Sunday, July 17, 2016

Who is #savingLabour ? clues please, project for Guardian readers?

Reading the Observer and watching Sunday Politics I gather that social media is facing a reputation problem. Andre Neil suggests the Labour Party is now the Nasty Party, based entirely on what is said about the tweets.

My guess is that the conversation would be less heated if there was some answers to the questions and a bit of transparency. Words like "coup" and "plot" are used to describe something that seems to be happening even though the leadership is obscure.

BBC has not as far as I know investigated the heckles they reported. Tweets suggest they were linked to Portland Communications and the Lib Dems. Both were part of suggestions that Corbyn has lost support because of the EU referendum so could be seen as setup for later moves. But no mainstream fact check so far. That would have cleared the air but I have to say my guess is that the claims about Portland Communications and the Lib Dems are probably true as far as the heckles go, at least about the connections. No evidence of a sustained plot but nothing reassuring in the BBC reporting.

So I think it should be public who is backing #savingLabour. If it is true that they are paying for Facebook ads, where is the money coming from? i am not alone in this. Search Twitter on the #savingLabour tag and you find similar queries.

I find the Guardian quite hard to predict. They probably will publish opinions close to the PLP. But they also send intrepid reporters to Liverpool and welcome contributions by readers.    @ewenmacaskill Maybe they will find the answer. Or it will just turn up on Twitter.

It is clear who is supporting #savingLabour from tweets by Ben Bradshaw and @ChukaUmunna so this is welcome. What I find disturbing is a project on this scale without any clarity at all on how it is organised, who is involved, or where the money comes from.

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