If you want to drum up votes, surely canvassing is the way?

[drbonnieblossman]

I don't know a huge amount re politics, I'm first to admit, though I have been trying to educate myself.

I live in a lib dem area, though all those surrounding are conservative. We've had no canvassing at all, other than a couple of lib dem flyers through the door there's been nothing.

I was, as someone who really isn't yet 100% sure how I'm voting, hoping that is have some canvassing at my door.

That said, Boris came to a localish town the other day to hold babies and eat farmers market cheese, but really, that's not enough!

There must be a lot like me, undecided, so why are the reps from the parties missing a trick? Or is it because it's not worth it where I live as it's assumed lib dems will stay?

Our leaflets are being delivered by RM, so theres not even a party member delivering it.

I've never encountered a canvasser in my life. I live in a very safe Labour area and feel a bit neglected as none of the parties are targeting voters here (although Labour did at least put a leaflet through).

However, I think I would probably find it a bit of a nuisance if I had various canvassers knocking on my door, inevitably at inconvenient times - unless the Jehovah's Witnesses would agree to take a couple of weeks off and we could just have the poliitical canvassers instead.

'I live in a lib dem area.'

There's your answer.

Campaigners are focusing on areas where a seat is up for grabs.

I live in a very Tory area and have had one Tory knock - it was during the day and they were after the oldies, wanting to know if anyone needed a postal vote or lift to the polling station

A mile down the road, local campaigners are doing many campaign sessions every day and will be doing so every day between now and next Thursday trying to turn a Tory seat labour. Time will tell if they'll succeed!

I live in a staunch Labour strong hold in the NE, every single year Labour get voted back in, the Conservative's don't bother knocking and neither do Labour as they know they will win anyway. Haven't had a single person knock on my door.

It could also be they don't have the manpower for whatever reason. In my area, the party I support has volunteers but we all tend to be either workers and/or have children which we can't really drag round with us. I have had plenty of leaflets through my door usually when I come back from a playgroup in the morning. I would love to have certain parties canvass me so I can have a, ahem, debate!

I live in a keenly fought area, but have never had a canvasser on my doorstep. I'm not surprised though as it must mean an awful lot of wasted time. They are much better in a High Street, or wherever there is a lot of footfall - much better 'value for time' than traipsing up and down people's driveways only to find the majority of people are either out or not answernig their doors.

I went to a hustings. The local Council of Churches organise it here, each General Election - it means all the candidates in one place, at one time, answering the same questions put to all of them.
It's very interesting. Maybe there is something like that near you ?

As others have said though, there are now lots and lots of websites where you can compare all the party policies and get a much fairer / less biased view of all the parties.
A doorstep 'salesman' for any party wouldn't really inform you of the best way to vote.

nobody has knocked on our door either, only a labour and about 10 UKIP things through the door.
My riding has been Labour for 95 years so doubt anyone else thinks they have a chance!

by Riding I mean constituency. ...we say riding in Canada where I grew up

You do have to think about numbers- in our constituency there are 35,000 houses. So to canvass every one, if each house took, say, 5minutes, would take 121 days if doing it 24 hours a day.
So if they do 10 hour days non stop, it would still take nearly a year. Now, obviously there's more than one person canvAssing at a time, but it does take a long time.
And that presumes that the houses are close together- we have areas where it's a 10 minute drive to the next house.
So the volunteers are working hard, but it takes a long time to get round everyone.

And they also deliver the leaflets. My DH is a candidate in a marginal constituency. At least 1 leaflet a month until the start of the year, then 1 a fortnight, & for the last 6 weeks 1 a week. That's 35,000 leFlets to deliver once a week. With a maximum of 50 volunteers if we're lucky.
And before the leaflets are delivered, hours are spent bundling them into batches & areas.
Alongside press releases, hustings preparation, hustings, meeting local businesses, events with visiting 'well known' politicians, visits to schools and the 200 emails a day....
Trust me, in marginal constituencies even if you haven't seen your candidate, they'll be working their arses off.

Redbuttonhole - I think I must live in the constituency you work in but you have thrown me by saying it is a safe seat for the tories? I don't think it is in anyway safe.

Exactly, politicalwife, plus there only are so many hours in the day it's polite to call on people. Not too late at night, not too early, not when they're at work of course... it's very inefficient.
Also it really takes it out of you - you have to be smiley and charming as someone opens their door to you, no matter how rude the last person was or how hard it's raining. Especially if you're not a naturally charming person

Yes sorrytodisturb, the not annoying people is quite important! Back in October I pointed out to DH that going canvassing on Halloween might be a bad idea!

As I think another poster said - canvassing is about parties identifying where their support is (so they know where to target their efforts), not about getting into protracted political debates on the doorstep. Although if you asked a canvasser why you should support their party, they should certainly be able to tell you!