Home What's New Speeches & Articles Newsletter - Sep 2008 Biography Diary Contact Information Photo Album Parliamentary Highlights Publications Links MEPs' Transparency   Conservative Party Latest News from Conservatives.com Conservative Party Website
		Don't take sweets from strangers. Or Liberal Democrat Councillors! Tuesday, 4th April 2006 Not the first time Lib Dems have been embarrassed by their campaign guide Strasbourg -- A Liberal Democrat election guide for council candidates shows how low they will stoop in order to win an election, Roger Helmer, Conservative MEP for the East Midlands, said today. The election guide says that candidates should: "Go into the middle of a council estate with your leaflets and shout at all the local kids you can see and hear `any of you lot want to help deliver all these leaflets'? Then proceed Pied Piper-like round the estate doling out badges and toffees and leaflets, the last at least to be pushed through doors by the shouting, squealing and quarrelsome horde." Mr Helmer said the suggestion would see children taken away from safe environments near their parents and forced to pound the streets and knock on the doors of complete strangers at a time when child safety is a serious concern. This is not the first time a Lib Dem handbook has landed the Party in trouble. A publication from the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors in 2002 advised their councillors to: "be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly". Mr Helmer said: "Picking up kids and bribing them to do your dirty work with sweets should not be condoned by the Liberal Democrats and I expect them to issue an immediate correction to their candidates. They are obviously lacking supporters and canvassers if they have to bring children in to do the work”. "Parents will be mortified if they find their children do not come home on time or stray beyond where they are allowed to go - particularly when they find out they have been recruited to campaign for a political party.” "In the East Midlands, I've seen Liberal Democrats stoop pretty low in elections but I never thought they would go this far. This election booklet shows them up for what I already knew they are - the nastiest campaigners around."