4th Tory leaflet in Norwich North

The Tories delivered their 4th campaign leaflet today for the Norwich North by-election. It's an A3, 8 page newspaper style leaflet and it has too many pages for me to put up on this blog so I'll just do the front page.

The inside pages have a lot of national content, quite a lot of national article about George Osborne, Cameron and Gordon Brown and a lot of "Insert candidate's name here" stuff with little local relevance alongside some local stuff that has already featured in previous leaflets. Quite professional in appearance but rather dry, the leaflet that is.

What amused me were some of the quotes from the leaflet. The point of quotes from members of the public is supposed to be to show your candidate is a really hard working person capable of achieving things and a person who works year in, year out, so the choice of quotes was somewhat strange.
This is odd. This is the sort of reply I get from a bank saying "Thank you for your reply to out letter concerning your overdraft" or "Thank you for your reply concerning cancelling your contract with T-Mobile". It does not not actually say anything has been achieved, indeed the quote tells us only that she replied to a letter.


So in essence, during the local elections Chloe Smith did some surveying. Fine, okay, but as someone selected to fight the back in 2008 I'd have preferred a quotations showing she works outside of the election period, not just every Spring.

And finally, my favourite non descript quote.

Now Stuart Clancy is my County Councillor in Taverham, which until Ian Gibson resigned had been part of the new Broadland seat meaning Chloe Smith was not the candidate for this area. This means that since Ian Gibson has stood down, Chloe Smith has suddenly been supporting Cllr Clancy in his campaigns ? Presumably, but what are they? The local Tory leaflet makes no references to any local campaigns by Cllr Clancy in Taverham and I certainly know nothing about them. So in essence, since Ian Gibson has stood down, she's been campaigning in Taverham ? Not the best quote in the world then.

Yes, I'm being picky and yes, before people make the point, I am a Lib Dem so I am biased (if you want Tory bias read Iain Dale, but surely the Tories could have chosen a better set of quotes than these ?