Leaflets from Labour are 'pure & simple lies'
The claim
“We will keep the free television licence, we will keep the pension credit, we’ll keep the winter fuel allowance, we’ll keep the free bus pass. Those leaflets you have been getting from Labour, the letters you have been getting from Labour are pure and simple lies.”
David Cameron, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
Cathy Newman checks it out
The attack on Labour’s dodgy leaflets was perhaps David Cameron’s strongest suit in last night’s TV debate. Labour apparatchiks mutter that it’s a sign of desperation that the Tories felt the need to shore up their leader with a pre-cooked dossier of so-called “leaflet lies”.
That’s as may be. But as a tactic it worked. Gordon Brown’s response (which we’ve FactChecked today too) was defensive, evasive even. The PM’s shiftiness suggests the Tory leader had struck a raw nerve.
FactCheck has been finding out.
The analysis
We looked at Labour leaflet claims a month ago, when David Cameron accused Labour of lying to the public by claiming the Tories would cut prized pensioner perks: the winter fuel allowance, free bus travel, and free TV licences.
Back then, Labour provided some circumstantial quotes from Conservative politicans, but we didn’t find a smoking gun, and found Cameron was on the side of fact.
But in the past month, the Tory leader has been explicit that far from cutting such things, in fact a Conservative government would protect the winter fuel payment, free bus passes and free TV licences for pensioners (plus the pension credit).
So Labour candidates should have altered their literature accordingly. But that doesn’t seem to have happened.
Since Cameron made his pledge, the following leaflets have hit doormats around the country:
On 7 April, Jim Knight, employment minister and PPC for Dorset South, warned the Tories would put at risk an array of pensioner benefits.
Knight writes: “I am campaigning to protect all of the measures the government has introduced to help older people, such as the winter fuel payment, free TV licences and free bus travel. All of our progress could be at risk if we get a Tory government. Pensioners are right to be worried.”
Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy’s leaflet, delivered on 8 April 2010, quotes a pensioner who is worried that the Tories “seem to want to make big spending cuts and haven’t given guarantees about pensioners”.
One leaflet from another PPC, delivered on 6 April 2010, contains an outdated claim directly from the party’s national website: “David Cameron has refused to commit to maintaining Labour’s winter fuel allowance levels.” (The Tories have compiled a dossier of some of the leaflets distributed in the past few months.)
A Labour official said the leaflets in question were not part of a national campaign and, when questioned on it this morning, the prime minister asserted the Labour party’s right to ask questions.
Cathy Newman’s verdict
Perhaps sensing he was on a sticky wicket, Gordon Brown this morning countered that the Conservative manifesto made no mention of free eye tests. But this really did smack of desperation.
It’s political innuendo pure and simple to accuse the Tories of planning to butcher any public service that doesn’t appear in their manifesto.
And while the leaflets that pre-dated Cameron’s explicit pledge exploited a grey area, there’s really no excuse now the Tory leader has made his position crystal clear.
There are 11 comments on this post
Does all this promising pensioners Nirvana whilst ruling out large scale immigration strike anyone as complete lunacy? It’s truly moronic for these guys to promise anything with the finances relying on voodoo growth in a world where Greece and Japan are almost at junk bond status. With the Baby Boomer demographics.
None of the parties are telling the truth or not the whole truth as I would imagine these things can be done with a retirement age of 87.
None of the them will tell the truth on Immigration and pensioners and just make statements to offend no one.
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The problem for the Tories is that they are al least as guilty as Labour over this issue. Their leaflets and billboards are awash with false claims about a ‘death tax’,lies about crime statistics,cancer drugs,immigration etc. Their whole value system is based on the supposed threat posed to Britain by people on benefits,unmarried people,women who want choice,migrants and anyone else who doesn’t fit their ideal of a middle-class family. Someone needs to tell them that being well-off is not necessarily a sign of having ‘done the right thing’ and vice versa.
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Given the pressure on printing resources, and resulting price hike in some cases, in the climax of a campaign much “ammo” is sent to print or at least artworked weeks ahead. The leaflet that Henry MacRory posted on twitter as “a lie” was actually a juxtaposition of a FACT about Labour introducing some of these things, with a strapline about change we don’t want. Seems to me that Labour has created these things and also the national minimum wage, pension income guarantee and so on and so forth. AND that Tories are unlikely to innovate in these progressive ways. That’s the point. And given that the Tories are using Foghorns rather than Dog Whistles and that this is political and indeed electoral material they are (a) hurling brickbats from a glass house and (b) going further than the law does.
Many of protested at a Tax Payers’ Association cinema advert which was utterly untrue. The ASA accepted their counsels case that as this was material designed to change political views it could be as mendacious as anything without falling foul of advertising standards!
I’m looking at a Lib Dem leaflet as I type in which the incumbent dubs themselves “the best MP we’ve ever had” (it’s not in quotes) and having stood in half a dozen elections over the past ten years and for three of them been a councillor AND an MP this wretch calls his opponent who has never stood before at any level “Labour’s career politician” (again, not in quotes).
And I’ve got a nice but dim Tory incumbent one mis-delivered in a Labour area that is quite simply full of riddles. Here’s one:
Saving the Environment
XY has been a champion of local green spaces. Conservatives would cut taxes to help people to protect the environment.
Just talked to one of this fella’s parishioners. The first bit doesn’t ring any bells. And the second part is utterly baffling.
It’s Politics Cathy, is all. Labour have brought these things in, Tories would be unlikely to have done. They are certainly planning to dismantle some things we’ve done. And the way in which these kinds of taunts have forced Cameron again and again and again to extend his commitments is a very useful process in locking in progressive change and stopping back-tracking.
That’s what I’d be saying. This is smoking out commitments the Tories have been trying to avoid in their foggy feelgood (??) quackery way.
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Chris Paul and John O’Dwyer sound like professional political apologists. There is simply NO EXCUSE for the blatant lies in
the labour leaflets examined.
I It’s about time these people
stopped taking us for fools..
and we will surely punish them
in the ballot box.
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These systematic distortions of the truth are truly incredible. I can’t believe that he had no knowledge of their publication. They are all such obvious products of Labour’s Spin, Smoke and Dirty Tricks department that he must have seen them before publication.
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Bloody marvellous! the Great English Gentleman David Cameron won last nigh’ts leader’s debate, it was like bring back fox hunting with a group of dogs.
Hong Kong!, the desperate Gordon Brown was trying to frighten the ‘yellow belly voters’ to vote for Labour. Yellow bellies get voting! Gordon Brown’s little joke: “Them two remind me of my two children fighting over bathtime.” He also knew the different between a woman and a man.!
Bang on! Nick Clegg done the leg work again but no one really understands what he stands for. One has to question himself whether he understands what he stands for?
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I keep reading FactCheck and am left with the notion that the Tories won’t be making any cuts or any tax increases, because they’re not in the Tory manifesto. That’s a pretty ridiculous position for a site claiming to deal in facts.
Comments that these items will ‘need to be looked at’ by Ken Clarke etc become “circumstantial quotes from Conservative politicans”, while Cameron’s own quotes are taken as, to coin a phrase, cast-iron guarantees.
The only real facts we know is that around £170bn needs to be found and that the Tories will cut deeper and sooner than Labour. FactCheck does not know, because the Tories won’t tell the voters or Cathy Newman, where the cuts will fall or what taxes will be increased.
Using FactCheck’s criteria, for instance, we don’t need to worry about VAT being increased or the scope of the tax widened to include food and children’s clothes, because no mention is made of it in the Tory manifesto but Cameron’s promised to do nothing nasty. Credible? We’ll see.
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[...] said that a Labour claim that a Conservative government would abolish the scheme amounted to “pure and simple lies”. Related posts (automatically generated):Cuts Watch 13#: Cuts across [...]
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Oh how the chickens have come home to roost.
Dodgey Dave spouted off about so-called Labour lies in April saying no cuts to winter fuel allowance, bus passes etc.
Lo and behold whats Dodgey Dave and Ozzie the axe planning to do after 100 days in power.
Bye bye winter fuel allowance etc.
Where is the apology David, where is the apology
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Labour lies? Yesterday Cameron’s crew cut the Winter Fuel Allowance.
Time to change the ‘fact’ conclusion to ‘fiction’, Cathy!
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You have to look at all the facts, unfortunately. Cameron is NOT cutting the winter fuel allowance. He’s left in place Labour plans not to continue the temporary increase introduced a couple of year ago.
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