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?


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