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ALMOST as many social media users want Liz Kendall to be the next Tory leader as those backing the Blairite to lead the Labour Party.
Just over 3,000 people have liked Ms Kendall’s official page on Facebook, which was established in March and is being used to promote her campaign.
But the Liz Kendall for Conservative Leader Facebook page had yesterday attracted almost 2,500 likes since being set up a little over a week ago.
Siobhan O’Malley explained why the group was established in a tongue-in-cheek post.
“The page has been set up by Tory members who are fed up with the domination of their party by leftwingers like David Cameron,” she wrote.
Others have suggested slogans for her campaign, including: “Tough on socialism, tough on the causes of socialism.”
But Peter Hubbard raised serious concerns over the consequences for Labour if she wins.
He wrote: “If she wins there is no point in having a Labour Party and I forsee a big increase in support for the Green Party, including me.”
Blairite former cabinet minister Alan Milburn waded into the Labour leadership debate yesterday by endorsing Ms Kendall and blaming Labour’s general election defeat on Ed Miliband.
In a brutal assessment of the former party leader, the social mobility tsar said the party “could not have got it more wrong” in its fight for No 10.
In a speech to the right-wing Centre for Social Justice, a think tank founded by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, he suggested voters were put off after the party “bet the house on the country moving to the left.”
However, support for Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign has continued to soar online.
Almost 30,000 people now like his Facebook page and 10,500 follow his campaign on Twitter.
And Mr Corbyn was the only Labour leadership candidate not to be booed at the first official Labour hustings in Stevenage on Saturday.
Ms Kendall and his other rivals, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, angered supporters by refusing to rule out supporting Tory plans to cut the benefit cap from £26,000 a year to £23,000.
Mr Corbyn’s campaign team is now calling on social media socialists to sign-up as party supporters, which costs £3, and vote for the left candidate.