The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Syndicate contentRSS

Wanted: the story of Ellie Gellard

. . . aka @BevaniteEllie.

It was always likely to be a strange day for Ellie Gellard, known to her (3,000-plus) Twitter followers as @BevaniteEllie. Just when you'd expect her to provide a blow-by-blow account of Labour's manifesto launch in 140-character bursts, all went quiet on the Twittersphere.

Why? Because she was there in person, on the podium, introducing the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Not a bad gig for a 20-year-old party activist.

What followed was fairly inevitable. First, her previous online utterings were trawled for something "embarrassing", or at least not on-message (I'm not sure they're the same thing).

Sure enough, this blog post came to light. Judging by the social media audit trail, it looks like Conservative press office researchers got busy pretty quickly: their head of press, Henry Macrory, tweeted it just before 3pm, and it wasn't long before Tory Bear and Iain Dale were following his lead.

Second, she was asked to do a media interview. But, much to the dismay of Sky News, she said no. Nonetheless, expect a smattering of mini-profiles in tomorrow's papers.

(Incidentally, last time she made a mini-splash was when she successfully campaigned to show the "Against the Odds" video as an election broadcast.)

UPDATE (13 April): Sure enough, the Times and the Daily Telegraph have prominent pictures of Gellard on their front pages this morning.

Follow the New Statesman team on Facebook.

3 comments

jeremiah's picture

Showbusiness for ugly people?!

David Wearing1's picture

That blog post reflects very well on her. The tactical question of backing Alan Johnson aside, the strategic/moral argument that Blairism is failing the Labour Party and the country, for the reasons she gives (which are rooted in genuine left-wing progressivism), is entirely correct.

If the Tories want to publicise the fact that Labour people have values like those expressed in Gellard's post, thinking it will damage Labour in some way, then let them do it.

Parasite's picture

The sight of a condescending scion of Holland Park, who jets between Paris and London to swill champagne, lecturing the lower orders on how the future must be "fair for all" is more sickening than any posts about whether Brown should go or Thatcher fall down the stairs.

Latest tweets