Conservative party accused of 'dishonesty' over human rights policy publication via Twitter
A Twitter storm erupted yesterday over competing claims between a legal writer and the Conservative party which saw the latter accused of "dishonesty" and "doctoring" their website via Twitter.
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Legal writer David Allen Green, who posts as Jack of Kent, tweeted on Monday evening that the governing party had still not published details of its plans to opt out of European Human Rights legislation,
How curious. It seems @Conservatives have still not formally published last week's Bill of Rights proposals: https://t.co/I7OFYEET4D
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) October 6, 2014
The tweet however prompted a sharp response from the Twitter account of Conservative Central HQ, which posted:
.@JackofKent has been available online since last week. Here http://t.co/ow6MuA4pax & here http://t.co/9oSlG5HiPO Get your facts right — CCHQ Press Office (@CCHQPress) October 6, 2014
However, a cached copy of the page appeared to show that the link to the full proposals was only added after Green’s first tweet leading to questions about the honestly of the Conservative Central office reply.
The @CCHQ page from 17.16 today, without link. This proves @CCHQPress dishonestly stated it was there all along. pic.twitter.com/sBIxLUtxtb
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) October 6, 2014
The @CCHQ account did respond with a further tweet saying: “The document was available from the very link you tweeted, oh dear,” but this was subsequently deleted. This is not the first time the Conservative party has had trouble with the micro-blogging site, perhaps the most famous blunder being when MP Andrew Selous tweeted: “I strongly support the loss of benefits unless claimants lean English.” The opposition Labour Party also ran into trouble on Twitter after a mysterious tweet from their finance spokesman, Ed Balls, went viral and led users to celebrate "Ed Balls day" on the anniversary of the posting
Ed Balls — Ed Balls (@edballsmp) April 28, 2011Speaking to The Drum Green said: "The proposals for repealing the Human Rights Act are highly significant and so they should have been published on the Conservative Party website when the announcement was made.
"But by not admitting this, and falsely stating instead that the proposals had been available all the time, the Conservative office turned a mistake into something more worrying. And when caught out, the Conservative press resorted casually to dishonesty and doctoring their own website. On any view, this cannot be a good thing.”
The Drum contacted Conservative Central office for their side of the story but had received no reply at the time of publication.