Words Dept.: entry

I live in the Cale Green area of Stockport. Until recently we had three Liberal Democrat councillors. Then in February, two of them – Roy Driver and David White – left the LibDems to stand under the banner of “Independent Left”. These are the facts.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I received a leaflet today from the local LibDems, who call themselves “FOCUS” for some reason, saying: “FOCUS goes from strength to strength as another new campaigner joins the team!” Apparently a new leaflet hander-outer called John Reid (no, not that one) is now helping “the new-look FOCUS Team” hand out leaflets. (Click on photo, left, to enlarge.)

You can sort of understand why Davenport and Cale Green’s remaining LibDem councillor, Ann Smith, would decline to mention the fate of her two former colleagues but to dress it up as some kind of triumph, or re-branding exercise, in a direct reversal of the truth, takes some brass balls.

I’m no political expert but would it not have been a better idea to admit in the leaflet that two local councillors and former colleagues had left the party, rather than attempt such a laughable rewriting of history? Councillor Smith might then have built up her message from a position of honesty and credibility. From there, a measure of authority could have been re-established.

But for some reason politicians don’t tend to think this way. Instead, the councillor and her advisers prefer to treat constituents – at least the ones who don’t read the local paper – like idiots in the hope of short-term political gain.

Aside from being a fairly depressing example of the depths to which local politics has sunk, this kind of leaflet is also a good example of  why local newspapers need support. You simply can’t trust councillors – and, although this leaflet isn’t one of them, that includes so-called council “newspapers” – to talk truthfully about the world as any normal person would understand it.