Lucy Connolly's reply is straightforwardly false. AKA, a lie. UK electoral law requires by-election costs to be met from public funds, not by candidates or parties: Reform explicitly tried to offer to pay for the Clacton by-election and was told the law is clear that election costs must be met from public funds, not by candidates or political parties. The offer was quickly rejected as it would undermine the independence of the election, with a source noting that a political figure paying for a by-election he is standing in would clearly undermine the independence of the democratic process. So "Tax payer didn't pay. Reform did" isn't a matter of interpretation: Reform offered, was refused, and the taxpayer footed the roughly £275,000-£323,000 bill (the UK average for a by-election), as Tendring/Essex council will have had to. And yes, this is the same Lucy Connolly convicted and imprisoned in 2024 for the tweet she posted during the Southport riots calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set alight, later released and turned into something of a cause célèbre on the right. That prior profile probably explains why a false claim from her account gets amplified quickly (163 likes vs the original tweet's 89): she's a recognisable, sympathetic figure to that audience regardless of the accuracy of what she posts. Emily Hewertson has been a public political figure since 2019, when she went viral as the "Brexit Party Girl" after a BBC Question Time appearance where she said she'd been a Conservative Party member since 16. She's since become a political influencer, events coordinator and TV personality, organising events for figures like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, and appearing as a panellist on GB News and TalkTV. So hee tweet isn't a random member of the public asking an innocent question: it's a recognisable Reform/Conservative-aligned media personality with 170K followers framing a factually established point (that taxpayers footed the Clacton by-election bill, since Reform's offer to pay was explicitly refused on legal grounds) as an open question, into which Connolly then drops a straightforwardly false answer that racks up nearly double the original's engagement. That combination — a soft-pedalled "just asking questions" framing from a minor right-wing celebrity, followed by a flatly false "correction" from a convicted, rehabilitated cause célèbre, both circulating unchecked to tens of thousands of views — is just where we're at.