ENGLAND — Full Fact analysed 331 local election leaflets from across England uploaded to Democracy Club's online archive in the first two weeks of April and found that 14 of the 59 leaflets containing a chart or graphic were unsourced, misleading or failed to provide reliable evidence about local voting intention.

"Some of these leaflets could mislead people as they choose how to vote, for instance by claiming definitively that another party 'can't win here' or that only one party can stop another," Full Fact said. The organisation noted that good data on voting intentions was often not available in local elections and that it was reasonable for political parties to address swings in national polls.

A Labour leaflet distributed in Ealing Common included a bar chart stating "Greens can't win here" with an arrow pointing to the green bar labeled "Wasted vote!". The chart used the 2024 London Assembly result for Ealing and Hillingdon and added an extra bar that appears to reflect Reform national polling. The Liberal Democrats control two of Ealing Common's three seats. "It's clearly an illustration of what could happen in a very competitive election, and can't be taken literally, as no element of trying to predict the future can be," the Ealing Labour party said.

Peter Kellner, former chair of YouGov, said of the Ealing leaflet: "What they've done is grotesque, and they've not been candid. The figures are in no sense indicative of Ealing Common."

A Green party leaflet in Gateshead showed Reform in the lead with the Greens in second place under a headline stating "Greens are now the only alternative to Reform". The chart stated it was based on opinion poll data from YouGov in March; the same pollster currently puts the Greens third.

A Reform leaflet from Chelmsford gave no source for its bar chart that put Reform at 34% and the Conservatives and Labour at 16%. Full Fact said it had not found an exact match for the Conservative and Labour figures at the same time as a 34% Reform rating. A calibration tool suggests that if the Reform bar represented 34%, the Labour and Conservative bars would represent about 9%.

A Liberal Democrat leaflet from Eastgate and Moreton Hall in Suffolk stated "It's Lib Dem or Reform here" and used a bar chart showing the Conservatives in second and the Lib Dems in third place, alongside a YouGov quote stating the Lib Dems were "most likely to see off Reform UK."

A Conservative leaflet in Haslemere told voters "Reform can't win here" based on data for the whole of Surrey from the 2024 general election.

"Because there are far more parties, and it is far less clear who you should vote for if you want to vote tactically, all parties are putting a lot of effort into convincing voters that they are the only option," Kellner said. "But if commercial companies were making some of these claims, they wouldn't be allowed to get away with it."