Social media has become quite the political weapon in recent weeks. During Glastonbury the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader, Tom Watson, was snapchatting away while things back in Westminster fell apart. It's also been reported that politicians across different parties have been using WhatsApp to plot with groups exploring topics such as how to stop Boris Johnson becomming leader.
Over the weekend an unlikely anarchist in the shape of Lily Allen’s Twitter, was instrumental in breaking another major political story. Lily Allen was at a garden party hosted by the owner of The Evening Standard and Independent owner, Evgeny Lebedev, when saw something that she just couldn’t not share with her followers.
Media mogul and king maker, Rupert Murdoch who owns The Sun and The Times among other organisations, was having lunch with the (now former) UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Conservative leadership candidate Liam Fox. Lily Allen live tweeted it.
Nigel Farage has, previously, been very vocal about this country’s ‘out of touch’ politicians and media elites. So the sight of him sipping away and chatting to one of the world’s biggest media moguls could be seen as somewhat hypocritical. Allen’s picture of Farage also exposed his highly questionable taste in shoes. Allen took particular aim at Murdoch himself, referring to him as ‘Lord Voldemort’.
Allen also tweeted a video of the three men ‘breaking bread’ in which she called them all ‘wankers’. In a world where we see politicians from supposedly ‘opposed’ sides of debates, particularly at the moment with the fallout from Brexit, it’s somewhat worrying realise that much of it is performance and that they can sit quite happily and civilly having lunch at an exclusive invite-only garden party. We’re currently witnessing a political pantomime about Britain’s membership of the EU play out on our TV screens and front pages, which has very real implications for all of us.
Speaking to The Guardian Allen said that other guests at the elite garden party had advised her not to post pictures of Rupert Murdoch. She, said ‘his publications have been making money from publishing pictures of me, though.’
She also added, ‘the interesting thing is that these people will go on about how much they hate each other but they are willing to sit and break bread with each other. It just shows that it is a game, it is not real.’
In (probably) unrelated news, Nigel Farage announced this morning that he would be stepping down as leader of UKIP. He's resigned before so only time will tell whether he's gone for good this time. In a statement he said 'I've done my bit...now I want my life back.' Post-Brexit our political leaders are dropping like flies - Cameron, Boris and now Farage. We look forward to Lily Allen bumping into all of them chillaxing at a garden party soon.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.