Elaborate chocolate metaphor + Ukip candidate = Bafflement

The most embarrassing election leaflets of 2015

The most embarrassing election leaflets of 2015

As campaigning steps up another gear, voters are starting to come across election leaflets – and using social media to mock them.

Even the slightest slip-up attracts derision. And some candidates don't appreciate it when their leaflets start attracting attention for the wrong reasons.

If a little typo like that one gets a leaflet on TV, a major howler like this from Labour couldn't possibly hope to escape criticism.

Sometimes errors result in rather embarrassing climbdowns…

… and sometimes candidates resort to slightly odd methods to correct them.

But leaflets don't need to contain errors to get noticed. Simply featuring someone who's very much not on your side can be a little unfortunate.

There's a bit of a theme in this election of candidates studiously failing to publicise who their leader is. Especially if that leader is Nick Clegg.

Dan Rogerson, another Lib Dem incumbent, goes even further in his literature by barely mentioning his party:

… And it's not just the Lib Dems who are at it, either.

There have been the usual gripes about factual inaccuracies and scorn for candidates' tactical voting claims, but nothing has quite topped the SNP's suggestion that a Lib Dem MP is retiring – when he very much isn't.

But then the stakes are rather high north of the border, aren't they? Maybe this explains why Labour seems to be working quite so desperately hard to demonstrate they know which part of the country they're in.

For some reason it does appear rather as if it's Labour's leaflets which are getting the most stick. They don't have a monopoly on candidates which aren't particularly photogenic, it's true, but still….

Ed Miliband's party faces a further problem: their exceptionally clever targeted leafleting campaigning seems to be leaving those left out rather upset.

Not all leaflets are calamitous, though. Some are just plain amusing. The festival of democracy continues.