Women’s Minister Maria Caulfield has been ripped apart for her “fear-mongering” when it comes to the Tory election campaign.
It comes as the Tories have been accused of using “project fear” tactics to scare voters by pushing the threat of a Labour “supermajority” being the outcome of Thursday’s general election.
It has been suggested that the ploy was used to try to prevent Tory voters defecting to Reform UK.
Oliver Dowden claimed on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that Moscow is using Facebook pages to spread support for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party and bots are interfering with the potential election result.
The PM has claimed Russian bots are interfering with the election
GB News
Speaking about this on GB News, host Isabel Webster said: “Project Fear does seem to be the attack line coming out of HQ. You’ve got the Prime Minister talking about bots behind Reform and talking about Russian interference.”
Caulfield responded: “No. We know across the whole world that there are threats of AI. Global experts have been very clear on whether it’s China or Russia, we know that there’s been interference not just in this country, but in many countries in elections.
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“It’s proper to flag that. We’ve seen it before this election with fake videos circulating of politicians of all colours.
“We’ve called those out at every stage. So we do need to be mindful of interference in elections more generally. But absolutely, we’re sending a positive message.
“I’m on the doorsteps every day for hours at a time. And it’s not fear-mongering. People are genuinely worried about having a Labour government.
“Particularly on taxation, is not being clear how they will raise the money to pay for the things they say they want to do in their manifesto. And that can only be removing the freeze on fuel duty, council tax rebounding, not increasing tax thresholds, particularly for pensioners.”
Nigel Farage called it “cobblers” to claim bots could interfere with the election
GB NEWS
Isabel blasted: “You had a positive message that you were going out with and it sounds like you’re just criticising the Labour manifesto.”
The minister explained: “People are genuinely worried about having a Labour government that, particularly on taxation, is not being clear how they will raise the money to pay for the things they say they want to do in their manifesto…
“We are selling a positive message, we are turning a corner as a country. NHS waiting lists are down six months in a row, 200,000 people have come off those waiting lists since January.
“We’ve opened up over 100 rapid diagnostic centres, 100 surgical hubs, more nurses than ever before, over 70,000 extra nurses, there’s really positive news.
Caulfield said they are sending a “positive message”
GB News
“Often the media don’t want to hear that but perhaps we’ve not been as good at rolling the pitch as we should have been, but there is a real positive message to be sold.”
This comes after Farage faced a backlash for saying he blames the West and NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Farage called it “cobblers” to claim bots generated by foreign state actors could interfere with the election outcome.
