THE Scottish LibDems have been accused of misleading voters after sending out a campaign leaflet disguised as a newspaper.
The leaflet, titled West Edinburgh News Gazette, was sent out to voters in the west of Edinburgh and contained stories about incumbent Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton as well as bold claims about other parties.
One local who received the campaign material through their door told Edinburgh Live that it was a "misuse of journalistic techniques and a "prime example of political propaganda".
The paper contained a comment piece from an unnamed writer saying voters had seen the "importance" of having an MSP like Cole-Hamilton in Holyrood as well as a poll labelled "FACT" that declares the constituency vote in May's Scottish Parliament election to be a two-horse race, with Labour and the Tories "out of the race".
The newspaper does not appear to contain any LibDem branding to identify it as a piece of political campaign material.
Commenting, Cole-Hamilton said: “Liberal Democrats in West Edinburgh have a proud history of delivering this kind of tabloid to the communities we serve for over 30 years.
"It’s a great means of getting local news and information to people and is just part of a broad stable of ways we keep in touch all year round."
He added that they often receive compliments on "the detail and regularity of all our leaflets".
The LibDems came under fire in 2019 for a similar strategy in England where one local newspaper threatened to withhold coverage of the party due to the "newspaper" as they were sent out to areas across the country during the General Election campaign.
SNP candidate for Edinburgh Western Sarah Masson (above) said: “There’s nothing to be ‘proud of’ about deliberately misleading voters into thinking they are reading a genuine newspaper from a reputable publisher.
"Presenting election material in the form of a newspaper is one thing - but ripping off the appearance of local papers to trick voters is quite another.
“Fake news is worryingly on the rise and I would have hoped we could all try for better. It seems the LibDems aren’t of the same mindset.
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“The Lib Dems have a bad reputation for untrustworthiness, and this mock newspaper now shows that extends to what they are putting through people's letterboxes."
John McLellan, director of the Scottish Newspaper Society, told Edinburgh Live: "News professionals take a dim view of political parties passing off their propaganda as objective information without any attribution, and at a time when fake news is a real concern, we can do without fake newspapers as well."
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