It appears such an own goal with this indeed- they literally created controversy out of nothing- they're doing the same yesterday too with the Corbyn=Stalin and then refusing to say that being executed is worse than paying extra tax (The Andrew Neil Interview was amazing to watch).
On the edited video though- i suspect it might have been an attempt at being very clever (and still might have been)they've employed Sean Topham and Ben Guerin from Australia who ran an election strategy for the Aus libds called 'Boomer memes'- essentially they take controversial/false data that has a core message that essentially is 'trash' and put it up on social media. The idea is (and it worked in Australia) that it's so stupid/controversial that opponents share it to mock it, and due to the discussion/attention- even mostly negative it manipulates twitter, Facebook and google algorithms to appear frequently. Through this re-sharing and 'going viral' few people then actually check the actual source to see the apology/correction/to see if its edited/dumb.
The message then may 'resonate' with some voters, simply through exposure and get the basic/underling point across regardless of how it was delivered. Again worked really well in Australia- however this edit, i think has been so poorly handled i just can't see the political capital being worth the sleaze accusations their now heaped with. Saying that though- i've still seen the edited video shared online with the commentators genuinely believing it and laughing at Starmer for having no answers- when in fact he did respond.
@All- but generally aye, i think i can't add much that ya'll haven't said- Currently it's looking very much like a repeat of 2017 for the Tories, something i thought would be unimaginable. Just an hour ago there was this-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...box=1573156450
Another Tory candidate found to have made really stupid remarks about rape that forced Boris to distance himself. A fair few parties seem to be having trouble with their candidate vetting process (Its like both big parties have given up on retaining any presence in Scotland- they're all over the place there)- the difference being so far is that the Conservatives are still letting there guys stand.
Does anyone know by the way the status of the Conservative activist base? In 2017 aftermath the reports were essentially unless something radical was done (Which it wasn't), they would suffer huge manpower shortages due to a lack of activists and poor organization. I can't find any info on if this is fixed or not, but it could be decisive. I know its not the same issue directly, but it might also be why the Conservatives are 'faking' their rallies. Boris's launch campaign when a picture of the room was actually taken, held around 50 odd people, i'm guessing they are either trying to run a very tightly controlled public appearance campaign for him (hence no real questions and select audiences that use clever camera work to hide the spareness- this would see this election as a May 2.0 indeed), or they just can't spare the people.