Tomsk79

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...

So you turn your back for a week and seven pieces of literature arrive. Far too many to scan, so you'll just have to click-and-squint to get a flavour: After heroically reading all of these I have learned: "Who will stop The Hard Brexit?" - Not the Labour Party, no no no. The Liberal Democrats of course. 8/10 fair point rating, although given how their campaign has gone so far I doubt the Lib Dems will be capable of stopping anything much in the next parliament.  "Who can change the Future of Britain?" - Not Corbyn's Labour Party, no no no. Tim Farron's Liberal Democrats of course. A variation on the same theme but with more boo hiss Corbyn photos. I'm a little bit surprised about the focus on Corbyn as I would have thought Withington would be more sympathetic than most areas to his leadership, but what do I know. John Leech still likes to send us personal letters address personally to us in person. More jabs at Labour regarding Brexit, mix...

With the Andy Burnham Show out of the way thoughts turn to the awful looming catastrophe of 8th June. Manchester Withington is all but irrelevant to the national outcome this time, where there is one mission and one mission only: to reduce the scale of the Tory victory. While it is a privilege to live in a constituency where the Tories don't stand a chance, it does render the local contest somehow a bit academic. It goes without saying that Labour and the Lib Dems don't see it that way, and it's clear already that this election is going to be just as closely fought as 2015, even though it is nominally now a safe Labour seat. No complaints from me of course... I'm not going to post every piece of literature I receive before the main event, not least as the exhausting Libdemalanche is continuing unabated, with yet another feature-packed South Manchester News arriving today (complaining about Labour's record on homelessness, on the same day the mayor announced a ne...

So Labour and the Lib Dems were fully justified in switching their leafletting efforts to the general election: Other names: Description (if any): Number of first preference votes given for each candidate: Percentage (%) of first preference votes: ANSTEE Sean Brian The Conservative Party Candidate 128,752 22.72% ASLAM Mohammad Independent 5,815 1.03% BROPHY Jane Elisabeth Liberal Democrats 34,334 6.06% BURNHAM Andy Labour and Co-operative Party 359,352 63.41% FARMER Marcus Jonathan Independent 3,360 0.59% MORRIS Stephen English Democrats - "Putting England First!" 11,115 1.96% ODZE Shneur Zalman UK Independence Party (UKIP) 10,583 1.87% PATTERSON Will The Green Party 13,424 2.37% Total number of first preference votes: 566,735 Big Andy shows...

So who did I vote for on this historic day? When the campaign kicked off I was sorely tempted to choose based purely on the candidates' views on Brexit, but now it seems a less urgent concern when there's a better opportunity to make that point next month. And if you discount Brexit, there's only one game in town. Burnham is streets ahead of the other candidates both in his experience and his manifesto , so first choice to him. Of course I wasn't going to let my first ever supplementary vote election pass without nominating a second choice (not that there's any chance of it coming into play). That was a tougher decision: other than campaiging on Brexit the Lib Dems haven't been particularly inspiring in this race, and it was a bit of a toss-up with the Greens for me. But in an effort to make an informed choice I looked through Paterson's manifesto and noticed he makes a point of opposing HS2, which is an utterly disastrous attitude for a would-be ma...

Exciting times as the Labour Party visited the Tomsk household this evening on behalf of their general election candidate J---- S----. Alas the canvassing did not extend to Andy Burnham and therefore I will not be reporting details of our conversation. No further mayoral election literature has been received, so I guess it's decision time...

The first Libdemalanche since 2015 arrives, but sadly without any mention of the Mayoral election. In line with this blog's strict one-election policy I will present their literature without comment, and with the identities of candidates not standing for mayor obscured. Update 2/5/2017: It seems Labour are so confident of winning the mayoral race that they too are skipping ahead to the general election. Naturally their effort must be appropriately redacted: