Jill Hope

Northamptonshire County Councillor for Sixfields - a Lib Dem campaigner working all year round, not just at election time Learn more

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KNOCKING the opposition

by Jill Hope on 4 May, 2011

SEVERAL residents have told me on the doorstep that they don’t like leaflets that criticise our opponents. They dislike negative politics.

I understand and respect that view, but there are some factors people need to understand:

  1. If I am comparing our record with the record of our political opposition, it is impossible to do that without making value judgments. It is particularly hard to say ‘we’d do better than them’ without describing how they are falling short.
  2. Some people have suggested that we have been negative whereas the Conservatives haven’t. This is called selective memory.The Conservatives have made some offensive and deeply personal comments about me as a candidate. I have never stooped to that level and will not criticise my opponent personally, because I believe that is, in footballing terms, going for the man rather than the ball.
  3. A recent Conservative leaflet had the entire back page dedicated to a list of 7 things we were alleged to have done to fail Northampton. Most of these were such outright lies that I exposed them in an earlier posting (see “This time they’ve gone a bit too far”). The items which were not outright lies were misrepresentation. OK, this is political knockabout, but please don’t tell us that the opposition aren’t negative.

Finally, it is an interesting by-product of the AV system that if it is adopted, politicians will have to widen their appeal to include supporters from other parties to ensure they get more than 50% of the vote.

If you object to negative campaigning then AV is the best way to eliminate it!

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