Grant Shapps makes beautifully awkward Twitter typo
Tory Party chairman accused of being out of touch after misspelling the word 'dole
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The Tory party chairman has done it again. Grant Shapps has once more found Twitter fame for all the wrong reasons, tweeting "UK unemployment tumbles by a further 146,000. A good moment to recall that every Lab govt in history has left more people on the doll."
His misspelling of ‘dole’ caused much merriment amongst Twitter users. However some accused Shapps of being so out of touch with voters he couldn’t even spell the word dole.
He’s been accused of patronising the electorate before, after promoting the government’s budget with a beer and bingo poster that was seen by many as belittling working class people.
Simon Blackwell, scriptwriter on the satirical comedy The Thick Of It, tweeted: “Genuinely, if that Conservative beer and bingo ad had come up at a Thick Of It script meeting we’d have rejected it as being too far-fetched.”
The hashtag Torybingo was soon the only budget-related hashtag on the site and quickly developed a life of its own with people tweeting bingo callers number-rhymes to make their point.
They included: “Bank off-shore? 44”; “Rickety hips that you can't get fixed - 66”; “No time to skive it's (p)45”; “Closed your local A&E, number 23” and “77, let's frack Devon
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments