General election 2024: What to watch out for with bar charts claiming who can win your seat

The graphic shows a vote share of 33.4% for the Liberal Democrats in the constituency – but not the year this was achieved, which was in fact 2010. This is set against 27% for Labour, which was received in 2017.

These are, as the leaflet claims, the numbers which represent these parties’ best vote shares in this seat in any general election.

However, there is no mention of the fact that the Lib Dems have come either third or fourth in Central Devon in the past three general elections.

Liberal Democrat headquarters told us: “This leaflet is trying to make the valid point that the Liberal Democrats are the party that has come closest to beating the Conservatives in this seat, however clumsily this locally produced leaflet makes the point, and we will be advising them to follow our best-practice guidelines in future.”