How many lads called Beth do you know?
The truthfulness of Shaun Bailey’s campaigning has been questioned again, after he sent out a leaflet claiming he helped a “lad” called Beth.
The Conservative London Mayoral candidate’s leaflet featured a quote from “Beth”, described as “one of the young people Shaun helped as a youth worker”.
“Beth” is quoted saying: “I used to get into trouble a fair bit. You know, typical stuff for a lad from a council estate”.
Twitter users pointed out that Beth is typically a male name and questioned whether he or she is real.
This is not the first time Bailey has been accused of misleading campaigning. They’ve twice hyped “internal polling” which shows the Mayoral race is closer than public polls show.
In December, he sent out leaflets designed to look like warnings that council tax would rise. That move was blasted as a “heartless, cheap trick” by Liberal Democrat candidate Luisa Porritt.
Londoners also accused Bailey of trying to downplay the Conservative Party in his latest leaflet. The front cover isn’t blue and it doesn’t mention the Conservatives or Boris Johnson.
Johnson won two terms as London’s Mayor but Conservative support in the Capital has dropped since. In the 2019 general election, they got just 32% of the vote to Labour’s 48%.
Joe Lo is a co-editor of Left Foot Forward
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