Members of former Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Andrew Turner‘s team were out canvassing for the 2015 election at all exit points of transport, cross-Solent, off the Isle of Wight on Monday morning.
Andrew’s people were in Fountain Yard, Cowes to catch pedestrians as they boarded the RedJet and also in Ryde by Hovertravel.
Walking around Fishbourne car ferry terminal
Most surprisingly, they were actually in the Wightlink vehicle terminal in Fishbourne, walking around the car park as people waited to board the car ferry. OnTheWight was told the leaflet-holders were knocking on car windows so they could give people the bits of paper.
Some of those who were given the leaflets were less than thrilled, with one person describing it as “having Andrew Turner shoved in my face while I’m waiting for a ferry”.
Ferry companies respond
The same was true of the ferry companies, when we contacted them about it.
Wightlink told OnTheWight,
“Wightlink has not given permission for Andrew Turner, any of the other Parliamentary candidates or their teams to campaign on company premises or distribute leaflets.
“Any leaflets or other promotional material left at our terminals or on our boats will be removed.”
Red Funnel’s response was similar,
“As you would expect we are politically neutral so we won’t allow the canvassing of customers by any election candidate/political party on property owned by the company.
“It is our understanding that the leaflet distribution mentioned in your email was undertaken on land owned by a third-party over which we have no control.”
Zero response from Andrew Turner – Again
OnTheWight wrote the following to Andrew Turner over 27 hours ago about this. True to what is sadly becoming form, he and his office have been utterly unresponsive as yet.
Andrew – We’ve been told that you had people out at Cowes by the Red Jet and Fishbourne walking around the WL car park, knocking on people’s windows as they waited to board the ferry.
1) Was this something you were aware of? 2) Were they instructed to go in to the WL yard? 3) and knock on people’s windows? 4) Were you planning on doing this again at cross-Solent transport?
Keen to get swift answers on these as we’ll be running apiece this afternoon on this.
We had this article ready to publish yesterday, but were waiting for a response from Andrew Turner. It’ll be the last time we do that.
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Ali Lanning
