In any election there are really only two types of voter any party needs to attract.

Some “core supporters” will always vote for one party and it would be almost impossible to change their mind.

The only thing you can hope for is that they have become temporarily disillusioned and choose not to vote at all. Sadly the only way this will happen is if their normal party of choice makes its own mistakes – it’s not something you can generally persuade them of.

This group of voters, either left or right of centre, has over the decades become narrower due to the blurring of class boundaries and the rise of single interest politics, but still makes up the majority of voters in this country.

The first type of voter to attract is the wavering or “floating” voter – often marginal campaigns are won solely on the basis of a few hundred votes and the key is to segment this audience into different interest groups and then to campaign based on these points.

The second type of voter to target is your core supporters.

While it can be safely assumed they will vote for you, the main issue is to ensure they actually do vote on the day.  “Get Out the Vote” or GOTV campaigns are normally conducted in the final week or even hours before the polling stations open.

Spent the afternoon buying hundreds of reams or paper for leaflets in a vast paper warehouse in north London which makes The Alliance look like a corner shop!

Luckily the owner turned out to be a fan of the Conservatives so we managed to navigate a good price.