Is this it?

Well it is just over 12 hours until the polls open and campaigning is drawing to a close. I have had another Labour party leaflet through today, the only one from any party this week.

Searching for a word to sum up the 2010 election campaign in York Central I have landed upon lackluster, or perhaps unenthusiastic.

Over the last four or so weeks I have received a few leaflets from the main parties (chart below) but no canvassers, no one knocking on my door, no-one phoning, emailing or stopping me in town. On my street there are perhaps 2 leaflets stuck up in windows.
Obviously a lot of attention locally has been diverted into the much more marginal York Outer constituency. Even accepting that it does not feel as though the main candidates, especially those trying to unseat Hugh Bayley, have really put in much of an effort to win my vote.

Leaflet tactics - are Labour smarter than the rest?

A slightly arcane but, I think, interesting topic this one. Section 91 of the 1983 Representation of the People's Act basically entitles election candidates to each have one piece of election literature delivered by the Royal Mail for free.

In York Central the Conservatives and the Lib Dems both appear to have done the same thing, that is to use their free mailshot to have one leaflet delivered to everyone on the electoral register. So far so straight forward.

The problem arises when you have houses where more than one person is on the electoral register, for instance there are three people registered at my address. The result is that three identical leaflets from the Conservatives turned up at my house on the same day, and then a week later three identical leaflets from the Lib Dems turned up. One of these leaflets get read and the other two get discarded.

What Labour appear to be doing is breaking their mailshot down into stages. So last week we received one leaflet addressed to one of the people at my address. This week we received a different leaflet addressed to another one of the people at my address, and one presumes we will receive a third leaflet to the third person next week.

The impact is that Labour effectively get double or triple value from their free Royal Mail delivery. At the same time they lessen their reliance on local volunteers pounding the streets doing deliveries and potentially make their campaign seem more active than it really is.

Leaflets flooding in

Above is an updated version of my candidates contacts chart showing the recent influx of leaflets from the various candidates in York Central.

On Monday I received a leaflet from the BNP and one from UKIP. Both were waiting for me together when I got home from work and both are the same size and of equally lurid design. This did seem a little suspicious but the BNP leaflet explicitly criticises UKIP so we will put their simultaneous arrival down to a coincidence.

Of the other parties the latest Labour leaflet concentrates on what Labour and Hugh Bayley have done for families while the Lib Dem leaflet contains the word "change" 11 times. The Greens focus on their local work as councillors and campaigners but also include more of their national policies than they have on previous leaflets. Interestingly they are continuing to push the message that the Tory's are not targeting York. Something which can be seen from my own candidates contacts chart above. (Although to be fair Susan Wade-Weeks may have been preoccupied this week what with the assassination attempt on her at the weekend).

Last, but certainly not least, the Monster Raving Loony leaflet puts forward a range of local and national policies. My favourite of which is the elimination of red tape - by making it blue.

York Central Election Hustings

There are a number of hustings events happening in York central over the next few days. The main ones open to the general public are:

Sunday 25th April 8pm at the Salvation Army Citadel - organised by a couple of local church groups

Monday 26th April 7.15pm at Holy Trinity Church Micklegate - all candidates confirmed apart from Hugh Bayley

Wednesday 28th April 6pm at York Race Course - joint York Central and York outer hustings organised by the York Press (you need to email in advance to attend this one)

If you can't make it to any of these events, or if you missed it first time around, you can download a podcast of the Minster FM hustings which took place last week and featured the Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem candidates.

Vote for Change!

Susan Wade- Weeks has sent me a leaflet, in fact she sent me three (all the same leaflet addressed to different people who live or have lived in my house). More on that in a minute.

But first Vote for Change! This is the message from the Conservatives (Vote for change in York Central), Lib Dems (If you want Change you have to vote for it) and the Greens (Vote Green for a real change). Can anyone spot a pattern?

Anyway, back to Susan Wade-Weeks. The bulk of the leaflet is concerned with promoting the work Susan Wade-Weeks has been doing in York over the last three years. This includes campaigning on behalf of local taxi drivers, working with insurers on flood damage and campaigning against barriers at the train station. A lot of the campaigning that Susan Wade-Weeks highlights seems to be her "standing together" with people on existing campaigns. There isn't much evidence of her actually achieving anything on her own.

The new Liberal Democrat leaflet (hand delivered by Christian Vassie) is more focused on national politics. It promotes the Lib Dems as the alternative to the Conservative and Labour parties, and plays on the fallout from the first election debate (although it doesn't actually mention it). The main body of the leaflet gives the Lib Dem solution to a range of problems in the format How to create a fairer nation, How to tackle immigration, How to save British jobs, etc. etc.

The new Green Party leaflet is split pretty equally between Andy Chase's campaigning work in York and national Green party policies. Andy Chase repeats his claims from earlier leaflets that based on the performance of the the Green party in recent local elections, and the fact that York Central is not a priority target seat for the Conservatives or the Lib Dems, the Greens represent the major challenge to the Labour incumbents.

New University of York Politics Blog

The Politics Department at the University of York have started up a new blog to give their expert commentary on the general election. Only 2 posts so far but might be one worth keeping an eye on.

Professor Neil Carter has already had some interesting things to say about the history of the York constituency and the chances of the main candidates in the new York Central seat.

Susan Wade-Weeks - Facebook Crazy?

As I said in my last post I had been getting a bit worried about the Conservative Candidate Susan Wade-Weeks. Getting on for a week and a half into the election and no sign of her anywhere.

Her website hasn't been updated for two weeks and the facebook page linked off her website also seemed pretty dead. Then I found her second facebook page, which looked more promising, but also hadn't been updated very recently. But I kept digging and I have now found her third facebook page and this one was updated yesterday!

Not only does this facebook page suggest that Susan Wade-Weeks is alive but it also gives handy details of all the campaigning she has been doing.

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