and on social media, where

He died not long after the pandemic, following a fall."We were near a hospital and they took him in. A lovely little boy brought me a cup of tea," she said.

"I sat and held [my husband's] hand till he died. It was terrible... but you've got to get up and carry on."This is about tactical voting: for instance, the Liberal Democrats trying to get Labour voters or Green voters to back them to get the Conservatives out, or vice versa.The use of these tactical messages is on the rise, according to Professor Caitlin Milazzo from the University of Nottingham. Around half of leaflets seen this year by Prof Milazzo’s Open Elections project contain tactical messages, up from 25% in the 2019 general election.

But not all bar charts are created equal – as the Office for Statistics Regulation. Parties often use data from totally different sources to back up claims that they are in the running. Here are some of the tactics to watch out for.

That rise in tactical messaging is being driven by all the political parties, but it is most popular with the Lib Dems. Around 90% of their leaflets contain tactical messages compared to less than one in 10 Conservative leaflets, according to Prof Milazzo.

In Central Devon, the Lib Dems have taken a particularly creative approach to this. On one leaflet submitted by a listener of BBC Radio 4’s More Or Less, a bar chart shows parties’ vote shares in the seat. Rather boldly, there is no bar representing the Conservatives, who have held Central Devon since it was created in 2010.But two new pieces of research offer some insight. The first, a survey of Chinese attitudes towards the economy, found that people were growing pessimistic and disillusioned about their prospects. The second is a record of protests, both physical and online, that noted a rise in incidents driven by economic grievances.

Although far from complete, the picture nevertheless provides a rare glimpse into the current economic climate, and how Chinese people feel about their future.Beyond the crisis in real estate, steep public debt and rising unemployment have hit savings and spending. The world’s second-largest economy may miss its own growth target - 5% - this year.

That is sobering for the Chinese Communist Party. Explosive growth turned China into a global power, and stable prosperity was the carrot offered by a repressive regime that would never loosen its grip on the stick.The slowdown hit as the pandemic ended, partly driven by three years of sudden and complete lockdowns, which strangled economic activity.