GMCF lead the way at Freshers’ fairs across Manchester
By David Bean
On Wednesday 30 September the Conservatives became the only political party to be represented at the freshers’ fairs for all four universities in Greater Manchester. We capped off the season, which began the previous week with Manchester and then proceeded through Manchester Metropolitan and Salford, with a visit to Bolton University, a campus traditionally only the Conservatives have shown interest in engaging with. But with many of its students part-time, mature or from linguistic backgrounds other than English, it has proven a tough nut to crack.
Planning our visit, the strategy was clear: our primary aim would be to show a presence, talk to as many people as possible to try and spread the Conservative message, and get the collateral – the Conservative Party-branded items helpfully provided for us from CCHQ – out there and into circulation.
So the first task was to create a decent display. Searching for a blue tablecloth the previous evening the best I could come up with was a fitted sheet, but its cheerily light shade of blue provided a pleasing counterpoint to the black-dominated materials, which I tried to arrange enticingly (though I concede I really should have thought to bring a couple of blue bowls for the giveaways). Our other gift of that evening was the news that The Sun was officially endorsing the Conservative Party – so I picked up three copies at the train station on the way there to make a display, and that started a whole separate line of positive conversations. I even managed to bring one of the copies home!
We didn’t push people on the membership point, only asking those who appeared genuinely interested to leave their details – a couple were Party members already, and the others will join if they turn out to be as committed as we’d like them to. Encouragingly, almost all of the (admittedly small number of) signees were young women. Those who were not so enthusiastic, we simply tried to ensure left the stall with a positive impression of us, giving them, as the marketeers would say, a good customer experience. There were few significant disagreements; even those who were not supporters were polite about it. There was also an encouraging willingness among the students to take and use Conservative Party-branded items, including the carrier bags, which became quite a common sight.
In summary then we were quite pleased with how our day went at Bolton. We felt we had made a positive impact for our Party, showed up our opponents for their lack of interest in the students and gained several potential new members. Whether we’ll be able to pick up enough momentum to allow us to a branch at the university, the next few weeks will tell, but this has been an encouraging first step.
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