Overview
- The photograph that circulated Friday showed Wigan councillors Lilian Rogers and Gemma Painter smiling beside a homemade sign reading “I would rather vote for Jimmy Savile than Labour.”
- Both councillors have issued apologies, with Rogers saying she did not understand the sign’s “sickening implications” and Painter admitting she shared the image online before deleting it.
- A near‑identical second image that swapped the Savile text for Reform campaign material was examined by a media forensics expert and found to be AI‑altered, prompting some accounts to delete their posts.
- Wigan Council said it has received a significant number of complaints and will consider them under its mandatory Code of Conduct, a process that can lead to internal investigation and sanctions.
- The row coincided with Reform candidate Robert Kenyon’s loss in the Makerfield by‑election and underlines how fast synthetic edits can spread, complicating fact‑checking and local political accountability.