It’s an election, not a war
I expected better from Polly Toynbee. The Guardian’s columnist is usually a wise commentator on politics, and a passionate voice for the deprived. But today’s column indulged in childish war cliches. I assumed a female commentator to be more sensible.
What on earth has a ground war and an air war got to do with an election? Please grow up.
Don’t get me started on ‘retail offers’. Political reporting gets more ridiculous by the day.
Ertblog 
It’s spending too much time with political insiders as it is campaign jargon that has been used for as long as I can remember. Ironically the problem is that the media and political commentators always over emphasise the importance of the ‘air war’ because it’s all about them. The ‘air war’ is the media coverage at the mainly national level, which today includes the nationally run social media campaigns by the parties. In reality the ‘ground war’ is far more interesting and important. It’s the armies of activists from every party knocking on doors, delivering leaflets and running street stalls in the rain! Today it also includes the ‘local’ social media activity of thousands of individual activists which never gets analysed by the companies that claim to be experts in social media monitoring and use the general election as a marketing event.
Avoiding war terminology, but how much value is the groundwork? How many electors will actually meet – or even see at a hustings – their local candidates. I suspect for some candidates appearing before the public could even be a disadvantage.
I agree – so far, we’ve seen no one and had no leaflets.
I’ve had a leaflet and letter from the Lib Dems telling me it is a two horse race, which I assumed must be true as the only other material I’d received was from Labour, until a UKIP leaflet came through the door.