Was your Reform candidate a fake?

[noblegiraffe]

We know that the election was called unexpectedly and that small parties had to rush around last minute to find people to stand in all the constituencies. We know that Reform had problems with (lack of) vetting and some of theirs had to be dropped mid-campaign due to being problematic.

I saw a couple of amusing videos on twitter about someone worried that their Glaswegian Reform candidate Helen Burns didn't actually exist
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808772750938448124?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808857245456773492?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

This morning I see that the North Northumberland Reform candidate Katherine Hales was suspiciously absent from all proceedings.

https://x.com/josiahmortimer/status/1809583328049168541?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Clifford Ronald Thomas Bond in York Central also had no photos and the same generic leaflet as Helen Burns.

Helen Burns got 1655 votes, Katherine Hales got 7688 votes, Cliff Bond got 4721 votes. These start stacking up when you are talking about vote share and they're not the only missing candidates.

Did your Reform candidate appear to be a real person standing for election? Are there rules requiring people standing for election to actually do anything apart from be a name on paper? It seems suspicious, particularly if that party is now banging on about their vote share, if it came via dodgy means.

They look way more convincing than Mark Matlock.

@wonderstuff following the Reform money might lead you to the Kremlin.......

Such as?

If they exist, why is there no photo, or record of them existing online? Why did they not show up to the vote count?

And why are some of them using AI generated photos?

Or China......

Mines lived in a different county. Not sure if he was real or not. I am from a high south Asian area so he had no hope anyway.

Exactly. 👏👏

I hope Mark doesn't turn out to be real. He's going to end up with a complex otherwise.

Blimey, MNHQ wasted no time zapping the disco machine!

Of course. If that’s been proven to be the case…..The York candidate apparently was an unfortunate oversight rather than intended fraud.

He looks like Elon

I was going to say Helen Burns.

I got her leaflet in the post and it struck me as odd that there was no photo of her on it, so spent ten mins or so googling her, and nothing came up. Thought it most peculiar.

No way is this a real person. Look at the weird eyes and the hole underneath his collar which isn't attached to his shirt.

What happened there? I only saw their first post which seemed unremarkable.

Reform might just have stuck in dozens of paper candidates in order to have a name on every ballot paper. They don’t have to do any campaigning or even want to be elected - if they’re real people, somewhere, and are eligible to stand then this seems to be OK?

I agree it's suss. There needs to be a new rule that all candidate photo must display hands. AI can't do hands and fingers - they always end up twisted 17 fingered monstrosities.

You think that's a real photo of a real person?!

We had a mysterious reform candidate, no leaflets, no biographical info, no address (actually found one out of area if it was the right man). Absolutely no information about him and I seriously looked, but he still got thousands of votes.

Rupert Lowe was chairman of Southampton FC.
Inside St Mary's is the big wooden board with the names of all past chairmen.
Its in an area only open to club grandees.
Rupert's name has been BADLY defaced
snigger

I doubt if that's an autocorrect. She probably thinks it's edgy and clever.