Tory councillor’s colossal fail when he tries to mock Corbyn over football

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted congratulations to the England football team on their win last night over Tunisia in the World Cup. As it seems the #FBPE bots couldn’t think of a way to link congratulations on an England football win to the usual ‘what about the EU?’ comments, the Tory bots and trolls took over.

But among the bots and trolls was a rare ‘real live person’ who fancied chancing his arm: Essex councillor Stephen Canning – who seemed a bit ignorant of the facts:

It was a monumentally ill-judged attempt. Unlike David ‘do I support Aston Villa or West Ham’ Cameron, Corbyn is a decades-long Arsenal season-ticket holder who attends ‘Gunners’ matches as a normal member of the crowd – a genuine football fan.

Cue much derision, merriment and scathing put-downs by those who actually know stuff, of which the screengrabs below are just a small selection:

Mr Canning’s Twitter bio mentions that he’s a ‘former Young Tories exec’ – but doesn’t mention that he now sits as an independent councillor, having previously been suspended from the Conservative party in association with the allegations against Mark Clarke, following the suicide of a young Tory activist:

He now sits as an ‘independent‘ councillor on Essex County Council and as ‘non-aligned‘ on Braintree District Council.

More recently, Canning was forced to deny allegations that he assaulted a Tory aide – although his denial contained an interesting distinction:

This resulted in a new suspension by the Tory party, which according to his councillor status is still in force – a suspension that Canning denied for two months, according to the local press:

Given his situation, it seems his attempted intervention on Corbyn’s football-related tweet was ill-judged as well as ignorant.

It’s not clear whether Mr Canning knows his offside rule from his corner kicks, but he would have done well to do some fact-checking before jumping in.

Stephen Canning was contacted for comment. He had not responded by the time of publication.

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