The media and social media today are awash with the result of yesterday’s Hartlepool by-election which was surprisingly won from Labour by the Tories*.
However, some of the language being used to describe the victory is prone to error, such as the example below from Twitter’s trending topics.
As the winning Tory was not the sitting MP, the correct way to describe her is as a candidate, not an MP. She only becomes an MP upon winning a parliamentary (by-)election.
In times past such a basic error would have been picked by a sub-editor or similar, but they were all dispensed with some years ago. 🙁
*= Hartlepool hasn’t had a Tory Member of Parliament since it was represented in Westminster by Peter Mandelson. 😉