Local elections: Mood on doorstep negative as campaign under way

By Andrew Sinclair for BBC News

25 April 2019

Whatever party they're canvassing for, everyone is agreed that the mood on the doorsteps this year is very different to normal. There are more stories of people having doors slammed in their face and being sworn at. And for the first time that anyone can remember there are a handful of instances of candidates being punched. Carla Hales, a first-time candidate for the Conservatives in Colchester, was out campaigning and had stopped to take a picture for her Twitter feed yesterday when a man shouted abuse at her and punched her in the back. She had difficulty breathing and was taken to hospital where she was found to be badly bruised and later released. The police are investigating and have described the assault as "a political attack". The leaders of all political parties in Colchester have condemned the attack.

Two weeks ago in Great Yarmouth, a Labour councillor Cathy Cordiner-Achenbach was punched in the stomach. "I was delivering a leaflet through the door and someone was quite upset and I was punched," she said. "There was nothing leading up to it. It did shock me. Some people ask you to leave, or express their feelings tersely, but I've never come across anything like this." She said a lot of people were "feeling disappointed with what's going on nationally". They want to be heard, she said.

I have heard stories of volunteers being reluctant to campaign or taking off their rosettes before going out. Canvassers stress that these are isolated incidents and the majority of voters are still civil and some even want to talk about local issues. But some have used words like "tense" and "ugly" to describe their experiences on the doorstep. "Negativity is high," said one Conservative agent this morning. Another said: "There is a lot of frustration out there over Brexit and they're blaming all the Westminster parties, not just the Tories. We're expecting the turnout next week to be very low."

[Turnout in local elections, and especially local Council elections coming soon, is traditionally low. This time, like the unnamed Tory, I believe they will be significantly lower than usual. It’ll be interesting to see what the numbers turn out to be. I’m not voting in our Council elections for a number of reasons. I’m still thinking about my response to the European elections coming up at the end of May if we haven’t decided to leave the EU by then. I think the vote for those will be at an all-time low or will be used to express the views of those who feel denied a voice in either a 2nd referendum or the ongoing debates in Parliament. Again the numbers of voters will be very interesting to see. But, as you can see from the article above, people generally are far from happy with our politicians no matter the Party or the level. Politics is definitely going through one of its period rough and nasty patches. You definitely have to be brave to knock on someone’s door and, sometimes literally, take it on the chin.]