Tory MP candidate caught getting friend to pose as anti-Labour swing voter

Ashfield’s Conservative candidate Lee Anderson caught setting up door-knock with friendly voter more disinformation from the Tory ministry of truth.

Lee Anderson, who is standing in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, is shown in a MailPlus video knocking on a door to a voter called “Steve” and introducing himself. Steve says he will back Mr Anderson.

However, the encounter seems to have been set up in advance, as journalist Michael Crick shows a clip of Mr Anderson arranging the door knock over the phone while standing away from the camera. Anderson, forgot he was wearing a live microphone while he phoned his friend to set up the fake encounter to impress a journalist he is heard saying:

“Make out you know who I am… you know I’m the candidate, but not a friend, alright?” Mr Anderson was recorded saying as he spelt out instructions to his friend minutes before bringing a journalist to his door.

The candidate also appeared to lie about the content of the phone call, commenting to the reporter as he hung up that it was about “some leaflets that have just come for me”.

Upon arriving at the doorstep, the supposed swing voter told the Tory candidate: “There’s no way Labour are ever going to get my vote again!” before heartily endorsing Mr Anderson’s policy proposal to send problem tenants to labour camps.

Mr Crick said he was later alerted that his producer caught the encounter being set up.

He tells the caller he will see him shortly before hanging up, returning to Mr Crick and saying: “Some leaflets have just come for me.”

Mr Anderson made headlines last week when he proposed that anti-social tenant should be put in tents in fields and made to pick potatoes, but he did not want to discuss the idea when asked by Mr Crick.

Watch journalist Michael Crick catch out Tory Lee Anderson another episode from the Tory ministry of truth.

Last week the party set up a fake website, labourmanifesto.co.uk, which purported to contain the Labour manifesto but which actually presented voters with Tory attack lines. It paid Google to push the website to the top of search results.

Earlier in the week, the Conservatives set up a fake fact-checking service “factcheckUK” on social media that was actually controlled by its press office and was used to pump out Tory messaging and endorsements of Boris Johnson. The move was branded “dystopian” and condemned by bona fide fact-checking services.

The Ministry of Truth concerns itself with with lies: Tories set up fake Labour manifesto website