Make my election day
Petronella Wyatt
Everyone says this has been a dull election. Zzz go the nattering classes. There's no bore like a poll bore. Of course it is modish to say the election is a yawn. But I have to say that mine has been anything but. Far from it. The trouble is that these people lack the imagination to go out and trouper some excitement.
Ever since the Foxite 18th-century Duchess of Devonshire bribed voters with kisses, one of the greatest diversions is to be found in an activity called 'canvassing for friends'. This is a very English offer, akin to saying, 'You must come for dinner sometime.' Only friends standing for Parliament are less likely to want to take you up on it.
The first time I offered my inestimable services the candidate made one of those strange mewling noises like a cat that has fallen out of a window and is staring perdition in the face. Then he said with a pathetic, stammering voice, 'They get a bit ratty, you know, a bit cheesed off if strangers come down from London.' As the constituency was in Surrey this attitude seemed peculiar.
Eventually, I inveigled a couple of poor saps into letting me help make their election day. The trick was to arrive at the place looking confident. None of this 'there may be trouble ahead' stuff, In trouble but not run by trouble, as poor Mr Hague might say. Swinging from a star. Hair-raising stuff, if he had any.
Anyway, they give you a list of streets, names and door numbers and tell you to go and find out people's voting intentions. It is difficult enough finding the people, let alone their voting intentions, which these days come under the heading of missing, presumed said. The odd thing about canvassing is that canvassers always seem to pick a time when they are sure no one is in. At two in the afternoon the only people at home are either children, delinquents or those of markedly anti-social habits.
'I'm not in,' shouted a bearded man who quite clearly was. 'But is your voting intention in?' I asked politely. He began to yell. -Never, never, never! I'd fight to the death to stop it!' Who said the electorate was apathetic? After asking the toddler next door to show me his parents' voting intentions (hoping that there were no police around), I moved on to a large house with one of those manicured lawns that look as
if they are re-turfed twice a year. On ringing the doorbell it was answered — by a dog. The dog was large, black and vociferous and was soon joined by another. One felt rather like a poacher being set upon by the landowner's pack. They say that politicians' behaviour has degenerated, but I ask you, what about that of the electorate?
To give the bored and weary their due this is all tame stuff, one supposes, compared to what used to go on. In the 18th century, canvassing often ended in mob violence; canvassers for one candidate would hijack carriages, ask the occupants whom they intended to vote for and if they didn't like the answer would turn them upside down. People were often killed in fights. Sometimes they chalked candidates' names on the soles of shoes. During John Wilkes's campaign in Middlesex a supporter went around writing 45 (one particular issue of Wilkes's anti-government newspaper) on every door. Perhaps Seb Coe or someone should have tried that with those three ringing syllables, 'Common Sense'. An opposition supporter followed the Wilkes man with a sponge, rubbing out the writing. Whole streets of houses had to put lights in their windows for individual candidates or else have them smashed.
These illuminations were expected to last for days, The Duke of Wellington had his windows broken, so did the earlier prime minister, Lord Bute. My, my, how mature we've become as a nation. But turnout was often low in the 18th century — and not just because most people weren't allowed to turn out, as they didn't have the vote. 'Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence. Straw mats provided to lie on free, announced boards outside the taverns. Now that was the way to ensure your opponents never got to the poll on time.
Previous page
