The National:

THERE is no bigger supporter of Jo Swinson than Jo Swinson.

The LibDem leader has been talking herself up and fantasising about being prime minister so much over the past few weeks, the MP for East Dunbartonshire makes Walter Mitty look rigorously honest.

Yesterday, the LibDems officially launched their General Election campaign and – while the Tories are suffering the worst start to a campaign since… well, since their last one – the party has already been caught out bending the truth, if not outright lying, on at least three occasions.

1. Going around telling everyone you are going to be PM doesn’t make it true

Swinson is convincing no-one, not even herself, when going around telling everyone that she’s going to be prime minister.

At the last election, the party took just 7.4% of the vote, increasing the number of seats they held from eight to 12. Therefore, it would take the swing of the century for Swinson to get anywhere near the top job.

Right now, the LibDems are the fourth largest party, behind the SNP – even though the SNP only contest 59 of the 650 seats at Westminster.

Swinson points out that she’s polling similarly to David Clegg at the time of his rise from obscurity to relative unobscurity for 20 minutes when he stood out like a sore thumb after saying something semi-coherent during a televised debate.

What the current LibDem leader will neglect to tell you is that the party actually lost five of its 62 seats at the 2010 election.

No-one will be surprised to hear that the most recent polling does not support Swinson’s claims she is destined for the top job.

2. Misleading graph

“People are tired of the old two parties,” says Swinson. Which must be why she is aping them in every way possible.

Not content with providing clear, objectively true information to voters and allowing them to make up their own minds, the LibDem leader feels the need to engage in the same sort of disinformation we routinely see from Labour and the Tories.

On the face of it, this graph may suggest that the fight in the North East Somerset constituency will be a close-fought contest. One to watch.

On closer inspection, it would appear the LibDems have more chance of seeing Swinson become PM than seeing the party take Jacob Rees-Mogg’s seat.

WATCH: Jo Swinson attempts to defend 'entirely misleading' graph

In the small print, it describes what is actually going on. Rather than being a projection of voting intentions, the question asked was actually along the lines of “If the Tories and the LibDems were the only viable options and no other party stood a chance, which would you vote for?”

And they still lost...

The LibDems took little over 8% of the constituency's vote in 2017, finishing in third place.

The graph is proof of nothing other than tailoring questions to get the answer you want is more likely to get you the answer you want.

3. Trying to pass off Jo Swinson quotes as the media’s

“LibDems winning and on the up after by-election victory.”

“The LibDem fightback is real – and it’s changing everything.”

The National:

Just two of the quotes which appeared on a LibDem campaign leaflet as the UK gears up to go to the polls on December 12.

The first quote is attributed to The Guardian, the second to Sky News.

Fair enough, you think, they’re passing it off as news when it was probably comment, either from a journalist or a commentator invited on to speak.

It’s slightly misleading, but there’s worse out there, you conclude.

That’s until you find out that these quotes are actually from Swinson herself, on occasions when those very news outlets were quoting her.

And then you have bare-faced LibDems going on TV to defend it as if it's perfectly normal behaviour for a party and a leader trying to gain the trust of a nation.

It’s the political equivalent of Tobias Fünke praising himself at the water cooler in an attempt to create some buzz.

All of which suggests that the leader of the LibDems is a phoney and a charlatan...