Zorro forces change to East Devon Conservatives & Hugo Swire websites!

STOP PRESS! East Devon Conservative Party & their general election candidate Hugo Swire make a change to their websites!

As Zorro has recently pointed out both of their websites are poor, ineffectual and in some parts inaccurate. None of that however has changed! What has changed is that both websites have woken up to the fact that electors can have postal votes (an issue not mentioned until now) and that these need to be completed and return now.

So both websites now have the same Conservative corporate message to electors – “The election is too close to call send your postal vote back to make sure your vote counts”.

Very significant change to East Devon Conservatives & Hugo Swire's websites!

Zorro congratulates both the East Devon Conservative Party and Hugo Swire on getting their website updated (in one part at least). What about turning your attentions to the rest of your websites as they are in real need of updating?

Zorro is an immodest man and is claiming the credit for even this small step in the changes made to the East Devon Conservative Party and Hugo Swire websites!

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!

East Devon Conservatives' webiste - so awful that its pointless

If Zorro was amazed at the poor quality of the website of Hugo Swire, East Devon’s Conservative Party candidate in the general election, then a more extreme superlative is required to describe that belonging to his local party, East Devon Conservatives.

Remember that the East Devon Conservatives, at least until 7 May, have traditionally held the Westminster seat and run the District Council both with large majorities. But at this time both the incumbent MP and the District Council ruling majority group must be looking over their shoulders as we speed towards election day.

Therefore, there is every good reason why the East Devon Conservative Party would want to supplement their campaigns with excellent website and social media streams. These are all easy, cheap and effective ways of making sure that you get your message out to both your core voters and those who you are trying to entice to place their cross against your candidates on polling day.

Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, depending upon your assessment of the local Conservative Party, it is utilising neither a website nor social media to push its messages out there to the electorate. The Party has neither a Facebook page nor a Twitter account, and those few incumbent Conservative District Councillors who have Twitter accounts seem to have forgotten what good and effective use they can make of them!

So, all of that that must mean that the local Conservative Party is relying upon its website to reinforce its on the ground campaign. Zorro is not so sure about that!  Indeed Zorro goes as far as to ask where is the local Conservative Party campaign out there? Perhaps the Party, and its hordes of local activists, are keeping their strength in reserve for a great push in the final weeks of the election campaign. Hang on though, aren’t we now into the final two weeks of campaigning?

Well, what’s the Conservative Party’s offer on their website? In truth, it offers nothing at all. In fact it’s embarrassing beyond belief. The Conservative Party has a huge infrastructure across the country, it is well funded, it’s well connected and locally the Party employs three staff. But despite all of that the East Devon Conservatives have a website that is out of date in its content and appears to ignore the fact that it has (for the time being) a large majority on the District Council and a seat in Westminster, because it gives no hint of any local activity or issues that the Party is interested in.

The website goes further, in that you really wouldn’t know that there were elections where the Party is under the greatest challenge to date for both the Westminster seat and the 59 seats on the District Council. You would think that the local Conservatives were trying very hard to lose both forthcoming local elections!

The East Devon Conservative Party’s website http://www.eastdevonconservatives.org/ on the face of it looks nice enough with a large photograph of Hugo Swire looming out at you.

Here’s Zorro’s pocket size (that’s all you need) guide to this almost pointless website –

Home Page

Welcome to East Devon Conservatives: this section is out of date as it refers to Hugo Swire as being an MP. Currently there are no MPs as the House of Commons was dissolved on 30 March ahead of the general election being called. Or is the local Party trying to kid us all that Hugo will be returned to Westminster because after all he has recently said to the Express and Echo newspaper that he is fighting in a safe seat.

Featured Story: this is a local story! However, it was posted on 5 November 2014! The story is “Rt Hon Hugo Swire calls for common sense on planning”. It is reporting one of Hugo’s unusual forays into looking at and commenting on a local issue. The only problem is that it was written almost 6 months ago! It gives a clear impression that nothing of any significance has happened since it was posted.

So, there have been no local issues to report or no national issues? Zorro is somewhat bemused at this lack of  any reports on matters worthy of posting on the website.

Local News: in anticipation Zorro expected there to be recent local matters that would be reported here. But no, the last story that is posted is dated 29 October 2014 “Hugo Swire delighted by new Flybe route”. Yep, clearly nothing worthy of reporting over the past 6 months again!

The two previous postings in this section were on 29 April 2014 and 5 September 2012! The Party really do like to under report local issues!!

National News:  this section is clearly linked to an automated national feed. When Zorro last looked at it was majoring on the SNP and how it would hold the Labour Party to ransom after the general election. The last feed has clearly been written after the SNP launched its election manifesto on 20 April and so is up to date. It should be if it has an automated feed!

Our Map: by clicking on to the button in this section it takes you to a map of East Devon. Here there a number of flags. Click onto each flag and you will get information about local events. This is all well and good, except that there are none dated 2015. There is the odd one dated 2014, whilst there are quite a few in 2011 and 2012.

So, in line with the rest of the website this reinforces the fact that there is nothing really going on in East Devon that involves the Conservative Party, or that they want the public to know about. Or perhaps they are just as incompetent at running a website as they are a District Council or representing the electorate in Westminster?

The one overriding point that you take from the Home Page is that there no mention of the general election and who their candidate is in it, nor is there a hint that there is a District Council election. Indeed, it doesn’t tell you who is fighting for which District Council seat for the Party.  Zorro is incredulous!

News Page

This page reprises the two stories from 2014 (the most recent being 5 November 2014) highlighted via the Home Page, as well as three from 2012. Clearly there was no news in 2013! Additionally, this section links into the national election Conservative publicity material automated feed. So someone somewhere has spotted that there is a general election campaign happening, somewhere. But clearly not in East Devon.

Westminster news: the last posting is from 5 September 2012. However, there are lots of national Conservative Party election posters (automated link to national Conservative Party feed).

Local news: the last posting is from 5 November 2014.

European News: the last posting is from 29 April 2014 which highlights the then impending European elections which were held in May 2014. It doesn’t even report on the outcome of those elections.

Articles:  the last posting is from 15 March 2012.

People Page

This page records that Hugo Swire was elected as an MP in 2001.

Future Events Page

All that is recoded on this page is “Sorry, we haven't got any upcoming events”. For Zorro this statement totally encapsulates the whole website and the East Devon Conservative Party.

Newsletters Page

The last newsletter that is posted on this page is from February 2014 which was the Party’s European election special. So clearly there isn’t a newsletter required for the general or District Council elections on 7 May?

Zorro has endured the turgid and pointless website that is the East Devon Conservatives so that you don’t have to waste a moment of your life doing so. However, if you want to understand why the Party should not be returned to Westminster or to the Knowle on 7 May pop over and have a look for yourself at http://www.eastdevonconservatives.org/.

In so doing try and work out are the East Devon Conservatives –

• Interested in keeping the public informed of issues, local and national?
• Really wanting to persuade the public why they should support the Party?
• So arrogant that they see no reason to publicise anything of any consequence to the electorate?
• In total disarray?

Or, are they so totally incompetent that they shouldn’t be returned to Westminster or the Knowle on 7 May?

Or, is it all of the above?

Zorro has a very clear answer to all of this!

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!

Hugo Swire's webiste sums up his campaign - neither informative nor current

As we move into the final fortnight of the general and local election campaigns Zorro makes no apologies for scrutinising the websites of the key protagonists in both campaigns in East Devon.

Zorro’s attention has first turned to the two main general election candidates as it is clear to all commentators that locally that the candidates from UKIP, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Labour Party are all on a hiding to nothing. Each will be trying hard to ensure that they don’t lose their deposits and will be political magpies; stealing votes from the two main candidates – Claire Wright (Independent) and Hugo Swire (Conservative Party).

This posting looks at candidates’ website and associated social media accounts. Zorro will follow this up with a posting looking at the websites being used in the East Devon District Council elections.

Zorro started off looking at Claire Wright’s http://www.claire-wright.org/  website. Here you find a very up to date set of information about where Claire Wright stands on issues, national and local, as well as being able to access current news information, alongside access to her newsletters and various videos on key election themes. In summary Claire Wright’s website is informative and current.

Zorro has previously blogged about the poor quality of Hugo Swire’s website. As the incumbent who is fighting, for the second time, to retain his seat in the House of Commons Zorro had anticipated that once the general election campaign moved away from the phoney war and into the battle proper at the end of March upon the dissolving of Parliament, that Hugo Swire’s website would start to become informative and current. After all, Hugo Swire and the East Devon Conservative Party employ a permanent agent and two administrative staff. Don’t also forget that Hugo Swire claims off the taxpayer around £35,000 a year to fund his Secretary, who coincidentally is also his wife!

Equally, given the very strong showing and high profile campaign that his main challenger Claire Wright has consistently had since she launched her bid for Parliament last summer you would think that Hugo Swire would want to ensure that his website was informative and current. You would also think that Hugo Swire would have realised that his election success or more likely otherwise, has been dramatically damaged over recent years by the unpopular political arrogance of his East Devon District Council colleagues. Hence even more reason to up his game and his public presentation and presence in this election.

So it came as a very real surprise to Zorro when researching for this posting that when he turned to Hugo Swire’s website it was neither informative nor current. Zorro accepts that the election in East Devon will not be won solely through websites, but they are now, along with social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as the more traditional methods of attending hustings, canvassing door to door and getting favourable coverage in the press and media, part of a political candidate’s election armoury.

As an aside, Zorro notes how well Claire Wright has utilised the social media sites Twitter and Facebook, and although Hugo Swire has a Twitter account it is not utilised effectively. Check out Claire Wright’s Twitter account http://twitter.com/clairewrightind.

One would assume that with all the media and PR support that the Conservative Party must be able to give to their general election candidates, that Hugo Swire and his team (remember his local Party has 3 permanent workers) would have paid attention to informative and current website and social media presentation. But no, they appear not to have done so! Or perhaps they are doing it on the cheap with a rookie young intern! Or perhaps, Hugo’s heart isn’t really in this campaign and he has already given up the fight!

So Zorro can now give a Cook’s tour of Hugo Swire’s http://www.hugoswire.org.uk/ website. And if having read the rest of this posting you think that Zorro is in any way exaggerating his criticisms of the website, go and have a look at it yourself!

Zorro’s handy cut out and keep Hugo Swire website page by page synopsis –

HomePage

Latest News: the latest posting is 16 April. It invites readers to “Keep up to date with Hugo’s election campaign” and does so by directing you to his Twitter account. http://twitter.com/@HugoSwire – links to Hugo’s twitter page. The Twitter account only started focusing on the general election 12 days ago by informing his Twitter followers “Welcome to my General Election Twitter feed. Stay tuned for updates on my campaign!” A bit over hyped really!

If you follow Hugo Swire on Twitter as Zorro does then you will be pleased to see some nice photographs of him with a few (only usually 3 others, occasionally 4, and of course the dog) of his campaigners out and about and mainly nationally related Conservative party election information.

Anyway, back to Hugo Swire’s website, and staying on its Home Page –

There are two other items contained in the Latest News section. The first is a link to “Forthcoming hustings events”. Click on the link for this and you discover that Hugo has, and is only intending to attend four election hustings events on 7, 17, 28 and 29 April. Finally, in this section is a piece that was posted on 2 April “Hugo Swire welcomes increased funding for school buildings in East Devon”. By clicking on the link it takes you to a story that does what the heading suggests.

Still on the Home Page is the section “About Hugo”. Remarkably, it shows that the website has been tweaked since Parliament was dissolved as it tells us Hugo Swire is a candidate in the election.

Gallery Page  

We are treated to a total of 7 campaign photographs. Perhaps that the sum of this campaign's activities.

News & Diary Page

The only section contained on this Page is the Local News one. There is no diary information. Clearly there’s not a lot to publish about Hugo’s activities!

Local News:  Zorro expected this section not only be up to date but also, because of the general election campaign, for it to be full of commentaries on a wide range of local matters. At least Hugo would that way be seen as being in touch with what matters to the electorate locally. But no, the last posting is back on 16 April.  Indeed, in the past four months the only other postings here have been on  2 and 7 April,  3, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24 and 25 March,  10, 13 and 24 February, as well as  20, 21, 22, 26, 27 and 28 January.

Articles:  this section is almost redundant as there have only been two postings this year and these were as far back as in January on 13 and 26 January!

Constituency Page

According to this section it informs us that the East Devon Constituency “contains some of the most breathtaking scenery in all of southwest England. For that reason, much of the region is classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. You can find a variety of coastline features in East Devon including sandy beaches in Exmouth, pebbled coast in Budleigh Salterton, and red cliffs at Sidmouth.

The area is home to a large number of retired pensioners, and this helps to make East Devon a comfortable, quiet resort area”.

Zorro is totally underwhelmed with the description of the Constituency. It can’t even have been written by a rookie intern. As it is so anodyne it must have been written by someone who has absolutely no feel or real knowledge of the area!

Campaign Emails Page

Here you get some very formal responses to email enquiries that apparently Constituents have sent to Hugo Swire at some time.

Contact Page

Incorrectly this page informs us that Hugo Swire is an MP. He isn’t and hasn’t been since Parliament was dissolved some 3 weeks ago. Perhaps he is trying to hold onto what he is about to lose!

So there you have it; Hugo Swire’s less than informative and current, and in some parts out of date and inaccurate website.

Surely if a candidate to be East Devon’s MP (again) can’t provide a half decent website to allow the public to understand what he is about and what he is up to, then it must raise, in part at least, a question as to his qualities to be our elected Member of Parliament!

Zorro invites you to compare and contrast Claire Wright and Hugo Swire’s websites. Then compare and contrast their social media postings. Then compare and contrast their campaigns out there on the hustings, on the streets and on the doorstep. Then finally compare and contrast what they both stand for.

You know whose side Zorro is on. Frankly, it was an easy decision!

Just wait for Zorro’s analysis of the East Devon Conservative Party’s website. It will make you weep!

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!

Claire Wright's latest newsletter

Keep up to date with Claire Wright’s http://www.claire-wright.org/ campaign to become East Devon’s Independent MP.

Here’s Claire Wright’s latest newsletter Claire4MP.

http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ea7a993364c46eeaac609ec2e&id=ae5fd83d99

Read. Digest. Vote.

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!

Claire Wright shines on BBC Spotlight

East Devon’s Independent candidate in the general election, Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/ was one of two Independent candidates in the South West who were featured on last night’s BBC Spotlight programme.

Claire Wright was followed as she knocked on electors’ doors canvassing for their support. The section of the programme that covered the feature is at –http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05qtxd4/spotlight-21042015.

The whole piece starts 3 minutes and 22 seconds in and ends 5 minutes and 31 seconds in. Claire Wright’s coverage is shown between 4 minutes 27 seconds and 5 minutes 18 seconds in.

 If you missed the Spotlight piece then you can watch it until 10.45pm tonight via the BBC iPlayer link.

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!

Western Morning News - going easy on Hugo Swire

Graeme Demianyk, the respected London Editor of Western Morning News, whose brief includes politics, has put together a set of political thumbnail sketches of all the Constituencies across the Region. Here is the sketch he wrote for East Devon –

 

Zorro thinks that Graeme has been kind to Hugo Swire in his assessment of the political battle foe East Devon’s Parliamentary seat.

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!

East Devon parliamentary seat now a marginal

Zorro opened his edition of the Sidmouth Herald this morning to see a handy set of information for electors about the East Devon parliamentary election.

Providing electors with Parliamentary candidates' manifestos summaries

On page 31 there is a full page spread on the five candidates who are standing in the parliamentary election. This provides electors with a helpful synopsis of each candidate’s election manifesto. Zorro was unsurprised when reading both election manifesto summaries of Hugo Swire (Conservative Party) and Andrew Chapman (UKIP) that they read as if they could have been plucked out of both parties’ national manifestos. Not a mention or recognition by either candidate that they were fighting to represent electors in East Devon!

So no wonder therefore that the Sidmouth Herald had this parliamentary coverage all under the headline – “East Devon now a marginal seat”.

East Devon is a marginal seat and Hugo Swire has the fight of his life on his hands! It is clear from all of the press and media coverage, from the reactions on the doorstep and from the bookmakers, that the only meaningful and credible challenger to our incumbent and absentee MP is Independent candidate Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/.

Hugo Swire. His future is in the electors' hands

Claire Wright’s manifesto summary in the Sidmouth Herald demonstrates why she is the candidate who is likely to beat Hugo Swire. She is absolutely in touch with the concerns of the electorate across East Devon.

Claire Wright. Independent Parliamentary candidate

The Sidmouth Herald “East Devon now a marginal seat” article is at –

http://sites.google.com/site/realzorro1/17.4.15SidmouthHerald1.pdf

We are now under 3 weeks away from the general election on 7 May. Across the Constituency you will continually stumble upon “Vote Claire Wright” posters as they are confidently displayed by her supporters. Indeed Zorro notes with satisfaction that Claire Wright has had to get more of the large poster boards printed to keep up with demand for them.

Vote Claire Wright. Proudly displayed across East Devon

Whereas you will struggle to really find similar public displays of support for the other challenger candidates, let alone for Hugo Swire. Indeed, the East Devon Conservatives have struggled to get sufficient electors to put posters up supporting Hugo Swire that they had to resort to erecting some on the public verge in Claire Wright’s locality. This cannot have been a mistake, as the Conservative Party full well knows the rules for what it can and can’t do in elections.

East Devon Conservatives. Illegally fly posted on public land

These actions by East Devon Conservatives is fly posting. It is an offence under the Highways Act. Therefore Conservative run (oh the ignominy!) Devon County Council has had to write to the Conservative Party agent instructing that all the illegal Hugo Swire posters be removed forthwith. This is the text of the letter that Devon County Council sent -

Devon County Council. Forced East Devon Conservatives to remove posters from public land

Dear Sir or madam,

Under the Highways Act it is an offence to Fly post on Highway verges and street furniture.

Please can you remove the advertising signs within 7 days.

If you fail to do so we will arrange to have them removed to our Office at Rockbeare.

After that time of removal, if you require the signs back you will be charged a fee per sign.

Yours Sincerely

The Express and Echo newspaper carried this embarrassing story under the headline “Illegal Fly posters taken down ahead of election”. This article is at – http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Illegal-Fly-posters-taken-ahead-election/story-26330886-detail/story.html#ixzz3XYUgzVAl.

As the election runs into its final three weeks no doubt we will see more attempts by an ever increasingly worried Hugo Swire campaign to find ways to get their message across to electors. It feels to Zorro as if Hugo Swire and the East Devon Conservatives are sleep walking towards a disastrous 7 May.

Voting for change!

Change is in the air!

It’s time for change! It’s time for challenge!