Lib Dems apologise over abusive literature
Monday, 1 June 2009 5:20 PM
By politics.co.uk staff
Liberal Democrats in Cornwall have been forced to apologise after they distributed leaflets describing another candidate as "a greasy-haired t**t".
About 40 leaflets were circulated in the Camborne area on behalf of Cornwall council candidate Anna Pascoe which contained the offensive slur against Mebyon Kernow - the Cornish nationalist party - candidate Stuart Collimore. He is deciding what action to take.
"I am absolutely outraged about this myself," said Joe Taylor, Ms Pascoe's agent.
"What's particularly distressing is that we took the decision to fight a positive campaign."
He said he had put out about 1,700 checked copies of a similar leaflet but believed one of their volunteers had distributed about 40 of the offending items.
"It's a small but extremely busy office. People are coming and going all the time," added Mr Taylor.
Mebyon Kernow leader Dick Cole said the attack was totally unacceptable and Mr Collimore was "very upset and offended".
He said: "We have accepted the apology, but we are pretty angry and concerned how this kind of thing can come out of an official Lib Dem office and be distributed during an election period.
"This is not good for politics in general or for politics in Cornwall."
Mr Taylor said it was not an authorised leaflet and he believed it was a prank which had "back-fired".
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