Local Angle: How to Fact-Check Your MP's Leaflet Before the Next Election
A leaflet lands on the mat. One side has a photograph and a promise about the high street; the other a bar chart and the claim that your MP "voted against" something you care about. Some of it will be accurate. Some will be technically true and quietly misleading. A little may be invented outright. Sorting one from the other takes an evening and does not require trusting anyone's spin — not the party's, not the local paper's, not the campaign group's. Everything useful is already public: votes, expenses, interests, donations and the underlying local data. Here is how to check it yourself.
First pass: read it as a voter. Second pass: read it with a red pen, circling every sentence that could be tested. Most claims fall into a few families:
Two details are worth noting before you start. First, the print date. Leaflets recycle old figures, and a "record investment" announced in 2019 is not a record now. Second, the imprint in the small print, which names the promoter and the printer. It tells you who is paying, and on election material it is a legal requirement rather than a courtesy.
Hansard, the official record at hansard.parliament.uk, logs every division in the Commons with the full wording of what was actually voted on. TheyWorkForYou groups votes into themes and is quicker for a first look, but treat it as an index rather than a verdict: click through to the original motion every time. Commons Library briefings are useful for background on bills that have been amended repeatedly.
The classic trap is a claim like "voted against the NHS". Often it means the MP voted against a specific amendment, or against an opposition day motion designed to force an awkward division, or against a motion that had already been rewritten. None of that is the same as voting against the health service, and none of it is hidden — you simply have to read the motion title.
Attendance is public too. An MP who misses a large share of divisions is making fewer decisions than the leaflet implies, whatever the reason.
The Register of Members' Financial Interests, published on parliament's own site and updated regularly, lists paid employment, directorships, shareholdings, property, gifts and hospitality above set thresholds. Read it alongside the expenses published by IPSA, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which releases business costs and expenses by MP, quarter by quarter: staffing, office costs, travel, accommodation.
For donations, the Electoral Commission keeps registers of donations and loans above reporting thresholds, covering both individual MPs and parties. Companies House is free and tells you about directorships and filings. If a leaflet boasts about local business links, the two together are usually enough to see what is declared and what is not.
A declared interest is not proof of wrongdoing. Plenty of MPs hold second jobs, accept hospitality or own rental property, and say so. The fair question is whether the register tells you something the leaflet left out — and whether an interest connects to how they voted.
Local promises are the easiest to test and the ones parties least expect you to test. A few sources do most of the work:
If something is not published, a Freedom of Information request to the council or another public body is a reasonable next step. Public bodies generally have 20 working days to respond, though exemptions and cost limits apply, so keep the request narrow and specific.
Most misleading claims are not lies. They are true statements chosen for effect. Watch for cherry-picked start dates, totals without a denominator, "up to" figures that describe a maximum nobody has reached, and averages dragged upwards by a handful of cases. Ask three questions of any number: compared with what, over what period, and per person?
If a claim turns on a legal question — defamation, data protection, enforcement action — take proper legal advice before you publish anything yourself. Checking a leaflet is fair comment; accusing someone of dishonesty in writing is a different matter.
Send the MP's office one narrow question, with the source you used and the wording you are querying. "Your leaflet says you secured £12 million for the leisure centre. The council's own papers say £4 million was allocated. Can you point me to the document?" That is hard to ignore and easy to answer.
Take it to a surgery or a hustings, where the answer is on the record. Full Fact and the BBC's verification teams examine recurring national claims, and a local newsroom will often pick up a well-evidenced question about a local figure. You do not need to be a journalist. You need a date, a document and a quote.
Build a simple table: claim, source, date checked, verdict. Save the links and a screenshot, because pages move and figures get revised. Add the strongest three findings and leave the rest; a short list people can verify beats a long one they will not read.
Then share it where it matters — the residents' group, the school gate, the pub. The point is not to catch anyone out for sport. It is to make leaflets earn their claims, and to make sure your vote rests on something sturdier than a bar chart drawn by someone with an interest in how it looks.
Photo: TEREX12 / Pixabay
