Freesteel Blog » Liverpool Wavertree campaign filth

Liverpool Wavertree campaign filth

Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 12:31 am Written by:

It’s over three weeks to the election and filth like this leaflet is already flying out the risographs of the local Labour party headquarters into the mailbags of willing smear merchants.

Whatever it takes to win an election, eh, Mr. Watson? The style looks like one of yours. Maybe you’ve been running courses over the winter.

The lovely young eligible Labour candidate Luciana Berger, fresh up from the New Labour clique in London will be victorious, as she so rightly informs us:

When I am elected as your Member of Parliament I will make my home in Wavertree.

Of course, she’s not mentioned anywhere in this particular Labour attack leaflet, because it wouldn’t make sense to be slamming the LibDem candidate for moving here five years ago (and being committed enough to get onto the council), when your own candidate first heard of the constituency after she got allocated to it by the central party machine three months ago.

But by putting this attack ad on a separate sheet of paper, no one is going to notice, are they?

People are not always so stupid. But what they do have is a very short memory.

Luckily, this short term memory problem can be cured with these recording devices called computers.

In a few years time when Luciana is in Parliament fighting for yet more war and dismissing sight unseen the latest human massacre in the middle east because the team she happens to identify with isn’t getting hurt, someone is going to wonder: “Now why did she get elected here?”

Was it because the good people of Liverpool Wavertree actually liked these sorts of policies?

No. The record will show that it happened because her party spread around leaflets in which the picture of other serious challenger in the race was stretched wide to make him appear fat and ugly.

No one wants to vote for the ugly guy.

They want to vote for someone who’s pretty. That’s why full colour glossy pictures of Luciana’s beautiful face will be on every election leaflet from now on — except these attack ones.

Unfortunately, when she returns to London with our democratic mandate, it will be what is on her mind that matters.

Update: BBC Radio was not impressed:

HOUSEHOLDS in the Wavertree area of Liverpool may have received political leaflets on behalf of the Labour Party which prominently features BBC Radio Merseyside’s phone-in host Roger Phillips.

The leaflet selectively quotes from an interview which Roger did with the Liberal Democrat candidate for Wavertree Colin Eldridge last November along with headlines which imply he backs Labour’s stance.

While I am not challenging the factual accuracy of the transcription, the quotations were taken out of context and the impression given by the prominence of the leaflet and the words chosen is that Roger, and by implication BBC Radio Merseyside, is in some way backing the Labour Party’s campaign against Colin Eldridge in the general election. While this is clearly not the case I am keen to distance us from any such assocation with the Labour Party, or indeed any political party ; the BBC’s editorial objectivity must remain intact at all times, particularly during such a crucial election period.

The interview with Colin Eldridge was part of our daily dissection of the regular political scene conducted with Roger’s usual rigour and professionalism and applied to all candidates whatever their political viewpoint – and this will continue throughout the general election period and beyond.

Mick Ord, Managing Editor,BBC Radio Merseyside

Update 2: BBC: Green Party’s pledge for clean campaign in Liverpool

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