Tomsk79

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.