Male Conservatives bear brunt of abuse

MALE Tory MP candidates received the highest percentage of abuse on Twitter during the general election campaign, research has shown.

While party leaders were the worst affected, the research found almost six per cent of messages directed at male Conservative politicians were abusive.

Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May, Sadiq Khan and Boris Johnson bore the brunt of social media attacks, with the quar- tet receiving more than 50 per cent of the total number of abusive tweets sent to politicians in the run-up to June 8.

Mrs May has ordered a review into the scale of MP intimidation amid concern that social media threats are discouraging people from standing for public office.

It comes after research conducted by The Daily Telegraph revealed that three in four new MPS were looking at improving security at their homes after being subjected to abuse.

Research undertaken by Buzzfeed News and the University of Sheffield looked at 840,000 tweets sent during the month before June 8. It found that male Conservative candidates received the highest percentage of abuse on Twitter, while male Ukip candidates were second, with just over four per cent of their mentions deemed to be abusive.

Male Labour candidates and female Conservative candidates were on about four per cent, while just over two per cent of female Labour candidate mentions were abusive. The findings come with the caveat that prominent politicians were most targeted for abuse and there are more prominent male politicians. But the research does paint a picture of the scale of the abuse.

Mr Corbyn was the most abused politician, as he received almost 6,000 abusive mentions, with Mrs May narrowly behind on over 5,500.