Thanks to Lib Dem Jonathan Wallace, we have video evidence of Labour party councillors and activists attempting to distrupt the launch of the Lib Dem campaign in Sedgefield by Andrew Stunnell MP. While Lib Dem challenger Greg Stone explained his policies to attending media, the Labour campaign team heckled and forcibly distrupted the event as you can see on YouTube.
The group mocking Greg for being from Newcastle included a Labour councillor from… erm, Newcastle.
Lib Dem Voice has already noted the unorthodox poster techniques apparently used in this campaign, and also the local newspaper’s verdict that Labour councillors and activists had acted like “unruly schoolchildren”.
No doubt Greg will be campaigning in Sedgefield to make sure that law-abiding citizens will not be intimidated by anti-social yobs.
UPDATE: … and here is how local residents have reacted to Labour’s antics.
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10 Comments
This is typical of Labour yobbery in by-election campaigns.
I had to help escort members of the public in to a public meeting in the Leicester South by-election because of a crowd of Labour thugs blocking the entrance.
And then they have the cheek to claim that the Lib Dems are ‘soft on yobs’.
Why are Labour so frightened of allowing the Lib Dems to launch their campaign in peace?
It’s quite a common Labour tactic. Where I am, Labour landlords delight in putting them up to the bewilderment of their tenants. Some may be the same Labour landlords that fiddled the votes in 2004. But then when has obeying the law ever been of concern to fascist Labour thugs?
Isn’t it accepted on t’internet that when you call the other side “fascist” or mention Hitler you’ve completely and utterly lost the argument?
Clearly Lib Dems are entitled to the same defence from the law as any other party and you should decide what offences you think have been committed and try to persuade the police to take action.
In Manchester Lib Dems have regularly stood up for unruly mobs on free speech grounds.
I can’t agree with the Lib Dems in that case and I certainly don’t agree with anyone supposedly from Labour who behaves like that.
Mo doubt you’ll be printing some pictures of Dave Hennigan being falling over drunk to keep the correct level of balance?
Is that Paul Burgin 52 seconds from the end? I ask merely for information.
All that appeared missing was their ‘Brown’ shirts – sorry for the pun – then again!!!!!
It was hardly threatening, rude defiantly but not threatening. I always think it’s more civilised to put it in a leaflet.
The Labour Party in the North-East seems to have changed little since the Chester-le-Street byelection nearly 34 years ago when Liberal Party campaigners suffered routine harassment from Labour thugs.
Perhaps Ted Short (Lord Glenamara) will tell us why he accepted £500 from T Dan Smith, something he failed to do to the satisfaction of Parliament in 1974. Just to clear the air.
BTW, why does Short call himself GLENamara, when the mountain is actually GLARamara?
You lot are pathetic. This isn’t “forcible” – unlike the way that lib dems physically attacked a mobile phone protestor in Hodge Hill in the mistaken belief she was from the Labour Party.
That was class though – reducing a woman recovering from cancer to tears in front of Evening Mail (as then was) journalists. Pure genius.
We had a deliverer assaulted and her leaflets taken by Labour supporters in 2004. Labour also did everything they could to intimidate a delivery company we were using to get out a constituency-wide leaflet. From what I’ve seen – they view democracy as legitimate only when it elects Labour candidates.