Talk

Flip

Politics

Labour propaganda disguised as newspaper - legal?

5 replies

maria1665 · 01/05/2010 10:53

Politicos out there - is this legal?

We got a newspaper today - called The Examiner - looking for all the world like a local free paper. The front page was mainly taken up by an article featuring allegations against the local Lib Dem candidate.

Other articles concerned death threats being made against the local Labour candidate, unrest amongst the Asian communities (our Tory candidate is Asian) and other pro Labour, anti Lib Dem 'news'articles.

It is 8 pages in total, yet it does not mention that it is affilliated to any political party. Eventually my husband found, in tiny print at the bottom of page 5, a line saying it was printed from the office of our local labour MP.

I am fairly switched on but it took me a few minutes to be convinced that this was not a genuine paper. Not least because the print and logo mimics exactly a genuine free paper that has been recently launched. It even says 'For week ending May 5th 2010', as though it was coming out every week.

This is well out of line. Is it legal?

OP posts:

Report

TheJollyPirate · 01/05/2010 10:56

Not sure but if The Daily Mail are anything to go by then cannot imagine this is illegal.

Then again the DM make no secret about being right wing.

Report

DuelingFanjo · 01/05/2010 10:58

it's not illegal.

Report

DomesticGoddessInTraining · 01/05/2010 10:59

We regularly get something similar round our way - but it's usually attacking Labour. The small print shows that it's published by the LibDems.

Report

vesela · 01/05/2010 11:06

Totally legal, as long as it has the party imprint on it - printed by X, published and promoted by Y on behalf of candidate Z of AB party.

hmm, mimicking the logo of a genuine free paper must surely be dodgy ground, though.

Report

maria1665 · 01/05/2010 11:39

Nowhere does it say anything about any link to the Labour party. In TINY letters at the bottom of a page, it states its promoted by X on behalf of Y - but even that doesn't state he's the local labour MP.

Its stuff like this that puts me off politics COMPLETELY. Its sixth form common room bitchiness. Nasty nasty people. And we wonder why they ALL screw their expenses.

As a kid, I never really got Lord Sutch and his monster raving loony party. I do now.