Oops: UKIP thought Westminster Cathedral was a mosque
Responding to a BBC survey of whether voters think Nigel Farage has “got what it takes to be Prime Minister”, UKIP tweeted to complain that the booth was set up outside a mosque, even though it was actually in front of Westminster Cathedral.
BBC’s Daily Politics tweeted a picture of the experiment on Tuesday, where members of the public were asked to drop a ball into either “yes” or “no” to whether or not Farage is ready to be PM.
UKIP’s official South Thanet Twitter account responed to accuse the BBC of being “selective” in its choice of location – claiming the vote was taking place “in front of a mosque”.
Westminster Cathedral (not a mosque)
The tweet continued: “The BBC’s random means selective.”
Many quickly pointed out that the mosque the tweet referred to was actually Westminster Cathedral, and the hashtag #ThingsThatAreNotMosques was used to tweet a variety of things which sound like mosques, but which aren’t.
#ThingsThatAreNotMosques Mosquito pic.twitter.com/COjZXv8JlH
— Keir Shiels (@keirshiels) November 26, 2014
Some pointed to the incident when the English Defence League (EDL) thought Brighton Pavillion was a mosque, others tweeted images of things like Mosquitos, Kate Moss, actual moss, and masks.
#thingsthatarenotmosques It was the name that got me pic.twitter.com/odWeEcnHLy — Grilling Kippers (@GrillingKippers) November 26, 2014
The UKIP Twitter account later admitted being wrong about the mosque, but maintained that there was no way the vote could have been random.
@reporterboy I have got it wrong about the building as was wrongly advised and apologise. The random vote remark still stands
— Ukip South Thanet (@ukip_sththanet) November 25, 2014
UKIP leader Farage has been widely condemned, after he said he would limit entry to the UK to: “People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That’s a good start. And people with a skill.”
#ThingsThatAreNotMosques Moss, K. pic.twitter.com/5VLlEI4CiV — Keir Shiels (@keirshiels) November 26, 2014
