If you’re wondering whether the Guardian has taken a turn against the Liberal Democrats…

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If you’re wondering whether the Guardian has taken a turn against the Liberal Democrats…

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th September 2008 - 2:16 pm

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… it’s ok, this piece is actually by a Labour Parliamentary candidate. It’s true that if you click through on her name or scroll beyond the end of the story, you can find this out, but it does raise the question about how clearly articles from MPs and candidates should be labelled as such on newspaper sites.

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17 Comments

Thomas Hemsley 20th Sep '08 - 2:30pm

If the Newsnight straw poll is anything to go by, she won’t win anyway. I’m not sure writing in the Guardian will help. 😛
John Abrams 20th Sep '08 - 2:43pm

God she looks boring!
Manj 20th Sep '08 - 2:45pm

Who do we expect them to endorse in 2010? I haven’t read The Guardian for ages, are they warming to us at all?
Alex Foster 20th Sep '08 - 3:47pm

“If you’re wondering whether the Guardian has taken a turn against the Liberal Democrats…”

Gosh… is it election time again already?
Darrell 20th Sep '08 - 4:59pm

According to Liberal Conspiricy The Guardian is ‘flirting with the Tories’….however I rather suspect that it will take the line it did last time…vote tactically for Labour and Lib Dem where it is tactically wise too….or maybe even vote Lib Dem and Tory tactically!!!

Sadly nothing The Guardian does surprises me anymore…it was spineless over the Iraq war which is why I now much prefer the Indy 😉
Stuart 20th Sep '08 - 5:03pm

I just looked up the result in that seat last time, and spotted the wonderfully named UKIP candidate, Robert Gutfreund-Walmsley. “Gutfreund” – doesn’t sound too UK to me.
rochdale cowboy 20th Sep '08 - 5:30pm

The Indie was very fair its coverage of conference – and even seemed to be endorsing us – could I suggest that we all consider switching to this paper – it still frustrates me when I see Lib Dems reading trash like the Torygraph – hit them where it hurts!
LiberalHammer 20th Sep '08 - 6:49pm

It certainly isn’t obvious to the casual observer that she is a Labour candidate. The Grauniad should certainly be more explicit when printing party line drivel from Millbank.
Auberius 20th Sep '08 - 7:07pm

Deary me, things must have got bad for them to be offering a platform for someone as talentless as Lucy Powell… Still, it’s not quite as bad as Question Time’s constant booking of A-list Tories as if they were non-party observers of society.

Btw, @Stuart, Robert Gutfreund-Walmsley is hilarious; on polling day in 2005, he spent fifteen minutes trying to convert me while I was telling. Because of course, every Liberal Democrat warms to a Hungarian who fled to this country to escape the communists who then turns round and says we should leave the EU and limit immigration…
Andy Hinton 21st Sep '08 - 2:27am

@Manj, if we play our cards right and, more importantly, the Labour party really screws itself up, I could easily imagine a Graun endorsement, actually (as someone who reads it). Its leader column this conference was quite nice about us, after all.
David Heigham 21st Sep '08 - 12:30pm

Thanks for the tip. If she can post that we can have fun there wit the Labour Conference.
Bridget Fox 21st Sep '08 - 11:43pm

The Guardian politics blog has had a weekly piece each by Lucy Powell (Lab), Charlotte Leslie (Cons) and me (Lib Dem) since last March. All of us are women candidates in marginal seats.

Our pieces are supposed to be tagged as ‘the candidates’ but this does not always happen, although I think that reflects cockup not conspiracy….

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/bridgetfox
Markie 22nd Sep '08 - 12:31pm

Its OK, Lucy Powell is too busy writing articles for the Graudian to have made much of an impact in Withington, where she’s fighting John Leech MP, to have engaged much with the local voting populace.

To be fair, the graidaun does sell well in the constituency. But, as everywhere, not nearly as well as the Mail, Express, Sun etc etc.

Bridget – I hope you aren’t making the same mistake!
Peter Chapman 22nd Sep '08 - 12:50pm

The Guardian is a Labour rag .It patronises the Lib Dems and basically takes a Polly Toynbee line ie ‘agonise about Labour for 4 years threaten to switch and then say there is no alternative but to vote for them at the election’. I am one of the many Lib dems who switched to the Indy some years ago and will not be returning
johninpenarth 22nd Sep '08 - 2:52pm

The Guardian should be viewed as more toxically anti LD than even the Torygraph. It occasionally pretends to flirt with us, only to make its later inevitable ‘conclusion’ to back Labour the more damning.

Really, we should indeed switch to the Indy which is a liberal paper and which both needs and deserves our support.
Biodiesel 22nd Sep '08 - 3:17pm

Yes, I remember Lucy Powell very well. She took over from Simon Buckby to run Britain in Europe, the Blairite referendum campaign machine that almost wrecked the European Movement at the time. It susbsequently folded and Lord Sainsbury took his money away, once No 10 was no longer interested. I know, as I have helped try and pick up the pieces at the European Movement since then.
I wouldn’t rate her chances personally in that seat, although she is local.
Anonymous 22nd Sep '08 - 3:27pm

The Guardian really is the most appalling shite newspaper. If you must read it, read it online, don’t buy it.