Tomsk79

Perhaps the best that can be said about UKIP's election leaflet is that it comes in a handy A5 format. Whether the size symbolises their little England worldview or their chances of winning here, I cannot judge. The front is essentially a transcript of Davies' opening statement at the hustings:   Many things are said to be the definition of madness. Seriously wayward punctuation. Standing for UKIP in Withington. Still, I'm intrigued by his wide experience of business AND organization. What is this non-business organization he has wide experience of? UKIP purple always vaguely recalls Wimbledon for me, so I can't shake the notion that it was the Wombles. Being oop north we get the version of UKIP that is intended to appeal to disgruntled Labour voters, with promises on the NHS and bedroom tax nestled in amongst the foreigner bashing: I do hope the Australian-style points-based system will allow Madame Cholet to stay.

At last the Lib Dem/Labour leaflet duopoly has been broken, with all three of the other parties' free communications arriving on the same day. First the Tories. Receiving a leaflet with hues from the other side of the rainbow is a refreshing change for the eyes, even while the content makes them burn. Manning's cover letter (as ever, click to enlarge) is undermined by some terrible grammatical howlers. "investment ever more in our NHS"? "Liberal Democrats set to loose many of their seats"? I expect better from proud graduates of the University of Manchester! With all the gazillions of pounds being poured in to the party by hedge funds you'd think they'd be able to hire someone to proof-read their sales pitches. On the other hand I quite enjoyed his subtle trolling of the yellow team: "It is not clear that the Lib Dems will be able to support a Conservative government again". Heh. The Northern Powerhouse gets name-checked in a

An increasing focus on local elections as Labour send me a leaflet advertising the Jeff Smith/Matt Strong two candidate combo deal: Good stat work there with the claim that the Lib Dem candidate (who he?) has voted with the Tories 93% of the time in the last parliament. Just guessing but I imagine it's the other 7% of votes that are the important ones. More exciting is the other side of the leaflet which doubles up as a poor man's window poster: Even if I was in a poster-displaying mood I think I'd be too embarrassed to put one up featuring text-speak, but I have seen them go up in a few windows so clearly it's a worthwhile use of leaflet space. The Lib Dems, however, have trumped these puny A4 signs with a supersized hashtag in the middle of Chorlton: I thought political hoardings died out sometime in the mid-90s and spotting one this time round would be as likely as ever hearing a new Blur album. We live and learn.

The 2015 election has been notable for the many new models attempting to predict the result, mostly created by academics trying to avoid doing any proper work. In that spirit we at Tomsk79 have created our own model for predicting the result of the Manchester Withington constituency, which is detailed in full here. The starting point for my model is the constituency poll carried out in June 2014 by Lord Ashcroft (blessed be his name). This poll suggests a decisive swing from the Lib Dems to Labour since the election: The next stage is to correct the Ashcroft poll by movements in the national polls since June 2014. For this we use the BBC Poll of Polls , which reports changes as follows: Con: 31 to 34 (+3) Lab: 34 to 33 (-1) LD: 10 to 9 (-1) UKIP: 15 to 13 (-2) Green: 5 to 5 (0) We assume that the national changes apply uniformly to the Withington constituency. Next, we apply a sub-seat correction using local election results from Withington wards. By analysing

If the election result was decided solely on how many times people have knocked on my door, there would be no doubt about the winner: the Jehovah's Witnesses. Oxfam and "Hello Fresh" would also retain their deposits. No political party has bothered yet, and there's barely a week left for them to get their acts together. Honestly, what is the point of living in a marginal if you're not going to be given the opportunity to rant on your own doorstep? Plus I'm a stay-at-home Dad so I'm in all day and can even offer a traditional baby-kissing opportunity. Roll up! "But her face is covered in porridge!" " Do you want my vote or not? " The leaflets keep on coming of course. Mrs Tomsk has received a personal letter addressed personally to her from John Leech. It's all but identical to the one I was sent except that the controversial opening paragraph has been replaced with something much more anodyne. Either this blog is much more wid

I was kindly allowed off fatherly duties for an evening to attend the election hustings at St Clements Church in Chorlton. A few things I learnt about the candidates: John Leech (unsurprisingly) and Jeff Smith (reassuringly) are both good at this game. Rob Manning (Conservative) and Mark Davies (UKIP) also put up a good front against a mainly hostile audience. Lucy Bannister (Green) was the youngest and least assured candidate but to her credit was the most willing to take on the UKIP arguments directly. Mysterious independent candidate Marcus Farmer was not on the panel. Perhaps he was gazing down malevolently from the bell tower. Jeff Smith was happy to go on record saying that he would vote against his own party in order to ban fracking and cancel a Trident replacement. I don't actually agree with him on either of those issues but still I'm impressed with his independence of thought and it has addressed some of my previous doubts . Of course it was also a canny pitch t

It's always good to receive a personal letter addressed personally to me from candidate John Leech. Not least when it comes on rather nice parchment-like paper. It's the Ferrero Rocher of personal letters. However, this particular letter seems almost purposely-crafted to drive me towards voting Labour. The first two paragraphs contain so much piffle that they actually broke my piffleometer. I understand the need to trash talk Labour in their leaflets, but "Britain nearly bankrupted"? I expect that kind of mendacity from Clegg, but I thought Leech would have more scruples. If you're going to make up recent history for your own benefit, at least be creative: "In 2010, the tyrant Brown ruled the Kingdom with a great clunking fist, and all the peasants did whimper as their first borns were sacrificed to appease the mighty Banker Barons. And yet there was still hope, in a fresh faced young hero named Nick Clegge from the South Riding of York-Shire. And

A confession: I haven't made up my mind how to vote yet. If it were simply a matter of choosing a party I would have settled long ago on Labour. I've never voted for them before at a general election but picking Ed Miliband as leader showed they were ready to stand for something again and I'm pleased with the direction he has taken the party. While some of the policies they have already proposed may be a bit gimmicky (stupid NHS targets), and some I'll believe when they happen (200,000 new homes a year), others look both doable and will tangibly improve the country: doubling paid paternity leave, reducing tuition fees, giving 16 year olds the vote, abolishing non-dom status, giving football fans a voice in the boardroom, reinstating the 50p top rate of tax, scrapping the bedroom tax, and giving renters more rights to name just a few. Small policies that will make a big difference without breaking the bank. I could hardly be less persuaded by the endless attacks on

After the blizzard of Lib Dem leaflets, Labour strikes back. It's all about Jeff this time, both in boring old A4 format: And in a personal communication adressed personally to Mrs Tomsk in person, an intriguing origami-like construction yielding much the same information: His handwriting looks a bit childish. Should have stuck to the typewriter. Plus he's blown the personal effect by addressing himself to "Dear Resident". Still, it's an impressive roster of ordinary definitely-not-Labour-activists backing Jeff there. Believe it or not the leaflet folds open again to reveal yet more Jeff knowledge, like a more boring version of those folded paper number choosing thingummies you made at school. In response Leech has sent us his own innovation: a square leaflet. Could do better, frankly. But I have learnt something new: Manchester is a one-party state...

As the distribution of leaflets I've received so far may have hinted at, Manchester Withington is a Lib Dem-Labour fight. Historically Withington was a Conservative seat, but turned Labour in 1987 after all the Tory voters moved to little villages in Cheshire. It stayed that way until 2005 when John Leech took it for the Lib Dems with a swing of 17.3%, benefitting from both the student vote and a steady influx of Guardian readers into the consituency. Leech held it in 2010 with an increased majority of 1,894. The constituency is made up of seven wards: Chorlton, Chorlton Park, Didsbury West, Didsbury East, Old Moat, Withington and Burnage. In the local elections of 2010 (held on the same day as the general election), six of the wards voted Lib Dem, with only Old Moat going Labour. By contrast in the local elections of 2014, all seven wards voted Labour. Indeed, all of Manchester voted Labour; as the Lib Dems like to point out (*), we have a one-party council. So far this has

The last act as an MP of The Man Formally Known as Our Man in Westminster (TMFKAOMIW as I shall be referring to him in future) was to send us his CV and covering letter for an MP vacancy now being advertised in the Withington area. Full marks for promptness - where are your CVs and covering letters, other candidates? Don't you know The Campaign Has Begun in Earnest (TCHBIE)? Yes, yes, schools, hospitals, blah blah blah. The key point here is that TMFKAOMIW is a City fan and therefore a gentleman of taste and discernment when you consider the possible alternative.

All is revealed! It is of course the local Lib Dem campaign office. I particularly like the eclectic list of things delivered: Metrolink, New Jobs, New School, Safer Roads, Alan Turing, The Christie, Environment. Who knew Our Man had both the midwifery skills and command of time travel required to deliver Alan Turing? You can follow his further adventures in time and space with hastag #makeit15 ...

Not one, not two, but three items have arrived from Our Man in Westminster. First up it's the welcome return of South Manchester Life, now in spacious A4 for its Spring 2015 collection. Is this really the last we'll see of South Manchester Life until the summer? I am saddened. Following on from absolutely non-partisan South Manchester Life, here comes an actual Lib Dem leaflet complete with an actual Lib Dem logo and actual Lib Dem dodgy bar chart on the front cover. Still no sign of Clegg inside though. Our Man's not that foolish. Finally there's a proper old-fashioned Lib Dem Focus copied on someone's dodgy old Xerox just like Lloyd George would have done. Respect to the bar chart in the top right corner which actually over -represents the 'can't win here' candidates. Now there's confidence. Using the power of Lib Dem Maths, I extrapolate from today's figures that we will be receiving upwards of 2,500 Lib Dem leaflets a week by

Just when I was wondering where my next fix of Labour Voice was coming from, it turns up, this time tailored to our very own Chorlton ward: I've previously applauded LV for not pretending to be anything other than party propaganda and this remains the case. The front page is nothing to write blogs about, holding close to the national party line. Inside gets more punchy, with the distinctly dubious "Never trust a Liberal Democrat": OK, it's a very reasonable attack on the Lib Dems as a party, but of course it fails to note that Our Man in Westminster's voting record is quite different to the Lib Dems in general, rebelling on both tuition fees and the bedroom tax. There follows a list of things Labour have done to make Manchester "the most successful city in the UK": Yep, Manchester Labour are claiming credit for the discovery of graphene. With such scientific prowess how could I vote for anybody else?

Anyone care to guess why this long neglected retail unit is being painted a dazzling shade of orange? Knowing Chorlton it is quite possibly a pop-up shop selling only vintage Tango.

As a committed reader of upmarket glossy South Manchester Life, I look down on those who take lowbrow inky tabloid South Manchester News. Or at least I would, if they didn't both come free through my letterbox. Here's the latest News front page: To be fair it's quite a nice pastiche of real inky tabloids, right down to calling the global financial crisis "Labour's crash" (nothing makes me more likely to vote Labour than hearing Lib Dems use such dishonest rhetoric). The News does get a little monotonous when every article quotes either Lib Dem campaigner Norman Lewis or Lib Dem campaigner Matt Gallagher, but then I don't suppose there are too many Lib Dem campaigners left in South Manchester to quote. The big disappointment is the traditional Lib Dem bar chart on the back page, which is actually a more or less accurate representation of the state of the parties. Yes, I did get a ruler out to check. I was hoping for something like these classics of t

I am jealous of Mrs Tomsk, who has received a personal letter addressed to her personally from Our Man in Westminster. A bit of a hotch potch there, laudable though it all sounds. The real clincher comes with the enclosed "petition" (in reality a please help stuff envelopes kind of thing). Private VIP pop concerts?!?! I am OUTRAGED. Imagine supporting Ed-and-Gordon's Labour Candidate! Just imagine! Apart from anything else we'd be letting down those somehow strangely familiar people of south Manchester.

At last, a piece of propaganda that doesn't pretend to be anything other than propaganda. Respect to Labour Voice: I'm rating this 9/10 for page glossiness and 4/10 for peculiar photo opportunities. I like how a bill frozen in ice illustrates "Labour's plans to cut energy bills" - a hint that their 2013 energy bill pledge has not so much been overtaken by events as lapped by them. Still, waste not want not. That ice cube can't have come cheap. Inside it's maybe 6/10 for truthfulness. A fair enough attack on the government's handling of the NHS and another on the bedroom tax, of course omitting that Our Man in Westminster rebelled on both issues.

When sorting through the latest batch of pizza menus and special offers for conservatories shoved through our letterbox each day, there's no greater joy than to find a copy of "South Manchester Life" nestled in the pile like a delicious glossy truffle. Regular readers of South Manchester Life will know that it tends to concentrate on the activities of our local Liberal Democrat MP, and last week's was no exception. There he is, cover star (twice), pictured above with the South Manchester Life team and guest editor Morrissey. Any resemblance between the South Manchester Life team and local Liberal Democrat activists is, of course, entirely coincidental. I'll spare you the details of what John Leech MP is doing for us in Parliament, but suffice to say South Manchester Life is very positive about them.

The first in an occasional series of "weird things that get sent to you when you live in a marginal seat". Imagine my trepidation at receiving a letter with this marked on the envelope: That can only mean one thing: local NHS services are to be wiped from the face of the Earth, right? But no, the true nature of the information is far more surprising: Phew! Ed Miliband is personally going to save my insert local hospital name here! Through no less than a completely non-arbitrary set of random targets. Count me relieved. I don't mean to sound smug but to be personally sent a personal letter from the leader of the opposition addressed personally to me has to make me one seriously important voter.