TONIGHT was the first in the widely anticipated debates between the three main party leaders. A lot has been written about the first popular television debate in the US presidential elections in 1960 between Kennedy and Nixon in that those who listened on the radio thought that Nixon had done better. To that I would reply it was a televised debate so that point is rather irrelevant.

To be perfectly honest I think the whole thing is a bit of a sideshow. UK general elections are more about parties and policies than individuals as US elections are.

The only possibility is that one of them might slip up and make a terrible mistake on air but they are all too experienced as politicians to do that and neither side really seemed to get much of an advantage from last night’s debate.

I spent the rest of the evening being a rather poorly skilled postman. Campaign expense rules mean that we can’t just put stamps on our letters like normal people as this would exceed our allowed budget. Instead we have to hand deliver these to more than a thousand addresses. We are targeting three groups of voter with this letter drop. Firstly those who have expressed a strong or weak Conservative preference from past door-to-door canvassing (sadly this data is rather incomplete as our ward has been somewhat neglected in the past).

Secondly, luxury blocks of flats who may have a lot of professional EU nationals who are not even registered to vote and finally leaseholders in the ward who have bought their council houses from Islington Council but have now been stung by huge service charges and repair bills.