Lib-Dems and Flying Pigs

Billothewisp loves the party political leaflets. He swoons over the promises and is thrilled by the wonderful feats of rationality they include. But he does get puzzled by the maths, especially the Dorset South pre-poll results given by the Lib-Dems.

A Hat tip to James Cleverly for this post. It made me take a closer look at the Lib-Dem literature that has been poked through our door. Like James we see a miraculous transformation of the voting intentions of the electorate.

My constituency is South Dorset.

In the Lib-Dem leaflet there is a bar-graph of party support. According to the Lib-Dem leaflet, this is the voting intentions

Lib-Dem 37%
Conservative 41%
Labour 14%

The Labour bar on the bar graph also has a handy little arrow stating “A Long Way Behind”

Hmmmmm.

I felt a little nonplussed by this, especially as the sitting MP is Jim Knight (Labour). While I expect he is going to lose his seat, he is actually one of the better of the Labour bunch and actually commands a level of loyalty within the constituency. I would be very surprised (amazed even) if his support fell to 14 %..

I thought I would Google the last election result. Here it is in this Guardian article.

In summary we got:

Lib-Dem 15.7%
Conservative 37.9%
Labour 41.6%


So Ros Kayes (Lib-Dem) reckons she has more than doubled Lib-Dem support. While poor old Jim Knight has seen his support fall by 2/3rds!

Hey! There goes another flying pig.

I hope this is simply wishful thinking and not a deliberate attempt at deception.

Maybe it is simply that the Lib-Dems need a few maths lessons. If so it doesn't sit well with the idea of them running the economy. But it is much worse if they have been deliberately deceptive.

One thing politics desperately needs in this country is honesty.
Not spin, not deception or wishful thinking.
We have had quite enough of those, thankyou.