ALB
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I should have warned you that the count starts with the verification of the ballot papers, i.e that the number of papers is the same as the number of names ticked off on the electoral register. That takes hours and is deadly boring. The real counting of the votes for each list does not start till this has been in done. In Guildford, where I’m going to start with, this isn’t scheduled till 4pm; which is why I’m not planning to get there till then. If they’ve finished in time for me to get to Southampton before 10pm I will see you there but it will have been a long day for you.
Message from one of our sympathisers in Oxford, who will also be a counting agent for us at the count there this evening:
“For information: in the end the two of us did stalls on 3 afternoons, & I also did 5 or 10 shorter leafleting sessions. Definitely met a few likely voters, but not huge numbers.“
Yes there is some co-relation between from where we get comparatively more replies and university towns. The next on the list was Canterbury at 0.4% (equal fifth with Lewes). On the other hand, the response from Reading wasn’t high up on the list while Hastings isn’t a university town. Maybe it was because it’s the Mugsborough of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and there are some descendants of those Owen convinced to become socialists. More likely because it has a Labour council and we tend to do better in Labour areas. In Oxford we got more votes than the BNP, so we are talking about “socially liberal” places.
One thing we are ignoring here is the disappointing response to the 215,000 leaflets distributed by Royal Mail. I don’t think they even reach double figures. It can’t have been the wording as it was the same. The layout would have been a factor as we couldn’t offer the 3 free months subscription (only an info pack about our policy in the election as the regulations don’t allow advertising) as we did in the i paper insert. Another important factor will have been the audience. The Royal Mail one was aimed at everyone in the 6 selected areas whereas the i paper insert was targeted at people who were interested in political ideas.
Free postal distribution to everyone may still be useful in terms of raising our profile but not in getting responses to follow up. Also, many (in fact most) responses to the i paper insert came from outside the election area. This meant that our insert was in effect our national Euroelection manifesto. Which suggests that we could use the i paper for general election and other important statements (I wouldn’t be too keen on a rolling 4-month programme of general inserts). Note also that the i paper gets a better response than from other papers as it only has one insert per issue, i.e not a bundle that people can and do throw straight into the bin or let fall out on to the street.
The other statistic that will be a useful indicator as to how to follow up will be the vote. Not the total but where we did relatively better. Last time our average was 0.23% but was 0.56% in Oxford, 0.52% in Brighton, 0.49% in Hastings and 0.44% in Southampton. For the record, the worst was Surrey Heath at 0.09%, i.e less than 1 per 1,000. I don’t know where it is, not sure we need to.
I don’t know about anybody else but the only “usual suspect” apart from Chomsky and Naomi Klein that I have heard of is John Holloway. Anybody heard of any of the others?
I put the sticker on my ballot paper, one of the longest I’d seen because there were eleven independents each paying £5000. Also had a phone call from the widow of a member in Surrey who was so pleased that she had been able to vote for socialism for the first time in her life.
Thanks but there’s something odd about those figures. They show people saying they are going to vote for “Other” when there are no “Others” standing, e.g. in Wales and the North East. In that case “other” could include any party that those polled said they would vote for even if not standing, e.g. BNP, CPB, Women’s Equality Party, etc. We will have to see what happens today (though of course with postal voting a substantial proportion of people have already voted), but which won’t be revealed till 10 o’clock on Sunday.
Yes, that’s all “other” can be: the UKEU Party and the 3 Independents (who have done virtually no activity) and us. Could include, I suppose, those who intend to cast a blank or spoiled ballot paper. 2% is what you need to get your deposit back. If there is a chance of us getting that, as election agent I’ll need to go to Southampton to be able to ask for a recount if we get 1.99% ! At the moment I’m only planning to go to the count in Guilford. Where did you see that stat?
It was on the 6.30 South East local news, in the second half of the programme with our logo prominently shown at the beginning with those of the other parties as well as the interview with Andy Thomas.
Mind you, with the number of Tory councillors and other Tory party members planning to vote for the Brexit Party, they’re going to have to call in Judge Jeffreys.
It wasn’t on the lunchtime news so presumably it will be on the 6.30 one.
Meanwhile, here’s our other TV appearance, last Sunday, by Anton Pruden on BBC East for the benefit of their viewers in the Milton Keynes area. It’s about 21.30 or so minutes in (you need to be registered with BBC I Player):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0005d1w/sunday-politics-east-19052019
If you continue listening you will notice that another candidate in the South East, Pacelli Ndikumana, of the UK European Union Party, gets more time.
It’s a hanging offence in the Tory party too:
The BBC One South East Today TV news programme is due to interview Andy Thomas, one of our EU election candidates, this morning.
According to the schedule ,the programme goes out at 13:30, 18:30 and 22:25You may also be able to access the interview online via these links:
To do this you need to be registered with BBC I Player but it’s free.Head Office has just emailed you pdf versions of both leaflets.
Last time, in 2014, we got 5,454 votes. That’s the figure to beat. But of course we not contesting just to measure support for socialism. It’s also to publicise the case for socialism. On that level, it has already been a success.
Done all mine too. Drove a couple of miles to cross the border into Surrey, to Long Ditton which is in Elmbridge where the MP is slimy Tory Brexiteer (despite the area voting Remain) and would-be Prime Minister, Dominic Raab. I too saw some UKIP leaflets and took one for my collection. I bought a couple of local papers to see what they had to say about the election. The Surrey Comet, which used to be alright but is now a complete rag, had nothing. The Guildford-based Surrey Advertiser had this to say about us:
“Socialist Party of Great Britain pushing for ‘Lexit’ – a “pro-worker EU exit” – its lead candidate in the South East is Mandy Bruce.”
They are mixing us with someone else of course, but lazy journalism as they were sent a link to our manifesto. (And Mandy is only first on our list as it’s in alphabetical order and her surname begins with a B). Still, they will have to publish a correction, giving us a second bite of the cherry.
Actually, we had got our revenge in first as when we are in Southampton we deliberately leafletted a ward where SPEW, under its registered name of “Socialist Alternative”, had stood a candidate in the local elections earlier this month. If they want confusion they can have it.
