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Suffering from pneumonia, Reform candidate Mark Matlock checked social media after he missed election night to find he was being accused of being an AI bot.
Looking at his glossy profile picture, online commentators had decided he was computer-generated and the inevitable Twitter pile-on ensued.
Fuel was added to the fire when he didn’t show up for hustings or even the election count after winning 1,758 votes for Brixton and Clapham Hill on a day of national success for Nigel Farage and his fledgling party.
It wasn’t helped that on his website, he campaigned on how “we should manage the transfer of human jobs to AI responsibly”.
But looking to put the rumours to bed, Mr Matlock spoke to The Independent over the phone on Monday.
Speaking with a croaky voice while still recovering from the illness he opened the conversation with the reassurance he was a real person: “Good afternoon. It’s Mark Matlock speaking how are you?”
“I am a real person and that is me in the photo,” he confirmed. “Though I must admit I am enjoying the free publicity and when I feel up to it I will put out a video and prove these rumours that I’m a robot are absolute baloney.
“I got pneumonia three days before election night I was exercising taking vitamins so I could attend but it was just not viable. On election night I couldn’t even stand.
“The photo of me was taken outside the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I had the background removed and replaced with the logo and they changed the colour of my tie. The only reason that was done was because we couldn’t get a photographer at such short notice - but that is me.”
The candidate explained that his initial reaction to the online conspiracies was amusement.
“I just laughed when I saw it,” he said. “I think it perked me up. I thought ‘I need to get back out there!’ This is doing more good for me than my campaign - it’s fantastic.”
His political rivals had been quick to raise concerns about Mr Matlock’s authenticity.
Green party candidate Shao-Lan Yuen told Byline Times before the Reform member confirmed who he was: “I haven’t seen or heard from the Reform UK candidate for Clapham and Brixton Hill constituency. He wasn’t at the hustings. I’ve heard suspicions that the image on his leaflets are AI generated.”
Independent Jon Key added there had been “no sign of him” on election night.
“I did email Mark, as well as all the other candidates,” he said. “I heard back from a few, but not from Mark…He doesn’t live in the constituency.”
But Mr Matlock insists: “I called Lambeth council loads of times to get on hustings but none of them invited me to the hustings. I am so pro-hustings. I care about what I’m running for and invite people to question me but I was never given that opportunity. The Tories and Labour didn’t want us there.”
On claims he was absent from campaigns in London, he said: “I was really pleased [with the votes] given the time we had. I was campaigning in Clacton for Nigel to make sure he got his seat. Had the leader not got his seat it would have made a mockery of our entire party.
“Given the time we had we couldn’t develop a strong team of volunteers to go knocking on doors and leafleting. I was outside the tube station but other days I had to dedicate myself to neighbouring constituencies.
“We never truly believed we would ever do as well as we did in London. We got 4 million votes but only five seats. Some of us are smarting but overall we are psyched. We are a new party the election was shoved on us in such a short space of time - it is unbelievable.”
