As usual I was up at the crack of dawn yesterday to do “trade bell” deliveries. Imagine my astonishment when I noticed some “outside heavies” delivering a leaflet on my patch! How very dare they! Anyway, I nonchalantly crept up behind them to see what they were delivering. It was certainly heavy gauge card with a picture of Big Ben tower on it.
When I got home, I saw that the “outside heavies” had very kindly delivered one of their leaflets to my house. It was a single A4 piece of card saying that the entire civilised world will go into advanced meltdown if there is a hung parliament. There are pictures of it here and here. It was from the Young Britons Foundation (although the deliverers were far from young). YBF are obviously a proxy Tory agency – rather like the Political Action Committees (PACs) in the US like the Swift Boater groups. Bless them. Long may they waste early morning long car journies and heavy card on such rubbish!
This leaflet seems to be going out in LibDem/Con marginals. Here’s a list of where I have heard reports of it going out:
Newbury (me!)
Chippenham (by email)
Broadlands (by email)
Watford (by email)
St Albans (by email)
Bradford East (Comment below)
Colchester (Comment below)
Oxford West & Abingdon (Comment below)
Taunton (Comment below)
Wells (Comment below)
South-East Cambridgeshire (Comment below)
Lewes (Comment below)
Winchester (Comment below)
Wolverhampton South West (Comment below)
Bedford (Comment below)
Orpington (Comment below)
Wantage (Comment below)
West Dorset (Comment below)
Please use the comments field to add any more reports….
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May 4, 2010 at 7:29 am
I posted about thsi group back in March 2010
Its chief executive Blaney has described the YBF as “a Conservative madrasa” that radicalises young Tories. Programmes have included trips to meet neo-conservative groups in the US and to a shooting range in Virginia to fire submachine guns and assault rifles.
It claims to have trained 2500 young Tory activists including 35 Conservative parliamentary candidates at this election.
My March posting is at:
http://politsmk.blogspot.com/2010/03/flag-on-high-tory-ranks-tightly-closed.html
May 4, 2010 at 7:45 am
And Oxford West & Abingdon
May 4, 2010 at 8:00 am
We’ve had some delivered in Colchester too.
May 4, 2010 at 8:07 am
Add Bradford East to your list. Got one of these yesterday, which I’ll be blogging about later.
May 4, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Add Taunton, Wells & Bristol areas to your list!Ours arrived yesterday morning! Ugh!
May 4, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Appeared in Ely yesterday (South East Cambs – previously a Con. safe seat)
May 4, 2010 at 7:21 pm
We’ve had them in Lewes too (safe LibDem seat). How can they be allowed to distribute these leaflets with no party political attribution?
May 4, 2010 at 7:47 pm
They don’t say “Vote for” any party so they don’t need attribution to a party, but there are rules about imprints and being registered as a “third party” if your spend is above £10,000.
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May 4, 2010 at 8:21 pm
The YBF is also advised by Tory blogger Iain Dale; Daniel Hannan MEP and Andrew Griffiths CFO of BSkyB plc and the Tory PPC in Corby on 2001 and 2005
YBF is the Tory Party by any other name and if they have broken the law I hope they get banged to rights!
May 4, 2010 at 9:14 pm
We had these in West Dorset too.
May 4, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Since @torybear is a member of YBF it is very clear that they are a Tory proxy group. Note that @torybear is one of the employees (probably the only one) of The so-called “sunlight Centre” that “investigates” all politicians other than Tory politicians. Of course their “investigations” are smears, very much in the style of the Swift Boat Group.
May 4, 2010 at 11:06 pm
..and in Wantage.
May 4, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Orpington as well – I’m glad they consider it as marginal!
May 5, 2010 at 12:55 am
Appeared yesterday in Winchester too.
May 5, 2010 at 2:29 am
Also delivered in Bedford.
May 5, 2010 at 7:53 am
You can add Wolverhampton South West too, if we are a LibDem/Tory marginal I am happy – I am taking as a compliment they are worried about us!
May 5, 2010 at 8:49 am
And Winchester (Monday morning).
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May 5, 2010 at 10:23 pm
And in Wantage. Have asked the Returning Officer to investigate.
May 6, 2010 at 4:07 pm
…and Totnes (South Brent). I uploaded a copy to thestraitchoice.org