So the election is upon us and our household and circle of friends are taking it pretty seriously!
One thing that always bothers me is the imbalance of publicity. In the last council elections we had lots of publicity from Labour and the Tories, but there were at least two other candidates that we knew nothing about!
We had a conversation one night this week with a friend who, after the last election, had written to her local LibDem candidate asking why they hadn’t sent any publicity. They replied to say that they just didn’t have either the money to produce it or the manpower to deliver it.
This seems really unfair! And thinking about it I wonder why there isn’t help for candidates to do this. Perhaps part of the election deposit money could be used to independently produce and distribute a leaflet in which each candidate has a page or two with which to let us know who they are and what they stand for?
Is this too simple and obvious a solution? Is it not practical? Has it been tried before?
Of course, with the Internet we can choose to go and find out about parties and candidates easily and for free, but not everyone can do this, and not everyone is inclined too.
What would you do to improve election communications?