We don’t know the name of the person operating the Guardian Politics Twitter account at the weekend. But what we do know is that they did more to take on the Tories in one tweet than their paper has this entire election.
The tweet heard around the world
On Sunday 22 May, Jeremy Corbyn succeeded in debunking an attempted smear from Sky News‘s Sophy Ridge. The Sky host had intended to ambush Corbyn with an article from the Labour Briefing magazine from the 1980s. Ridge was under the mistaken belief that Corbyn was editor of the magazine when it ran a controversial piece after the Brighton bombing which killed five people, and very nearly ended the life of Margaret Thatcher.
Just one problem. Corbyn was never the editor. Like almost every Labour MP of the day, he wrote articles for it occasionally.
It’s worth taking a moment to watch the Labour leader dismantle Ridge with customary gentleness.
https://twitter.com/LabourEoin/status/866232173216616448
Rewriting history
However, Conservative HQ decided they didn’t like this ending. So they rewrote it for their followers.
On Ridge just now Corbyn refused to condemn the IRA
— CCHQ Press (@CCHQPress) May 21, 2017
Enter the Guardian Politics Twitter account.
And it didn’t stop there.
Judging by the reaction of Twitter users, the unnamed hero of Guardian Politics won this one hands down.
With the Conservative poll lead shrinking to single digits, and the wheels falling off the May campaign – we can expect further smearing to come. The key task for each voter now is to continue to distinguish smear from fact. Because only that way can they make their vote freely on 8 June.
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Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
