sugesting that having accountable persons appointed to get volunteers together and match them up with leaflets would be a good idea.

[MinDonner]

Oddly, my constituency used to be a safe-ish Lib Dem seat a couple of decades ago, but it's been true blue for a while now. Possibly due to the utter lack of effort on the local party's side.

My constituency straddles two towns, and appears to have two completely different branches of the party running it (cos the councils are different), so Shoreham has been completely neglected. The "Adur Lib Dems" website now even gets a Page Not Found, despite still being linked from the Worthing branch's page. Incompetent fuckwits. :tantrum:

[mormont]

After all the action plan for mobilising and campaigning in an election is going to be exactly the same in every constitutency for every party.

No, it isn't. Apart from the absurdity of the idea that every party has the same plans (regardless of resources?), every major party identifies 'target seats' they want to win, and (though they are less inclined to admit this) unwinnable seats, and thus split seats where they are challengers into three groups (targets, unwinnable, and the rest). In addition, they'll identify the seats that they hold that are marginal and those that are 'safe'. Resources are targeted according to these decisions. There will therefore be several different action plans depending on what kind of seat you're talking about.

In Min's case, there might not even have been any leaflets to match her up with, because the cash to print them was spent in another seat instead, according to the action plan. This is particularly likely in the case of the Lib Dems, because of their relatively poor cash position and the fact that they're doing better than they thought they would. Resources are stretched and action planning is having to be revised on the hoof.

[Hereward]

had 1 Labour flyer, 1 UKIP flyer.

I see what you did there.

[Blue Roses]

Lib Dems resources are very targetted, I mentioned it in the last thread. All these leaflets cost money and they don't have much. They're focussed on defending their gains from the last few elections (on the assumption that they'd get 1-2% fewer votes than last time and the tories would get 6-7% more).

They don't really have the resources to switch to the attack mid-election, let alone do it nationwide.

I was amazed to get a LibDem leaflet through my door (first time) as this seat (NW Hampshire) is one of the safe Tory seats with a majority of 20,000 plus. Yes the Lib Dems might make some inroads but I don't think it is a priority seat. You would imagine Min's area was more of a target. So not much grand coordination there really. Mind you I think the Lib Dems have been caught on the hop this election. They never probably imagined they were going to be contesting on a par with labour and not far behind the Conservatives - their manifesto has a lot of 'wouldn't it be lovely policies' rather than preparing for government. I get the feeling they have been rather shocked by the attention.

I was rather shocked by the overly large picture of the Labour candidate Sarah Evans on the Lab poster. Definitely a 'Gordon Gnome' than a 'Blair Babe'. Sorry you don't put your buck teeth centre stage of a campaign leaflet. Mandelson didn't approve that one.

[Slick Mongoose]

Oddly, my constituency used to be a safe-ish Lib Dem seat a couple of decades ago, but it's been true blue for a while now. Possibly due to the utter lack of effort on the local party's side.

My constituency straddles two towns, and appears to have two completely different branches of the party running it (cos the councils are different), so Shoreham has been completely neglected. The "Adur Lib Dems" website now even gets a Page Not Found, despite still being linked from the Worthing branch's page. Incompetent fuckwits. :tantrum:

Maybe you should mention it on one of the Lib Dem blogs, (Lib Dem Voice, for example) and see if they have any suggestions?

[MinDonner]

Oh, I fully intend to try doing something about this, once the election is out of the way. It's just annoying that something so basic and cheap as a website has been left unattended, and that the local candidate doesn't even appear to give a shit about a good half of his constituency. Le sigh.

[Daeric]

To back up what Morment was saying, I'm in one of those areas that the Tories are specfically targetting to win off Labour as it only requires a 5.5% swing, I've being bombarded with Torie leaflets and theres a specific advertisment board that I walk past every day thats had at least 2 different Tories Ads on it.

Labour sent a few leaflets, through bless their cotton socks they did actually send someone up the hill on foot to see who in the neihbourhood is voting.

Lib Dems sent me one leaflet, the same amount as the BNP and UKIP.

[Hereward]

I've had an torrent of mail from the Tories and the LibDems, though the LibDems are a distant third, they just have a very good candidate. Labour has provided a heavy shower of waste paper and I've even had a few from UKIP, the Greens and the complete lack of Common Sense Party.

I like the post-election guide from the Daily Mash:

1. The Conservatives win a majority. The TV is filled with lots of pissed people called 'Ollie' who work for George Osborne looking incredibly red faced and pleased with themselves. By 2am Britain is already beginning to regret this. At 4am a gang of champagne-soaked Ollies charge out of party HQ and give a Clockwork-Orange style kicking to the nearest binman.

2. The Conservatives are the largest party with the most votes but just short of an overall majority. David Cameron becomes prime minister after doing a deal with Peter Robinson's Democratic Unionist Party. The UK government is now held in place by a fundamentalist Christian who makes Jerry Falwell look like Graham Norton. Oops!

3. The Conservatives are well short of an overall majority and forced to do a deal with the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg will be on telly a lot. You will eventually realise what an unmitigated charlatan he is. Meanwhile Vince Cable gives half your money to a Chinaman and uses the rest to buy a series of tiny chocolate windfarms.

4. A Labour-Lib Dem coalition, but Nick Clegg demands Gordon Brown's resignation. Ed Balls will be prime minister. Ed Balls will be prime minister. ED BALLS WILL BE PRIME MINISTER. ED BALLS WILL BE PRIME MINISTER.

ED BALLS WILL BE PRIME MINISTER.

5. Labour wins an overall majority because Gordon Brown is a good man who just gets angry somtimes, but you tell all your friends that this time it's going to be different and they nod and smile and touch your arm, but eventually they stop inviting you for coffee and one day they pick-up the paper and just shake their heads when they read how your body was found under a patio.

[Lummel]

No, it isn't. Apart from the absurdity of the idea that every party has the same plans (regardless of resources?) ... There will therefore be several different action plans depending on what kind of seat you're talking about.

Sorry! I was too abrupt.

I think an action plan would be the same because there are a limited number of potential objectives in all cases (win the seat, increase number or % of votes, retain deposit, prevent somebody else from winning) and exactly the same categories or types of resources avaliable to achieve the objective of choice (leaflets, posters, party workers, volunteers, local media coverage, national party support...).

The roles that you need filled to organise and account for each resource are going to be the same (even if you have one person doing all the jobs in an unwinnable seat and a team of people to do one job in a target seat).

I guess that all seats are evaluated in the same way, ie target populations are defined and identified.

The order in which tasks have to be carried out will be the same, so if you want to give out leaflets in a certain ward, they have to be printed before they can be delivered and designed before they are printed and you decide your message before you design and decide who you are targeting before you decide which message you are going to promote.

You could have the same action plan up and down the country, but yes you would flesh it out differently in each seat.

[mormont]

I had exactly one leaflet from each candidate. Not sure what that says about my seat. The UKIP leaflet, though, was hilarious. Handy tip: check the resolution on your candidate's photo before you send it to the printers.