Ed Miliband missing from Feltham and Heston by-election leaflets

By Matthew Barrett
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Labour have put out seven pieces of campaign literature for the Feltham and Heston by-election so far. On how many does Ed Miliband have even a passport-sized photo? None. Ed Miliband is nowhere to be seen on Labour leaflets.

On Thursday, the Evening Standard's Craig Woodhouse reported:

"As the party leader battles low personal poll ratings, his opponents have seized on the fact his picture was missing from the election leaflet, though Labour insists he will feature in a second handout."

Well, Labour's latest leaflet has been released, and... still no sign of Ed Miliband. Readers can view the leaflet in full here (page 1 pdf) and here (page 2 pdf). 

A good reminder of why Labour's campaign may be reluctant to show their leader on campaign literature would be Lord Ashcroft's polling in the seat, which found, for example, that Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are more trusted on the economy than the Miliband-Balls team. 

Also worth noting is the wording in the "why we're voting Labour" speech bubble pictured below. It says "The Tories are hurting the most vulnerable... we need a change". That implies the by-election could produce "a change" if Labour won. The reality is that it would be a Labour hold, and the composition of Parliament would be the same as it was before the by-election.

> This morning, we featured the Conservative leaflets, which emphasise the rise in state pension and tough knife crime policies