Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Is Bevanite Ellie really worth two front pages?

Large pictures of Labour Twitterer Ellie Gellard adorn the front pages of both The Times and The Telegraph this morning. I aint linking, you can find them yourself if you must.


Ellie is know on-line for being a ridiculously on-message Labour Twitter user under the guise of @BevaniteEllie (warning, link may contain propaganda). In fact she is so blinkered and partisan that I had to stop following her, and I am pretty tolerant of that sort of thing. I remember one exchange I had with her when I didn't agree with her about something that she told me she felt physically sick.

Anyway, the "story" is that apparently a couple of years ago she thought the time had come for Gordon Brown to stand down. You know, her and probably at least 80% of all Labour members. And she has recently been used to introduce Brown at events. She was there at the manifesto launch yesterday. Oh and she said something beastly about Margaret Thatcher on Twitter at some point.

That's it. Someone hardly anyone has heard of a couple of years ago was a bit pissed off with the Labour leader and said so (along with loads of other Labour members). And she made a slightly off-colour joke about a former PM with whom she clearly has strong ideological differences.

How on Earth will The Times and the Telegraph find the space for all the other Labour members who have done things like this too on their front pages?

Oh, did I mention that Ellie is 21 years old and very pretty too? But of course this can't have had anything to do with the editorial decision to run with a large photo of her on their respective front covers.

Can it?

4 comments:

SaltedSlug said...

This isn't even journalism as I understand the term.
Who the hell outside of the political blogging/tweeting crowd has even heard of her, much less gives a blue toss what she has ever said, about anything?

This is playground stuff and I'm pretty sure we have more pressing issues.

(Says the guy whose been blocked by her for months after obscenely editing her retweets)

Dippyness. said...

Can't understand why they're making such a fuss. They never picked up on her blogging that she hoped Lady Thatcher would fall down, break her neck & die, during her recent visit to No10!
She blocked me 'cos I dared to tell her not ALL suffragettes supported the Labour party!

Anonymous said...

I agree.

Had you called for Nick Clegg's head back in 2008 and then introduced him at a manifesto launch there's no way you'd be splashed over the front pages.

Without wanting to cause offence to you, you aren't as good looking as young Ellie!

MatGB said...

@Anon: this much is true, why d'you think we ended up using that picture in the header ;-)

Whole thing is utterly overblown.

Unrelated: @Dippyness, she blocked you just for that? Really? Utterly crazy, Fawcett was a well known prominent Liberal FFS. Oh, wait, the Suffragists had nothing to do with the eventual victory, I forget, it was only the Pankhursts that mattered in any way...