AFTER the 'Labour's Kremlin connection' and 'Paddygate' scandals, a spate of burglaries at MP's offices, and now apparent attempts by former Scotland Yard officers to link Kinnock to prostitutes, there is talk of the dirtiest general election campaign ever. But smear tactics are nothing new.
The latest Kremlin scam is a lineal descendent of 1924's so- called canovie letter from the Communist Smear victim Ashdown International to the CPGB, which somehow came into the possession of the Foreign Office, Conservative central of fice and - of course - the Daily Forgery The document, probably a forgery by anti-communist Russian emigrés, was published just five days before the first-ever Labour government faced re-clection.
Labour had conceded diplomatic recognition, a commercial treaty and a money loan to the USSR; the fake letter claimed this objectively aided 'the revolutionising of the inrial", enabling the press to portLeninist. Nevertheless the Party's vote increased by one million.
Labour lost not because of any association with com but because of the 888088883888, historical trend of the former middle class Liberal vote to consolidate behind the ConThe myth that Labour was tricked out of office provided a convenient excuse for the first MacDonald government's manifold shortcomings. Political sex scandals lection periods. In 198 the Neus of the World alleged that Labour deputy Icader Roy Hattersley's name appeared on the clectoral register twice -once at the house he shared with his wife, and again at the room luxury flat' of a bachelor girl' publishing executive. Readers were left to draw their own conclusions Meanwhile the Sun- under the glorious headline of'swimool fib by champagne lettie lation that shadow environ ment minister Bryan Gould had two homes, one with a swimming pool.
A probably fictitious 'jobless father of four living in a coun cil flat in Gould's constituency, working class Dagenham: was quoted as saying 'He's taking the mickey out or us I'm backing the Tories'. Expect plenty more such silliness. BUTCHERS: INNOCENTS