Yesterday evening saw the first leaders’ debate of the General Election campaign, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn debating alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson before the moderating hand of ITV’s Julie Etchingham. It was a campaign that Bozo The Clown found to have developed not necessarily to his advantage. And his own press team knew in advance that they would have to deflect from his shortcomings.
Have we loused up again, lads?
So it was that a Dead Cat™ was deployed as the debate began: the CCHQPress Twitter feed rebranded itself FactCheck UK. The “from CCHQ” was so small as to be beyond discreet. This would have been the responsibility of party chairman James Cleverly, although whether he knew about it in advance was not told.
The adverse comment arrived, with the Tweeter known as MatesJacob exclaiming “Just what the fuck is this nonsense? The Tory party press office is pretending to be a fact-checking service for the evening”. Matthew Thompson of LBC added “This is extraordinary. The Conservative Party press Twitter account has renamed itself ‘factcheckUK’ as if to give the impression it is a genuine fact checking account. Unbelievable”.
And while some out there on the right may have thought this was a jolly cool wheeze, the real fact checkers did not, with Full Fact responding “It is inappropriate and misleading for the Conservative press office to rename their twitter account ‘factcheckUK’ during this debate. Please do not mistake it for an independent fact checking service such as [Full Fact], [Fact Check] or [Fact Check NI]”. Then came the inevitable question.
This was posed by the Sun Apologies Twitter account. “Hi [Twitter Support]. Will you be removing the verified status of [CCHQ Press] for posing as an independent fact checking site?” Twitter has taken a dim view. But CCHQ Press keeps its blue tick. For now.
Sadly, the dead cat was of little use: nothing the Tories were able to deploy could deflect from Bozo’s inability to wipe the floor with Jezza. Worse, the Mirror’s Twitter feed told “Bookmaker Coral cuts the odds on Tories gaining majority after debate”. And while YouGov claimed Bozo had shaded it 51% to 49%, the detail made grim reading.
As Sam Coates of Sky News showed, while Bozo led on being “Prime Ministerial” and “Likeable”, Corbyn scored better in the “Trustworthy” category, and positively floored Johnson on being “In touch with ordinary people” by more than 2 to 1. Then came the realisation that the 51-49 Bozo win had excluded the “Don’t Knows”.
What might that have meant? Peter Kellner had the news, and it was not good news for the Tories. “Full details of [YouGov] poll on [ITV Debate] now up. Among voters who have yet to decide finally how to vote, Corbyn seen as winner by 54%, Johnson 38%, don't know 8%. Mainly firming up wavering Lab supporters, but still significant”.
And those voters may not have been impressed by the likes of Dominic Raab going on BBC Breakfast and declaring that he “doesn’t give a toss” about the phoney fact checking dead cat. When the tie-breaker comes, The Blue Team don’t care.
The Tories suffered a serious setback last night. And it was entirely self-inflicted.
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7 comments:
tory HQ LYING?
There's a serious fuck up here. Doesn't Not So Cleverly know that's Bozo's speciality?
Tsk hahaha tsk.
Meanwhile, ordinary people setting up spoof CCHQ/Conservative Party accounts are getting suspended by Twitter.
I would like to think that this was a self own, The Tory's are effectively admitting that their own brand is so untrustworthy they have to imitate another to cut through. Lying in order to carry out more lying as it were. Unfortunately, given Twitters rank cowardice in the face of a clear breach of its own rules (see Ralf Little's suspension for clearly parodying the Tory's own cheat), they've got away with it again.
My 5 cats and the Union of Domestic Cats object to being used by the Tories.
All our cats are fully backing Cat Smith for re election.
The Tory campaign is being run like Bozza's first attempt at the Oxford Union Presidency, catastrophic.
Majority of people have bigger priorities like the NHS and Climate Change or seeing that their kids primary school has enough money to employ all the staff they require.
One small point - if Coral are cutting odds on a Tory majority, that means it's more likely (2/1 being more likely that 20/1 for example). Did the Mirror mean lengthen?
Cleverly in that photo looking like he's not bright enough to discern whether he's followed through or not.
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