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Activists call for Metro apology over universal credit adverts

DISABLED activists called on the Metro newspaper to apologise today after they said it knowingly printed “snidey government propaganda.”

It comes after the seventh instalment of pro-universal credit advertorials, created by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and published in the Metro, appear to have stopped early.

In a leaked memo, sent out by the government’s universal credit “change director” Neil Couling in May, it was revealed that authorities planned to launch a propaganda campaign dubbed “UC Uncovered” in the Metro newspaper.

Advertorials showing “the other side” of universal credit would continue for nine weeks every Wednesday after starting in late May.

The memo stated: “The features won’t look or feel like DWP or UC — you won’t see our branding, and this is deliberate.”

But this week’s Wednesday edition had no stories about universal credit despite being within the leaked nine-week schedule.

Sheffield Disabled People Against Cuts activist Jennifer Jones told the Star: “The DWP should know that we have got our eyes on them.

“We have got contacts in the transport unions so that, by 5am, we know what the contents of the Metro are.

“Quite frankly the Metro needs to apologise, to reassure the British public that it won’t knowingly print snidey government propaganda again.”

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