General election: Tories misled public with 'factcheck' stunt, says Twitter – live news – The Guardian, Google News

This is fromPeter Kellner, the former president of YouGov, the polling organization.

Both sets of findings from the YouGov snap poll after the debate were coveredon our live blog last night.More people thought Boris Johnson won than Jeremy Corbyn won, but more people thought Corbyn performed well than Johnson performed well. That sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t necessarily. In sport, the winning team isn’t always the one that plays best.

Here isCaroline Lucas,who is campaigning for re-election as a Green party MP, on the Tories’s abuse ofTwitterlast night.

Dawn Butler, the shadow minister for women and equalities, told Radio 4’s Today program thatTwitterhad not done enough to punish the Conservative party for using one of its accounts to mislead people during last night’s leaders’ debate. The party rebranded its own press account as “factcheckUK”, implying that it was providing an impartial, factchecking service.

Twitter has effectively just issued the Tories with a warning,saying “corrective action” will be taken if they do this again.

Asked whether this was enough, Butler told Today:

No, it’s not enough. We’ve been talking about the responsibilities of the social media platforms for quite a while. And they have to do better. And I think this is another example where social media has failed, and it’s terrible.

Asked what else Twitter should have done, she said it would have been better if the account had been taken down during the debate last night. She said:

I think they had options. They could have either renamed the account, and put back the original branding, because in order to try and deceive the public the Conservative party changed everything …

They could have just suspended the account and taken it down. To me, that would have been the better punishment.

And the other thing is, remove the blue tick [Twitter’s account verification mechanism], because you cannot have a blue tick if you are trying to impersonate a legitimate account.

Andrew Sparrow

There are only two biggish events in the diary for the day.

12 PM:Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minster, gives a speech on the ‘Tory threat’ to Scotland’s services in Dundee.

5pm :The Liberal Democrats launch their manifesto.

There are also various, more low-level campaign events taking place, includingBoris Johnsoncampaigning on the Tory battlebus.

The Liberal Democrats promise an emergency £ 4.6bn cash injection into schools,Layla Moran, the party’s education spokeswoman, told Radio 4’s Today program this morning.

The initial sum would increase to more than £ 10 BN by 2024 – 25, if the Lib Dems formed the next government, Moran said. It would be funded from the £ 15 bn that the party says it can conjure up as a “remain bonus” from halting (Brexit) .

Moran’s education pledges went beyond the purely financial. She continued:

Also, we would value our teachers more. We would end the punitive, high-stakes testing regime that we have in schools. We would replace Ofsted with an inspectorate that has wellbeing at the core of what it does.

Her comments will be welcomed by many in the profession. Ofsted, Moran said, has been responsible for “narrowing the curriculum [and] a focus on data”.

After their involvement in the coalition government and the tripling of fees for university students, the Liberal Democrats do not have a good reputation when it comes to education pledges. The party had promised during the 2010 election not to increase fees.

Moran was not challenged on the record. She pledged that the party would “review student finance and bring back maintenance grants”.

In case you missed it, the Guardian’s media editor,Jim Waterson, reported on the factcheck controversy last night, including criticism from the established factchecking organization Full Fact.

As Waterson reported, Full Fact, which is run by a charity, said it had complained to Twitter and said the account should not be allowed to be used in this way while verified. “It is inappropriate and misleading for the Conservative press office to rename theirTwitteraccount ‘factcheckUK’ during this debate. Please do not mistake it for an independent factchecking service. ”

Dominic Raab,the foreign secretary, has defended the Tory factcheck stunt on (Twitter) last night, even in the face of Twitter’s stern criticism.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Raab said it was “very clear” that the account was affiliated with Conservative campaign headquarters. “We have had all sorts of nonsense thrown at theConservatives. We are going to be in the process of having a really good instant rebuttal, ”he said.

Raab brushed aside criticism from established factcheckers. “Who said Full Fact is the final arbiter of what the public need to see?” He said. Asked about Twitter’s statement accusing the Tories of misleading the public, Raab added:

I don’t agree. As I said to you before it was pegged to the Conservative campaign HQ account. Anyone who looked at it for more than a split second would not have been fooled.

Twitterhas released a statement saying the Conservative party has misled the public by styling its press office account as a factchecking operation during the televised leaders debate, the BBC has reported.

In an almost unprecedented political intervention by the social network,Twittersaid it would take “decisive corrective action” if a similar stunt was attempted again.

During Tuesday night’s leadership debate on ITV, the @CCHQPress account was renamed “factcheckUK”. Although the handle remained the same, as my colleague Jim Waterson reported, all other branding was changed to resemble an independent factchecking outlet. It may not have been immediately apparent to an individual who saw the account’s tweets in their feed that it was a product of Conservative party HQ.

Twitter’s statement, carried by the BBC, said:

Twitter is committed to facilitating healthy debate throughout the UK general election. We have global rules in place that prohibit behavior that can mislead people, including those with verified accounts. Any further attempts to mislead people by editing verified profile information – in a manner seen during the UK election debate – will result in decisive corrective action.

John Crace

No one really landed any telling blows, with the whole show descending into second-rate light entertainment. Even Prince Andrew could probably have made a better fist of answering the questions. Despite talking over Corbyn and Etchingham at every opportunity – his ego can’t allow the possibility of conversation – Johnson reverted to bluster and lies while trying to steer everything back to hisBrexitdeal that he had rejected 18 months previously.

Corbyn couldn’t even take advantage of the most open of goals. One questioner asked about personal trust. Here was the (Labor) leader’s chance to ask Boris how many children he had, his relationship with Jennifer Arcuri and his broken promises to family and country. It would have been a slam-dunk moment that could have maybe changed the momentum of the election. But Corbyn blew it. The first half ended with an insincere handshake.

The rest was something of a non-event. Corbyn scored well on the NHS with a redacted document but the audience was so dispirited that the debate ended in a Blind Date chat. Corbyn would give Boris A Christmas Carol for Christmas: Johnson would give Corbyn some damson jam. No voters ’minds would be changed. The only winner was Etchingham who somehow held the shitshow together.

Yet despite all this, the debate had revealed something. That voters hold both leaders in open contempt and are in despair that one of them will end up as prime minister. Given the chance to show off their best selves, Johnson and Corbyn had merely proved they didn’t have one. The country was even more screwed than anyone had previously imagined.

Top billing on most of the front pages is given to the election leaders’ debate with some focusing on the snap YouGov poll that declared (Boris Johnson) ************** (won the night) ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************* (% – 49%. Others highlighted the leaders ’answers, or lack of them.

As for what the parties will be wanting to talk about today:Labor will promise to eliminatewhat it calls the “10 modern scourges of poverty ”, from soaring food bank use to childhood deprivation, in its latest attack on the Conservatives’ record in government. Among its policies are increasing the minimum wage to £ 10 an hour and extending it to under – 25 s; reforming universal credit; and scrapping restrictive rules including the two-child limit and the benefits cap.

The Lib Dems will launch their manifesto in London andannounce a plan to extend the scope of free school meals; increase schools spending by more than £ 10 bn a year within the next parliament; and recruit 20, 000 more teachers.

TheTories have announced a package of policies for victims of crime, which includes allowing victims and the media to apply to attend parole hearings and a 25 % increase in the victims surcharge – a fine on offenders that goes towards refuges and community support for victims of domestic and sexual abuse.

Kate Lyons