The Daily Mail has been casting a critical eye over a publication being delivered to voters across Danny Alexander’s Inverness, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency by Danny’s campaign team.

Needless to say, the magazine, Talk of the Glens, does not meet with the Mail’s approval. “Toe curling” and “garish” they call it.

It is very nice of the Mail, however, to reproduce the magazine almost in its entirety. Their readers, who may have inadvertently recycled it, therefore get a second chance to see it.

What the Mail doesn’t realise is that Talk of the Glens has been going strong for a decade now. It has many sister publications in various forms across Liberal Democrat key seats. I think the first one was produced for the Hartlepool by-election in 2004, but I’m happy to be corrected if people know of an earlier vintage. They come in many different styles. The one in the Borders, for example, is very much more People’s Friend than Take a Break.

I found a group of Liberal Democrats discussing Talk of the Glens on Facebook. Typically, chief among their concerns is that there are just two many fonts flying around. Even as a non font geek, I get what they are saying. This magazine  is certainly busy with them.

It’s also true that Danny’s recipe for Sausage and Butternut Squash casserole is a crime against cookery, but that’s a matter of personal taste. At least they didn’t  do what Siobhan Mathers’ magazine did in Edinburgh in 2007. Her recipe was for risotto. It was delicious, but the tiny little thumbnail photo they put of it on the front page made it look someone had thrown up all over it.

Even despite that, though, Talk of the Glens is a million times better than the Daily Mail for many reasons. Here are just three:

• There are no stories in there which can be summarised as “Woman goes out wearing clothes”;
• There is no casual demonisation of immigrants, benefit claimants or anyone else;
• There is no wilful scaremongering about anything.

The reason we’ve been doing these magazines for so long is that people like them and they are effective campaign tools. People mention them on the doorstep. Even my sister, who’s not political at all, went to the bother of taking a photo of it and sharing it on Facebook earlier this week.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings