Raheem Kassam – Dodgy Twitter Followers?

[Update at end of post]

Since Sunny Hundal’s exposure of failed Tory PPC Mark Clarke, who has now been removed from the candidates’ list, and his seemingly bogus Twitter army, the inspection regime has been stepped up. Yesterday I caught Clarke’s pal Andre Walker out as having around 50 genuine followers and well over 6,500 phoney ones, and today Political Scrapbook has examined the account of MP Grant Shapps.

One screen full ...

Meanwhile, the Twitter following of Raheem Kassam, self-styled scourge of campus extremism and staffer at the Henry Jackson Society, came before my inspection. And a curiously mixed bag it was too: there was nothing like the crude insertion of thousands of duds under a light covering of credibility, as with Walker, but rather a more subtle injection of apparent froth.

... make that two ...

The Kassam followers list starts with hundreds of clearly like minded and genuine followers. But then comes page after page after page of young people, almost all female, many not English speakers, and of those that are, lots of budding singers and models, along with fans of One Direction, Jedward and the inevitable Justin Bieber. Who knew conservatism was like this?

... and then there were three ...

But then comes another layer of followers who are recognisably conservatives, media types, Parliamentarians, lobbyists and those merely interested in the kinds of things that Kassam might want to tell them. So the hundreds of dubious looking followers was some kind of fluke, perhaps? Well, no it wasn’t: after drilling down a little further, more of them appear.

... or even four ...

Make that a lot more of them. Yet more pages of them. Hundreds of them. But then comes another layer of clearly identifiable political and media Tweeters, giving the impression of some kind of sandwich: it’s as if two injections of, say, a thousand or so “extras” had been made some time apart. The impression is given that a significant part of Kassam’s 4,400+ followers is of dubious origin.

 ... or was that five ...

... no, there are at least six ...

 ... ah, but this makes seven ...

... and this makes eight

Maybe there is a rational explanation for this: even if those two layers of eyebrow raising followers do turn out to be dodgy, at least this one has been executed with a little more subtlety than Mark Clarke and Andre Walker appear to have used. Perhaps Raheem Kassam will enlighten everyone. It would make a change from the threats and ranting previously used.

[UPDATE 1935 hours: Raheem Kassam has confirmed that he did buy followers in the past, and has explained why he did. Fair play to him for being honest - if only Mark Clarke and Andre Walker had done the same. Raheem is even looking to have those followers removed. Cannot say fairer than that]