A couple of weeks ago, Nick Clegg poked fun at the Daily Mail’s everyday sexist approach to reporting the Cabinet reshuffle.
Today the Lib Dem Twitter account has had a pop at the paper’s stablemate the Mail on Sunday for its widely-mocked front page headline, ‘NHS to fund sperm bank for lesbians’ — the new Health department-backed centre is in fact open to everyone (lesbians included) — using the delicious Twitter hashtag #AddForLesbiansToAHeadline:
Lib Dems record of delivery for lesbians #AddForLesbiansToAHeadline pic.twitter.com/0bM39NS2RS
— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) August 4, 2014
It might have been worse for the Mail. At least the Lib Dems didn’t adopt the trusty old ‘A record of action, a promise of more for lesbians’. Or ‘Stronger economy, fairer society for lesbians’.
And as for the 1974 slogan ‘One more heave’… well, we’ll just leave that one there.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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9 Comments
Well done whoever was behind this – very funny! 🙂
Very droll.
The Daily Mail continues to maintain its readers in a state of angry arousal.
Part of the joke, I suppose, is that it was the Coalition who delivered those things, not the LibDems. And the delivery was decided by a Tory Chancellor, not a LibDem secretary.
@Richard Dean
“Part of the joke, I suppose, is that it was the Coalition who delivered those things, not the LibDems. And the delivery was decided by a Tory Chancellor, not a LibDem secretary.”
You really are determined to talk things down, aren’t you? Why is it you can’t accept the good things that we Liberal Democrats (yes alongside the Tories) have achieved? Do you really think there would have been an increased personal allowance without the Lib Dems?
@RC.
Talking up is one thing, propagating falsehoods is another. The writer could have easily written “Coalition” instead of LibDems, and it would have had more accuracy and more force.
We will enter 2015 recognizing that coalitions are not good animals, because experience has taught that the two sides bicker instead of cooperate. Each side fears losing its identity, and also uses the other as a scapegoat. In that sense the idea has failed, and we should expect to return to two-party politics for a long time to come.
This “Lib Dems record of delivery” is an example of the failure. It would have been the “Coalition record of delivery” if coalition had been a success.
Actually, Richard, the increase in personal tax allowance was a Lib Dem policy, a headline in our 2010 manifesto, and David Cameron, on behalf of the Tories, said in a General Election Leaders TV debate that it was undeliverable. One of our frustrations has been the way that the Tories are trying to insist it was theirs. Well, ok, George Osborne was Chancellor of the Coalition Government that delivered it, but if we hadn’t been there to stiffen his sinews, it would not have happened.
@Sal Brinton
Thanks for the important correction. Then that is what should be said, not a blanket claim that everything good is due to the Libdems and everything bad is due to the Tories. Even the densest of the electorate won’t believe such a claim.
Isn’t it amazing how LibDem supporters continually damage Libdem prospects? If what you wrote is said, it’s an argument in favour of coalitions. I assume that the writer of “Lib Dems record of delivery” is a LibDem supporter, but if what the writer wrote is said, it’s an argument against coalitions, and so against the LibDems in 2015.
Sal Brinton
Actually, Richard, the increase in personal tax allowance was a Lib Dem policy, a headline in our 2010 manifesto,
You are distorting the truth here. The manifesto clearly linked the increase in personal tax allowance with balancing increases in tax elsewhere. It did NOT call for an increase in tax allowance just on its own, and it certainly did not call for that increase to be paid for by abolishing state subsidy to universities, and other cuts in government expenditure.
This twisting of reality, Sal, making out that Tory policies are what we Liberal Democrats wanted, and misusing language to pretend that is damaging our party. Many former LibDem voters see right through it, it just makes things worse for us.
@Matthew Huntbach
“The manifesto clearly linked the increase in personal tax allowance with balancing increases in tax elsewhere.”
You mean balancing increases such as;
1. Increasing Capital Gains Tax to 28% for higher earners, up from 18% under Labour
2. Reducing the annual pension contribution relief from a huge £255,000 per year under Labour to £40,000 per year