Stop already!

If Thursday's election were to be decided by the amount of bumf stuck through letter boxes, there's no doubt that in my area the LibDems would be the clear winners. Hardly a day goes by without an orange flyer of some sort making its way into the recycling bin, after a brief sojourn on the hallway floor*. In contrast, we've had two pieces from the Tory incumbent and one each from Labour, UKIP and the Greens.

I was a LibDem voter when voting LibDem wasn't cool, but I won't be voting for them this time, so all those trees have died in vain. The LibDem candidate has chosen to devote his campaign to a sustained personal attack on the Tory incumbent. His focus is the fact that she doesn't live in the constituency, and has instead claimed expenses to keep a second home here. Here's the thing though: the LibDem doesn't live in the constituency either, so choosing his main opponent's residency as his key line of attack doesn't strike me as a particularly astute move. (In fact, given that the Tory has a flat here, the LibDem is the only one of the five candidates who doesn't have a home in the constituency).

One of his other major claims is that he has put pressure the county council to maintain the county's roads properly. Anyone who has driven in Hertfordshire lately -- and not just since the exceptionally cold winter weather -- could only conclude that he's not much of a lobbyist. He just likes seeing himself in the local paper, posing grim-faced next to the latest monster crater. In short, he's both malicious and ineffective, and I hope he gets his head handed to him on Thursday night.

* Addendum, May 6: This has continued right up until polling day! A LibDem flyer came through the letter box not much before midnight last night. And a young LibDem canvasser rang the doorbell around lunchtime today reminding us that we should go out and vote. I can never remember that happening before. You have to give then an A for effort. Too bad the candidate here is such a chuff.