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Sandra's Sofa - ultra-local campaigning

Peter Henley|08:56 UK time, Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Sandra on sofaIt's the seat that she hopes might save her seat.

Sandra Gidley is taking this sofa all around her Romsey constituency to encourage voters to bring their troubles to her. She's certainly got a good reputation as a campaigner for local causes, but I've got one issue with all this.

It's not the cheesy photocall - any MP with a majority as slim as Sandra's ought to be using every trick in the book.

It's not the idea of suggesting an MP ought to be some sort of social worker of last resort, always popping down your street to pick up the pieces.

What I found strange was the way Sandra bills herself on the press release I received.
In big orange and black letters the release proudly declares itself to be from "Sandra Gidley - MP for Test Valley."

The River Test is a beautiful river in a beautiful valley and some of the finest trout fishing in the world. For those who don't know this lovely part of Hampshire, Test Valley is also the name of the District Council, which includes Andover in the North running down to Southampton in the South and including Romsey along the way.

But Test Valley is not the name of Sandra Gidley's constituency. That is (after boundary changes) - Romsey and Southampton North.

Why should she want to claim to represent Test Valley? This would include parts of Sir George Young's true blue North Hampshire constituency. Is she snubbing the Labour voters of Southampton North?

Her PR man says she uses "different titles for different media". And this is true - I find another press release about Southampton business headed "Sandra Gidley - MP for Basset and Swaythling" - and yet another one headed "Sandra Gidley - MP for Romsey".

Who benefits from this quick-change routine? It's all about the campaign for local first - ultra-local in this case. The logic must be that we're all so narrow and insular we don't want to hear from the person from the other part of the constituency.

Surely the voters will see through that?

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