This is because the minute-long doorstep conversations on an election campaign aren't remotely sufficient to shift opinions formed over months or years.
What better than a gift that keeps landing on your doorstep long after your birthday is gone, balloons all deflated, cake all eaten?
The photographers are on the doorstep long before the cheque book is produced – the subjects are often forced into the so-called 'Faustian pact' as the better of two evils; if their images are going to be exploited by the newsroom storytellers regardless, they may as well get paid.
Tony Abbott, Australia's least successful Prime Minister since the execrable Billy Hughes, has left the office the way he came in: in a night of long knives, media doorsteps and half-whispered deals.
One need he filled: bringing newspapers from the curb up long driveways to doorsteps.
"There's no question in my mind that there will be a long line outside their doorstep".
Now we know where Jessica Hyde is – on Becky's doorstep – how long will it take us to find out who she is?
Felicity Lawrence's excellent article about migrant workers in Wisbech (The gangsters on our doorstep, The long read, 11 May) demonstrates what many of us in East Anglia know – that our concerns are not about migrants and migration but about low pay, overcrowded housing, criminal activity and, above all, the exploitation of the honest and decent by the unscrupulous.
Dates, no matter how serious the relationship, ended with a long kiss at a doorstep, a promise to see each other again soon.
Interviewers may tie up their telephones or occupy their doorsteps for long periods, sometimes asking questions about private matters that are not suitable subjects for public inquiry.
It's on the doorstep, a long-established favourite with a sophisticated legal and planning system, and rental guarantees are often supported by big groups – such as ours – making it a sensible choice for Britons," Mr Leach says.
