No place for porkies in digital politics

We have just witnessed a fascinating glimpse of the use of the internet in elections. This morning, Cameron proposed a unilateral bank tax – moving, I suspect, ahead of what he believes Darling will announce in next week’s budget. Next, at 1.19pm, Will Straw digs up a selectively-edited version of Chris Grayling speaking in his local constituency (put online by the Labour candidate, Craig Montgomery). Straw’s headline: “Calamity Grayling opposes Cameron’s unilateral bank tax.”

Now, this headline – a lie – might have worked on a Labour Party press release. But it’s far harder to lie on a blog. Grayling is quoted saying “there is absolutely no point on earth is any one country doing this unilaterally, because otherwise all the banking transactions will simply move to another one”. Gotcha? Hardly. As Straw, at least, has the decency to admit Grayling was talking about Brown’s financial transactions tax, Cameron is talking about compulsory insurance for the banks (a tax which The Spectator supports).