Shapps Caught Personally Astro-Turfing
Grant Shapps MP is gaining acclaim for his mastery of the Tory by-election campaign in Ealing Southall. Now Guido doesn’t usually cover the usual poster stealing, leaflet faking shenanigans that go on in local elections, but this one is just too funny.
It appears that yesterday Grant Shapps indulged in a bit of astro-turfing on the LibDem’s YouTube site, posing as a demoralised LibDem comment maker “Okay, realistically we’re not going to win though. Especially since the Tories have just received 5 defecting Councillors from Labour. Don’t quite know how they’ve done it, but the Tories have stolen a march on us this time.”
Alas it wasn’t very well disguised and quickly seen through, since he used what appears to be his genuine GrantShapps login. Doh!
Hat-Tip : LibDemVoice
UPDATE : CCHQ is denying it. Grant was hacked they claim. “In past two days he has removed a number of posts from his own YouTube videos which had appeared without authorisation. We will be monitoring the account carefully and can’t rule out the activities of our opponents.” Yeah right. You don’t need his password to comment on his videos, so that is irrelevant. We are supposed to believe that someone hacked his account, posed as him posing as a LibDem? C’mon.
