THE Liberal Democrat candidate for Basingstoke appeared to make light of criticisms made about his party distributing political literature dressed up a local newspapers.

His party colleague Paula Ferguson, candidate for Winchester, has produced an election leaflet under the banner of ‘mid-Hampshire Gazette’, an area which is covered by the Gazette.

It has been made to look like the an independent newspaper claiming voters are switching to Lib Dems.

Similar leaflets have also been given out in other areas.

At the Gazette's hustings event on Monday following a question raised by a member of the audience about Boris Johnson preventing the release of the so-called ‘Russian report’, Green candidate Jonnie Jenkin took the opportunity to criticise the other parties for “spreading misinformation”, saying: “I’m glad that I didn’t join one of those parties. I know the Tories have changed their Twitter handle. The Lib Dems have in the form of leaflets branded West Midlands Gazette.”

Mr Mylvaganam responded: “Jonathan I’m quite surprised about the Midlands Gazette. Never heard of it. If somebody had told me about this I would have gone and bought it myself.”

The audience laughed at his response, before he moved on from the topic to address the question around the Russian report, saying: “Putting that aside…”