Edifying Campaigning?

Ed Vaizey is angry at the Lib Dems for their dreadful unprincipled campaigns.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I can be a bit ambivalent about Lib Dem campaign techniques myself sometimes, but one thing I won’t do is accept lectures from Labour and the Tories.

Andy Mayer has been taking Labour to task over their systematic abuse of the postal vote system. Ed Vaizey meanwhile clearly needs reminding about the Cheadle by-election:

One leaflet superimposed a local newspaper report of a rape over a headline saying “shocking crime record of Mark Hunter”, the Lib Dem candidate and leader of Stockport council. His party threatened legal action. Another ran a headline “Hunter in school cash scandal”, attributed to the Stockport Express, whose sister paper denounced it as a misrepresentation and attacked the Tory campaign in a front page editorial.

Over at Liberal Review, Jabez Clegg has more.

This, we are to understand, is what Ed Vaizey regards as “principled campaigning.” Coming from one of Cameron’s closest aides, we should take note.