LibDems stand by 'fake newspaper' tactic as they campaign for Mid Beds by-election

The Liberal Democrats have said local newspapers “play an absolutely vital role”, but they are going to continue to use newspaper style leaflets to share their messages.

A poll by Byline Times found that 62 per cent of people in Britain think that the “fake newspaper tactic” used by political parties should be banned if they do not make it clear which party is behind it.

However, the Liberal Democrat Party’s deputy leader, Daisy Cooper MP, said her party “always makes it clear” who’s behind their ‘newspapers’.

“Honestly, I have never met anybody who has received one of these sort of political newspapers who doesn’t realise it’s political within about 30 seconds of reading it,” she told the Local Democracy reporting Service last week (August 31).

“We’ve been putting out some of these newspapers locally, and they’ve got Emma’s [Holland-Lindsay] face all over it, it’s got Ed Davey as party leader all over it. It’s clear it’s a Liberal Democrats publication… and not a local newspaper.”

“What I’d also say is that people lead very busy and complicated lives and for us as local campaigners we want people to be able to feel informed about what we’re doing. And we know that if we convey that information in different forms that might appeal to different people who might read different publications at different times.

“That’s the best way of demonstrating to them that we’re working hard and getting our message across to people who are still undecided about how they’re going to vote in a forthcoming election.

“If for example, one of these leaflets was put out from a political party and it wasn’t clear immediately upon reading it that it was a political publication, or if it was really genuinely trying to pretend to be something else then I’ll be worried about that.

In its report, the Byline Times said that in 2021 the NMA, the trade body for the regional and national press, wrote to the Electoral Commission to call for “an end to fake local newspapers”.

“I’m a strong believer in having a local healthy press, I’m a strong believer in having independent press as well,” Ms Cooper said.

“I think it’s shocking that some of the really big media companies over the years have actually cut a lot of jobs in local media, and I would like to see local media given more protection and more support.

“Where I am in St Albans we have a fantastic local paper called the Herts Advertiser, and I’ve never had a single constituent that can’t tell the difference between the Herts Ads and a Lib Dem leaflet,” she said.

The Lib Dem candidate for the Mid Bedfordshire by-election, Emma Holland-Lindsay, said: “Daisy is right, local papers play an absolutely vital role and we need to champion them and support them. I did my work experience on the Biggleswade Chronicle and that is very dear to my heart.

“We do need to support our local papers, but equally political parties have to be able to communicate to different groups of people in different ways,” she said.