Conservative Party blames ‘bug’ for Twitter account being temporarily deleted

The Tories are having an absolute nightmare, with Rishi Sunak leading them to their worst election result in history and now on July 8, the Conservative Party’s X / Twitter account temporarily disappeared from the platform.

The account came up with an error message that “something went wrong” in the late morning, before coming back online a short while later.

The party has not shared or retweeted a single post since July 5, when it reposted a Tweet from Sunak of his resignation speech in which he wrote the public had sent his party “a clear message” and that his departure was a “difficult day”.

Alongside standing down as Prime Minister, Sunak said he would also step down as party leader - once the formal processes for determining his replacement have been agreed.

In the meantime, their X / Twitter account decided to disappear, with the Conservative Party blaming a “bug” for the vanishing act.

Politicoreports a more specific comment from CCHQ, which is that it was a “mistake from Twitter Support” it is looking to resolve.

Whatever happened, the idea of a defeated political party having their X / Twitter account deleted - however that came to be - has delighted other users on the platform:

Now that it’s back, the account has replaced its bio of “Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future” (the name of its election manifesto), with simply: “The official X of the Conservative and Unionist Party.”

And this is not the first time the Conservative Party’s X / Twitter account has made headlines either, as back in 2019 it was slammed for rebranding to ‘FactCheck UK’ to create the impression it belonged to an independent fact-checking organisation during an ITV debate.

It tried something similar for a BBC debate this year, changing its name and branding to ‘Tax Check UK’ to further push its messaging around Labour’s “tax bombshell”.

Indy100 has approached X / Twitter for comment.

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