Tuesday 31 March 2015

How to influence a party: offer to deliver factual leaflets only

One of the parties go in touch to ask whether I would deliver leaflets for them.
I said "only a manifesto or factual leaflets - not cheerleading stuff", or something like that.
The person on the phone said that there was a campaign opening leaflet coming soon but she hadn't seen it, so couldn't say it was factual, and would I like to be a teller? Well I might. It's quite jolly. But I said no.

This seems quite a good way to influence the parties where you live. Maybe I should show a bit of willing to the other parties but then draw back and say "only a manifesto or factual leaflets - not cheerleading stuff" and see if it influences them as well. Or maybe it would look a bit daft to pretend to support both rival parties. On second thoughts I won't, but anyone who reads this could have a go.
https://electionleaflets.org/constituencies/65598/richmond_park shows what leaflets are dumped on politically-minded people otherwise. They're quite embarassingly awful things that you wouldn't want to be seen delivering. I mean: if someone asked what party you were voting for would you really say "this party is putting your family first", copyng slogans from the USA? No. So why deliver that message if it's printed on pape with pictures of people smiling, slogans, and no references to where to check facts on the net?

I'm sure that local counsellors mention more money for policing on their leaflets when the council has nothing at all with funding for policing, and that nobody notices. Maybe they have a bet. "I dare you: I will if you will" "OK then - £10 to the first one who gets found-out".

http://www.quora.com/I-dont-think-UK-election-leaflets-are-informative-enough-Has-anyone-offered-to-post-only-factual-leaflets-or-manifestos-for-a-party-in-their-area-Has-anyone-had-a-good-response-from-a-party-Latest-leaflets-ElectionLeaflets-org-shows-whats-posted-now is question that will probably remain un-unswered: has anyone tried to deliver only the best leaflets from any of the parties?



Nobody from my preferred party has got back to me. I found a 57 page manifesto on their web site and someone helped me by email to find a plain text version, but couldn't point me to a short version that they call "easy read". Mencap have done better, producing easy-read manifestos for all the parties but they're not a name I'd usually associate with editing of political statements.

There is a local manifesto to download. It has no links in it to council budget pages or numbers, and covers about 4 pages when turned into text. Just possibly, this is the one to start on.

The next question is where to deliver. Anywhere local, but to know ward boundaries would be good to I could tell other people. Where do I find a street map of Richmond on Thames with ward boundaries?


Wednesday 25 March 2015

Politician attempts to defend record on social care

Guardian: "David Cameron is heckled repeatedly on Tuesday while addressing an audience at an Age UK event on the state of the NHS. Members of the audience shout: 'Rubbish!' and: 'You're not answering the question!' as the prime minister takes questions about the NHS and healthcare for the elderly " https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-at-age-uk - full text of opening speech I don't know of a full text or recording of the question and answer session. There are excepts on a youtube video titled "Daily Telegraph" and "ITN", but no reference on the ITN web site and no full text on the Age Concern web site that I can find. I've emailed Age Concern's PR person in case she knows of one, but doubt she'll have time to respond.

Five days later, no reply, so we don't know if any good points were made by audience members because there's no public record of them.

Saturday 21 March 2015

https://fullfact.org BBC and C4 "Reality Check" links and http://www.askforevidence.org/

Fullfact say

What kind of thing do you check?

It will vary a lot. There are some subjects we often can’t say much about, such as foreign relations, claims about what might happen in the future, or ethical dilemmas where the facts aren’t really in question. On other topics, facts are at the heart of the argument and we’ll have more to do.


They seem to be a blog for expert fact-checkers and welcome volunteer applicants. The factual topics are mainly Westminster ones covered by media and ministries; there's nothing about social care on the health tab.

Crime

Economy

Education

Europe

Health

Immigration

Law 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32072999 BBC Reality checks on topics like how many staff the NHS needs, how easy it is to find £12bn of cuts

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/ Channel 4's fact checking page

http://www.askforevidence.org/ is a new one. I guess candidates will ignore it at first until it catches-on and a few are caught-out, then they'll learn to answer emails from that address. You can use it to ask for evidence about claims on http://electionleaflets.org

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Post to 38 degrees for Richmond Park Constituency

Social care.

Introducing myself:

I want to get something done about social care by disrupting the next Westminster election, if I can persuade other disrupters to agree!

I want a fixed national social care budget read-out alongside health and defence in parliament as part of the budget. It can be allocated to councils by need if they can be trusted to ring-fence it. It cannot be set by councils.

I realise that this is a popular idea but there are a lot of similar and overlapping points of view, so I just want to make a fuss in the next election somehow.

Making a fuss could involve someone standing for parliament and agreeing to stand-down if one of the top two other candidates agrees to rebel against their party whip and support the idea if elected.

That's me. That's why I logged-on and posted. I have a little-read blog on http://election-richmond-park.blogspot.co.uk/ and I have done a bit of questioning and googling to find out about how elections work but have probably forgotten it again - there's some deadline for agreeing to pay a deposit and get free postage for your electoral bit of paper to votors, and some deadline for taking your name off the ballot paper. The ideal outcome that could influence a mainstream candidate is to pay a deposit, get your bit of paper posted free to votors, and show that you have enough support that you could keep your deposit by not standing-down. Something like pledges of financial support.

I've written the odd thing on another blog about cheap ink paper and home printing, but whatever I write on blogs will only put readers off as I want to concentrate on a social care budget that's as national as any other budget read-out in the budget speech.

John R.

PS I'm not an easy person to convert towards other similar campaigns. Just thought it best to say before anyone tries!

Posted on http://election.38degrees.org.uk/areas/1086