Students in Bath have received a leaflet from the local Conservative party asking for their opinions and trying to mobilise the “student vote” in their favour.

The leaflet, presumably financed by Lord Ashcroft, has been addressed individually to every student in town. See below for the scans:

It is despicable yet typical that Bath Tories would try to scaremonger students into thinking something is happening and the Tories are the only ones who can do anything about it. Please note that the Tories are running the council, they could have sent out a memo when there was “more time”.

Of all the problems with this leaflet, perhaps the worst part is the patronising and naked bias. The question posed is:

“Should students be forced to live on campus?”

I would like to know what answer they are expecting, having sent this question exclusively to STUDENTS. The responses are equally ludicrous:

[_] I believe students should be forced to live on campus for the whole of their course
[_] I believe students should not be forced to live on campus, but be free to rent a house in Bath.

The only type of student I can imagine who would even consider the first option would already be an active member of Bath Conservative Future.

In all my political experience, in Britain, in France, in Spain, and of all the many leaflets from all the many parties I’ve encountered, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a ham-handed and clumsy way of data mining to gather targeted voting-intention information. Once they’ve got you, they’re not going to let you go unless you text this, email that, then post the other.

Moving on to substance, students may find that this is the first they have heard of such a debate or decision. There have been a few ideas knocking around on the topic of housing, which got Lib Dem MP Don Foster into hot water in the University Newspaper.

Not only is the “decision” broadly fictitious, it’s also completely infeasible to move 10,000 students onto campus. There is no space. Unless the Tories are planning to build a massive tower block, not that the University would want to waste funds on such a project, while throwing away Bath’s World Heritage Status (which the council uses an excuse not to do anything ever). Bath would probably not enjoy the prospect of becoming the country’s only university with such a silly policy and thus losing however many applicants. It would also wreak havoc on the Oldfield Park economy, which has already suffered the collapse of Woolworths.

Students should be alarmed that such an important debate can take place without them knowing or being informed. Let’s thank these Bath Tories for informing us just in time!

So no, Fabian. No, we will not be terrorised, no, we will not be forced to live on campus and NO, we will not be voting Conservative!