The Lib Dems’ Putney Candidate is proudly claiming she “led the campaign to ban landmines in South Africa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize”. Impressive achievement…

The odd grammar gives the game away, however. Sue Wixley did not win the Nobel Peace Prize – nor did the campaign to ban landmines in South Africa. The 1997 peace prize was split between Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. 

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines was itself made up of multiple national campaigns, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, Kenya and South Africa – the latter of which Sue co-founded whilst working at Oxfam in Johannesburg. It is a bit of stretch to claim she won the Nobel Peace Prize, and worse than misleading bar charts…

UPDATE: Guido thought he’d look into the actual 1997 Nobel Prize winners – unless Sue’s had a drastic transformation, it seems to confirm the Lib Dem did not win here…

UPDATE: Sue Wixley responds:

“While I did play a major part in the successful global campaign to ban anti-personnel landmines which was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, it is clear from this typo I didn’t get the award for proof reading”.

Which is true, as proofreading is one word…

The Lib Dems also claim the true sentence was meant to be:

“Sue Wixley obviously did not personally win the Nobel Peace Prize. As you can see from the leaflet it was a human error, there was a missing “that” from the wording in the leaflet (i.e. “led the campaign to ban landmines in South Africa, that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”).”

A clarification that remains untrue. The Campaign to Ban Landmines in South Africa was not awarded the peace prize – The International Campaign to Ban Landmines was. More Lib Dem lies…