Duplicity in Camden

Lib Dems in Camden have been caught out sending out contradictory messages to appeal to different communities within the same borough.

Alongside a picture of herself with Muslim community leaders, Jo Shaw -
Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Holborn & St Pancras - makes clear in a local leaflet distributed to Muslim areas within her constituency that she is calling on the government to "stop arming Israel".

On her website, she reports how she
joined a march against last year's Israeli "attacks" on Gaza and comments "Gordon Brown and the Labour Government have acted much too slowly in condemning Israel."

Shaw is following official Lib Dem policy (pdf), which takes a robust line against Israel, calling for the suspension of British arms sales to the country, the suspension of new EU-Israel trade agreements, an end to the economic blockade of Gaza and an end to settlements.

All fairly straightforward, until you travel a mile or so up the road to the Hampstead end of the borough.

Here, such themes can be said to be far from evident in the leaflets - complete with Hebrew text - distributed in the Jewish community of the Hampstead & Kilburn constituency by the campaign of fellow Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Ed Fordham.

7 comments:

  1. You could have added Fordham's extensive blog posts about his recent holiday in Israel, including a picture of him slapping the back of an Israeli minister.

    Maybe he was explaining to the minister why Nick Clegg says an arms embargo must be imposed on Israel?

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  2. Can't quite make out the duplicity here. On the one hand we have anti-Israeli sentiment and sympathy for the Gazan's and on the other involvement with the Jewish faith community. Where is the contradiction?

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  3. Not actually seeing the "contradictory" part. Targeted messages yes, contradictory no.

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  4. Lol, the Hebrew on their Hampstead leaflet is written the wrong way round. Must have copied and pasted it, an age old LD tactic.

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  5. I recall as a teenager listening to Jeremy Thorpe speak at an meeting meeting in North Devon - in response to questions he assured the audience that a Liberal government would bring back hanging!

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  6. Where's the contradiction, it's not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel. I think it's your site that is nasty, not the Lib Dem's tactics.

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  7. Anon @ 17:58 - where do we say there is anti-semitism? You have dreamt up that straw-man. This post is about duplicity. I think you either need to read things more carefully, or perhaps avoid making nasty accusations yourself.

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