Mar/10
11:42 14
Macrory meltdown: Tory head of press proves David Cameron right with bizarre Twitter tirade
The Labour Party has inflicted some some pretty impressive wounds on itself over the last three years but it is clear now that these are eclipsed by the Ashcroft saga. If Scrapbook was a Conservative activist he would be spitting feathers and it seems one of their number finally lost patience this week, causing a storm with an email which led Channel 4 News yesterday evening: ”Didn’t David Cameron or his colleagues understand that it should have been sorted out years ago rather than in the middle of a general election campaign?”
This was yet another news item they could do without in what has been a nightmare week for the Conservatives. But one struggles to fathom what their (usually sane) head of press, Henry Macrory, was thinking when he flooded his Twitter stream with a torrent of weak personal attacks on the senior Conservative lobbyist responsible for the email:
If senior Conservative staffers think that this is a strategic way to kill a story off then the party might be in more serious trouble than everyone thinks. The episode was spotted quickly by several politicos, including Mark Pack from Lib Dem Voice:
“The first one I saw made me wonder if perhaps a message had been sent by mistake, or an intended private message broadcast to the world in error. But that doesn’t explain eleven tweets, nor does a momentary piece of bad judgement. It’s a pretty unappetising picture of how to handle a negative story: send a long series of personal jibes. Perhaps though it’s good that they were sent via Twitter; that way we can all see how the Conservative Party’s press operation conducts itself” – Mark Pack
What did David Cameron say about “too many twits”?
Jul/09
13:45 2
David Cameron’s swearing was no gaffe
UPDATE: Oh, dear. This little bit of spin has gone down like a pint of sick with some non-Cameroons.
In an interview on Absolute (formerly Virgin) Radio this morning David Cameron indulged in a bit of bar room vernacular. When asked whether he used Twitter, he responded:
Politicians do have to think about what we say. I think the problem with Twitter, the instantness of it, I think too many twits may make a twat. (3:15 audio below)
This was followed up – less than a minute later – by more swearing:
The public are, I think, are rightly pissed off – I can’t say that in the morning – angry with politicians, cynical about politics. (3:50 audio below)
Listen here:
Hats of to Andy Coulson, Henry Macrory or whoever thought this up. This is an absolutely fantastic silly-season story that will be referenced again and again throughout the summer. This is not Cameron going off the rails but yet more spin designed to make Gordon Brown look staid by comparison.
Predictably, the media are going along with this and are reporting it as a gaffe. Credit to Alex Smith, who immediately spotted this as an attempt to court ‘white van man’ (phone in callers referred to Cameron as “geezer” and “Dave”). Is it any wonder people are “cynical about politics” when politicians resort to such tactics to angle in on a particular demographic?
This is one rung up from William Hague’s “I drunk 14 pints of beer a day”.
UPDATE: As linked at the top, David Hughes at the Torygraph isn’t fooled. “What was he doing? Trying to be laddish, of course. Presumably, Absolute Radio has a young audience“. The radio DJ is praising the twat comment as “fantastic”.
