Tomsk79

In case you were thinking the main contenders had gone quiet, I can assure you that our hallway carpet continues to be submerged in red and yellow leaflets. We've received a CV from John Leech, a personal letter from Jeff Smith, an even more personal psuedo-handwritten letter from the Manchester Mum of the Year describing how Leech helped her child get medical treatment, two reminders to vote on Thursday, and more besides. But rather than attempt to scan all that lot in I'll just share the two which best summarise their respective campaigns. Here's Smith's effort, complete with endorsement from Big Andy and a number of references to police cuts (a growing theme in the Labour material):  (Top prize for misleading stat there with the 93% line) And here is Leech, no longer featuring photos of Corbyn but abstract references to infighting instead. (I'm still trying to understand the logic of the "more spending, more taxes, no pla

Pantomime villain Sarah Heald finally appears in leaflet form:   One of the most content-free leaflets I've ever seen, though don't worry because Team May is here to explain all... I guess this leaflet was produced back when standing with Theresa May was considered to be an advantage, maybe not so much now. Everything else about it has a distinctly phoned-in quality, not least that the designer couldn't even be bothered to replace "MY CANDIDATE" with the actual name of the candidate. Even if the Tories do end up with a 100+ majority after all, I will at least take solace that Her Candidate is not going to Westminster.

That must have been a particularly engaged art class...

To St Clements, scene of the 2015 hustings , for a re-run. With the Big Two back again with much the same views I didn't learn a whole lot that would sway my vote, although Jeff Smith's vow to keep fighting for the interests of pro-Europeans was welcome. He had a neat line on a second referendum, being sympathetic to one but noting the necessity of a change in public opinion first, which he predicted would happen. Smith's vote against Article 50 has indeed innoculated him against a clear line of attack from John Leech, and Brexit was far from the dominant theme of the evening, putting a question mark over the very name of this blog series. Much more focus was on questions of tax and spending, which is exactly where Labour needs the debate to be and very bad news for the Lib Dems . Leech's other main attack was that a vote for Smith is a vote for Corbyn Chaos, but the lack of reaction confirmed my feeling that Withington is not the most receptive area in the country to

With the resumption of campaigning another three postings from the Lib Dems have arrived, including personal letters addressed personally to me in person from both Tim Farron and John Leech. Nothing new of interest to report in any of them. I would though like to appeal to the party to stop sending me pictures of Nigel Farage laughing maniacally, they're making me feel ill. Much more interesting is the first piece of literature from outside the Big Two. There are three other candidates standing this time, sadly not including the Mysterious Independent, who regular readers will know took a punt on becoming mayor instead. UKIP have also failed to show up, which on the one hand is a marvellous indicator of their continuing decline but on the other hand denies us the satisfaction of seeing them lose their deposit again. Laura Bannister is standing for the Greens (not to be confused with Lucy Bannister from 2015 - are they related?) while Sarah Heald is also new for the Tories. The fi