Advice for #GE10 candidates

With the election having started, I admire the vast majority of candidates in both the general and local elections who are putting themselves on the block.

Two people who are pretty experienced in this sort of thing, Iain Dale and Luke Akehurst, offer their top 20 tips for candidates.

Iain's tips are and include:

11. If Party HQ offer you the chance of a visit from a politician even you have barely heard of, turn them down. Even if you have heard of them, consider turning them down. Visits from national politicians use up too many resources and rarely attract a single extra vote.

Luke's tips are and include:

9. The single metric of success that counts before polling day is the number of voters you speak to on the phone or doorstep. Prioritise canvassing over all other activity and during the short campaign if you are a parliamentary candidate try to do canvassing from 10am to 12 noon, 1pm to 5pm and 6pm to 8.30pm. Other tasks like press releases and emails should be done when it is too early or too late to talk to voters. Set a target number of canvassing contacts to make each hour and keep trying to hit it.