Fib Dems Now Condemned by Editors’ Organisation for Disguising Campaign Literature as Newspapers

The Lib Dems’ capacity for lies, falsehood and deception truly seems to know no bounds. If they carry on at this rate, they’ll soon equal the Tories in the amount of deliberate misinformation they spread. I think this was dealt with by Mike over at Vox Political yesterday, but it’s now turned up in today’s I. According to an article written by Jane Clinton, ‘Party accused of disguising pamphlets as newspapers’, the trade organisation for newspaper editors has come out against the Lib Dems for trying to disguise their campaign literature as newspapers. The article reads

The Liberal Democrats have been condemned for allegedly disguising their election pamphlets as imitation newspapers.

The Society of Editors said it appeared to be “a concerted effort” to “mislead readers and voters.”

Ian Murray, executive director of the Society for Editors said, “it is ironic how it is often politicians who complain about fake news but then set out to at least blur the lines for readers – and in this case voters – by packaging their partial messages to ape independent newspapers.”

His comments come after it was revealed that the Liberal Democrats produced election newsletters for their candidates in Basingstoke and Leeds, which used titles mimicking local newspapers.

However, Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, defended the party’s tactics saying the use of such campaign newspapers was “as old as the hills.”

“Doing campaign newspapers is not exactly a new tactic, nor one that is only done by the Liberal Democrats,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Swinson has succeeded in stopping the distribution of an SNP leaflet accusing her of accepting a £14,0000 donation from “a fracking company”.

Okay, I think Swinson’s right about parties publishing their own little newspapers during election campaigns. But her party appears to have gone further than that. They seem to have deliberately imitated the style of local newspapers in order to deceive people into believing that these papers endorse them.

Just as they were caught a week or so publishing misleading quotes from various papers that made it appear they praised the party and its leader. In fact, the quotes came from Swinson herself, who was quoted by the newspaper. They weren’t, as the Fib Dems’ literature seemed to be claiming, praise from the newspaper itself.

I know Tories, who hate the Lib Dems more than Labour because of their deceitful antics. Now it appears that under Jo Swinson their deceitfulness and mendacity is becoming notorious to the whole nation, not just Conservatives.

And if they’re prepared to manufacture fake news and fake newspapers, like the press organisations of totalitarian states like the former Soviet Union, then they are a danger to democracy and responsible government.

There was an old joke in the Soviet Union about the two leading newspapers. It was a pun on their names. The Communist party newspaper was Pravda, which means ‘Truth’. The leading non-party newspaper, which still obviously had to follow the Communist line, was Izvestia, which means ‘News’. The joke was that there was no news in the Truth, and no truth in the ‘News’.

Which now describes all Jo Swinson and her party’s election promises and literature.

Tags: 'I' Newspaper, 'Izvestia', Basingstoke, Conservatives, Fake News, Ian Murray, Jo Swinson, Jokes, Labour Party, Leeds, Liberal Democrats, Pravda, Society of Editors, Soviet Union, Vox Political