Londoner's Diary
In this year of elections across the world, tricks and foul play will abound. In their own small way, Britain’s Liberal Democrats are playing their part. It’s only January and they have already been caught telling porkies on election leaflets. In a new batch of leaflets, the party quotes a positive headline from the Guardian: “Voters in south-west England know — it’s the Lib Dems who can get the Tories out.”
True enough, these words were printed in the Guardian. Specifically, in an opinion piece authored by Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats. In a further sleight of hand, it is not immediately obvious the leaflet, printed in Somerset, is Lib Dem propaganda. It is dressed up to resemble a newspaper titled “Somerset Clarion”, a common trick used by many parties.
We asked the party for an explanation. “There’s quite a, sort of, um, complex oversight process to all this,” a press officer told us. “And there’s quite a few, sort of, democratic structures in place so it’s not just his prerogative as party leader.” The Londoner learned Sir Ed is not “personally aware” of the misleading pamphlet and his team will not be bringing it to his attention.
The Lib Dems have history with such tactics. In 2019, the party emblazoned leaflets with a positive newspaper headline without mentioning the piece was written by the then leader, Jo Swinson. The party has also been criticised for using misleading bar charts which overstate their polling performance. Full Fact, the campaign group which first noticed the misleading leaflet, has called for parties to end dishonest election practices.
A spokesperson for the Lib Dems said: “All our campaigning literature makes clear it’s from the Liberal Democrats. It’s clear the Lib Dems are the main challengers to Conservative MPs in seats right across the country from the South West to London.”
Coffey’s capital offence
It was all commotion in parliament yesterday as the Safety of Rwanda Bill made its tortuous way through the Commons. Lee Anderson, who spectacularly resigned his position as vice-chair of the Conservative party over his disagreements with the Bill, ended up abstaining. Why?
He told GB News (the channel where he is a part-time presenter) that he went to vote against the Bill but backed out because Labour MPs were laughing at him. “The Labour lot were giggling and laughing and taking the mick and I couldn’t do it,” he said. In another head-spinning moment, Liz Truss’s short-serving deputy prime minister, Thérèse Coffey, pictured, rose in the Commons to lambast Labour’s Yvette Cooper for referring to the “Kigali government”.
“She can’t even get the name of the country right,” crowed Coffey, seemingly forgetting that Kigali is the capital of Rwanda.
After her embarrassment, Coffey has doubled-down. In a tweet today she claimed that she did in fact know that Kigali was the capital of Rwanda, but was offended by Cooper's use of metonymy. Serious people for serious times.
