Evidence of bias at The Guardian - Gerard Seenan's report from Dunfermline

The Scots should boycott The Guardian?

There is to be a by-election in Dunfermline, in Scotland.

Dunfermline should be a very safe Labour seat.

However, a poll carried out in Dunfermline, around 28 January 2006, had Labour with 37 per cent of the vote and the anti-war Scottish National Party (SNP) in second place with 34 per cent.

http://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/NewsFrameset.htm

The media, including The Guardian, have tried very hard to ignore the SNP and the revelations that Scotland would be much better off if independent.

http://scot-land.blogspot.com/2005/12/head-of-central-policy-review-staff.html

NOW, let us look at this report of the Dunfermline by-election which appears in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1700949,00.html

You will note the references to the Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties.

There is no mention of the SNP.

Not a single mention of the SNP.

Heavyweights hit the streets of Dunfermline

By Gerard Seenan

3 February 2006

Chancellor Gordon Brown was having lunch in the local cafe. Out on the high street Charles Kennedy, one time leader of the Liberal Democrats, fought his way through a media scrum as his supporters competed to see who could hold the most yellow balloons aloft. A few moments before David Cameron had battled his way through the cordons of TV cameras, microphones, and reporters.

Dunfermline, Fife, hadn't seen such luminaries since Andrew Carnegie who was born there in 1835. But, with the byelection in Dunfermline and West Fife entering its final week, the nation's political heavyweights descended upon the town en masse, although few of the voting residents got a chance to glimpse them.

Mr Kennedy was making his first major appearance since he resigned the Lib Dem leadership. He confirmed to reporters that he was still "on the wagon" and his health was "just fine". Despite trailing Labour by 11,500 votes in the general election, Mr Kennedy said he was confident the Lib Dems could achieve the required swing. Even the turmoil in the leadership contest would help.

"It's upped our profile - look at this," he said, pointing to the media scrum. "We must be doing something right. The swing to win this seat is half the swing we were achieving towards the end of the last parliament, taking seats from Labour in other parts of the country. Eminently winnable - eminently achievable."

Mr Kennedy made a few pre-arranged stops at a charity shop and a butchers. But only a handful of the voting public got a chance to meet him. Those who at least glimpsed him, though, were impressed. "He's looking well isn't he? Maybe I should give up the drink myself," said resident David McLellan.

Moments earlier Mr Cameron had been offering support to the Conservative party candidate, Carrie Ruxton. In Fife's former mining communities people have long memories. "You shut down the mines," shouted one onlooker at the Tory leader.

But Mr Cameron said he was confident the Conservatives, who came fourth in the last election, would do well. "There's always a chance because we've got a first-class candidate, it's an open contest and we're fighting for every vote," he said.

Mr Brown's constituency borders Dunfermline and West Fife, but Mr Cameron said he did not feel uncomfortable about campaigning in such a Labour heartland. "Gordon Brown doesn't own this place you know, it's an open election," he said.

Earlier in the day Mr Brown was forced to deny a rift with the Scottish first minister, Jack McConnell. At the start of campaigning Mr Brown had said plans to increase tolls on the local Forth road bridge by 400% had been abandoned, even though the Scottish executive had not yet made a decision on the matter.


He's back, fitter but fatter, after four weeks in the wilderness Times Online
Cameron rides into town to give Brown a bloody nose Telegraph.co.uk
Scotsman
Independent

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