The National:

THE LibDems came under heavy fire during last year’s General Election for their extremely selective use of graphics in their campaign leaflets.

Up and down the UK the party would claim to be the only choice to beat the Tories, Jo Swinson even claimed she could become the prime minister. Upon closer inspection however, none of those claims quite stood up to scrutiny. Swinson didn’t even make it to MP, let alone PM.

In Wimbledon in London the party claimed “elections here are always a clear choice between LibDems and the Tories” when in fact they had come third in the last two elections.

In Totnes in Devon the party claimed it was “so close” that “only the Liberal Democrats can beat the Tories”. In fact, in the previous election the Conservatives won 53.7% of the vote, and Labour, not the LibDems, came second.

In one magnificent example, in the constituency of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the LibDems shared a graphic showing they were on 32% of the vote, close behind the top Tory’s 38%. Labour, it seemed, were trailing far behind on just 8%.

Upon closer inspection, those figures were a little biased. They were based on the results of a poll which asked: “Imagine that the result in your constituency was expected to be very close between the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat candidate, and none of the other parties were competitive. In this scenario, which party would you vote for?”

In a real life scenario (the 2017 General Election), Rees-Mogg had won 53.6% of the vote, Labour 34.7%, and the LibDems just 8.3%.

Embarrassing. But obviously not quite embarrassing enough for them not to try it all over again.

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With Holyrood elections just around the corner, the LibDems have been out trying to win votes, and deceptive graphs now seem to be their speciality.

This time, they’ve put out a leaflet claiming the race in East Dunbartonshire between the SNP and LibDems is “so close” that “voting Conservative or Labour only helps the SNP”.

“There’s only 149 votes in it”, the leaflet cries. This much was true. During the Westminster elections last year, the party’s leader, Jo Swinson, lost her seat to the SNP by that very narrow margin.

Unfortunately for the LibDems, no such constituency exists at Holyrood. Phil Mccloy, the Twitter user who shared the graph, said: "The wee disclaimer on the graph doesn’t excuse [their] blatant attempts to mislead."

The people of Clydebank and Milngavie however, will vote for an MSP. Katy Gordon, the LibDem candidate, would have you believe it’s a race between her and the SNP’s Marie McNair. However, the 2016 results tell a very different story.

In that election, the SNP’s Gil Paterson won 16,158 votes. Second came Labour on 7726, and next the Tories’ Maurice Golden on 6029.

The LibDems came fourth, with just 2925 votes. Not quite as close between the LibDems and SNP as they might have you believe.

The leaflet also mentions Susan Murray and her attempt to get elected for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, so let’s have a look at the race there.

Unsurprisingly, the story is almost exactly the same. In 2016, the SNP’s Rona McKay won with 17,060 votes. The Tories’ Andrew Polson came second with 8960, and Labour’s Margaret Mccarthy a close third with 8288.

Once again, the LibDems are way back in fourth place, with 4880 votes.

It seems the LibDems aren’t quite as hot on the heels of the SNP as they’re telling us ...

The party has been contacted for comment.