SPVII [Fife and the Forth Valley] Troe goes canvassing and a bit more

Troe started out the day by canvassing around rural areas together with a few of his supporters in two electric cars that with the Scottish Labour colour and big letters on the side with the words “#Vote4Troe that the candidate had borrowed for the occasion. A reporter went along to follow the politician’s day of interacting with voters.

“The electric cars weren’t entirely my idea to be entirely honest. But a local party member suggested it, and I thought it was a great way to reach the less urban areas of this constituency. All voters deserve a chance to talk to their candidate, and I wasn’t entirely happy with the idea of using a gas car to drive the constituency thin with, so this is a great alternative.”

Troe met with several voters in their homes and told them about him as a candidate, his experience in politics and his party’s policies. Some were sceptical which he commented on by saying this:

“Of course I cannot convince everyone of sharing my view on politics. I don’t expect that, I never have. But if I can have a respectful and reasonable conversation with people, I believe we can, on both sides, learn a little of the other side’s perspective. And sometimes we don’t actually disagree that much when we get to talking a little. There’s a great Danish philosopher who said it well after World War 2 “democracy is a conversation”. I believe it was Hal Koch. And I believe that is true to quite an extent.”

Going into St. Andrews Troe opted to switch to quite a different style of getting to his voters. He went around the high street in the afternoon on roller blades, handing out flyers, talking to voters and trying not to fall on his arse.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on roller blades, so I must say it’s quite a task to stay on my feet and not land on my face, but it’s quite fun and it gets the conversation started with a lot of people. Sometimes I have to lean on them as well, which is a great metaphor, I suppose.”

Troe laughed as he started slowly rolling backwards, which didn’t seem entirely planned.

The last hours of the day, Troe spent planning a service with some of his local supporters and local party members to get people to the polls.

“I have a great respect for all voters, no matter who they vote for. Of course I hope they vote for me, but the act of voting is one of the most important ones in a modern democracy, so I think everyone should get the chance. So if someone suddenly loses their plans for how to get to the polls, they really want to do it in person or they simply didn’t get to do it by mail before the deadline, then my supporters and myself included will be driving people back and forth to the polls. We won’t ask who they plan to vote for, or even talk politics if they would rather not. We simply want everyone to vote.”