Former mayor praised himself and even had conversations with himself via the ‘sockpuppet’ account – then blamed his wife when found out
Former mayor of Camden council Lazzaro Pietragnoli has resigned his position as Labour’s chief whip after being discovered running a ‘sockpuppet‘ Twitter account, posing as a ‘Primrose Hill mum’, to abuse colleagues and others, including the then-Mayor of the borough, left-winger Maryam Eslamdoust – and then trying to blame his professor wife for it when he was caught, according to the Camden New Journal.
Pietragnoli ran the account for around five years. During that time, he attacked Jeremy Corbyn, called Eslamdoust a ‘scumbag’ and – still serving as a Labour councillor – advised people to vote Green while Corbyn was the party leader.
The account, which Pietragnoli has admitted was abusive, regularly praised him and even had conversations with him on Twitter.
When caught out Pietragnoli claimed the account was run by his wife, Professor Valentina Arena, and briefly changed its ‘bio’, adding (Valentina) to its ‘handle’ and adding ‘proud wife of Cllr Lazzaro Pietragnoli’. Based on his claim, the CNJ published an article pointing the finger at Prof Arena and has since apologised.
Under Labour’s rules, bringing the party into disrepute and advocating for another party while a Labour member are both automatic expulsion offences. It remains to be seen whether Pietragnoli will get a free pass because of his right-wing credentials.
Cllr Eslamdoust has said that Pietragnoli’s abuse was not a victimless crime, that she was ‘horrified’ that it had come from the Labour group’s chief whip and that the abuse had caused her stress during her pregnancy.
Pietragnoli has now referred himself to the council’s standards committee and has issued an apology, claiming he was under stress at the time. On blaming his wife for the account, he said:
I panicked and came up with the worst possible explanation without considering the consequences of my action. I appreciate the distress that this situation has caused to many people and would like to apologise to them unreservedly.
Keir Starmer has so far not commented on the matter.
Skwawkbox view:
As has long been clear, despite the narrative pushed by the Labour right and its media friends that left-wing social media accounts generate abuse, in reality the vast majority of the abuse came from the right toward the left. Pietragnoli is a case in point, but such conduct has not been limited to social media and some of those responsible now sit on Keir Starmer’s front bench.
After five years of handwringing and whining when Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the right is now shamelessly meting out exactly the treatment that it falsely claimed it was suffering. The main thing that makes Pietragnoli’s case stand out is that he was outed and apologised, rather than the media covering for him as they do for the parliamentary and staff-level abusers from Keir Starmer down.
It was and remains a scam perpetrated on the people of this country and particularly the vulnerable.
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Gotta ask again, has the Campaign for Countering Digital Hatred thrown its weight behind challenging this abhorrent behaviour?
Or is this brand of hatred permissible in their esteemed opinion…? 🤔
@Wirral
The Campaign for Creating Decent Handouts sees no gains from this.
As for the story, what an utter shithouse!
It seems the whole right was abusing the last leader on social media,
Reply to tcliverpool
Yes Jeremy was attacked on all sides and people pretending to be his supporters posted vile comments on line to undermine him and to try to turn us against him. It wasn’t just the Tories that engaged in these dirty underhand tricks – the Labour right did so too. Now this Labour right winger has been exposed for what he is – a nasty lying piece of work – and trying to blame his wife for what he did demonstrates once and for all that he is the lowest of the low.
If a Socialist or Socialist Supporter or any Non Zionist had behaved this way they would have been immediately suspended by the party centrally. This does not seem to have happened here despite Pietragnoli having abused his fellow party members over a 5 year period. Clearly the party isn’t too concerned about his disgusting behaviour as the people maligned were Socialists which makes the party hierarchy are even more disgusting than he is in my opinion.
I’d divorce him if I was the wife.
The UK’s Mental Health crisis is worse than I thought.
I can’t think of any other reason for this.
I wonder how many more there are? I used to expect it from Tories, there’s always been an army of pensioners doing their but for the party, from giving bad reviews to left wing books on Amazon and claiming Atlas Shrugged is the greatest book ever written to a looney who used to write about feckless council tenants with satellite dishes who used to ask him for advice on how to claim sickness benefit while being fit to work. I look back on that with some amusement and used to have fun baiting them. Unfortunately, it’s all become too real now with people employed by Labour to run software looking for inappropriate comments on social media. The news has just reported that the cricketer at the centre of the racism row once made an antisemitic comment. Looks like that’s kicked any change into the long grass. Certainly I will never be able to rejoin Labour, I’ve used social media to promote Israeli help for Isis in Syria along with firing missiles from planes in Jordan’s airspace on a regular basis, according to Starmer that’s antisemitic conspiracy theory and grounds for expulsion.
Media and communication has been politically weaponised by Labour and the MSM to the level you’d expect in a fascist state.
I don’t know. “Primrose hill mum” and “Centrist dad”. What’s happening?
Great news about HS2. Starmer wouldn’t have the nerve to get rid of an unaffordable train line for city executives. All so they can buy cheap country estates, pushing up house prices and saving half an hour.
Starmer is disgusted that the second part of HS2 is not being built. Strangely, in March 2016 he voted to stop the London to Birmingham bit. So I wonder what he wants – All of it, or NONE of it?
He wants whatever voters along the route want. Generally they’re all for it if they’re house owners. They hoped to cash in on rising house prices.
HS2.will only inflate house prices in areas close to stations with good transport to them. There are precious few of them. The destruction caused by HS2 is for minimal gain.
It should never have been started. Here in the Midlands we need four rail tracks from Rugby to Stafford, with passing lines where this is not possible. Some of the space (Coventry to Birmingham) was bought in the 1930s and is clearly visible.
There many other schemes crying out for support across the UK.
This is small potatoes when compared with Starmer impersonating the leader of the LP.
Pietragnoli has now referred himself to the council’s standards committee and has issued an apology, claiming he was under stress at the time.
Poor lad. 😒 All them hundreds of thousands – if not (tens of) millions – struggling to get by on a day-to-day basis…The stress they suffer….Perhaps they should meet out abuse to those they don’t particularly like on social networks and then blame their spouses/partners.
“My wife’s primrose hill mum…and so am I”
Slime.
Mete…not meet
Oh… Almost forgot to give my (no prizes) prediction that his admission, along with his self-referral and ‘apology’ (But of course he’s sorry…Sorry he got collared) will all be taken into consideration when considering his
predetermined complete exonerationcase.Praising yourself on social media while doling out abuse to others and then blaming your other half for the lot of it; is all mitigating, rather than aggravating factors – providing you’re on board with keef’s labour.
An aside, and why not?
A powerful analysis of current events.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/in-keir-starmers-anti-racist-universe-palestinians-dont-count/
C stands for Conceit and A for Arrogance. Corrupt and without integrity