On Saturday 50 phonebanks are opening in cities across the country as the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign launches the most ambitious voter contact programme in British political history.
The total capacity of the 50 phonebanks is set to exceed that of even the Conservative and Labour Party national phonebanks at their peaks, with volunteers phoning voters to persuade them to back a fairer voting system in next May’s referendum.
In addition to the phonebanks, a virtual phonebank will be launched in the new year letting people also take part from the convenience of their own homes.
The phone campaign will be drawing on the 140,000 people who have already signed up to help the campaign and aims to speak to more voters than all the British political parties managed between them in the run-up to this May.
To join in this mass grassroots campaign, just click here to sign up.
The other telephone operation which many Liberal Democrats are already helping with is for Elwyn Watkins’s campaign in Oldham East & Saddleworth. If you would like to do some calling to help his election contact his campaign team.
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12 Comments
Well, my opinion on that is that political campaigners should be respecting the TPS system – as the party used to do.
If someone pesters me by phone in this way, they’ll get a succint explanation of why I am not currently well-disposed to either AV or the Lib Dems.
As long as they aren’t stupid enough to use Nick in the campaign phone message.
That would spell instant death for the Yes campaign.
Pester Power, yep that will work.
Nothing wrong in nagging someone into submission, just ask the wife
Man you better find some real thick skinned telephone operators, who can handle the verbal backlash that will be aimed at them 😉
And if just one says it’s PR in their script I’m off to the lawyers…..
Feel free to come and jolin the Bristol phone bank if you want details are here:
http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages&ref=mb#!/event.php?eid=163932120310866
All the best
Tim
South West YES
Since TPS explicitly says it does not apply to political campaigners, presumably they should respect it by not assuming that people who want to opt out of marketing calls also want to opt out of society.
Andrew Suffield
“Since TPS explicitly says it does not apply to political campaigners …”
That’s absolutely nonsense.
On the contrary, it says on the TPS website that:
“It is the official central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.”
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/
And the Information Commissioner’s Office has explicitly stated that “Telephone calls made by a political party to promote the party or solicit support are a marketing activity. So a political party must not make unsolicited calls for such purposes to a number registered on the TPS … unless the subscriber has consented.”
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/telephone_marketing_by_a_political_party.pdf
The only get-out as far as TPS is concerned is the claim that what is being done is pure “market research,” rather than trying to persuade people to support their cause.
Mark Pack’s comments above demonstrate that’s not the case for this campaign. He speaks of “volunteers phoning voters to persuade them to back a fairer voting system,” so clearly it’s a question of “soliciting support.”
That’s confirmed by the statement on the web page he linked to “it’s all about telling the person on the other end of the line why you’re campaigning for Yes, and why they should too“:
http://www.yestofairervotes.org/index.php/preview/pages/phonebanks
Clearly they will be breaching the law if they include TPS numbers in this campaign. But no doubt they’ll do it regardless of the wishes of the people they are phoning, if they think they can get away with it.
Or presumably there’s the get-out that “Yes to Fairer Votes” isn’t a political party, for all that various political parties and other organisations support it.
Dave Page
Read it again.
TPS applies to “all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties)”
All organisations, including political parties. Got it?
For those within striking distance of Manchester, we are launching our phone bank on Saturday. Details here: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/page/event/detail/yestofairervotes/wtd