Saturday, May 14, 2005

Starring on the Newsquiz

It seems one of my election anecdotes graced the airwaves of Radio 4's Newsquiz yesterday. They rehashed the Atticus story which read...

"A surprise on the campaign trail for gay Tory candidate Iain Dale. Knocking on doors in the North Norfolk seat, he met an elderly lady who wondered if he might help her. Dale, fighting a Lib Dem majority, was naturally happy to oblige. “Thank you,” said the lady voter. “You’ll find the Durex on the sideboard.” Well now, it might be a small majority but there are limits. Luckily, the sideboard contained only Duracell. She wanted her clock battery changed."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tory members are hardly likely to elect someone sensible, they should have the vote taken away. Th party needs someone in touch, not someone who is anti-European.

Anonymous said...

By telling all and sundry about the lady who said Durex instead od Duracell you probably lost yourself quite a few votes - from the lady and all her friends who were probably mortified you could make fun of her so publicly. Also, your blog constantly told everyone exactly where you had been canvassing/campaigning - thus giving the opposition all the info they needed to make sure they canvassed an area after you. There are some things you should keep to yourself during a campaign and not blab about on your blog. After all, the aim is surely to win - not write an entertaining blog. That's only useful if it helps you win, and in many cases, I fear your entries had the opposite effect. Sorry, but that's how I feel.

Anonymous said...

And dry humourless ol’ sticks a-rattling round are what keep us (ahem) younger clientele assured in the perception that the Tories have nothing to offer to us but are just the ticket for my parent’s dwindling generation. IMHO blogs are going to play a major role in communications and PR in the next election (see also Mrs H’s) – but absolutely no one is going to read them if they aren’t truthful, topical and entertaining. Like it or not, politics has got a lot of other attention-grabbing information to compete with out there in planet real world.

Being vicariously involved, via the blog, in the nitty-gritty of footstomping campaigning was addictively engaging and I think may be the key to getting Generation X,Y,Z or whatever capital letter we are up to now, actually interested. On this one Iain was streets ahead of the zeitgeist – mark my words. And did it well. Such a shame he’s a Tory and has all those strange misguided views – he’d be a particularly valuable asset to a livelier party.

And to be brutal, the blog certainly didn’t lose Iain 10,000 votes, whatever tactical errors Anonymous oh-so-cleverly detects, and may have net gained him a few.

Anonymous said...

Right on Toots. Gee, Anonymous, have you had a sense of humour by pass or something? Lighten up!