ABSTRACT
As the quotation from Ken Livingstone's early day motion in the House of Commons illustrates, the controversy over the role of local, as opposed to national, campaigning in influencing the outcome of a general election has clearly spilled over from the academic into the political arena. Of course Ken Livingstone was criticizing what he regarded as the over-centralization of campaigning in Millbank, whereas the academic debate on the role of campaigning has centred very much on the issue of whether or not the extensive campaign activity undertaken by party workers at the local level is a waste of time, at least in relation to influencing the vote.
