Monday morning. Grant Shapps, the enthusiastic Tory party chairman, is sitting in a people-carrier, putting the final touches to a scathing press release attacking his Cabinet colleague, the Deputy Prime Minister.
Press release dispatched, Shapps gets out of the car and embraces his candidate, Maria Hutchings, and the pair set off to canvass. On this sunny morning, Shapps and Hutchings are followed by a large number of photo-graphers, a couple of journalists, a few press officers and a camera-wielding Tory MP. The only problem is there’s hardly anybody home, so it is the retired who are bearing the brunt of this manic campaign war.
Shapps and Hutchings go from house to house with no luck. Then, success! Somebody is in. The door opens, the flashbulbs pop and a startled resident emits a panicked shriek and covers her face. Next up is an elderly lady who opens the door in her dressing gown at midday only to find the nation’s media staring at her.
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