Electoral Addresses Start Arriving
The Lib Dem's postal offering arrived yesterday. Predictable enough. In this "positive only" Lib Dem campaign this inevitably is largely full-on attack politics.
Post Office closures - it says our man Tony Lloyd voted for the closures. Of course he only voted for "reinvention" after assurances that city branches, esp in deprived wards would be properly looked after. And he has ruthlessly attacked Post Office manager's cheating on closures and reneging on these promises.
Metrolink is attacked - a Labour success. With a Labour national manifesto commitment at £520 million. Which the Lib Dem's have been weak on. Which the LD candidate has done nothing visible on. Which our man Tony Lloyd has played a blinder on. Including collecting signatures at the blue City of Manchester stadium - though he is a well known Red!
The third attack is a mystery. "Labour is failing on the police". There's lots more to be done but that is just a dirty fib. 800 more officers for GMP - thanks to Labour leadership, despite Lib Dem feet dragging - and crime going down on both recorded incidents and British Crime Survey results.
As a regular at various police partnership bodies I know that it's true that the rise in violent crime is really and truly because of changes in reporting practice. And as one frontline policeman said on the telly today: With more police more volume crime gets recorded. The serious assaults (and there usually needs to be open wounds or broken bones) are going down here, except in isolated hotspots.
Lib Dems really do have a cheek to whinge about crime or police. They vote against all legislation to give police even basic tools to deal with problems. And in Manchester this particular candidate was carpeted by police only last summer for leaking and scaremongering unhelpfully to the papers.
Still there's not much damage there.
Then there is the Blair/Bush photo. Much as I opposed the war I don't think there's that much damage there either. Perhaps in one ward and in small parts of two others. But we have Tony Lloyd’s exemplary record with four out of four as rebel teller/whip. And we also have a high proportion of the electorate who are not exercised by this issue or support the government.
The B side includes a number of extravagant promises. Some are on how this pretender will vote. But one stands out. There are two picture stories with it. That is that Marc will *get rid* of Top Up Fees, not just vote against mind, actually get rid of.
THERE IS NO MENTION WHATSOEVER OF LOCAL INCOME TAX!! Perhaps they'll do a second leaflet. Perhaps they realise that for Manchester at least the sums just don't add up.
Marc's usual cronies - giving the look of three granny mugging musketeers - are nowhere to be seen.
There are those two pics with the woman President of the SU where Marc works as the Manager. Another with the stern woman ward candidate in target Ancoats. And a fourth with one of my Lib Dem comrades from the Whalley Range vigil, mother of a SWP activist, and reportedly wondering what she as an old school left Liberal is doing mixed up with these slippery-pole by-all-means-necessary chancers!
Marc has reinvented himself from "casual boy with pals" for town to "James Bond with ladies" for parliament. This is his third parliamentary challenge. He must know what he is doing. But despite Charles Kennedy's call for an honest and positive campaign it does seem that belonging to the Lib Dems in Manchester means having a fibber's charter.
In case there was any doubt about that we get a picture of Michael Howard and the usual deceitful slogans and bar charts. "It's a two horse race", "Tories cannot win here", "It's neck and neck" all the usual guff. And the barmy bar chart is based on a recent local government election and includes five constituencies. It shows 39:35:12 per cent for Lab:Lib:Tory. The actual figures in the last general election were around 17:4:3. They are shameless.
This blog entry has been typed four times as the server keeps rejecting it and the 'recover post' feature is half hearted. Further analysis on the Green effort and on deliberately misleading Lib Dem attacks in neighbouring Withington.
Post Office closures - it says our man Tony Lloyd voted for the closures. Of course he only voted for "reinvention" after assurances that city branches, esp in deprived wards would be properly looked after. And he has ruthlessly attacked Post Office manager's cheating on closures and reneging on these promises.
Metrolink is attacked - a Labour success. With a Labour national manifesto commitment at £520 million. Which the Lib Dem's have been weak on. Which the LD candidate has done nothing visible on. Which our man Tony Lloyd has played a blinder on. Including collecting signatures at the blue City of Manchester stadium - though he is a well known Red!
The third attack is a mystery. "Labour is failing on the police". There's lots more to be done but that is just a dirty fib. 800 more officers for GMP - thanks to Labour leadership, despite Lib Dem feet dragging - and crime going down on both recorded incidents and British Crime Survey results.
As a regular at various police partnership bodies I know that it's true that the rise in violent crime is really and truly because of changes in reporting practice. And as one frontline policeman said on the telly today: With more police more volume crime gets recorded. The serious assaults (and there usually needs to be open wounds or broken bones) are going down here, except in isolated hotspots.
Lib Dems really do have a cheek to whinge about crime or police. They vote against all legislation to give police even basic tools to deal with problems. And in Manchester this particular candidate was carpeted by police only last summer for leaking and scaremongering unhelpfully to the papers.
Still there's not much damage there.
Then there is the Blair/Bush photo. Much as I opposed the war I don't think there's that much damage there either. Perhaps in one ward and in small parts of two others. But we have Tony Lloyd’s exemplary record with four out of four as rebel teller/whip. And we also have a high proportion of the electorate who are not exercised by this issue or support the government.
The B side includes a number of extravagant promises. Some are on how this pretender will vote. But one stands out. There are two picture stories with it. That is that Marc will *get rid* of Top Up Fees, not just vote against mind, actually get rid of.
THERE IS NO MENTION WHATSOEVER OF LOCAL INCOME TAX!! Perhaps they'll do a second leaflet. Perhaps they realise that for Manchester at least the sums just don't add up.
Marc's usual cronies - giving the look of three granny mugging musketeers - are nowhere to be seen.
There are those two pics with the woman President of the SU where Marc works as the Manager. Another with the stern woman ward candidate in target Ancoats. And a fourth with one of my Lib Dem comrades from the Whalley Range vigil, mother of a SWP activist, and reportedly wondering what she as an old school left Liberal is doing mixed up with these slippery-pole by-all-means-necessary chancers!
Marc has reinvented himself from "casual boy with pals" for town to "James Bond with ladies" for parliament. This is his third parliamentary challenge. He must know what he is doing. But despite Charles Kennedy's call for an honest and positive campaign it does seem that belonging to the Lib Dems in Manchester means having a fibber's charter.
In case there was any doubt about that we get a picture of Michael Howard and the usual deceitful slogans and bar charts. "It's a two horse race", "Tories cannot win here", "It's neck and neck" all the usual guff. And the barmy bar chart is based on a recent local government election and includes five constituencies. It shows 39:35:12 per cent for Lab:Lib:Tory. The actual figures in the last general election were around 17:4:3. They are shameless.
This blog entry has been typed four times as the server keeps rejecting it and the 'recover post' feature is half hearted. Further analysis on the Green effort and on deliberately misleading Lib Dem attacks in neighbouring Withington.
posted by Chris Paul at 5:09 PM
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