Final Lib Dem tabloid from Norwich North

This is the final Lib Dem leaflet that I delivered to my locality earlier today. I expect there will be good morning and knock-up leaflet to follow. The Tories are delivering what we in the Lib Dem call a "D's and P's leaflet", to their, as they call them "pledges". It's great following a Tory doing this sort of leafletting as it allows you to note down which houses are Tory for our canvassing records.

With the Tory leaflet to their voters which I will count as a proper leaflet, and counting the fact that the Green's have had a leaflet go out in parts of Norwich which never made it to most of Broadland (we have only received one Freepost from the Greens aswell), the final totals appears to be

Lib Dem 14 (Inc 2 Freepost)
Tory 13 (Inc 2 Freepost)
Labour 5 (Inc 2 Freepost and one posted - Although one of these leaflets never reached parts of Broadland)
UKIP 4 (Inc 2 Freepost - Although one of the other two hand delivered leaflets only went to parts of the constituency)
Murray 2 (Inc 1 Freepost)
Green 2 (Inc 1 Freepost)
NOTA 2 (Inc 1 Freepost - Although the other NOTA leaflet had limited distribution)
Others 1 (Each - All Freepost)

Labour Minister admits to shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan

The public know it, opposition MPs have raised it and the army are losing soldiers because of it, and finally a government minister has had the gits to admit we do have a shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan.

The sad thing is that it takes a minister who is standing down to finally have the backbone to admit something that is so patently obvious to everyone else.

On the same theme (of sorts) isn't it time, given the shortage of Chinooks in Afghanistan that the RAF considered suspending its Chinook display team and instead sent them and their crews in Afghanistan ?

What the BNP are like

Is this the sort of party that stands up for British values ?

Update - Cath Elliott highlight the lies they tell on leaflets too.

Final Tory Tabloid from Norwich North

It appears the Tories are a little jumpy, feeling the need to respond to criticisms of Chloe Smith on the back page of their leaflet.

I note that they are still failing to admit that she was working for the Tory party, on loan from her employers. This blatant attempt to mislead could look silly if last minute opposition leaflets highlight that her website says something different from her leaflets.

There is also a covering letter (hand written style) which I'll add to this posting later. It contains one blatant lie, referring to polls showing it is neck and neck (despite their only being one poll and that was from about 3 weeks ago).

Norwich North By-Election Latest - Labour candidate has swine flu

Anglia News are reporting that Chris Ostrowski, the Labour candidate in the by-election in Norwich North, has swine flu. He is apparently recovering well at home. I do, of course, wish him a speedy recovery.

Why did the BBC allow the Norwich North debate be hijacked by Tory Councillors ?

Watching the BBC East debate on the Norwich North by-election last night I was amazed that the BBC allowed so many Tory Councillors not only to be in the audience (an audience they claimed of ordinary electors from Norwich North, but allow them to ask questions (even the first question) when many of them were not even councillors or residents of Norwich North. Indeed one was a senior cabinet member on Broadland Council and Norfolk County Council. Who does the BBC's research in to these things ?

Hopeless Tory bias from the BBC again !

You can watch the debate HERE

Is Taverham (and Norwich North) beinng "conned" by an Independent wearing a blue rosette ?

In Taverham South in the Norwich North constituency there is a Councillor called Claudette Bannock. She claims on leaflets, in community newletters and at the council to be independent. The question is, how independent is she ?

She is a registered member of the Conservative Party. She turned up to a recent local council by-election count wearing a blue rosette and was clearly part of the Conservative team and she was shown on TV yesterday as one of the crowd of Tory supporters greeting David Cameron on his visit to Norwich North.

This really does beg the question, is Mrs Bannock trying to con us by claiming she is independent when clearly she is a Conservative.

What is more though is the effect this is having on Broadland District Council. She sits there as an independent. This means the independents have three councillors thus allowing them to register as a political group (and one of them therefore gets a leaders allowance). The truth is though that without her the independents could not have a group and the Tories would therefore have to give the chairmanship of the scrutiny committee to the opposition Lib Dems (which they should be entitled to anyway as the main opposition).

When we talk about honesty in politics, and it is one of Chloe Smith's campaign pledges, then isn't it time for some honesty from Conservative's masquerading as independents ?

Norwich North By-Election - Thomas Burridge - The Libertarian Party Candidate

My name is Thomas Burridge, I am the Libertarian Party candidate for Norwich North.

The Libertarian Party offers something very different from any other party that is contesting the election; it offers the people of Norwich North freedom. One might be forgiven for assuming that freedom would be a given in any country that can be called a democracy. However the sorry state of affairs is that we are more controlled economically and in our personal lives than at any time in living memory, The Libertarian Party wishes to end the new labour police state, we wish to remove attempts to control your life (the smoking ban, speed cameras, ID card etc) and we wish to end government interference in your personal finances by completely scrapping income tax.

The same emphasis in individual choice is placed on local issues as well as national issues, we don’t presume to decide for you what is best for your community. If you decide that you want, for example an incinerator, a bypass or perhaps a wind farm or eco town then we will do our best to provide it, if you were to decide you did not want these things then we would do our best to oppose. What we would not do is presume that central government can hope to make a better decision than local people.

If you wish for a party that will truly defend your life and your liberties then I suggest voting Libertarian on July 23^rd.

Thomas Burridge

Note from Nich Starling (Lib Dem Voter): This is posted here not as an endorsement but in an effort to give more coverage to those candidates who do not have the money or resources to publicise their campaign. Remember, whoever you support, to make use of your democratic right to vote on Thursday.

Willy waving and not knowing your subject

BBC Look East had a debate last night between the three main parties and the Green candidate in Norwich North. It is not available online, but there is a video from some coverage done a week a two ago when the candidates did a speed dating event with the focus being on education.

What is hilarious is the Labour and Tory attempt to assert their local credentials, something that April Pond for the Lib Dems and Rupert Read for the Greens didn't feel they had to do. There was from the Tories and Labour an element of willy waving, wasting the opportunity to talk about the subject in favour of showing off their threadbare local credentials.

As someone who works in education I welcomed Chloe Smith's claim that teaching professionals will be allowed to get on with teaching. This is, of course, at odds with Tory policy which is to allow parents group, charities, etc, to take schools over and allow people with no education background at all to start running schools. Perhaps this is why she has gone to such lengths to avoid talking policy on her leaflets.

As for the Green candidate, I worry when someone knows so little about education that he calls the SATS (to be said as one word to rhyme with "hats") as "S" "A" "T" s, with each letter said separately. Very American. That said, Mr Read has made plenty of visits to the USA, see his UEA webpage (don' mention his carbon footprint) so it's a mistake we might expect.

Missed Cameron by 5 minutes - A lucky escape for me

I passed Drayton Village Hall today and missed David Cameron by five minutes. Just as well as I would have felt obliged to ask why the Tories have broken their own campaign pledge in Norwich North. What have they done wrong ?

Stephen Glenn outlines it all so well HERE.

Labour Leaflet 5 and phone canvassing

Here is Labour's second freepost. This means they have delivered two leaflets to the city wards, one to other wards, they've had two freeposts, and one posted. This is an unbelieveably poor effort for a held Labour seat.



On top of that I was phone cavassed this evening. It perhaps says much about Labour's campaign that this is the second time they have phoned in a month and I told them last time I was a Lib Dem member. They didn't know I was a postal voter (we used to tag postal voters on the computer in North Norfolk for each and every election as soon as the lists were given to us). This is the sign of campaign with no organisation and no proper leadership.

The fact the guy laughed when I told him I would be surprised if he found many Labour voters. The response that "I have found a few but I have been phoning all evening" says a lot.

Celebrity hypocrisy ?

Is there nothing worse than a sanctimonious celebrity lecturing us on the ills of society and government when they actively support that government ?

Ex Eastenders actress Michelle Collins, on The One Show, started telling the hosts about her charity work for Barnardos and how she was campaigning with them to get the government to do something about loan sharks and then started telling us about what happens to the most vulnerable in society during a recession. She said that she was campaigning to get the government to do something about this.

The problem is though that the government are hardly going to do something about it when the person moaning about their policies actually goes out and campaigns for that same government.

Update : The one highlight of The One Show was the presenter from the beach telling people to "Look at the webshite". Made me laugh.

Two companies, two different ways of dealing with Swine Flu

Swine Flu has well and truly arrived in Norwich after the city avoided the worst of it for some time. But it is interesting to note the different reaction of two city firms to outbreaks amongst their staff.

Let's take company number one, a large international financial services and insurance company. My brother's best mate works in IT at the insurance company and recounted the story of a member of staff who was feeling unwell, suddenly became feverish, ran to the toilets and was very ill and vomited in the toilets, but very little of it went in to the toilets. Now you'd imagine that the company would take this seriously, close the toilets, get them properly cleaned, advise staff what had happened ? No. Nothing was done and it took three (yes three) days for the vomit to be cleaned. The toilets were left open all throughout this period with dried swine flu vomit on the floor. Nice.

Company number 2, a British owned international company with interests in travel, insurance and the media (who my brother works for) had two members of staff become ill with swine flu. The two ill staff were immediately sent home and the bosses then advised all staff that the company had provided for them and their family courses of Tamiflu (including Tamiflu suspension for infants) so that if they become ill they will have immediately have tamiflu to hand.

What a massive difference in the response of each company. But then again, what do we expect given the advice from government to the health professionals.

At the doctors today with my son, we got on to the topic of swine flu and my doctor told me the advice they are getting is different almost every day, some advice is out of date, more is available on the internet than doctors are being told and the advice to pregnant women is odd and wrong.

And to think the government still think they are doing a good job on swine flu and are in control.

Lib Dem leaflet 13 (and 14)

We received this yesterday (I think). It is a Lib Dem tabloid. We also received a letter today, which makes it 14 Lib Dem leaflets.

Tory Leaflet 12

This is the digital version of the 12th Tory leaflet that they specially delivered to my house only (whilst ignoring the rest of my street).

Thankyou to the Tory (I think) who sent it to me by email rather than the costly non-eco friendly way they were using at the weekend.


This is, according to my file, the 12th Tory leaflet. The Lib Dems are on 13 (including one new one today- see later post) , Labour 5 (including one new one today - see later post), UKIP 4, Green 1, and all the rest on one.

Once can be an error, but twice ? Oh Mr Murray what a lack of honesty

I criticised Craig Murray a few weeks back for failing to understand that placing election posters on road signs, traffic lights, street lights, etc, was not something that was done in Norwich or Norfolk and that it was out of order for him to turn up in Norfolk claiming to be local (after claiming to be a Scottish before) when clearly he was not following the rules.

After this Mr Murray's cronies weighed in, even quoting the Town and Country Planning Act as justification (whilst ignoring the fact that this relates to election posters on the land of people who have given permission, not for the placing of placards, on County Council property), with not one of his people saying simply that they had made an honest mistake, and I stress "honest". But oh, not Mr Murray.

Instead today, Mr Murray's posters adorn street lamps, road signs and other street furniture all around the ring road, with a particular focus on the area surrounding the Lib Dem HQ. These went up after dark last night. Now the first time, Mr Murray might have had an excuse. But I know that he now knows that this is not an acceptable electoral practise locally and that by flyposting again he is choosing to ignore this previous advice. It does make me wonder how honest he is.

But what is more odd, and I can't for the life of me work this out, a number of Lib Dem posters similarly went missing in that area after dark last night.

Now I am sure an honest man like Mr Murray wouldn't have his supporters take these posters, but it is a very strange coincidence isn't it ?

Update : Craig Murray assures us in the comments section that he had nothing to do with the removal of posters so we must assume that there was another team of people out that night, in the same area, who were removing Lib Dem posters. I offer my apologies to him for making the assumption that he was in any way involved.

NOTA (None Of The Above) - Norwich North

NOTA (None of the Above) registered as a Political Party in March 2009 after initially being declined by the Electoral Commision as it was an acronym of "None of the Above" - a prohitibited expression.

NOTA exists solely to advocate, promote and facilitate the POSITIVE abstention facility on ballot papers - giving power back to the electorate

At the moment - many of the electorate see the present political system as being a choice between - beng run over by a bus or being run over by a train!

NOTA is doing the job of the Electoral Commission whose Chair person recently said:

"I think too many of us forget who, exactly, the elections are there to benefit. We forget that these are NOT aimed at helping governments or parties or individual candidates. They are for Voters, to give them a Voice. To help them effect change they want to see. So we need to start putting Voters first. So, how are we going to do it? How are we going to put Voters back at the heart of the System ?"

We at NOTA beleive the answer is quite clear - VOTE NOTA.

"From the small number of people we've spoken to, with our limited resources, the feedback is positive and the indications are that with NOTA (None of the Above) as an option on the ballot paper then the non Voter would be converted to a Voter!"

Note from Nich Starling (Lib Dem Voter): This is posted here not as an endorsement but in an effort to give more coverage to those candidates who do not have the money or resources to publicise their campaign. Remember, whoever you support, to make use of your democratic right to vote on Thursday.

The mask slips - Tory Candidate works for the Tory Party - So much for her honest campaign pledge

The Times is reporting that Chloe Smith is not what she claims to be in her leaflets.

The Times reports

"She describes herself as a “business consultant” but is vague about what exactly she does for Deloitte. Perhaps this is because she is currently on secondment to the Conservatives’ implementation unit. Ms Smith, who is registered as an assistant to James Clappinson (sic), a shadow work and pensions minister, is drawing up plans on how the party would govern once in power."

Whereas Chloe Smith's leaflets state that
The James Clappison referred to in The Times article would be t whose website links were removed from Chloe Smith's own campaign site.

It would also be the same James Clappison who has been implicated in the expenses scandal after claiming up to £10,000 despite owning 24 houses.

So instead of getting a new broom, or the "change" the Tories are campaigning on in Norwich North, instead we have a party hack who appears to want to mislead people about what her real job is, masks her links to scandal hit MPs and someone who does not live up to their own promises and pledges.

And to think the worst the Tories can say about the Lib Dem candidate is that she has a moat !

Recognise this local Labour Party member ?

These are pictures of Bridget Prentice, Labour MP for Lewisham East.

So who is this lady on the Labour Party leaflets in Norwich North not so local after all ? Doesn't she bear a striking resemblance to Bridget Prentice ?

Of course, I am sure that Labour are not that short of local members that they are having to pass of their own London MPs as local party members, are they ?

Peter Baggs - Independent candidate for Norwich North

Peter Baggs - Independent Candidate

He who stands alone against strong and powerful political partys. But it is he who they should fear most as they cannot control him and what he stands for. No party whip to make him vote the way they want, no gag to stop the truth coming out.

Alone he has no real power, so what we need is a group of individuals with the common goal of promoting real democracy, promising to obey the wants and needs of the majority. That is what I stand for here in the Norwich North constituency, hoping to elicit help to take this throughout the country at the general election by getting together men and women who will stand as candidates and ask the majority to vote for them and after election to be true to their constituents’ demands, not Labour or Conservative cabinet decisions. This week 74 Labour MPs, who had signed commons motions which favoured a review of extradition agreements with the U.S. , failed to go against the party line and abstained or voted with the Government. This happens all the time and is not democracy as I understand it.

Together we can change the system if we put the effort in.

Peter Baggs

Note from Nich Starling (Lib Dem Voter): This is posted here not as an endorsement but in an effort to give more coverage to those candidates who do not have the money or resources to publicise their campaign. Remember, whoever you support, to make use of your democratic right to vote on Thursday.