EDITOR Glenn Ebrey has the last word (we think) on the campaign to end all campaigns...
IT STARTED as an office joke. Or, what in the terrible modern lexicon might be termed a bit of 'banter'.
But three weeks on, it seems we've created something of a monster with our 'campaign to end all campaigns' against Croydon Central MP Gavin Barwell.
The premise was simple. Mr Barwell had launched five campaigns in a single month, each accompanied with standard cheesy posed photo and invite to sign a petition (signing away your details so you can receive more political propaganda, naturally)
What's wrong with that you might say? After all, MPs are supposed to fight on local issues and for their constituents, aren't they?
Well, yes. But there were two reasons why we weren't going to let our Gav off the hook with this one.
Firstly, the people we elect should be campaigning for us at all times - not just when their livelihoods are at stake. If Gavin Barwell, or any other MP, is going to launch five campaigns in a month they should be doing it every month, not just to win an election.
Secondly, are these really 'campaigns' anyway, or just an MP doing the job we pay him to do? The future of school playing fields, recycling centres and the Green Belt (three of the subjects of Mr Barwell's petitions) are issues we expect our member of parliament to represent us on, without needing the grandiose gesture of a 'campaign'.
We took the decision to approach this with humour and a touch of satire. And so, the campaign to end all campaigns - urging Mr Barwell to stop launching campaigns - was born.
Are you still with me?
The article was written with tongue firmly in cheek with cartoonist Alex Leys providing a further touch of humour with his depiction of Mr Barwell as Santa Claus, liberally dishing out petition slips like Christmas presents.
We were making a serious point but in a different, humorous way. Far more interesting than giving red politicians an open goal to have a pop at blue politicians.
The most interesting thing about the fall-out from this has been the difference in reaction from Advertiser readers compared with the 'media classes'.
Our readers have been pretty underwhelmed by the whole thing, if I'm honest. The stats for the story online weren't particularly outstanding and we haven't exactly been inundated with correspondence since the campaign was launched. And we won't talk about how many people have actually taken the trouble to sign the petition...
This suggests either an apathy towards politics, in particular the 'politics of politics', or simply that people don't find us very funny. Both are true, I'd suggest.
Yet, since we ran our story on December 19, two national newspapers, a leading media website and now the BBC have latched onto our campaign. One paper, the Independent on Sunday, had it as their page 5 lead.
Yesterday, I received a call asking if I'd like to appear alongside Mr Barwell on The Daily Politics.
I must admit I was, and continue to be, surprised by the level of interest in our campaign. And, when discussing the back story with a BBC researcher, I realised just how nuts the whole thing sounded. I think she probably wished she could bail out and book another guest instead, as talked myself into a dark tunnel of verboseness.
But I don't like to duck out of these things and I'm a media tart, so I accepted the invitation.
Twenty-four hours later, I was in a BBC green room, locked into a debate about Ched Evans with flamboyant football agent Eric 'Monster' Hall and having some blusher applied to my big hairy face. I even did my tie up properly mum.
The debate seemed to go pretty well, in fact gentle sparring would be a more accurate description. I was helped partly by host Jo Coburn being, pretty clearly, on my side and also by Gavin giving it his finest mea culpa with an opening gambit of "I'm as guilty as charged".
What now for the campaign to end all campaigns? Well, for now, we're going to let it rest. I like to think we've made our point and, in fairness, Gavin has taken our ribbing in good part. We strive to keep our politicians on their toes and hold them to account - this was just a quirky way of doing it.
Plus, he hasn't launched any campaigns for at least three weeks.
And on that final basis, I'd say our work is done.
