Sent to: The Richmond and Twickenham Times
Date: June 2009

Dear Editor,
 
With the Euro elections upon us, the Lib Dems have distributed a grossly misleading letter to residents across London, knowing that other Parties won’t have time to respond. It’s an old trick, and in my view it is a shameless one.
 
The letter concerns the European Arrest Warrant. The Tories, they say, opposed it, and are therefore soft on international crime. In fact the Conservatives have long accepted the principle of the European Arrest Warrant, but have called for a re-think on some important aspects of it. We do not for instance believe it is right that a British court should be forced to send someone to another country for something that is not a crime under British law.
 
What our Lib Dem MPs failed to mention in their letter is that the Lib Dems agree. The Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, has said: ‘we don’t in this country tend to prosecute people for issues that we regard as issues of freedom of speech. This was rushed through without proper thought as a knee-jerk reaction to terrorist offences…”
 
The Lib Dem letter is unacceptably opportunistic, and takes politics to a new low. Just as fiddling the expenses is abhorrent, so too are attempts by some politicians to mislead voters into supporting them.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
 
Zac Goldsmith
Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Richmond Park and North Kingston

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Sent to: The Richmond and Twickenham Times
Date: October 2008 

Sir,

Despite signing off his letter (Is Goldsmith Buying a Seat?”) as an ordinary resident, readers probably ought to know that Mr Martin is in fact the Chairman of the local Liberal Democrats. More importantly, his letter is littered with deliberate distortions.  I want to tackle a few of them.  
 
“Normal politicians run campaigns with simple leaflets and press releases,” he says, before going on to attack my expensive Garden Grabbing and Save our Small Shops websites. Well yes they are highly professional. But they were also constructed (and maintained) entirely for free.

My garden grabbing website, and indeed the campaign itself is 100% voluntary. The people volunteering their time would much rather not have to, but because of the Lib Dem Council’s bizarre disregard for our green spaces, combined with their reluctance to challenge the government on Planning issues, they feel they have no choice.

Likewise my Support our Small Shops website is totally free. It is run by volunteers and has the backing of a third of all the independent shops in the area. They don’t support the campaign because it is Conservative, or because I initiated it. They support it because they know we need real action to prevent the depressing erosion of our shopping areas.

The Lib Dem Chairman also claims that School Food Matters, a group I set up, would never have happened had I not entered politics. In fact I have been raising money to improve school food for many years now, and have long supported the Soil Association, on whose Appeal Board I used to sit. This is not a new campaign. Nor is the campaign party political. It is backed by the local Green party, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and even Susan Kramer MP.  What’s more, it is not limited, as the Lib Dem Chairman claims, to this constituency. SFM is already helping schools outside of the area, and is planning to put together a campaign toolkit for the entire country.

The Lib Dem Chairman ‘reveals’ that SFM isn’t listed on the Charity Commission’s website, and appears confused by this. Given that he has been in correspondence with my office and the campaign itself about this very issue he has no reason to be. For anyone interested, SFM is a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee. Its company number is 06657048.

Finally, the Lib Dem Chairman tells readers I have spent 90,000 on my political campaign and that if I included these other campaigns as well as my office, researchers etc, that figure would “add up to a very tidy sum”. Again, it is a fact that he already knows that the figure DOES include these costs. Indeed half of the 90,000 was for the School Food campaign and another campaign initiative that was endorsed by Susan Kramer MP. Most of the remainder is the notional use of my office and staff time.
 
Colleagues tell me I should simply ignore this letter from the local Lib Dems. This is politics after all. Perhaps. But there is no law requiring those involved in politics to engage in dishonesty. Indeed it is because so many politicians do engage in dishonesty that we face in this country the near complete breakdown of trust in politics.

Yours,

Zac Goldsmith
Conservative Parliamentary  candidate for Richmond and North Kingston

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