Report by David Sharman for HTFP
The Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats have defended their mimicry of local newspapers following a publisher’s fresh criticism of the practice.
Duncan Williams has hit out at what he called “dirty tricks” after discovering the Tories are running a pamphlet called the Tiverton and Honiton Telegraph, while the Liberal Democrats are also posting a title called the Devon News Courier through doors.
Duncan’s criticism has prompted the Tories to defend the tactic nationally, claiming readers will not “be under any illusions that it’s from a political party.”
Duncan owns historic South-East Devon title Pulman’s Weekly News, which he is currently running as an online news aggregation service.
He said: “The recent dirty tricks used by some political parties, who print and publish one-off, pseudo local newspapers, filled with biased coverage in favour of their own candidates, is unacceptable and deceptive.
“Be wary of these fake papers, if they are ever pushed t…
