New Times,
New Thinking.

21 March 2010

Tories “airbrush” black candidates from campaign literature

Cameron's pro-diversity positioning under question.

By James Macintyre

Not making nearly as many waves as it should today is a shocking but strangely unsurprising story in the Observer, followed up on Left Foot Forward, alleging that the Conservative Party has messed about with photos for its campaign literature to omit black and ethnic-minority candidates in parts of Dagenham and Rainham, where it is fighting the BNP.

These may well not be the only such cases.

The Tories deny the claims, but LFF has more details and examples of the controversial literature.

David Cameron likes to claim that he has led his party on a “journey”, a journey of “modernisation” in which he has “changed the face” of the party (truer anyway of female and homosexual than of black candidates). These reports will put that claim to the test.

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