From the Financial Times / Westminster blog [link removed because the Financial Times website now sits behind a paywall – JB]:

Our junk mail isn't junk mail

A disclaimer at the foot of a Green Party leaflet in Lewisham:

"If you have a 'no junk mail' sticker on your letterbox, you might be wondering why a Green Party volunteer delivered this newsletter. We don't regard political communications as 'junk mail', but rather an important part of the democratic process."

Strictly speaking, they're right (the Greens, that is). Political leaflets are generally regarded as non-commercial leaflets, and treated the same as for instance street newsletters or leaflets with information about rubbish collections or about a cat gone missing in the neighbourhood. Even if you have signed up to Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out (to stop unaddressed mail delivered by the postman) you will still get (unaddressed) 'election communications' from your postie.

But then again, if you're receiving as many political leaflets as me and are equally appalled by the amount of garbage written in them I would understand it if you also frowned upon reading that all this literature forms an important part of the democratic process…