The claims
“David, I have not authorised any leaflets like that.”
Gordon Brown, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
Cathy Newman checks it out
We’ve just published a FactCheck which shows that David Cameron was right that Labour’s leaflets contained “lies” – but that’s only half the story.
The bigger question is this: did Gordon Brown authorise the dodgy claims? He said he didn’t last night, and again this morning.
But given that he’s the prime minister, leader of the Labour party, and in charge of the election campaign, this sounded rather like he was trying to shirk responsibility.
Can he get away with it?
The analysis
It rather stretches belief that the prime minister wasn’t aware of leaflets (see here) put out by senior ministerial colleagues, including Jim Knight, Jim Murphy, Shahid Malik and Brown’s own parliamentary private secretary, Jon Trickett.
However, there is a technicality to bear in mind about different types of propaganda. All the contentious pamphlets we’ve seen seem to fall into the category of candidate leaflets – which are put out locally by the MP or PPC (Prospective Parliamentary Candidate). Although they bear the Labour logo, they don’t have to be seen or signed off by national HQ.
Only material which has the national party’s Victoria Street address and say they are promoted by Ray Collins, general secretary, are authorised by the national party – of which Brown is the leader.
A Labour official said the leaflets in question were not part of a national campaign. (There’s one exception to the local rule, a link to the national website which repeats a claim contained in one of the leaflets, but Labour said this was an old webpage which pre-dated the Tory manifesto and was not linked to from the front of the site.)
Cathy Newman’s verdict
While Labour’s technically correct that its not the leader’s job to authorise the leaflets, voters may find it rather hard to accept that the leader of the party is not aware, or indeed responsible, for leaflets published in the party’s name.
So – as there’s no direct evidence that Brown did authorise the leaflets but there’s no proof that he didn’t – we feel we can’t give him a fact rating on this statement.
Footnote: But what of Brown’s own election literature?
In his own Kirkcaldy constituency earlier this month, he said he’d “respect Scottish pensioners“, with a promise to “keep up the winter fuel allowance, the cold weather payments and fight against SNP cuts to concessionary travel”.
So while the PM’s jibe about “concessionary travel” is aimed at the SNP rather than the Tories, does it stack up? In this morning’s press conference, he claimed he was talking about the “SNP/Lib Dem coalition in Fife” – that is, the council, not the SNP government. The council did indeed increase rail fares for pensioners in Fife in February this year.
However, the SNP maintains that Brown was really talking about the Scottish executive’s cuts to bus travel. In other words, his attack was identical to his ministerial colleagues’ onslaught on the Tories.
The SNP admits it did cut the grant to bus operators but told FactCheck bus companies are legally obliged to pass on the concessionary scheme. In other words, the bus operators – not the pensioners – take the hit.
So Gordon Brown chose his words very carefully in his leaflet, which is more than can be said for some of his ministers. By talking broadly about “SNP cuts to concessionary travel” he’s managed – just – to stick to the facts.
