Abolish Senedd Member schooled by 17-year old in Twitter tussle

A party-hopping Senedd member came off second best after taking on a 17-year old Covid stats whiz in a Twitter tussle.

Abolish the Assembly politician Mark Reckless attempted to put Lloyd Warburton right after the latter called on Twitter to kick Donald Trump’s associates and supporters off the platform.

Reckless accused Warburton of also having been suspended from the platform – and accusation the teenager from Aberystwyth pointed out wasn’t true.

Lloyd was commenting after outgoing President Donald Trump’s account was shut down by the social media platform.

“All well and good kicking these guys off, but a lot of Trump’s associates and supporters post things even more malicious than he did,” Lloyd said. “It’s a start, but if Twitter want to get rid of all promotion of conspiracy theories and violence, they need to do more.”

Mark Reckless took issue with the comment, responding: “Didn’t Twitter previously suspend Lloyd for sharing information about COVID?”

However, Lloyd pointed out that the Senedd Member was incorrect. “No. The link to my website was maliciously reported, and I couldn’t post it for about two weeks,” he said.

“It was fixed and I’ve had no issues since. I have never had my Twitter account suspended for any reason.”

Lloyd Warburton has since March of last year run the Coronavirus Cymru website and posted regular statistical updates to his Twitter page, garnering over 21,000 followers and winning a national award for his efforts.

The exchange elicited a strong reaction on social media, with former Bridgend Council Leader Jeffrey Jones noting that Lloyd had “just nutmegged Reckless and put the ball of truth in the back of the net”.

“Not coming out of this one too well are you Mark?” actor Ifan Huw Dafydd said. “Held a blunderbuss to your foot, and pulled the trigger. Painful.”

Mark Reckless, however, said that he “holds Lloyd Warburton in high regard” and was simply making a point about the dangers of banning people on social media.

“At times it seems they have blocked access to non-official sources of information on COVID, even if as useful as yours,” he said.

“It is one reason we should be careful of calling for bans on people and views we don’t like.”

Mark Reckless was elected to the Senedd as a UKIP member, before supporting the Conservative group, becoming an independent, then a member of the Brexit Party, before finally joining Abolish the Assembly.