Campaign Diary; Day 19 - the case of the disappearing poster board

Monday evening, and time for Martin, my agent, and I to get some photos taken for the final leaflet. Some typical pictures of the candidate at well-known landmarks in the villages, including one that we didn't use in the end, of me pointing at a big hole in the road (for those who don't know these things, there is a standing joke amongst Liberal Democrats that a leaflet isn't properly Liberal Democrat without a picture of the candidate pointing at something).

A poster board. Not one of mine,
but very nice all the same...

We were in Barking, taking a picture of me next to the new council housing being built, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a Green Party poster board that had been there was being taken down.

Curious, I wandered over to the man who was doing it. Apparently, he had been canvassed by a Green Party activist, but hadn't intended to grant them permission to put the sign up. He assumed that they had been confused. It does happen, especially when you're enthusiastic and you want to be liked.

It goes to show how important it is to get people's permission before you put your sign up. Posters should be given to people to put in their windows if they want to, especially as people are often wary of showing their political allegiances too visibly. The same goes for poster boards.

It also takes quite a lot of effort to find sites for poster boards, and to put them up, and is better as part of your planning in advance of a campaign, rather than having to do is during the final four weeks. To be honest, we focused on meeting people and delivering leaflets.

Only time will tell if we were right...

Labour Leadership contest: destroying the village in order to save it?

For those of us who believe that a country is best served by a vibrant democracy, especially those of us who believe internal party democracy is key, the unfolding nightmare that is Labour's leadership contest is a cause of some sadness. The events of the past week have not been pretty, although there are some lessons we might all benefit from.

Messing about in the affairs of a party you don't support is still stupid

Oh yes, it's been highly amusing as various non-Labour supporters have waved their ballot papers in front of cameras or on social media. That doesn't make it clever, because it merely exposes how vulnerable to entryism every political party is. Regardless of your party affiliation, does your local group actually vet new members for adherence to your Party's values? So, when you have a leadership contest, or are making some other important decision, can you be confident that it is unadulterated? But, of course, you've now declared open season on such things. Labour are probably the first to be impacted - they may not be the last. And, if you've had your laugh this time, don't be upset if it comes back to bite you...

Green Party support is conditional on Labour being centrist

It is alleged that 1900 of those excluded from the Labour electorate are recent Green candidates or supporters. That's bad news for the Greens, as it means that their increased support is very shallow. Mind you, now that Caroline Lucas is calling for a formal partnership, is there much point to the Greens? And so much for internal party democracy, when your only MP can go so far off message without apparent consequence.

Slagging off your internal opponents seldom ends well

Today's charges of sexism against Andy Burnham appear somewhat artificial from this distance. How on Earth could he answer a question about the value of a female leader for the Party now, when he's running to be Leader? If he had said, "Yes, that would be great.", the obvious follow-up would be, "So, why are you running?".

And accusations relating to the creation of internal ginger groups by the likes of Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt do make you wonder how you could unite the Party afterwards, regardless of who wins.

Internal democracy is important, so don't mess around with it unless you've thought through the consequences...

It does seem that the likely consequences of using a leadership contest to encourage new members to sign up was not wholly thought through. One of the issues surrounding online recruitment is that vetting such new members is more difficult than with those you actively sign up - the personal relationship may very well not exist. Likewise with the notion of OMOV for internal party elections. Yes, democracy is a good thing, although informed democracy is better. An uninformed electorate is more likely to vote for well-known, well-established candidates than radical outsiders without a profile. That may lead to administrative ossification and a reduced ability to react to a changing political situation.

So, just a few thoughts from the other side of the Atlantic. I was a democracy activist before I joined the Party, and have earned a modest reputation as someone who takes an interest in the workings of internal party democracy. And, right now, I'm a mote nervous...

Are Labour beginning to fret about the Greens?

I don't follow vast numbers of Twitter feeds, predominantly because it gets harder for me to pick up the important bits as the volume of posts gets bigger. I do, however, follow two of my local Labour PPCs, Jane Basham in South Suffolk, and Deborah Sacks in South Norfolk. Deborah is an old university colleague from my days at UEA, and another North London emigre in rural East Anglia.

Jane, on the other hand, I first encountered when she ran as the Labour candidate for Suffolk's Police and Crime Commissioner. She very nearly won, something of a miracle given just how conservative the county is. Since then, her Twitter feed has become a distillation of what grassroots Labour activists are thinking, and very entertaining it is too.

In the past week, I've noticed that there are an increasing number of anti-Green posts, mostly retweets from others, but nonetheless, attacks all the same. The record of the minority Green administration in Brighton (if they're a minority, how have they remained in control?), the impracticality of their policies, the risk that a Green vote will let the Tories back in, all are fair game all of a sudden.

And I am reminded that Labour really don't like competition for what they see as the progressive vote that should be theirs, even if, in recent years, they have given people little reason to have faith. Civil libertarians have been let down by authoritarians such as David Blunkett and Jack Straw, and had, until the Coalition, found a home in the Liberal Democrats. Now, anti-austerity supporters are discovering that Labour have no intention of undoing the 'evil' cuts carried out by the Coalition, and so whilst Labour are probably hanging onto the former Liberal Democrat voters they won in 2010 and 2011, they are now losing some of those who thought that they were an anti-austerity party.

For the Greens, life is easy. They can wave the anti-austerity banner, knowing that it will gain them votes and supporters, in the certain knowledge that they won't actually have to take responsibility at any stage. In fairness, some of their activists genuinely believe that austerity is unnecessary, and that taxing the rich until they squeal is viable in a global economy where capital is highly mobile, but they aren't going to form a government.

And given the diet of statements from Labour politicians saying, "this cut is unacceptable and unfair, and we wouldn't do it", an expectation has been created that Labour will somehow preserve services without raising taxes very much and reducing the deficit at the same time. Anyone who believes that is pretty naive, and the Greens now offer an alternative for such people who increasingly believe that Labour can't.

So, prepare for more red on green attacks if Green polling numbers remain significant, as Labour realise that, without a positive agenda of their own, even the so-called "35% strategy" is vulnerable. Their only consolation is that the Conservatives appear to want to revert to picking on the 'enemy inside', thus driving moderates away.

It's going to be a grim four months...

Yes, let's have the Greens in the TV debates...

The news that David Cameron is insisting that, unless the Greens are included, he won't be taking part in the TV debates, is almost amusing. It is highly unlikely that he cares about the Greens very much - after all, he allegedly thinks that environmentally friendly policies are just so much 'green crap' - rather that it is a strategy to either avoid the debates altogether (can he possibly be frit of Ed Miliband or, more credibly, Nigel Farage?) or, more Machiavellian, he wants the Greens in to potentially leach support from Labour.

I've always taken the view with campaigns that, if you invite all of the candidates, giving them reasonable notice, a failure to show is your problem, not that of the organiser or the other candidates. There should be a risk in leaving your chair empty. And, making an assumption that nobody would possibly dare to carry on without the Prime Minister is, in an era where deference is anything but a given, highly risky.

There are some potential setbacks with increasing the number of participants, regardless of who they might be;

1. You need longer to fit a decent number of questions in - the attention span of the public is not brilliant, and the more broadly similar answers you get, the less enlightening it is likely to become.
2. The debate is harder to manage - both presenter and candidates have to very disciplined lest the debate deteriorate into people talking over each other.
3. It becomes harder to exclude increasingly smaller parties.

For the record, I tend to think that exposure to cross-examination might not be that helpful to the Greens or UKIP, in that their arguments are likely to be exposed for their weakness in a way that the media seem mostly unable, or unwilling to do.

But, I may be wrong, and the public deserve to have an opportunity to hear from the Greens, because that's how democracy works...

Rain, the leafleteer's enemy

I was a day behind with my leaflet schedule after our foray into Village ward yesterday but like a good trooper, turned up this morning to help with our stall in Lordship Lane - the shops there serve residents of East Dulwich, Peckham Rye, South Camberwell and Village, so it's a good opportunity to meet voters and give them a face to match with the leaflets.

Cold and wndy it may have been, but people seemed to be very friendly, and I had an opportunity to make small talk with a representative of the Greens, who had a stall just down the street. To be honest, I have no real problem with the Greens who, for the most part, seem like a decent bunch who really care about their community. A bit naive, but then that's part of their charm. An old Young Liberal friend of mine who resigned over merger with the SDP is now leader of the Greens on Kirklees Council, where they form part of the administration. I'm confident that he's taken up the message on community activism and does things like proper canvassing and genuine doorstep politics. It works...

And then back on the increasingly cold, wet streets of East Dulwich, bringing our message of positive change to the voters. Given that Labour seem determined to scare everyone into locking themselves into their homes and cowering behind the sofa, I'm confident that our strategy will work. Besides, all of this leafletting is beginning to have its effects on my less than svelte figure!