Who has been impersonating Norman Lamb MP online?

Last week, someone set up on Facebook both a fake profile of Norman Lamb MP and a related fake group:

Whoever did it, clearly went to some effort, including setting up a Hotmail address in Norman Lamb’s name and adding a couple of photos featuring Norman, one of which looked like it had been edited to drop in his head into a photo that didn’t originally feature him at all.

Credit where credit is due, Facebook responded very quickly when contacted about this. However, in line with their usual privacy policy they aren’t willing to reveal any information about who may have created it.

So what can we tell about who might have done it and why? From the content on the profile and group, there is one clue. At 8.39am on Thursday 9 August this posting was made by the fake Norman Lamb (one of only three made in total):

Given that the overwhelming majority of MP and candidate groups / profiles on Facebook don’t mention their rival at all, it’s very odd that this one should have. (In fact, on a quick look now at several, I couldn’t find any which do).

Therefore this is only circumstantial evidence, but one obvious possibility is that it was a Conservative who faked the profile and group in the hope of raising the profile of Norman Lamb’s opponent.

Of course, Conservatives do have a very controversial recent record when it comes to faking things online (such as the Grant Shapps YouTube and Tim Crowley incidents).

How would we know for sure? Well, just get in touch norman_lamb@hotmail.co.uk and tell us who you are!