Political Misinformation

[rhythmaning]

This week sees the elections for the European Parliament. The Economist has an article on how the one topic not being discussed by politicians in the run up to Thursday's election is Europe.

So I shouldn't have been surprised that the flyer stuck through my door yesterday by the LibDems not only doesn't mention Europe, it doesn't mention the European Parliament or Thursday's election at all. It talks about Ed Fordham, the LibDems' candidate for the UK parliament.

I actually had to dig out my polling card to make sure that there wasn't a by-election going on, too. (There isn't: the European Parliamentary election is the only one there is - London isn't having local council elections as some parts of the UK are.)

I can only think that the LibDems have run out of the real leaflets for the European elections; or maybe they are really not bothered. Still, they've got me confused - if they don't care about their candidate for Europe, why should I?

Comments

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think you've just made my point - I hadn't realised there was a LibDem MEP! (Having just moved back to London and all..)

[matgb]

Not only is there an OK MEP, but the 2nd on the list (who could get in) is a damn fine candidate and they've been pushing hard for him. If you've got a purely local non-EU leaflet then that's almost certainly a standard constituency leaflet that they put out, Ed's campaigning hard as it's a target so odds are he gets a leaflet out every 3 months or so anyway.

LDs came less than 1% away from a 2nd London MEP last time, same guy 2nd on the list this time, and he's a top bloke (Jonathan Fryer, his blog's on Wordpress).

One thing that can't be criticised about the Lib Dem campaign this time is talk about Europe—they hid it last time, but this time they're really pushing the pro-EU angle, Clegg used to be an MEP and wants to really sell membership, it's not like they could lose any more votes because of it.