Tory MP blames ‘young person’ for doctored video as election campaign plunged into crisis

Ben Bradley admitted that the Conservative election campaign had been hit by ‘cock-ups’

A Conservative MP has blamed “a young person” on the party’s campaign team for doctoring a video of a Labour shadow minister.

Mansfield MP Ben Bradley admitted the video was one of a series of “cock-ups” which marred the first day of the official Tory campaign for the 12 December general election.

But he rejected the idea that Tories were running “a cynical campaign of lies”, insisting that issues like the disputed video and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Grenfell Tower gaffe were “mistakes”.

Mr Bradley’s comments came as Tories suffered a storm of criticism over a social media clip released by the party which showed shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer appearing to falter for several seconds during an interview when in fact he had provided an immediate answer.

Tory chairman James Cleverly defended the clip, while admitting it had been “edited”. But Tory minister Johnny Mercer issued an apology for retweeting the footage, which he said had been “inexplicably doctored”.

Asked about the issue on BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Bradley – who was formerly Tory vice-chair for youth – said: “A lot of the time people just cock things up. And yesterday wasn’t a great day because people cocked things up.”

Asked if the video should now be removed, he said: “It’s probably quite a young person in the digital department that’s done something that they though was good.

“I don’t buy into this idea there’s a cynical campaign of lies. These things just tend to be mistakes … I think it’s a cock-up.”

Mr Bradley was also challenged over Mr Rees-Mogg’s comments – for which the Commons Leader later apologised – suggesting that Grenfell victims lacked the “common sense” to flee the burning building.

He said: “Jacob has apologised and explained – I think it was more a case of shoddy wording than anything else.”

The Mansfield MP was also asked about prime minister Boris Johnson’s comparison of Jeremy Corbyn’s “hatred” of wealth creators with Joseph Stalin’s persecution of land-owning peasants – or “Kulaks” – in the 1930s.

“The point is absolutely true when you’ve got Jeremy Corbyn talking about booting all the billionaires out the country,” he said.