UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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We used to just call these "paper candidates". All parties field them in seats where they don't really have a chance.
I didn't hear anything from the Lib Dems or Greens in my constituency, because they have no chance of winning. But I know they're definitely real people.
Right, but it's unusual to have masses of candidates that have no online presence, no address, no email address, don't even show up to the count, etc.
Think of every seat declaration you saw on election night: the Lib Dem candidate was standing right there on stage, even in Leave-voting Red Wall seats where centrist moderate liberalism is a deposit-losing proposition.
It's not all that bizarre, and it's more common amongst smaller and newer parties.
I know the Reform candidate for Ilford North through another forum, and he didn't attend any hustings (because he wasn't made aware of them), he didn't attend the Ilford North count because he was helping out at Hornchurch and Upminster, and he didn't upload his info to Reform's site because he was too busy leafletting and doing his regular political job in the London Assembly.
The lowest Lib Dem vote share in the country was recorded in Ynys Mon, where Leena Farhat got 439 votes or 1.4% - the most 'paper' of paper candidates the Lib Dems will have put up. I typed her name into Google and it took me seconds to find her Twitter, her LinkedIn, her local campaign page, and many photos of her.
It's a bit unusual for any adult in 2024 to have no online presence, but especially when a party that appears to have won the third largest vote in a UK-wide election appears to have multiple people among their purported candidates who all have no online presence...