Well ~ It is a given that the man was going to be an arse from his choice of political party but he put (or caused to be put) a leaflet through my door yesterday that was so full of inaccuracies and outright lies that I felt obliged to 'phone and tell him. I asked what were the facilities he was promising to ensure were made available for the "young people of the village" and he replied "They need a play ground". I was forced to point out that I had spent the last 4 years as the Secretary of the fund raising group that had secured funding in excess of now £150K to create a childrens playground, skate board arena and ramps plus an all weather ball five aside football arena and that the last phase (the installation of floodlighting for the pitch) had been completed two weeks ago ~ he got a bit huffy.
I then moved onto his proposals for dealing with traffic congestion in the centre of the village and asked with whom he had discussed these as they seemed to me to be likely to have a detrimental effect on local shops and businesses. He told me he had consulted with local businesses. It was then that I informed him that I am Chairman of the Local Business Association, that all the businesses on the High Street are members and that he had not discussed it with me and that the owners of the businesses had been calling me concerned at his "promises".
Then I asked him about his printed statement that the local Post Office is due for closure and that he will prevent this. Let him waffle for five minutes and sweetly informed him that (i) The local Post Office is not scheduled for closure and in fact no Post Offices in Wales have been so scheduled because the list of proposed closures is not due out until June and that, as a member of PostWatch Wales Steering Group (Northern Area) I was one of those being consulted by the Royal Mail about the forthcoming list and that our village was not on it.
I went onto suggest that before composing election leaflets he should perhaps talk to local people (he lives some way from here and has been brought in by the party) he huffed and puffed a lot and claimed that he had spoken with "party members" so I then named three of them and told him they clearly knew f*** all. He hung up!
Today I am reporting the Lib Dem Candidate to the Returning Officer for spending more than the permitted sum on his campaign so that should see him off too.
