who travelled through the constituency estimated that Liberal window bills in private houses outnumbered those of their rivals by more than twenty times. It is also difficult to estimate the success or otherwise of election publicity but Edge appears to have scored a goal with the working class electorate when he arranged for the visit to the constituency of two former professional football players with Bolton Wanderers. Edge had an association with the club from his former time as MP for the city and the men supported his candidacy from friendship and on the basis of his personal qualities as good man and a ‘good sport’. Zinoviev letter The by-election also re-awakened the divisive issue of the Zinoviev letter a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain. The letter, took its name from Bolshevik revolutionary Grigory Zinoviev. Later revealed to be a forgery, purported to be a directive from Moscow calling for intensified Communist agitation in Britain and helped ensure the fall of the MacDonald's Labour government at the 1924 general election. In his letter of support to Minto, Ramsay MacDonald referred to the Conservatives as “having gained its Parliamentary power by a trick.“ This provoked a letter to The Times from Walter Blake Odgers (1880-1969), a barrister at the Middle Temple claiming this was a reference to the Zinoviev letter and re-opening the controversy. MacDonald responded with his own letter, again accusing the Tories of having “created a stampede of fear in the minds of the electorate.” A number of developments followed, further letters to the press, a speech by J. R. Clynes at Manchester accusing the government of making political capital from forgery and a letter to Spears from the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks accusing Labour of continually displaying the utmost sympathy for the Russian Communists. Edge tried to take advantage of this Tory-Labour spat and the fears of socialism that it evoked by painting Minto as being supported by extremist elements in his party. Edge appealed to moderate electors to vote for him “or they [would] hand over the Bosworth division as a gift to the Reds.” Final days Liberal confidence was beginning to wane with the approach of polling day, although on the eve of poll, Edge declared the race was between himself and the Labour man. However