UK local elections: Conservative party forgets to alter placeholder text before distributing campaign literature

Prospective voters in Redford, part of the East London district of Ilford, found a flyer from the local Conservative Party in their mailboxes, in which the boilerplate text, which opens with "what we're doing/have done for ward/area name" had not been replaced with local talking points.


The flyer went on to boast about the Issue 1 We've Done, Issue 2 We've Done, Issue 3 We've Done and Issue 4 We've Done.

Labour carried the Redford council election with 51 seats, as part of a London-wide Labour wave that saw the party scoring its best wins since 1971, a fact that was spun as a "defeat" by the press and the establishment wing of the Labour Party, who cited disappointing results in some races as evidence that the party — whose membership and popular support have soared to unprecedented heights — is in retreat under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, whom they hate more than Margaret Thatcher.

The Redbridge flyer wasn't even the worst piece of Tory campaign literature in the local elections: that prize goes to Kamran Razzaq, who hoped to win a seat for the Tories in Dudley Council: Mr Razzaq blamed the Labour Party for a local increase in hepatitis.


Where candidates were supposed to list four ways in which the Tories have helped the local area, the leaflet instead included a numbered list of four "ISSUES WE'VE DONE", with each one saying: "Three lines of text about what issues/projects/policies you've already done or are doing or will be doing in your ward/area name."

Photos of the leaflet were posted on social media by local residents and quickly went viral.

One of those who received it, Keir Richardson, told The Independent: "It took me a while to work out what they had done. Then I thought, that's quite embarrasing and wouldn't look good for them, especially with what is going on at national level."


Conservatives issue local election leaflet boasting of 'what we're doing/have done for ward/area name' [Benjamin Kentish/The Independent]


(via JWZ)