Leaflets, good and bad

The election leaflets that the post office are going to distribute for free have been delivered safely to the 3 mail centres concerned, even if they arrived an hour out of time due to, apparently, delays on the M3 on their way from the printers in Dorset. The post office say they'll still be distributed within 7 days, probably from tomorrow.

The areas (actually parliamentary constituencies) which will be getting them are: Ealing Central and Acton, Holborn and St Pancras, Bethnal Green and Bow, and Vauxhall. In all 240,000 will be delivered.

Meanwhile outside these areas members and sympathisers are distributing a further 30,000 by hand.

I've only had the Greens and Liberals leaflets put through my letter box so far. As you'd expect, they're pretty wishy-washy, not to say pathetic. But at least the Liberals are not beating the anti-EU drum like all the others. The Greens are promising "warm homes and new jobs" as if these had never been promised before or saying where the money's going to come from (the printing press, no doubt).

While distributing our leaflets I've come across those of UKIP and the BNP. Their John Bull nationalism is just laughable. The UKIP has a photo on the front of Churchill giving a V sign while the BNP's gives a list of famous British military victories: Trafalgar, the Somme, Dunkirk (a victory?), D-Day, the Falklands.

I've also had to do the sort of election agent's work we don't normally do. A sympathiser said he wanted to get on the electoral register (today was the last day) and a member wanted a postal vote. That's two more votes -- from socialists of course.