Some of you might have heard about a recent by-election in my parliamentary constituency, Copeland. Propelled by the sense of civic responsibility, I duly attended a local hustings, at which our independent candidate revealed his impeccable Europhobic credentials with the rhetorical question “A million Poles enough for you?” No sooner had I regained composure than I was assaulted with his campaign leaflet, in which the wannabe MP regaled us with the following pronouncement:
The Green Party are being venimently [sic] against nuclear energy.
Are they really? In an obvious attempt to be even-handed, the leaflet proceeded to castigate other political parties:
The farming community has been hit by this present governments [sic] stopping of subsidies.
Predictably, the Labour Party, currently presided over by Jeremy Corbyn, did not escape unscathed either.
The same can be said of Labour supporters who vote for Jeremy Corbyns [sic] Labour Party.
In an attempt to hit us hard with his anti-global-warming message, the campaigner chided us thus:
How many times does Keswick have to flood before the resident’s [sic] get the message. [sic]
The environmental theme needed to be reinforced, so the leaflet contained the following imploration:
We all need to change our behaviour now to slow down global warming to ensure our ancestors [sic] have a planet to inhabit.
But of course! It also appeared as if our independent candidate felt that a wee threat could go a long way.
To the people who disagree with me, I have bad news for you, but you will dislike global warming and increased sea levels even less [sic]!
Will we really? And the campaigner had other gripes:
Recent cost cutting decisions such as the demolition of the public toilets in Whitehaven is [sic] disgraceful.
But, hearteningly, the leaflet wasn’t all negative:
Land based wind turbines can produce energy much cheaper and more accessible [sic] than their off-shore counterparts.
The publication finished on an uncharacteristically literate, if a tad contradictory, note:
We have the 27th best education system in the world and every year it seems to get worse. The state education system has failed to produce results, so a drastic rethink is required to improve results.
It was rather hard to resist the conclusion that the leaflet had been produced by the very embodiment of this failure.
Tim Knowles 
