Early on polling day on 7th May, the above spoof election poster appeared on Sunniside Road, only a few metres from my house. David spotted it at about 6am when he was heading over the road to feed the livestock. I spotted another just up the road. We then got reports of a small number at the fire station in Swalwell and some on Ryton.
The above photo of the ones on the premises of Swalwell Fire Station was taken in the afternoon. We were rather surprised that the staff at the fire station - some of whom featured in a last minute Labour leaflet in uniform with Labour candidates on the same premises - had not removed the posters, given this was a public facility and the staff are public servants. A phone call to the chief fire officer saw the posters removed shortly afterwards. Presumably the staff were just rather unobservant on that day and failed to notice the front of their building plastered with posters.
I am curious to know whether these same illegal posters went up in other constituencies. They were professionally printed on corex and will therefore not be cheap.
Quite what the culprits sought to achieve by spending money like this and disrupting their own sleep to drive in their volvos and people carriers to various locations in Blaydon constituency is beyond me. It appears that they must be driven by a hatred of us that took them beyond sensible, logical behaviour into the world of absurd pettiness. Being beastly to the Lib Dems may be a big turn on to poisoned dwarfs and those with gigantic egos but no personality, but it achieved nothing for them other than unnecessarily sleep loss and wasted money.
The irony is that most people who saw the posters simply glanced at them and thought they were promoting the Lib Dems. They didn't stop to read what was on them. We know that because people told us they were pleased to see our posters up!
The posters in Sunniside were removed on the advice of the police who are looking in to the matter. I have one of them at my house and I'm quite happy for the owner to collect it from me. Just get in touch and make the necessary arrangements.
1 comment:
Reminds me of the very professional attack leaflet which was put out in Newcastle North in 2010 with no imprint or way of identifying the issuer.
Post a Comment