Anne Milton - Guildford MP (and Dipstick)

Congratulations to Dennis Paul, who - since this post was published - has attracted an added 92 visitors to his website. Well, perhaps not... if you look at his published stats (on the bottom left of the front page) you'll note that all you have to do is click 'refresh' to bump the number up another digit. It counts visits, not visitors. So that's 327 visits to the front page on the 22nd of March and 419 today:



This weblog has been live for just under a month. In that time, it has attracted 4,936 visits from 2,588 unique visitors. 720 of these visitors have returned for more.

This is the bit where I remind you of Guildford's voting history. Nicholas St Aubyn inherited a theoretical majority of 13,404... he then saw it reduced to 4,791 in 1997 and lost the seat by 538 votes in 2001. I'm sensing a pattern here, and by my reckoning Anne will have a bit of a hill to climb this time around.

I mention those stats not as some kind of 'how high can my wee-wee go' competition, but to help Dennis and Anne out with a small problem they seem to share - that of denial (habitual liars tend to start deluding themselves after a while).

The purpose of this weblog is as follows: to focus a microscope on Anne Milton's campaign in an effort to find something - anything - of substance.

And it's here that I need to draw attention to the wider picture.

Blogs usually do not work well as pure campaigning tools, and there's a reason for that. This technology aids networking, but it doesn't create a network out of thin air. You either need an established network to start with or you need to get out there and do stuff and build your network. The more stuff you do, the more familiar people become with your name and/or that of your website. If the result/reception has been largely positive, you'll find people are more likely to promote you or help you do more stuff. (Please note that the last two 'outings' of Dipstick Ringers have resulted from people who have begun to network with this weblog.)

Now, we know this system also works in real life, because it's been in operation since the first tribe was formed.

But if you take a look at Anne Milton and all the stuff she has 'taken action' on in the past, what do you see?

Her March pamphlet proclaimed her to be 'The Talk Of The Town', but she is far from that. The few people I've met in Guildford who have heard of her don't think much of her (but I'll get onto that in a moment).

For all she's done, she cannot find as few as a dozen people willing to thank her by endorsing her publicly. She falls so far short of critical mass that she appears to be completely reliant on Tory activists, councillors, their daughters and their wives.

Posters for Anne are turning up in properties across the constituency, but this - again - is part of the Tory machine, not part of the Anne Milton machine.

Now we get back to those people I've met (not via this weblog) who have become aware of her, but don't think much of her. By and large, their negative opinions result from Anne's cack-handed attempts to paint herself as a popular woman of action when she is nothing of the sort. They think she's full of crap.

In short; Anne's campaign of faking popular support is losing her support.

Have you got that last bit, Anne? Are you paying attention?

Have you realised that I'm one of these people and therefore merely a symptom of a problem that you yourself have created?

I hope so. Because ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away. And on that note, here is a copy of the email I sent last week that you chose to ignore:

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Ireland
To: Anne Milton
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 9:23 AM
Subject: march and april pamphlets

Dear Anne,

It has been alleged that the 'Katherine' that appears in both of your most recent pamphlets is one Katherine Lyons, and shown on the electoral roll to be at the same address as Richard M Halderthay, who is the promoter behind this same pamphlet.

Given the common address and differing names, I would take a guess that Katherine is the married daughter of Richard.

Would you care to confirm, deny or clarify this?

Tim Ireland

Labels: dennis paul, tory ringers