Carol Vorderman demands apology from Reform candidate for ‘abuse online’
Pol Allingham, Press Association
Carol Vorderman has demanded an apology from a “cowardly” Reform UK candidate in the Makerfield by-election who supported an offensive post about her, according to reports.
Robert Kenyon, who is standing against Labour’s Andy Burnham in the June 18 contest, used a now-deleted X account to support an offensive post about the Welsh broadcaster.
Messages published by campaign group Hope Not Hate showed that Mr Kenyon responded on Christmas Eve 2021 to another person’s post including graphic sexual language about the presenter, who made her name as the maths expert on Channel 4’s Countdown.
Alongside a thumbs up and a laughing emoji, the plumber wrote: “He’s only saying what we’re all thinking.”
Vorderman told The Mirror on Monday evening: “I want an apology from Rob Kenyon, to me, and to all the other people he’s abused online.”
She added: “I’m 65, I grew up in North Wales in abject poverty, I spent half of my life living in the North, whether it was Leeds, or Manchester, or that strip of North Wales.”
Earlier that day, Reform UK MP Danny Kruger described Mr Kenyon’s social media posts as “inappropriate”, but sought to defend the “private” comments of “an ordinary man”.
Asked about the message, Mr Kruger told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The great challenge for social media for private people is that they use it as if they are chatting to their friends in the park.
“Clearly an inappropriate thing to say publicly.
“I’m not going to judge people for their what are essentially regarded at the time and intended as private conversations.”
Vorderman went on to tell the Mirror that Mr Kruger “says Kenyon is just an ordinary man saying ordinary things.
“No, I’m sorry, Kenyon isn’t an ordinary man. He’s a cowardly man which is why he deleted one of his social media accounts.”
She added: “They are public comments on a public platform and if Danny Kruger thinks online abuse is OK then Reform are therefore stating online abuse against women is OK, then all women in Makerfield need to know that.”
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An apology would require a certain level of basic respect, dignity and integrity.
Reform have none of these.
Fair enough.
Reform are defending hm to the hilt. Trump does this. They are OK with deep seated hate and misogyny, and don’t forget the organisation from the US are deep into reform, the ADF. James Orr is in the mix, they really don’t like women.
Imagine what the locker bantz he claims it was is really like. This is what reform are defending.
You’re suggesting that the same people who idolise Jimmy Savile as a “working class hero” might be full of vile sexual degenerates? I don’t believe it!
An old friend of mine – deceased quite a few years back – always used to maintain that ‘it’s a real compliment if you’re disliked by some people’.
I’ve long thought that there’s a wisdom in that; Carol Vorderman would arguably have real cause for concern if she discovered that some of the luminaries in Reform UK were going on line to sing her praise!
You need to see what this reform candidate has said. There should be serious concern.
Carol. Yes it was rude, Yes it was crude,. Yes you took offence but you did not have to. And yes in some dark corner of the web it probably still exists.
But Carol you have also been putting offensive posts out and you know what they say about glass houses. And you are in the business to know the old showbiz saying about Bad Publicity.
But it has been 4 years and you still have not got over it?
Ps what did he actually say?
The stuff this creep said about her is genuinely disgusting.
Just out of interest, would you care to quote some of the “offensive posts” that Carol has been “putting out”? Or are you, as I suspect, just another Reform UK shill/voter?