How a Tory MP’s tweeted apology proves Labour is still winning at social media

Congratulations to Ben Bradley, Conservative MP for Mansfield, who, in little over a week, has managed to clock up more retweets – 55,000 – than all of the Tory party’s tweets in 2018 combined.

Unfortunately for Bradley, the tweet in question was part of a legal agreement following a defamatory post sent about Jeremy Corbyn, in which he said that the Labour leader had “sold secrets to communist spies”. A slur related to a right-wing press fabricated story that Corbyn cooperated with a Czech intelligence agent in the 1980s.

Nothing new about political mudslinging on Twitter., but the reach of Bradley’s single tweet, dwarfing Theresa May’s 27,000 retweets for all activity in 2018, demonstrates a clear divide in social media savvy. Labour insisted the final sentence of Bradley’s apology be “please retweet”, which sent it skyrocketing.

Political apologies are normally quietly issued via statements from spokespeople. On Twitter too, it is often the case that a fake tweet has been retweeted hundreds of thousands of times, but a debunking barely passes the low hundreds.

In contrast, where the original slur failed to gain traction, Bradley’s mea culpa went viral, despite his attempts to bury it by posting it at 10.30pm on a Saturday night. Partly its reach was due to Labour’s wording. But Labour also has an army of supporters across social media that know how to drive engagement combining youth, such as Abi Tomlinson’s #milifandom in 2015, with effective organisation by digital-savvy groups such as Momentum, whose members volunteer their time for free.

For more read the full of article at The Guardian