By: Nikita Kochhar
November 10 2022
False: British leader Nadhim Zahawi misidentified late actor Leslie Phillips.
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
Zahawi's Twitter feed has been digitally altered to claim that the Conservative MP made a mistake in identifying Leslie Phillips.
Claim ID 564a1687
Context
A post showing a screenshot of an alleged tweet made by Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi misidentifying late British actor Leslie Phillips is viral on Facebook. The tweet in the screengrab read, "RIP Leslie Phillips, a great actress, grew up watching Birds of A Feather." The Facebook post sharing the screenshot of the alleged tweet suggestively mocked the Conservative Party leadership for the mistake. The post caption read, "Oh ffs..... They've done it again," and is followed by laughing emoticons. So far, the post has been liked by over 16,000 people and has been shared 831 times. The post attracted comments from people who criticized and mocked the Tories for "jumping to conclusions without checking facts" and "living in a different world." Many social media users also shared the screenshot in question on Twitter.
In Fact
On going through Nadhim Zahawi's Twitter account using keywords such as 'RIP Leslie Phillips,' we didn't come across any tweets by the politician on actor Leslie Phillips' death. We also did not find any mention of Phillips in the archived tweets. Moreover, the color of the text allegedly tweeted by Zahawai is different from the rest of the text in the screenshot. It also appears clearer than the rest of the pixelated portions. Hence, it is clear that the screenshot of a purported tweet by Zahawi on Leslie is digitally altered.
According to BBC, Leslie Phillips died on November 7, 2022. The actor was famous for appearing in the Carry-On Films and his voice as Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films. "He starred in more than 200 films, TV, and radio series over his eight-decade career," the report added. Phillips did not act in the TV series "Birds Of A Feather" mentioned in the false tweet attributed to Zahawi. The series did star actress Lesley Joseph, and those sharing the digitally manipulated screenshot intend to imply that Zahawai confused late actor Leslie Phillips with the latter.
The Verdict
A digitally altered image of Zahawai's Twitter feed has been wrongly used to claim that the Tory leader confused late actor Leslie Philip with Lesley Joseph. Therefore, we have marked this claim false.