One of the main dangers of Wikipedia is that when it comes to elections it can be very hard to verify much of the information added to articles, especially those that cite offline "local paper" sources. Sometimes it seems as though opposing sides are trying to get their own spin on it all.
The latest war concerns the new constituency of Brent Central. (Wikipedia: Brent Central (UK Parliament constituency)) With the boroughs of Brent and Camden losing a seat between them, sitting Brent South and Brent East MPs, Dawn Butler and Sarah Teather, will be facing off against each other. And already it seems each's workers in Parliament are editing Wikipedia to put misleading statements about the other. (The Times Online: Pushing the boundaries and The Independent: Pandora - Westminster war over Wikipedia) For what it's worth the main articles are at Wikipedia: Dawn Butler and Wikipedia: Sarah Teather.
This is not the first time I've seen Liberal Democrats taking campaigning onto Wikipedia - during the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election the main article and many individual pages went through numerous reverts, particularly on the issue of the Liberal Democrat candidate not living in the constituency despite passing himself off as a local man. (Wikipedia: Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, 2006) It doesn't surprise me that they still feel the need to peddle lies. Liberal Democrats wouldn't know honest clean campaigning if it bit them on the arse.
1 comment:
Honest, clean campaigning?! What about the Tory literature insinuation in Cheadle 2005 that the Lib Dem was a child molester?
You Tories cannot talk when it comes to honest, clean campaigning.
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