HYPOCLICKS
Scottish Government hands over £474k after slamming the Tories for £20k bill
Ministers handed over a total of £ 474,298 to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and LinkedIn in 2018-19 compared to just £271,308 in 2017-18.
The expenditure came despite the SNP branding the UK Government’s Scotland Office a “Tory propaganda machine” last year after former Scottish secretary David Mundell spent almost £20,000 on Twitter ads.
The Scottish Government spending figures were released to Labour MSP Neil Findlay in response to a parliamentary question.
He told the Sunday Mail: “Here is SNP hypocrisy exposed, savaging others for the use of public money for social media advertising, then in a general election year almost doubling the Scottish Government spend on the very same thing. It is the arrogance of power and a belief they can do what they like and their hypocrisy won’t be exposed.” Scottish Conservative chief whip Maurice Golden added: “It’s immensely hypocritical, given the Nationalists have been critical of other government departments using social media.”
In 2015-16, the Scottish Government spent just £211,482.74 on social media campaigns including road safety and home energy –
£ 186,859 on Facebook, £ 22,522 on Twitter and £ 2100 on Instagram.
In 2016-17, this jumped to £ 264,763 – again the bulk of it on Facebook and the rest on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. The next year the spend jumped to £ 271,308, with Snapchat joining the list. Overall spend then soa red last year to £474,298. This time £299,370 went to Facebook, £ 88,188 to Instagram, £ 50,233 to Twitter, £ 30,712 to Snapchat and £5793 to LinkedIn.
From April to December 2019, another £281,382 of public cash was spent on social media advertising.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Spending on social media is an important part of our communications campaign, a cost-efficient way to reach target audiences.
“Social media has played a critical role in recent successful campaigns on road safety, teacher recruitment , the increased availability of early learning and childcare and encouraging EU citizens in Scotland to take up settled status.”
In December, Boris Johnson was accused of misusing taxpayers’ money to target voters in key swing constituencies with Facebook ads.
At least 17 ads promising up to £ 25million investment in towns across the UK appeared the day the general election was announced.
In March, the Sunday Mail revealed how Mundell had spent almost £20,000 on social media advertising.
He was accused of turning the taxpayer-funded Scotland Office into a “Tory propaganda machine” in the run-up to a Brexit vote that Theresa May went on to abandon.
It’s arrogance of power and a belief their hypocisy will not be exposed