Dark arts or useful idiocy?

Hilariously solemn piece in the Graun today as their journalists expose (to the public -- it was material circulated only to candidates) and counter a deadly ploy by the Tories:

Revealed: Tory candidates issued with attack manuals on how to smear rivals

 Many of the statements within them are sourced from comments made several years ago, or by local party members, and do not accurately reflect the current positions of opposition parties....Some draw on pledges made in the run-up to the 2015 election, or take statements out of context.

The Graun sets a high standard for its political comments as we know and would never recycle old details from Johnson's newspaper columns, take his remarks out of context (especially about women wearing burkas), or announce what he meant 'in effect'. Marvellously naively, the piece goes on to repeat these very smears before dismissing them, often rather feebly:

warnings that the party’s policies would cost the nation £1.2tn, and that every taxpayer could expect a bill for £2,400 to install Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister.. were widely debunked when made two weeks ago...One attack line highlights the “anti-Brexit” comments from a Liberal Democrat candidate’s blog – even though they were made two years before the referendum took place [see below --and has she apologised to those of us who were made vulnerable, as we might demand?] .

Then a more comprehensive summary:

• The Liberal Democrats want to scrap the promotion of “British values” and replace them with “universal values” – this was a suggestion made in relation to counter-terrorism only.
• The party’s leader, Jo Swinson, supports a new tax on homes. This dates back to 2014, and is not party policy.
• Labour’s plans will push up household bills by £2,000. This is sourced from the rightwing tabloid the Daily Express, which itself was reporting Tory calculations.
• Labour will “automatically” support all strikes. This relies on a 2015 quote from the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. However, the party’s manifesto says it will only “remove unnecessary restrictions on industrial action”.
• McDonnell has said that business is “the real enemy”. This draws on a 2011 speech he made, but misses the ending – he said the enemy was “the corporations who created the crisis”.
  

 On and on with the list, helpfully reminding us of these comments:

the briefing note claims: “The Lib Dems have put forward ‘pro-pimp’ policies on prostitution – and have suggested prostitution should be suggested as a career to schoolchildren.” To reach this claim, the dossier took comments made three years ago by a former chairman of the Lib Dems’ Cheltenham branch and suggested they were indicative of party policy....In fact, Dennis Parsons was forced to resign in 2016 after making the remarks, which he said were a rhetorical question and not his views. Parsons also apologised unreservedly.... The Lib Dem manifesto does not mention prostitution, although the party has a longstanding conference motion promoting decriminalisation to safeguard sex workers.

Clegg had boasted about blocking the Tories on Trident while deputy prime minister in the coalition government, but the party reinstated a policy of supporting the use of a nuclear deterrent two years ago under Tim Farron.

Most relevantly for our purposes:

“Wera Hobhouse [LibDem environment spokesperson] called the ‘angry’ public [Leavers] ‘spoiled and selfish’, claiming they just don’t want to ‘share in the wealth of the country’,” the briefing note claims...Hobhouse made those comments on her blog in 2014 – two years before the referendum was held.

Do the Tories need sinister masters of the dark arts when the dear old Graun will freely do this work for them?

 

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