Introduction

Abstract

In the nineteenth century aspiring MPs tried to win campaigns by hiring election agents to bribe voters. On polling day, candidates paid innkeepers to keep supporters happily refreshed. These options are no longer available to modern political parties.

Winning elections is really a question of salesmanship, little different from marketing any branded article.

Extract from electioneering manual, published in 1922¹

I regret very much myself the introduction of publicity experts — if that is the proper name for them — into the business of our general elections.

Michael Foot, 1978²