A LABOUR election leaflet has been branded worse than Diane Abbott after voters spotted it contained at least nine grammar and spelling mistakes.
A leaflet sent out for council elections in the Maidstone Rural South division, Kent, is riddled with missing letters, rogue full stops, misplaced apostrophes, changes of tense and inconsistent use of capital letters.
After being shared widely online yesterday (Tue), the “atrocious” leaflet has been ridiculed by voters.
Some have even suggested it was worse than Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott’s appearance on LBC radio yesterday, when she made several blunders whilst talking about funding for new police officers.
The election leaflet is headed: “On your side in Maidenhead Rural South. Your county councillor pledges to spend your money here.”
But in the first paragraph, the mistakes begin, with the leaflet stating: “A total of £80,000 is available to be spent over four years. Do you know what your Councillor have [sic] spent it on?”
Another mistake states that if elected, the party will create a local community development fund to “develop arts based projectsl [sic].”
It will also fund environmental improvements to “improve resident’s [sic] local environments.”
They also pledge to: “Prevent future unstainable [sic] housing developments” and improve “sporting fcilities [sic]”.
Another line simply reads: “Pledge main text here” – showing that the leaflet was created with a template which was not properly edited.
Twitter users slammed the leaflet after it was tweeted by UKIP Health Spokesperson Suzanne Evans.
She tweeted it with the caption: “I’m rather concerned about Labour’s education policies…”
Steve Dunn joked “Atroshus gramar and speling.”
Richard Bishop said: “Grammar (sorry) Schools required?”
The Creed Valley UKIP account posted: “Great isn’t it? Diane Abbot move over.”
Whilst Carl Sutcliffe wrote: “Not even bothered to proof read it before printing. Very poor standard for a political party of the modern age.”
Others took a more humourous approach, suggesting the new policies could be more effective.
Christopher Redmond said: “But having unstainable houses is surely a good idea. Will save a fortune in cleaning products.”
Ed Wilson also quipped:” If you’d slept in some of the rooms I’ve slept in unstainable housing would be quite an attraction.”
The secretary of the local Labour Party today (wed) admitted the leaflet was a disgrace and the worst thing he had seen in his political career.
Patrick Coates, Secretary of Maidstone and the Weald Labour Party, said: “It’s disgraceful. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’ve never known anything like this.”
He admitted: “It was a rushed job – we’re all volunteers.
“We’ve had to print the leaflets again and some stalwarts have been out delivering them.”
Labour finished fourth in the Maidstone and the Weald constituency at the general election back in 2015, with just 10% of the vote.
When asked if he thought Labour could win the council seat, Mr Coates said: “Of course not.”
The gaffe has come to light a day after Diane Abbott appeared to stumble over the cost of Labour policies live on national radio.
When asked about plans to fund 10,000 extra police officers, she at first quoted the figure at just £300,000 – which would work out at a wage of just £30 for each officer.
The leaflet mistake is also one of many to have been spotted this election season.
Last week, Labour’s only Scots MP Ian Murray sent out an election leaflet listing his achievements on one side — which was blank.
Whilst earlier that week Scots Tories were ridiculed for a spelling blunder on one of their election leaflets.
Theresa May’s party is campaigning on the slogan “strong and stable government” — and the PM used the word “strong” 28 times during a recent speech.
But campaign material sent out to Scots households promised only Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives could send out a “stong” message to the SNP.
