The Leicester Mercury reports:
A guide to the city mayoral election has been published without information about one of the leading candidates.
Tory Ross Grant is missing from the Your Vote Matters booklet, which has been sent to all 229,777 voters in the city.
The 11 people hoping to be elected mayor were invited to pay £250 to submit an address with details about themselves, their policies and why people should vote for them.
Councillor Grant did not provide any information and has been excluded …
He declined to tell the Leicester Mercury why he failed to submit anything for the booklet but it is understood he missed the deadline.
Coun Grant’s agent, Roman Scuplak, also refused to comment.
… United Kingdom Independence Party candidate Regine Anderson also missed out on a place in the booklet.
Not the best of ways of demonstrating that you’ve got the necessary attention to detail for getting running a place the size of Leicester right – and also a good demonstration of how often “no comment” comes over worse than even a bland, inconsequential comment.



5 Comments
My district council district is having no Lib Dem representatives because they missed the deadline. Glass houses…
Tom, the paragraph below the quote isn’t throwing stones at anybody. It’s saying it looks bad if you miss deadlines like this, regardless of party.
With respect to your council ward, Tom, it doesn’t have quite the significance that an election for one of the major English cities.
Ross Grant’s “…election would mean the City being led by someone on top of his brief and able to absorb the detail needed….” etc – ConservativeHome 28th March 2011.
It may be that Leicester Tories decided to spend their money on something more useful than publicity for an election they know they cant win. But they cant say that out loud.
Those council produced election booklets are a bloody menace. Perfect example of well meaning actions by government bodies that end up forcing candidates to do things that dont make sense.