The Sun Asked People To Fly The Flag For #WhiteVanGate ... And Twitter Responded In The Worst Way Possible
The hashtag #WhiteVanGate is the political story of the day in London.
Emily Thornberry, a senior Labour politician resigned her shadow cabinet position last night after tweeting a photo of a house sporting the St George's Cross, the English flag. Some people on the right thought the tweet was intended to mock the poor taste of the house's owner, who drives a white van (and thus perfectly embodies the British working class stereotype). They saw it as an insult to their Englishness, and tagged Thornberry as "too posh, too remote."
Hoping to pile on, The Sun asked its Twitter followers to tweet photos of themselves with their favourite flag:
The idea was that a plethora of St George's flags from every corner of England would show Labour what the heart of the country looks like.
It didn't quite work.