 Surprise visit puts the Cherie on the cake at Minster CEP!Mrs Clifford-Cox, election coordinator, was overwhelmed by the keen interest of the children at Minster CE Primary School in Ramsgate when she announced there would be a Y Vote Election campaign.
The suprises kept coming as parliamentary candidates Mark Macgregor (Conservative), Steve Ladyman (Labour) and Guy Voizey (Liberal Democrat) all agreed to visit the school and meet their Minster CEP counterparts. The biggest surprise of all was an unexpected visit by Cherie Blair who had heard about our project and wanted to meet the candidates and the staff! She spent about 45 minutes with all the parties questioning them about their policies, and even gave the Press Officers an exclusive interview even though she hardly ever gives interviews to the press.
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A large amount of press interest was generated because the school’s constituency, Thanet South, is in a marginal seat where the Labour MP has a very small majority and so the General Election result is hard to predict.
Unfazed by the national limelight, the candidates at Minster got on with the job of canvassing voters. They used a number of different strategies including puppets to persuade infant children, cakes to ‘win over’ voters, posters, stickers and speeches. There were also some dirty tricks including some false opinion poll results and spying! Opinion polls were conducted every other day which seemed to point to a Green Party landslide. Although things threatened to change on ‘Hustings Day’ with the appearance of ‘SpongeBob Squarepants’ on behalf of the Liberal Democrats and the Smurfs on behalf of the Conservative Party.
When polling day arrived the opinion polls were proved right and at lunchtime on 5th May a Green Party victory of 42% was announced with the Liberal Democrats polling second, the Conservatives next and finally the Labour Party.
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