Graph Fix!

Graph abuse. We've seen it before and no doubt we'll see it again, but when the Lib Dem leaflet pictured right popped through letterboxes in Highbury East this week even we seasoned local election campaigners gulped a bit. According to the leaflet it's a 'two-horse race' between the Lib Dems and Labour in my ward.

I'm a mathematician by training and maybe for that reason I am a bit sensitive about this sort of thing. Squashing or expanding the odd column (as the Lib Dems have done here and elsewhere) is bad enough - but missing one party off altogether reaches a new low.

Here's the true vote in Highbury East last time.

As far as we're concerned, Highbury East is a four-horse race, which any of the parties could win if they gain the electorate's confidence. I for one don't believe that graph abuse is the way to do it.

PS if you have access to a scanner, please do add any election leaflets that come through your door to the collection of The Straight Choice, the live election leaflet monitoring project. One aim of that project is to try to keep these leaflets honest!