Lib Dems' Odd Literature

The Lib Dems are distributing some very odd leaflets in Geoff Hoon's Constituency. Their literature displays a large bar graph showing the following election results for Ashfield:

Lab 16,735
Lib Dem 12,773
Con 5,406

All over the leaflets are plastered phrases like "The Conservatives can't win in Ashfield", "The Tories cannot win here!", and "Everyone knows the Conservatives cannot win in a constituency like Ashfield". They seem to be implying that only the Lib Dems can unseat Geoff Hoon.

Funny, that. Here are the last election results for Geoff Hoon's seat in 2005:

Lab 20,433
Con 10,220
Lib Dem 5,829

The Lib Dems' bar graphs are actually showing local election votes from a number of council seats across the area which were contested in 2007, yet at no point on the leaflet do they mention this. They always come a very distant third in the parliamentary election for Ashfield.

Of course, if the Tories "Cannot win here", what chance do the Lib Dems have, given that they barely scrape half as many votes? Perhaps most importantly, they might split the anti-Hoon vote if enough people take their misleading literature at face value, just as Geoff Hoon's own vote is collapsing...