Don’t trust brazen Tory fact check impersonators, says Web inventor

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The inventor of the World Wide Web today lambasted the Conservatives for renaming a Tory Twitter account “factcheckUK” during a live TV leaders’ debate.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee said: “That was impersonation. Don’t do that. Don’t trust people who do that.”

He branded as “brazen” the decision to use the “factcheckUK” name which is similar to independent fact-checking organisations.

Senior Conservatives have defended the stunt, insisting it was still clear that the Twitter feed was from Tory HQ.

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However, Sir Tim told the BBC that “impersonating an independent organisation …was unbelievable”.

The web creator also urged Facebook to stop allowing targeted political adverts. The “fackcheckUK” storm came after two other Tory “fake news” rows: doctoring a video of Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer to make him look flummoxed when trying to explain his party’s Brexit policy, and wrongly claiming that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill had passed Parliament when soliciting donations.

These incidents have left the Conservatives facing growing questions over “trust” during the election campaign and the party was forced to correct Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan today after she said the plan to recruit 50,000 more nurses was over 10 years.

Culture Secretary Ms Morgan was grilled during a media round over how many of the nurses were new, given that the target depends partly on retaining more NHS health professionals.

She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “No, what we’re saying is, as part of making sure that in 10 years’ time there are 50,000 more nurses, like any employer — and of course the NHS is a huge employer — retaining your highly skilled staff is a key part of your workforce strategy.”

A senior Conservative source, though, confirmed: “It is 50,000 over the course of the Parliament, i.e. five years.”

The Tory manifesto yesterday included a string of pledges including quitting the EU by January 31, freezing income tax and VAT, and an additional £34 billion in cash terms for the NHS to spend annually by 2024.

But shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “Just like with the fake 40 hospitals the Tories are trying to take people for fools now with their fake 50,000 nurses deceit.”

Labour and the Lib Dems have also come under fire over some of their claims.

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