Oh dear. Is the Labour leadership campaign beginning to get too much for the Burnham camp? After the Guardian announced last night that they would be endorsing Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham’s campaign manager Michael Dugher was quick to tweet a link to the Guardian‘s 2010 endorsement of Nick Clegg.
BREAKING NEWS (2010): @guardian backs Nick Clegg http://t.co/59bJFzIX2A
— Michael Dugher (@MichaelDugher) August 13, 2015
As this endorsement didn’t work out too well for the Liberal Democrats, some users took this to be a thinly veiled dig by Dugher — who previously worked closely with Labour spin doctor Damian McBride under Gordon Brown — to suggest that the paper’s endorsement is not worth much.
@MichaelDugher that's low and unnecessary
— Martin Gowans 🌹 (@martingowans) August 13, 2015
However, Labour’s attack dog appeared to be keen to downplay such suggestions, hastily tweeting that he hadn’t wound up the ‘Liberal Democrats’ in a while but it was ‘deeply satisfying’:
Nice to wind up some Lib Dems tonight. I've laid off them recently – didn't feel very sporting. But it's been deeply satisfying nonetheless.
— Michael Dugher (@MichaelDugher) August 13, 2015
Still, while the Cooper camp may not take kindly to the tweet, Mr S suspects that the Guardian has bigger issues to contend with. After they announced that they were endorsing Cooper, many readers reacted angrily claiming they were ‘Tory-lite’:
https://twitter.com/TimMacpherson/status/632071013526863872
https://twitter.com/LeeMorgan239/status/632070304584630273
https://twitter.com/NeilCotter/status/632033946780307460
You are pathetic @guardian for endorsing Yvette Cooper. Just an empty vessel of ambition. Your readers want #JeremyCorbyn.
— Moya (@Furrvis) August 14, 2015
Mr S suspects it’s time the paper launched another in-house inquiry into whether their Corbyn coverage is biased.
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