Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

ivyleaf

Oh drat Pyxis! Fingers x'd it'll stay dry until you've finished am-draming

SingleSue

The heavens opened complete with thunder and lightning at around 10.30. It didn't last long at all but it certainly gave everyone a good soaking, luckily it brightened up quickly afterwards and Joe could stay at work.

chris_m

The sky went black as hell this afternoon and I thought we were in for it, but it just cleared again - think I heard one or two rumbles in the distance.

We did get a few spits and spots of rain briefly around 5 o'clock but that came to nowt too - annoyingly, I was hoping not to have to water the plants this evening.

At least it's cooled down considerably, and the humidity's dropped - which is nice.

Pyxis

Because I'm going to be away for the General Election, I arranged for a postal vote for this time.

I wasn't 100% sure whom I wanted to vote for, so I set about trying to find out about the candidates online.

Do you know, it was incredibly difficult! Only the present incumbent had anything to say, and he was the one of the two candidates I knew I wouldn't vote for!

I looked and looked. I even looked on Facebook.

In the end I found a tiny bit of info, which was just enough to enable me to make a choice, though I wasn't terribly happy about making a choice based on such scant info.

You'd think that putting their full names into a google search would bring up reams of stuff, wouldn't you, but no!
You'd think that putting their names plus 'general election' or 'parliamentary candidate' would bring up reams of stuff, wouldn't you, but no!
You'd think that putting in their names plus the name of the constituency would bring up reams of stuff, wouldn't you, but no!

I found that there was a local hustings with all the candidates speaking at it, but when I found out about it, I was in bed, and it was on that evening! Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

I daresay that I'll get tons of stuff through the door from now on, now that I have cast my vote and delivered it.

Don't candidates think about people making postal votes? It's all very unsatisfactory, in my view. If I hadn't been so determined to vote, I'd have given up, arguing that if they can't even provide me with basic information about themselves, they can't be very good.

CKhalvashi

Pyxis wrote: »

Don't candidates think about people making postal votes? It's all very unsatisfactory, in my view. If I hadn't been so determined to vote, I'd have given up, arguing that if they can't even provide me with basic information about themselves, they can't be very good.

The only door knockers I've had this time round so far have been Conservatives. Luckily for them I was out :rotfl:

If I was standing (I may possibly have gone for 2020 selection, but now isn't the right time) I'd have made sure that everyone in the area I was standing knew who I was, what my local connections are and what I stand for.

Parliamentary Candidates are entitled to send leaflets (I believe) for free with Royal Mail, meaning that every candidate can get a message out for less than £500.

That and a website comes in at less than £1000. You'd be amazed that candidates don't bother, however that's life.

GDB2222

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Parliamentary Candidates are entitled to send leaflets (I believe) for free with Royal Mail, meaning that every candidate can get a message out for less than £500.

You'd think one of the leafleting companies would stand in the election. (The type of company that delivers marketing leaflets for local businesses.) Instead of having to send someone round to deliver leaflets to all 60,000 voters in my constituency, they can get the delivery done for nothing by Royal Mail. The printing costs are the same whether they get RM to deliver them or they deliver them themselves. The whole exercise just costs them the lost election deposit, £500, which works out at less than 1p per leaflet delivered.

Edit: It seems that some killjoy at RM has thought about this, and "There can be no advertising on campaign mailings."

PasturesNew

Grey, overcast, cool, bit breezy.

silvercar

We registered for postal votes as plan to be away on election day.

We have received one letter from the Conservatives and that is all. Though we must be one of the safest Tory seats in the country. Hertsmere.

vivatifosi

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Parliamentary Candidates are entitled to send leaflets (I believe) for free with Royal Mail, meaning that every candidate can get a message out for less than £500.

That and a website comes in at less than £1000. You'd be amazed that candidates don't bother, however that's life.

We tend to get leaflets from the Conservatives and Lib Dems. Sometimes Labour, though this time we haven't.

I don't see any point in sending leaflets if you are not going to fully engage locally. Normally the Lib Dems and Cons put effort into their leaflets. Labour just use some boilerplate thing that tells you little about the candidate and what they are going to do locally. They might as well not bother. If they can't be bothered to tell me their personal position on things and what they will do for the community, I can't be bothered to vote for them.

CKhalvashi

vivatifosi wrote: »

We tend to get leaflets from the Conservatives and Lib Dems. Sometimes Labour, though this time we haven't.

I don't see any point in sending leaflets if you are not going to fully engage locally. Normally the Lib Dems and Cons put effort into their leaflets. Labour just use some boilerplate thing that tells you little about the candidate and what they are going to do locally. They might as well not bother. If they can't be bothered to tell me their personal position on things and what they will do for the community, I can't be bothered to vote for them.

I think the CK household got one from the 4 main candidates in the last election.

This is the first time I've had door knockers though, so I think there's possibly something going on behind the scenes that may (or may not) be making them think they're at risk in this particular constituency.