6.3.2024 video update
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjPMA_jEPcI
10.2.2024 Weather today was easier with about 10 degrees C and a slight wind. Wearing two coats I was out for three hours. I started putting leaflets on car windscreens featuring a Policeman badged 'Thought Police' and End Politically Correct Policing as at front page of England Calling (this website). When I eventually came back to the car I was expecting the usual highish percentage of chuckaways on the ground. I only found one and had done about 100 cars. Interesting.
In the shopping area I kept outside near an entrance to the mall, and walked up and down with a one man steel band from Birmingham called Jamma pumping out fantastic music. I had to give him £10. He created such a great atmosphere and families especially were in a great mood and almost seized the leaflets out of my hand. I could sing along to quite a few on the quiet and that kept my motivation going through the time as the piles of leaflets in my numerous pockets thinned and eventually disappeared down to the last dozen.
Shopping centre security guards made a couple of attempts to drive me away, the first were the most determined and they clearly expected me to go when challenged. I stood my ground and informed them that I was standing for election as Police Commissioner for West Mercia on May 2nd and I was allowed by the laws of Free Speech to leaflet wherever the area was open to the public. Had I been a commercial leafleter, of course that would not be permitted.
They persisted and then I said that if they would put it in writing that I could not leaflet, I would stop immediately and hand the document to our lawyers tomorrow morning and bring a case against the shopping centre, which would cost them potentially thousands of pounds, and it would get into the local paper that the shopping centre was in breach of the laws of free speech. They seemed to realise then that I was not your average leafleter they were used to bullying away.
I agreed to stay outside the mall - it's no use inside anyway as people start shopping - and to stay mostly to one side of a line which the head guard said was off his actual territory.
They always came by in pairs. One said that if I wasn't happy with them I should call the Police! But I pointed out to him that was not a criminal but a civil matter. Being a Sunday he said he couldn't seek advice. I assured him that I was correctly informed.
He invited me into the shopping centre to go and read the guidelines in his office, but I pointed out that he had already requested that I would not enter the mall, and so I refused his request. He was, he said, only doing his job. He can file a report to be read by his managers next week, and he can rest assured he challenged as best he could without legal backup.
I'll make sure I know where that steel band Jamma is playing next in West Mercia. It was a great day apart from a few set piece confrontations with security guards only doing their jobs. There was a strange incident when I handed out leaflets to a queue of people waiting to pay for their parking. I went down the line handing out leaflets to couples and families with children, when a short lady snapped at me that I hadn't offered her a leaflet and the reason for this in her opinion was because she had brown skin and I was obviously ignoring her for this reason!!! She was standing next to two other women and two children and I had assumed they were all one party. Clearly not! She was the only person in the queue who was alone. I gave leaflets all day to people of many different backgrounds and would certainly not have avoided anyone for any reason. She had some kind of Indian sub-continent origin, and was clearly determined to correct what she saw as any slight to her for racial reasons. All it did was make her seem foolish to my mind. She didn't even want a leaflet when offered one!!! The media is doing a great job of dividing us humans against each other. Most people just smiled and either took one or politely said no. Only one nasty response out of thousands can't be bad.
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After talking with @robintilbrook he tells me that only commercial leafleting can be prevented, and they have to permit political leafleting under free speech rules.
After again being thrown out of a busy shopping centre by security staff for leafleting, I tried out another way today or getting the message out, which was successful. The leaflet on the front page of this blog titled 'Thought Police' was well received especially by women and especially by women catching or getting off a bus!
Men - especially young - as so often seem not to have the confidence to take a leaflet and frequently refuse with the words 'I'm good!'.
I've taken to getting that phrase in first and asking 'are you good?' when offering the leaflet!
This can amuse and certainly stops the phrase 'I'm good' being used as the universal refusal.
While bus passengers make good recipients, it would be nice to work the carpark traffic as well. Maybe there'll be a way.
I wonder what would happen if I carried on leafleting. Would I be arrested? That would be fun when the Police arrive. 'I'm going to be your new boss, gentlemen' I might say - if elected of course....!!!
It's great fun being out working the public once more after decades of political inactivity. With a great leaflet and an important message.
Why not join me around the West Mercia region? That's Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. People will vote for Teds to be Police Commissioners as everyone knows the Police have lost their due respect, and the whole subject needs bringing back under control - from the top. Labour and Conservative are doing nothing. Give it to The English Democrats and policing can come back to what it should be, and not continue in its current pitiful state.