Thoughts

I love it how the manifesto front covers for the Labour and Conservative parties are completly different. I'm not sure what the Liberal Democrat one will look like, but if they're still searching for something distinctive in the eleventh hour (for they are due to publish the manifesto tomorrow) I should suggest the smiling head of Nick Clegg on the body of a Liberal Democrat eagle. All with a default white background. Or perhaps just an upsidedown purple question mark on a yellow background. Actually that would look too much like a peversion of the UKIP logo. Has anyone seen that television advert lately for DREAMS, or some other bed company - the first few seconds show a large pound sign falling onto a bed. The brash opening music and pound sign reminded me of UKIP's hilarious unsubtleness. That said, I look back with strange fondness at William Hague's campaign to "keep the pound". I put it in quotes so that you can imagine it being said in his ridiculously drawn-out Yorkshire accent.

Went for an afternoon walk in Brighton today (I returned from London yesterday afternoon) and was surprised at the sheer number of posters for the GREEN party seem to have in their houses. There were one or two Labour posters but no Libdem or Tory posters to be seen. There are several explanations for this IMO.

1) The Greens have been handing out more leaflets than the other parties.
2) The Greens haven't had a chance to offend anyone as they aren't tarnished with the 'parliamentary party' brush that Labour and the Conservatives have. Thus people can put their posters up without fear of recrimination.
3) The Liberal Democrats came fourth in 2005 - Brighton Pavilion (the constituency I was walking in) was not an area of spectacular Liberal showing.
4) They are good posters. They are A4 sized but carry a simple message 'VOTE GREEN'. The green background makes them fairly distinctive and, of course, fit in ideally with the party name.
5) I have walked through areas with a high proportion of students. And for some reason there are indeed a lot of students in Brighton.

Of course there's also the more basic and, perhaps, more important reason why there are so many green posters out there. And that's that they have a lot of support.

Consider the implied results for Brighton Pavilion (2005)

Labour: 17162 (37.5%)
Conservative: 10639 (23.2%)
Green: 9457 (20.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 7414 (16.2%)
Other: 1115 (2.4%)
Majority: 6523 (14.2%)

If I didn't include this seat on the 'three-way marginals' in my previous post, it's because I had filtered through seats where Labour was first, the Liberals second and the Tories third. Here, however, the Greens are the third party. I'd say the Labour vote can decrease anywhere within the range of about 10%, and that the Tory vote can go up within a similar range. However, I also suspect the Liberal vote to collapse and for the Greens to benefit most from this. Thus, and it's a big thus, this could be a reeeeally interesting 3-way contest.

And it's right on my doorstep! Literally!

(Well, not literally. I actually live around 100 yards into Hove, but it's fair to say most of my daily activities go on within the city of Brighton.)

If you're not particularly interested in the general election, tough. I'm going to be writing about it for the next three weeks and three days.

If you are particularly interested in the general election, specifically the scene in Brighton, then this guy's blog will provide come good comment, although it's clear where his sympathies lie. I shouldn't complain though - without enthusiasts, of whatever political shade, there is no politics to actually write about.