I stumbled onto an interesting picture on Twitter tonight, one which immediately struck me as a fake.
Now of course, there are plenty of lousy Photoshop jobs online – such as the amazing levitating Chinese park inspectors – but this one was a little more interesting.
With the accompanying quote:
“Guess who was at today’s Labor caucus meeting? I thought he was suspended!!”
Firstly, Craig Thomson IS suspended and/or resigned from the ALP, so they aren’t going to be dumb enough to put him in front of the TV cameras at a caucus meeting.
Secondly, he seems to have a REALLY long neck in this photo – take note of the shoulders of the various people sitting in the same row.
I can’t conclusively say it’s a Photoshopped image, but either it IS faked, or it was taken from another day, and another caucus meeting.
How can I be sure it’s one or the other? Take note of the colour of Kelvin Thompson’s tie across the aisle.
Looks red?
Look what colour tie Kelvin is wearing today, taken from this live stream of the House of Representatives this evening:
Looks yellow? I’ve included evidence of the date I took the screen dump in the background.
He’s not even wearing the same suit! The original image is quite clearly from a different day, even if it is Photoshopped.
I don’t of course know who tried to swing this scam. Perhaps the owner of the tweet in which I found it was the person. Perhaps that user found the image and shared it?
We’ll probably never know – but the question is now out there.
What this goes to show is that people who are determined to see Craig Thomson go down will do anything, including deliberately making stuff up.
I don’t know if Thomson is guilty or innocent of the allegations against him – I’ll leave that up to a court of law.
Just as everyone else should too.