Ruling Independents attack Conservative ‘nonsense’

A newly unveiled website for the Independents for Herefordshire, one of the two groups in minority control of Herefordshire Council, focusses on attacking the Conservatives for spreading “fake news” in the run-up to the May 4 election in the county.

The website, i4h.org.uk, currently has nine pages, three of which – “Fake News”, “Smoke and Mirrors” and “Myth Busting” – solely attack Conservative campaigning thus far.

The “Fake News” page says the Conservatives’ newspaper-style Herefordshire Champion publication, delivered to many homes in the county, is “full of misleading nonsense”.

It counters claims made about the Hereford bypass, rises in the county’s council tax, changes to bin collections, potholes, spending on cycleways, and the county’s rivers.

“Basically, every story in their ‘newspaper’ is a total misrepresentation of the truth,” the webpage claims. The “Myth Busting” page addresses each of these alleged “myths” in detail.

“Smoke and Mirrors” seeks to rebut local Conservatives’ attacks on council tax rises, claiming that recent increases, opposed by Tory councillors, “have basically just kept pace with overall inflation” – in contrast to rises under the previous Conservative administration, which were “more than twice what inflation was at the time”.

Hereford Times editor John Wilson has attacked the Herefordshire Champion for “deliberately mimicking the look of an independent local newspaper, undermining trust both in politicians and objective journalism”.

Herefordshire Champion has been cited by the Reform Political Advertising campaign as “a shabby impersonation of a respected local paper”.

North Herefordshire Conservatives Association chairman Dan Hurcomb defended the publication, saying it was devised by Conservative campaign headquarters as a pre-made template.