Siobhan Benita’s final pitch to voters:

Siobhan Benita’s campaign may have been put at 3% in today’s polls (with UKIP and the Greens) but she’s certainly caused a stir. Here she makes her final pitch to voters, see what you think;

This video is a mix of the vox pop street style and the candidate’s pitch to voters. Normally I’m not a massive fan of the candidate taking up lots of air time, partly because the public doesn’t generally like politicians that much but Benita is in a position where she has to help voters get to know her.

By combining the two styles she helps combat the impression that her campaign is a one woman band without neglecting to show the electorate that she is an articulate and moderate voice. Having said that almost first thing she says is that she’s been banned from the telly which, while true and is a winning point, doesn’t actually constitute a reason to vote for her.

Young people

The focus on young people in her manifesto commitments is reinforced by the large number of younger Londoners featured in the vox pop section. While many of the actors are a bit wooden I personally think that’s better than being overly slick. You don’t want to give the impression that the only people who support your campaign have been lobotomised, but you do want to show your reach goes beyond actors you’ve paid to be there to “normal” people.

The central theme of the pitch is this idea of people above party politics and it will be interesting to see how popular that is in the end. Certainly some people hate it, pointing to the contradiction between attacking politics while running for political office, while for others it feels like a fresh approach in an election dominated by the fossilised remains of previous electoral battles.