Tory MP Ben Bradley is no stranger to missteps on social media, having recently had to pay an undisclosed five-figure sum to two local charities and tweet a humiliating apology to Jeremy Corbyn after making ‘wholly untrue and false’ claims about the Labour leader.
It became – by far – the Tories’ most ‘successful’ tweet of (at least) this year, retweeted over 55,000 times, so far and rivalling even some of the US President Donald Trump’s efforts.
Bradley has also been castigated for comments about ‘splatting chavs’ and sterilising unemployed people – and had to apologise for making untrue claims about his local Labour council spending a huge sum to hire a call-centre in India.
Yesterday, Bradley provoked further outrage by tweeting a request for people to raise cash for his office team’s sponsored ‘rough sleep’:
It takes some flair to damage your image by raising money for homeless people, but Bradley’s party has just returned £817 million of unspent cash to the treasury that was earmarked to building affordable housing.
This is not a one-off. The building of government-funded social housing fell by ninety-seven percent since the Tories re-entered Downing Street in 2010.
The response was withering [language alert]:
We asked Bradley:
“You have tweeted about your staff sleeping rough to raise funds for the homeless. At the weekend, it was reported that over £800m allocated to affordable housing and related projects has been returned to the Treasury unspent. Will you be asking Phillip Hammond and his colleagues for a contribution to your sponsored rough sleeping? Any comment to make about the government’s failure to use the funds?“
A spokesperson responded:
Ben has consistently engaged with Government on the issue of rough sleeping including having Amber Rudd and then Home Office Minister Marcus Jones visit the constituency and talk directly to those delivering these services, including Framework. Ben will continue to be an advocate for improving the support that’s available and is pleased to see lots of measures coming forward from Government, both in terms of new pilot projects and the Homelessness Reduction Act. The whole team appreciate the support from the community for the charity event.
Looks like a ‘no’, then.
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FLOBALOB, FFS BEN, SWALLOW IT!
I don’t suppose any of that dough that Corbyn told him to donate went to framework HA then??
Oh, and if your chosen housing association ‘charity’ has coerced or forced vulnerable tenants to work for their dole – then they, like you, bradley, can fook right off.
https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/never-trust-a-landlord-how-housing-associations-are-teaming-up-with-the-workfare-industry/
Get your arse around to Grenfell Towers Bradley, if your concerned about the homeless and take your team with ya!
We will wait for you to arrive!
Thank you Mr Bradley another gift to the local labour party in Mansfield ( the cynical hypocrisy is almost laughable if it were not such a serious life threatening subject ) . Just keep reminding the electorate what a total turd they have elected and maybe just maybe at the election they’ll do the right thing and boot his sorry ass out of office.
Yes I am afraid we are dealing with Tory Neo-Liberal Barbarians but to widen it – we are also dealing with Right Wing Babrbarian forces around the World such as Trump (legally steals surplus labour of his employees all his life although some suggest his empire is built like a stack of cards), Putin, Erdogen, Right Wing Israeli Govt (as racists threatening to deport black migrants; Israeli Right Wing Culture Minister “We need to remove this cancer from our body) et al. Interesting re the recent nerve gas attack in the UK whilst the finger of suspicion points at you know who perhaps Right Wing forces need enemies – Putin coming up to an election playing the national card re being attacked by the West and Western Leaders need an enemy to show to people they need them to protect them? And of course ordinary working people suffer like the brave police officer and people in Salisbury because what some suggest are the power games of the Barbarians; but perhaps diverse working people in each country are not our enemies. Oh and the Bourgeois Socialists of China and North Korea (top down, telling people how to live their lives) should also be on our radar. I would argue we need peaceful, democratic grassroots, bottom up change lead by working class and progressive middle class Left Wing Democratic Socialists in every country. There is hope!
Yours in international solidarity & love.