Doncaster Conservative MP Nick Fletcher slammed over 'fake newspaper' delivered to homes

Copies of the ‘Doncaster East Chronicle’ have been distributed to hundreds of homes in the Tory MP’s Don Valley constituency in recent days featuring a large photo of Mr Fletcher outside Doncaster Sheffield Airport on the front page.

The Conservative Party has faced fierce criticism in recent years for the practice, with newspaper editors across the country criticising the party for producing leaflets which mimic local newspapers.

One local resident said: “A made-up newspaper?

"It looks like a newspaper but it’s all about him and what he is supposedly doing for Doncaster. I think it’s more about what he hasn’t done for Doncaster.”

Under the headline “Don Valley MP continues airport fight,” the story reads: “Nick Fletcher is working hard to reopen this vital cog in our local economy.”

“Nick Fletcher, MP for Don Valley, listened to residents and got to work.”

In recent days, Conservative leaflets posing as newspapers have been delivered across the UK, including the Lincoln Chronicle, to promote Lincoln MP Karl McCartney, the Ossett and Denby Dale Chronicle, circulated on behalf of Dewsbury’s Conservative MP Mark Eastwood, the South Swindon Messenger, promoting South Swindon MP Sir Robert Buckland and the Colne Valley Chronicle, praising Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney.

None of the newspapers make any reference to the Conservative Party on their front pages.

Earlier this year, Hereford Times editor John Wilson raised the issue of leaflets mimicking newspaper with Conservative Party chiefs, who agreed to stop the practice after a Tory leaflet Herefordshire Champion was pushed through doors.

Welcoming the move, John said: “I am delighted that Conservatives in Herefordshire appear to have listened to our concerns and have undertaken to discontinue campaigning with this sort of publication.

“It was clearly propaganda hoping to gain advantage by mimicking a trusted local newspaper. I hope political parties of all colours tempted to adopt this ploy will now re-think.”

Ahead of the 2019 General Election,the Electoral Commission called for “real change” on misleading party political leaflets, with the Liberal Democrats also coming under fire for the practice.

The News Media Association also launched the ‘Don’t Be Duped’ campaign, demanding an end to the practice and calling on politicians of all colours to instead lend their support to “real local journalism”.

The NMA, the trade body for the regional and national press, wrote to the Electoral Commission ahead of the campaign’s launch to call for “an end to fake local newspapers”.

Earlier this year, Mr Fletcher compared the Doncaster Free Press to Soviet Communist Party publication Pravda after he was cropped out of a photo.

In a Facebook post entitled ‘FREE PRESS OR PRAVDA?’, Mr Fletcher wrote: “It would seem that I don’t exist. I have been airbrushed out of history by Doncaster Free Press. Photo edited. Name removed. Cancelled.”

He added: “I have been removed. It has been deliberately edited. Why? I’m taken aback. I will reflect on this latest incident and will consider what needs to be done.

“I am genuinely astounded and also rather worried as to what this may mean for the people of Doncaster who read and rely upon the Doncaster Free Press.”

The Free Press hit back at Mr Fletcher’s comments in its own statement on Facebook.

The paper said: “The reason behind the cropped photo is far more mundane. Free Press page designers work with set template page designs. On this occasion, the picture box on the page was square, while the picture supplied was rectangular.

“Mr Fletcher, sitting on the far right of the photo and a distance apart from Dame Rosie Winterton, Ros Jones and Ed Miliband, was omitted from the print version because of the cropping to fit a rectangular photo into a square box.

“From a design perspective, because of the wording on the backdrop and the extended distance between Mr Fletcher and Mr Miliband, the picture was cropped on the right.

“Photos are cropped in newspapers all the time to fit shapes, with some people sometimes being missed off. It happens. It is a design and template issue.

“It certainly isn’t deliberate or to ‘airbrush’ people out of history. The full uncropped version was used in an earlier online version of the story, where rectangular pictures, rather than square are standard.

“We hope this clarifies the matter for Mr Fletcher and readers.”