Twitter says UK PM Johnson's party misled public with 'factcheck' account

The two men hoping to be Britain's next prime minister went head to head on Tuesday (November 19) night.

But on Wednesday (November 20) morning, the talk wasn't so much about the performance of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.

Instead, there was controversy over the Conservative Party's social media activities during the live debate on ITV.

It changed the name of the party's press office twitter account to Fact Check UK.

The move was apparently designed to make it look like an independent fact checking service.

But it sent out tweets like these, attacking Labour's Brexit policy.

By Wednesday morning, the account was back to its original guise, but there was widespread anger.

Labour called it a scam - and said it shows you can't trust a word they say.

Twitter accused the Conservatives of misleading the public.

And Full Fact - the UK's independent factchecking charity - was also critical.

It said: "It is inappropriate and misleading for the Conservative press office to rename their twitter account 'factcheckUK' during this debate. Please do not mistake it for an independent fact checking service."

But the Conservatives were unabashed.

On Wednesday morning Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab denied any intention to mislead.

He said it was just about holding Labour to account.