A ‘concerned individual’ has decided to take on the Tories’ controversial ‘dementia tax’ Google advertising campaign by injecting cash into his own.
Jason Scales, 22, from Manchester, has spent £750 so far on “Strong and unstable deception” paid-for search results to run two advertising campaigns revealing “the truth about the Conservatives’ plan to screw you”.
The posts link to this page, which reads ‘Batten down the hatches, she’s comin’ for ya!” before dubbing the Prime Minister “the queen of backtrack and false promises” and then linking to the Labour Party website.
It is attributed to being “promoted by a concerned individual on behalf of the British Electorate”.
Despite their hatred of the term ‘Dementia Tax’, the Conservative Party adopted the phrase for their latest Google advertising campaign in a bid to reveal “the truth” about the infamous nickname for their social care plan.
However, former internet entrepreneur Scales was inspired to start his own campaign because he felt the Tories were trying to “quash and backtrack their own shameful policy”.
He told HuffPost UK his £750 investment, which paid for two ads linking to his page, which links to the Labour Party’s take on the Tories’ social care plans, will pay for up to 5,000 clicks on the ad, while up to 72,000 might see it.
The Business Development Manager, who wouldn’t reveal who is voting for in the General Election (except that it won't be the Tories), said: “The way in which the Conservative Party have used SMM (social media marketing) to basically ‘quash and backtrack’ on their own shameful policy, is not acceptable and that’s why I think my actions are fair.
“I don’t believe in is that you can spend your way out of a hole, much like all this nonsensical fake news. If you don’t have a counter to the ads to state the facts as they are, then it’s sending a wrong message.
“They are spending a lot of money on it and as much as I believe what I’m doing is fair, I’m not sure I’m prepared to put more on it. They’ll certainly win the SMM budget competition. But traffic has been through the roof, constantly, all day since they started.
“I’m not using the website to lobby for signatures or ask for donations - it’s simply to send a message and provide a balanced view in comparison to their own message they are pedaling. But the comments I’ve been sent on Twitter have been positive, I’m not bothered how people view it.”
He added he won’t spend too much more on the advertisements: “If anyone wants to contribute, but I’m pretty certain I won’t spend ‘much’ more,” he said.
When asked about the Conservative Party’s Google ads, a spokesman said: “It is quite right we take steps to tackle the misinformation and fear being spread by Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.”
