2) On November 16th we wrote to local Tory candidate @RobertLargan, voicing concerns about Islamophobic, transphobic and homophobic comments made by former Conservative Councillor Clive Johnson. 
3) We received this response via both email and twitter.
4) We gave @robertlargan time to write a more detailed response or start an investigation. Yesterday we wrote another letter.
5) First, @robertlargan accused us of trying to deflect from his comments about a fellow candidate (even though our post was an hour before his)
6) Then, @robertlargan told us he’d already answered our questions via email on 20th November. THIS IS WHEN THINGS GET WEIRD. We did not receive an email from Largan on 20th November.
7) @robertlargan then sent us a very strange email, in which he again claimed to have sent a more detailed response back on the 20th November.
8) Let’s forget for a moment that we are not responsible for publishing @robertlargan ’s public statements. Let’s instead zoom in on the ‘forwarded’ message which has been copied and pasted into a new email.
9) According to our inbox, junk and trash folders, this email never happened (at first we thought we might have missed it). But it appears that @robertlargan hasn’t forwarded his ‘original’ email - instead he’s copied or typed it into a brand new email.
10) Clues that this is not what a forwarded message should look like: Our email address in written in a different font (Roboto rather than Arial). There is a double space after ‘To:’ and when a message is forwarded the email address should appear within these symbols <>
11) We have spoken to an IT expert who said it was “suspicious” that the rest of our email thread has all of its original header code intact, whereas Largan’s ‘response’ from 20th November is just plain body text.
12) We have asked @robertlargan to forward us an original email, rather than copy or writing text into a new email. He has not done so.
13) We called his office to ask for clarification. He was not available.
14) @robertlargan invites us to retract or amend our original comments based on an email we now believe may have been fabricated.
15) We say we will retract or amend our comments when he can forward us a properly coded version of this email to prove that it was sent in the first place @HighPeakTory @newsinglossop @helenpidd @hopenothate #highhopesforhighpeak #toriesout #ToriesLie #GeneralElection2019
