In order to be even-handed I would just add that I’ve also seen an utterly outrageous example from Emily Thornberry MP (incumbent of the closest Labour/Lib Dem marginal in the country) with a graph purporting to show the Tories running a close second in her constituency when in fact they are a very, very poor third. I think the way she’s done it is by using the Ken/Boris mayoral vote!!!

I’ve seen some Tory lying graphs, almost all Lib Dems do it, no Labour and no Greens (in my own personal experience). Obviously the BNP and UKIP lie a lot on theirs, usually not with graphs – they’re probably too thick for that.

Perhaps the reason the Lib Dems have expanded their MPs when the smaller parties have not, is because they’re so good at the two-horse race trick in FPTP elections.

TBH, the one thing I hate more than misleading graphs in terms of being disproportionate are graphs that only actually include two parties and leave the third out completely (as they are so insignificant, obviously). These people claiming there are only two people in the race and then don’t put down the number of votes, or the percentage share, or even a misleading bar on the end of the chart…they’re doing it worse.

I got a letter asking me to help leaflet my street on behalf of the incumbent L-D MP – which I might otherwise be inclined to do, because I think he’s an all-round excellent guy – but there’s no way I’m going to push these blatent lies through people’s doors. Reckon I’ll write and tell the LD’s so.

I call bs. No voting system forces you to use a misleading graph. If you are genuinely in first of second place and want to make an argument about the importance of beating the other party in first/second place, that’s fair enough. But to do that, you could use, you know, an ACCURATE graph; one pertaining to the right set of elections, with the right heights etc, or just make an argument without using graphs at all.

Blaming first past the post for forcing you to mislead the electorate just makes you look silly.

*smug*

how do you know they haven’t used a log scale?

*ducks*

Although its the Lib Dem who’ve gained the strongest reputation for using dodgy graphs I’m personally making no judgements here.

I dare say all parties try this kind of thing on in the right circumstances and I’ll happily do over any graphs that come my way regardless of where they come from.

What I may do to set the ball rolling is run a sweep of a few candidate websites just to see if I can get a sample to work with, and see what emerges.

As it happens I’ve never seen a Labour leaflet that does this sort of thing, although I’m sure it happens, not being a Labour voter I don’t care one way or the other.

However it seems like *every* Lib Dem leaflet I ever see uses dishonest graphs. It may not be unique to the Lib Dems but you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s either normal or ok to treat voters like this. You seem very blase about the electorate being given misleading, wrong or twisted information.

but i’ve seen Labour leaflets doing exactly the same thing.

two wrongs don’t make a right

but this is hardly something new, or unique to the lib dems.

It’s called “politics”, I think.

What we need is some statistics on bullshit and a graph to illustrate it.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by libcon: Election 2010 – Tackling Graph Abuse http://bit.ly/9Z3wRM...

But who is the worst?

It’s a better parody of the original.

Given that politics in this country is is usually dominated by those who position themselves on the left-right x-axis, I’d be more than happy to see more attention paid to the y-axis.