Tories don’t get much more stupid than this. Former GMTV presenter Caroline Righton, the Conservative Party’s parliamentary hopeful for St Austell and Newquay in Cornwall, wins the award for “dirtiest trick of the week” after sending out an “edited” Twitter broadcast originated by her Liberal Democrat opponent, Stephen Gilbert. After turning down an invitation to appear on local radio in favour of a meeting to discuss regeneration of a key town in the constituency, Mr Gilbert twittered that he “was at meeting about regeneration of major town, (declined by Tory PPC). Tory PPC at publicity stunt (declined by me)”. Mysteriously, Ms Righton forwarded Mr Gilbert’s broadcast with the addition of the word “D***H***”, which appears nowhere in Mr Gilbert’s original tweet. Not only that, but she added that “the asterisked comment is highly offensive”. Maybe so, but it’s clear to anyone who reads Twitter that Mr Gilbert didn’t write it. So far, Ms Righton has offered neither an explanation nor an apology.
