Not sporting – not working: Tories are using manuals to smear rivals, but they aren’t changing minds
Tory candidates in the general election have not only been issued with manuals telling them how to smear rivals – they’re using them.
Worse still, it seems that some people on the doorstep actually believe this rehashed, warmed-over tripe.
But it seems it isn’t affecting the decisions members of the public are making.
Someone tweeted This Writer today saying that, in spite of what they called “Labour’s open door policy”, they were still going to vote for that party rather than the Tories.
I didn’t have the heart to correct that person. They’re doing the right thing, after all. Are you?
Conservative candidates in the general election have been issued with a detailed dossier on how to attack Labour and Liberal Democrat rivals which contains numerous rehashed and potentially misleading claims, the Guardian can reveal.
One 17-page briefing note is specifically for Tories in seats where the main challenge comes from Labour. Another 19-page document is for candidates fighting a Liberal Democrat threat.
The documents accuse the Liberal Democrats of pushing “pro-pimp” policies and sex work as a career for schoolchildren.
They also reheat a discredited claim that Labour’s policy on free movement would lead to 840,000 migrants coming to the UK each year.
Drafted by the Conservative research department, the documents are designed to provide candidates with approved messages to use on doorsteps across the country.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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It’s funny, in all the years I have never had anyone come canvassing on my doorstep, not once. I’m waiting for them to turn up, the Tories, so I can chase them off the property and throw their bloody leaflets back at them with a choice mouthful of my opinions, but no they won’t come. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in dodgy areas for many years where robberies and shootings are the norm and Politicians stay away, I dunno.
They won’t bother calling on me now that I have a “vote Labour” poster in my window!