Tory NHS Starmer Smear Shame

It is as if nothing had been learned from previous, very clearly coordinated, and all too easily debunked, social media excursions: the Tories selected their hill to die on - trying to smear new Labour leader Keir Starmer over his comments on NHS Personal Protective Equipment problems - and like the Boris bots on Facebook, and the Twitter applause for the PM, they duly died a death on it. Only this time, a lot of their MPs were involved.

At first, it was Telford MP Lucy Allan who caught the eye of the ever-vigilant Observer sleuth Carole Cadwalladr after she claimed “Disappointed to see @Keir_Starmer attacking NHS England at this time. They are doing their best in these exceptional times - it doesn’t help them do better”. But there was a problem: he wasn’t attacking the NHS.

Ms Cadwalladr was not impressed. “[Keir Starmer] is not attacking NHS England. He’s attacking the government. This ongoing strategy to try & pretend political decisions are scientific or medical ones has to be called out” she countered. But what she hadn’t picked up on was that Ms Allan was not the only Tory MP at it.

A Tweeter called Sam had done just that, telling “What a truly bizarre, carefully co-ordinated attack on Starmer this is”, and revealing very similar attacks from an account called Tory Health (shades of Tory Education, eh?), the disgraced Damian Grope, Milton Keynes North MP Ben Everitt, and Marcus Jones, who represents Nuneaton.

Sam went one better: he exposed yet more Tory MPs indulging in more or less the same smear. Gillian Keegan (Chichester), Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent), Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness), Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine), and to no surprise at all (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries were also at it.

Audrey Aurus had more names for the roll of shame, such as Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) and Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland). And they all gave the impression that Starmer had attacked the NHS, which he had not.

Which led Graham Lithgow to conclude “If Lucy Allan thinks this is disappointing, imagine how she'd feel if she found out Telford had an MP who couldn't read”, to which Keith Burge added “There has been a co-ordinated attack by Tory MPs on Keir Starmer for sticking up for NHS workers. It's almost as if they're rattled”. Well, quite.

Looking in from the outside, LBC host James O’Brien mused “There’s a horribly inappropriate & clearly orchestrated trolling campaign being directed at Keir Starmer by Conservative MPs on here right now. It’s easy to criticise, but it’s actually very considerate of them to remind us what their priorities are at this time”. Got it in one.

These social media pile-ons had already been rumbled. All the MPs concerned are doing is to allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder in another of Polecat Dom’s dirty little games. Cummings’ presence was given away by the Tory Health account.

The MPs could of course hang their heads in shame. Except they probably don’t have any.

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