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Friday, September 28, 2007

'Fake Purnell' on the loose in Tameside


The media are all over the Stalybridge & Hyde MP James Purnell. It seems that the MP has been 'photoshopped' into a photo-opportunity at Tameside Hospital for this week's press that he didn't actually attend (dutifully carried by the Glossop Chronicle/Tameside Reporter).

And as we've been noting over the past few months, Purnell's staff love to mess with the internet. We chronicled how a member of Purnell's staff, Longdendale Councillor Sean Parker-Perry, had been behind the now dormant 'roadmunkey' weblog and was extremely active in altering wikipedia articles about his boss, as well as other articles like the Longdendale Bypass (some bright spark has begun to chronicle these edits here).

We wonder has this will all turn out for Purnell and his minions? We'll add more when time allows...

**10.30 p.m. update - the story's set to run, with Purnell employing the 'broken record' approach with Gordon Burns on tonight's North West Tonight (video below) - very reminiscent of Michael Howard vs Jeremy Paxman! Contradictions abound and Purnell is on the ropes. But will the media latch on to the equally dodgy meddlings of his underlings?

2 comments:

anonee said...

Levitt said they planned the whole thing when they posed for the original photo as they left a gap for Purnell!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/30/ntory1330.xml

Tom Hagen said...

What James Purnell is actually saying and what seems to be the impression from the Labour party is that yes he did approve it, had he seen the botched up photoshoppery, he wouldn't of released it to all the PR bunnies.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2179604,00.html

"There was no explicit conversation about merging the photos with some kind of Photoshop," the spokeswoman added.

Bless...