Thursday, April 26, 2007

Lawrence Hill, Bristol: Lib Dems Spot Dodgy Photographic Developments



Must say this looks bang to rights. A Labour candidate in Bristol appears to have lost his demo photos and fudged one up rather badly for a leaflet. Not a good idea. For some reason though the Lib Dems have yet to clear this comment for publication:
Cheers to Guido for the animation.

Of course the Lib Dem with the three ears was none other than Cllr Marc Ramsbottom who left his last job just ahead of their misconduct enquiry which saw his colleague who stuck it out dismissed over a tax fiddle.
UPDATE: Lib Dem Voice have sadly voted against free speech and stopped the comment above appearing.
UPDATE 2: They are now trying to smear the PPC and the rest of Bristol Labour with all having personally had a hand in the photoshopping of the fake photograph. And I thought it was only the Manchester ones that were completely full of it.
UPDATE 3: LDV has relented and let in the Bird Watcher comment. Tim has posted a link in comments to the Tories doing this same thing.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, that makes it all OK then. As long as someone else did it before, and as long as some other website is preventing you putting up your instant rebuttal, then the original story doesnt matter.

Well done at dexterously reversing the guilt on this one. Now it's the Lib Dems who are guilty - TWICE!

Tim said...

Didn't a Tory do this...?

Yes, hilariously so:

How Tory made a family disappear

Let them stay! Chuck them out!

I think, Chris, that you can afford to acknowledge that representatives of all parties have played this game at one time or another *and* graciously accept that what Busharat Ali has done significantly undermines his credibility.

Chris Paul said...

Anon: Did I say that? Did I say that it was OK? No I did not. I just think it is humbuggery to go OTT like these Lib Dems when they are deliberately manufacturing shots e.g. with Kennedy and Candidates of blank placards. And the three ears is priceless.

Tim: Busharat Ali is inept, foolish and dishonest enough to be a Lib Dem councillor. How's that?

LDV did eventually print the not-rebuttal.

Anonymous said...

Marc 3 Ears was hilarious. Apart from the spare ear though it was hard to tell. Much better photoshopping skills from the Lib Dems - makes you wonder if they're at it all the time? Practice makes perfect. A few of Leech's pictures look very dodgy indeed.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't assume that a comment automatically held for moderation has been censored, or that there was any "relenting" in publishing it later. What's most likely is the volunteers running this sort of site haven't had a chance to check in yet.

Chris Paul said...

They passed it only after my comments both here and there about them suppressing it ... anyway, unless you are in some way connected to the entertaining and informative LDV you can probably leave them to speak up for themselves about their principles on free speech.

Hywel said...

"After all it is recommended in th campaigning manual isn’t it?"

Could you tell me which campaigning manual and where. I wrote the two most recent campaign manuals and I can't find such a reference.

I'm not impressed at the implication that I would have endorsed doctoring photos to show that something that didn't happen, did.

Chris Paul said...

Hywel: The famous campaigning manual that tells Lib Dems to exaggerate shamelessly, flirt with the truth constantly, take credit for others' achievements, complain incessantly and in shirt be a miserable negative sour Lib Dem - by all means necessary. If you google Ken Livingstone, Guardian and Lib Dem Manual you'll probably find a good analysis of the damned thing.

Others I've seen are no better. The overall message is "tell people what they want to hear". This is not the message of a Political party it is the message of an A-Political party. Pathetic.

Even more so drawing attention to it.

Hywel said...

So you agree there is no campaign manual advising people to doctor photos in photoshop to suggest that something that didn't happen did.

I'd be grateful for your clarification on this as that is at least implied in the post above