With the local elections looming, there’s a ward in the borough next to mine that is apparently Labour’s No 1 target. “Win this ward,” said a text-plea for canvassers, “and we see the 50-year rule of the Tories next door end.” Obviously, I’d have signed up straight away, except that ward is the borough I grew up in, and I feel moderately confident that I and my ilk made it even more Tory by canvassing there in the first place.
In the 80s, I used to go door to door with my mother. I honestly don’t know if anyone undecided has ever, genuinely, had their mind changed by a party member arriving with a rosette, but I can say with moderate certainty that there is nothing more annoying than being canvassed by a kid from the opposite side, even one accompanied by an adult. Torn between wanting to be rude, and not wanting to be seen as the kind of person who would be rude to a child, Conservative voters would wave us off through a door opened no more than an inch, saying: “True blue, I’m afraid.” Granted, I have no data on this, but the vibe was very much: “You’ve made me 10 times more Conservative than I was five minutes ago.”
