Is there a collective noun for a group of canvassers, especially those of the red rosette-wearing kind? I ask because when I was in school, when kids were taught in the old ways and most (but not all) of us left school literate and numerate, one of the lessons I can clearly recall was being taught the collective noun for various gatherings. These were often animals and birds. I've recently had to pass on some of that knowledge to a former Welsh Labour councillor who was under the impression that a gathering of cuckoos was a "flock"! My old primary school teacher would turn in her grave. Anyone educated in the Valleys knows it's a cooch or an asylum, the latter being particularly appropriate to describe the gathering of cuckoos that control our local council, Neath Port Talbot.

I've come up with a few suggestions for that group of canvassers though. How about a folly of canvassers, an irritation, a nonsense, an irrelevance, or an embarrassment? Take your pick.

I've raised the above because I'm being bombarded with photos on Twitter and elsewhere of odd looking gatherings of people sporting red rosettes and carrying red and yellow placards. These people are usually staring fixedly into the camera, with grins on their faces as if they know the secret of life and you don't.  One of them will have a clipboard in an effort to look important. My guess is it doubles up as a crib sheet so they can consult it if you ask, "Haven't you people got something better you can do with your life?" They have that smug, self-righteous, but vacant look of the religious convert, the "I've just found God" kind.  It's almost tempting to buy into it - but not quite.

They allegedly go around knocking on doors and "engaging" with people. I say "allegedly" because I've heard it said that they don't knock very loudly, more a mere touch on the door then slip a leaflet quietly through the letter-box. No-one wearing a rosette of any colour has yet knocked on my door (though they might have and I didn't hear them, because I have had a Labour Party leaflet). If any of you know where I live, let me tell you - don't bother wasting my time or yours by coming back and knocking louder.

I do get Jehova's Witnesses, who in a way are probably similar, as they have actually found their God, but at least these will listen to your point of view and can be quite pleasant to talk to. But both try to get you to buy in to their way of life. With the Jehova's I believe they are genuinely interested in you and in saving your soul. The canvassers just want your vote. Your soul can go to Hell. You see, your vote can empower them. It keeps the old guard in place. And it puts bread on their plates. Potentially, lots and lots of it.

I have recognised quite a few of the people in these photos. I've spotted MPs, some AMs, an MEP, some ex-MPs, some aspiring MPs, and some I know who have political ambitions but have failed to cross the finishing line when trying to get into Westminster or the European Parliament. Some are Councillors. Some are people who have been closely associated with the above, agents etc. The common factor is that nearly all these people either made a living, make a living now, or want to make a living from getting people to sign up to their promises of Nirvana. Yes, these gatherings of the "Reds" are for the Party faithful, the chosen few, the apparatchiks, the self serving, the ambitious, the sycophants, the hypocritical, the one-eyed and the blind. However, in these petits ensembles it is very hard to spot anyone called Joe. That's Joe Public to give him his full name.

These gatherings of the "enlightened" have been given names like Team Neath and Team Aberavon. FFS!  It may be a jolly good team game for them but for most of us it's pretty serious stuff living around here. You see, unlike these individuals who are well fed on taxpayers' money, that is - your money and mine - more and more of us now have to make a living in the real world, which we know can be a cruel and cutthroat place. Not for us a passport to a lifetime of financial security often by virtue of one or both of those fraternal twins called Nepotism and Cronyism. Those MPs that cling on like a thirsty infant to a mother's nipple are doing just fine compared to the majority of us. How many other jobs do you know that are promising a 11% payrise this year?

Some of Team Neath - more PC than Team Aberavon with all those girlies

                   
Some of Team Aberavon - fourth from right "walked from Copenhagen" to be in this

And where did this "Team" nonsense come from? It sounds suspiciously like something that's crossed the Atlantic to me. I know our American cousins had a Team Obama - I've seen the T-shirts. If so, expect anyday to see photos posted of them all high-fiving each other after their little get togethers. Maybe even a troupe of cheerleaders will turn up in rah-rah skirts. Come to think of it, that might just pull in the punters. If you read the Twitter feeds you will also see references to their "battle bus" and how great it is to be knocking on doors in places like Baglan. In American speak, that's got to be "a load of hogwash and a steaming pile of Bullshit" hasn't it?  Let me tell you - it's no fun knocking on doors anywhere these days because you never know who might open them and what else is behind. If these people really believe it's great to be knocking on doors, let them have a go at flogging windows and conservatories around the houses. They'll be begging for their old jobs back after a shift!

In Team Aberavon a slim guy with a balding head seems to be in charge. This is the man who will forever in my mind now be known as "the Man who walked from Copenhagen" - thanks for that, Jac o' the North. Apparently this chap speaks five languages fluently, but Welsh is not one of them. I don't know how much use these five languages will be on the doorsteps of Glyncorrwg, other than to reinforce the massive divide between his upbringing and that of those in these poor, depressed Upper Valley communities. He dresses down in a smart-casual fashion, usually jeans and open necked shirt, maybe in an effort to close the gap between him and them. It doesn't fool me. But let's cut to the chase here. Yet again the working class communities of South Wales are being used as a foundation stone for the political ambitions of the Labour elite, for the heir apparent, to maintain the family dynasties. Quite frankly, it's taking the piss out of decent, hard working people that live here.

And in Neath we've just had the unedifying spectacle of our outgoing MP posting online a photo of a poster board he has placed at the front of his (enormous) garden, with a tweeted message from him saying "First poster board in Neath on my garden wall @welshlabour @Rees4Neath". Well, whoopie-bloody-doo! A grown man feels compelled to tell the world he is the first in Neath to put up an election board! Well I know where I'd like to put it up, and I can tell you he wouldn't appreciate it. I'm almost embarrassed for him. If I behaved like that my Mrs would be fleeing the family home because she'd think I was suffering some form of psychotic episode.

 
The first poster board in Neath - expected to become a collector's item and appear in a forthcoming book called "Whatever Happened to Mabel McKeown?"
 

So, are these gatherings actually helping the Labour Party cause? I mean in many of the places in Wales where they are having their love-ins, the majority of sheep have been brought up to follow the well trodden track walked by previous generations of mutton. It is surely inconceivable that the Red Flag will not be raised on 7 May, notwithstanding a steady haemorrhaging of votes since 1997. And in those areas where sheep with red markings are in a minority, the sight of all these red rosette-wearing goons turning up mob handed and waving their placards is surely going to result in frightening the flock into some other place where they feel safer.

Actually, they believe it does help them, but not so much because of the doorstepping, the bonhomie and the very occasional successful rustling of a few more sheep into the pen. They have caught on that it's social media is the place to market your snakeoil now, Twitter, Facebook, websites etc. And that's what they are up to. A carpet bombing of these new communication channels aided by, amongst other things, these quite ridiculous "Team" exercises. The trouble with the internet and the new social media  are things can spread like wildfire. And Sod's Law says that it's your mistakes and not your successes that will go viral. Be warned!