Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Tory smoke and mirrors exposed?

A car drew up outside my house this morning. Out stepped a man who came to my front door and popped something through the letter box. I watched this from upstairs. Time for a break, I thought, and a chance to find out what had been put through the door. So I went downstairs and saw that it was a Tory leaflet. Through my front room window I then saw the person heading back to his car without delivering to any other house in the street. I walked out into the front garden and looked up and down the street. There was no one else delivering. The car drove off.

Very odd, I thought. Someone had driven into my street and delivered a Tory leaflet to me only. I probably wouldn't have thought much more of it except that 20 minutes later, my ward colleague Cllr Marilynn Ord arrived on my doorstep to tell me of an interesting experience: a few minutes earlier a man had pulled up outside her house, delivered the same Tory leaflet I had received, then drove off without delivering a copy to any other house.

Is this a Tory smoke and mirrors campaign designed to make it look as if they are putting out leaflets and running a campaign in Blaydon constituency, one of the most unwinnable seats fort eh Tories in Britain? If so, delivering in broad day light was perhaps not the best way to try to pull off this trick.

My other colleague Cllr John McClurey hasn't been home yet. He's in our office in Whickham printing more of our own leaflets. I guess the print run of our leaflets is a bit longer that that of the Tories. He will check tonight to see if he has received the Tory leaflet, and whether or not his neighbours have.

Talking of leaflet deliveries, Marilynn and I went out leafletting over lunchtime. Neither of us saw any evidence of any other political leaflets having been delivered recently. We did however see previous copies of Focuses and our constituency tabloids.

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