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.

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.

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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Susan Wade-Weeks - Conservative

Susan Wade-Weeks has recently moved to York from Sussex in order to stand as the Conservative Party's candidate in the 2010 General Election. Educated at the prestigious Cheltenham Ladies College (1970-1975), Universite de Lille (1976) and St Andrews University (1976-1980) she graduated with an MA in French Language and Literature.

Susan Wade-Weeks' professional career has largely revolved around advertising and marketing with one of her biggest clients being the Sofa Workshop. Alongside her professional career. Susan Wade-Weeks has raised three children, Honeysuckle Weeks, Perdita Weeks and Rollo Weeks. All three have become actors and Susan often accompanied them on set as a tutor and chaperone when they were children.

Susan Wade-Weeks joined the Conservative Party in 2005. She was elected to Chichester Borough Council in May 2007 and resigned her post in May 2008 after being adopted as the Conservative Candidate for York Central in March 2008. During this period Susan Wade-Weeks says that she

achieved a number of local improvements, campaigning to support village shops, save local post offices and fighting to retain local accident and emergency services, as well as facilitating and funding the introduction of broadband internet access.

In her own PR material Susan Wade-Weeks concentrates on the importance of the family, improving schools and the NHS and highlights her campaigns on behalf of local small businesses. She also highlights her support for green issues and her opposition to the war in Iraq.

The Guardian have an interview with Susan Wade-Weeks from September 2008 which covers her views on Tax, the Family and Europe.

Contact Details

1 Ash Street, York, YO26 4UR

email: susan@susanwadeweeks.co.uk or susanwadeweeks@yahoo.co.uk

Find her on Facebook and Twitter (empty when I last looked).