Bloody cheek!

We have just received the following email,

"I only discovered on BBC South East news last Friday that there was an open primary on Sat to choose Conservative candidate for constituency. I already had plans for that day so could not attend. But there was no publicity about this at all, nothing in local press, no leaflets through the door, no posters anywhere, so I don't see how you could claim this to be an 'open primary' for the whole electorate. I do realise that who the Conservatives choose as their candidate is up to them. That's fair enough & I do not claim to be a conservative or support your party, but please don't boast that you are being open & involving everybody when this is clearly not the case."

And my reply

Thank you for your email.

 

1. We delivered 40,000 leaflets, including 2,000 in your village

2. On Saturday 19 October we had a street stall in Borough Green with the candidates present - posters were up in shops and it was covered in the press. Further street stalls were organised in Tonbridge, West Malling, Kings Hill and Edenbridge

3. We sent out 5,000 mailshots, including notifying all Parish councils. Your own Parish Council Chairman booked to attend.

4. It was featured in the Courier, Kent Messenger, Sevenoaks Chronicle, BBC Radio Kent and BBC South East. The first public reports were in late September.

5. We had a website up and running three weeks before the event - which was visited by over 10,000 people.

6. We invited every school, college and first time voter to attend

7. We emailed every single person in the constituency who had given us their email address.

I am sorry if you did not know, but I really don't see how we could have done more.

Andrew Kennedy

 

I could have added, "and when we delivered a survey to you last year, you sent it back and ticked the box opting out of further email or SMS contact."

For the record, here is a picture of our Information Stall on the High Street of the very village where the above complainant resides. If we were being "secretive" we were certainly going about it in a strange way!

Just proves - no matter how hard you try, there'll always be someone who will complain!