The politics of posterboards

Nailed!

We've been putting posterboards on lamp posts for a number of years now since Kirklees approved us being allowed to do so. Early on we had a few problems. Not making our wall paper paste thick enough was one irritating early problem. When our posters start flapping off their boards in Kirkburton one year the Tories put out a pre-poll leaflet with an article entitled 'Green campaign comes unstuck'. You've got to hand that one to them! The other occasional problem was making sure they're the right way up. Just because they're the right way up on one side of the lamp post doesn't always mean they are on the other side!


There are of course rules that Kirklees make which are often ignored by certain parties such as don't put them on lamp posts with other signs attached which they could obscure if they slip. Another is that they should not be nailed into trees or telegraph poles. All these rules were ignored by the Conservatives in the Kirkburton Campaign. Another irritating thing was that we were given permission to put up our boards on land around Farnley Tyas by the landowner and so were the Conservatives. One morning our boards had disappeared and were replaced with Conservatives ones. Now I'm not implying anything, well maybe I am.

There are benefits to getting your posterboards up first but the downside is that the opposition can come by afterwards and turn your boards sideways while they're putting there's above yours. We've always prided ourselves on getting ours down early and usually Derek Hardcastle is getting them down in Kirkburton the next morning. One year we were a bit slow at getting them down and found some of ours pushed higher up the lamp posts presumably by the oppostion while taking there's down. Nice!