THE Liberal Democrats were today slammed as “irresponsible” for using a quote as an endorsement which was later revealed to be from their leader Jo Swinson.

The Guardian’s political editor Heather Stewart called out the Lib Dems’ “dodgy leaflet” which claimed the party was winning and “on the up” after a by-election victory.

The party printed the quote taken from a Guardian headline and removed the reference to Ms Swinson having said those words on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after the Lib Dems won the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in August.

Fact-checking organisation Full Fact slammed the use of the quote as “misleading and irresponsible.”

It comes after Ms Swinson was questioned on Sunday by Sophy Ridge of Sky News, who slammed the Lib Dems for using an “embarrassing” and “misleading” bar chart in campaign literature.

The chart appeared to show the Tories and Lib Dems ahead of Labour in Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg’s constituency North East Somerset.

However the small print stated that the opinion poll was based on a hypothetical situation in which voters were given the choice of voting for the Tories or Lib Dems as the only credible options.