Labour's lying leaflets but what about the others?
It’s worth pointing out that, despite David Cameron’s outrage about Labour leafleting lies, Conservative candidates don’t have an unblemished record either. Up and down the country, local leaflets make a number of dodgy claims about crime, for example.
In Edmonton, it’s alleged violent crime has soared by 44 per cent since 1997. But according to the British Crime Survey (BCS) it’s gone down by 41 per cent.
In Gospel Oak, the Tory candidate makes the same inaccurate claim that “violent crime has risen sharply”.
In Enfield North, a Conservative leaflet confidently asserts “burglary is on the rise” when according to the BCS, it’s gone down by 54 per cent.
Of course, as we’ve FactChecked previously, the Tories dispute the figures the government uses. But the BCS is recognised by the UK statistics watchdog as the most reliable data.
So before the Tory leader gets too angry about Labour leaflets, he should look to his own. Pots and kettles spring to mind.
And the Lib Dems are certainly not in the clear either.
Cardiff North candidate John Dixon takes the booby prize for the most misleading leaflet, which you can see here. It’s emerged the nurse in the picture is actually a Lib Dem researcher. Whoops!
A spokesperson for the Welsh Lib Dems said:
“The photo in the leaflet was designed to be illustrative to help us highlight the party’s commitment to improving the NHS and we didn’t intend to cause offence to any health professional. Our candidate in Cardiff North has a strong record of improving health and social care in the community.”
Update:
Since FactCheck posted this blog the Liberal Democrats have come under fire for two other “discrepancies” in their leaflets. The Manchester Evening News reported that a pensioner from Stockport was quoted on leaflets praising the Liberal Democrat incumbent for Cheadle, Mark Hunter. Just one problem – they weren’t her words.
And – in a similar incident to the picture of the nurse above – the Welsh Lib Dems have been criticised for using photos where the “police officer” in question was a model!
There are 4 comments on this post
Typical Tories. When it comes to facts they’re always vague and dismissive and when they do quote statistics they’re usually wrong.
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I’m from the Straight Choice, the site which is hosting the election leaflets linked to above. Thanks for making such good use of it!
What would be really helpful, is if people could scan in and upload their leaflets here http://www.thestraightchoice.org/ – we are just volunteers, and rely on volunteers to build a proper national archive of the leaflets.
Cathy – would be great if you could do a blog post asking people to upload interesting leaflets, or even better a brief item on Channel 4 news about the site. The more leaflets we get, the more stories to find in them!
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We should be clear about crime data here. The BCS scores well on a technicality of continuously using the same methodology – but its coverage excludes crime victims under 16, and murders (because it reports interviews with victims of crime). Data which don’t have these exclusions have suffered from some changes in methodology, and although there may be a margin of error in allowing for these to estimate a continuous series on the “same” basis, they are more comprehensive in coverage, and thus probably give a truer, if more uncertain, picture of real trends. Certainly crime affecting under 16s has been rapidly increasing – which the BCS ignores.
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[...] heard the violent crime figures chats on @r4today this morn”. They linked to two pieces. The first details that, “Up and down the country, local [Conservative] leaflets make a number of dodgy [...]
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