LONDON - The Conservatives have been caught editing a Wikipedia entry in an effort to embarrass Gordon Brown who compared himself to Titian, the Italian Renaissance artist.
Yesterday at Prime Minister's Questions, Tory leader David Cameron landed a blow on Brown who, while at Davos, said he had a great deal in common with Titian who created his best work in later life, and lived to the age of 90.
Brown said: "I'm reminded of the story of Titian, the great painter who reached the age of 90, finished the last of his nearly 100 brilliant paintings, and said at the end of it, 'I'm finally beginning to learn how to paint,' and that is where we are."
Yesterday, Cameron took him up on this claim: "The prime minister never gets his facts right.
You told us the other day you were like Titian aged 90. The fact is Titian died at 86."
The stinging blow, however, did not last for long. After the leader of the opposition finished speaking, a little after 12.30, someone went to work editing the Titian Wiki entry to make him younger, bringing the birthdate forward.
The story was exposed in the Evening Standard after someone noticed that the IP address used to change the entry 194.203.158.97 was that of Conservative Central office in London.
Titian's original birth and death dates were set at 1485 and 1576, meaning Brown could have been correct, but these were changed to 1490 and 1572 swiping nine years off the painter's life.
Once the IP address was exposed the Conservatives admitted that it had been a party worker.
A spokesman said last night: "This was an over-eager member of staff putting right an incorrect entry on Wikipedia... they are hugely embarrassed."
The mystery remains over why the Tory party hack changed Titian's age to 82 instead of the 86 figure that Cameron used.
There seems to be no clear consensus on how old Titian lived to be. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York says 88, the Louvre 86, but other sources say he lived close to 100.
Another online source said: "For nearly three hundred years after Titian's death in 1576 nobody had any doubt that Titian was born in 1476 and died nearly one hundred years old.
"This date had been given inferentially some seven years after Titian's death by the well-informed Florentine antiquary, Raffaello Borghini."
Downing Street has offered no further comment on the matter.
Yesterday at Prime Minister's Questions, Tory leader David Cameron landed a blow on Brown who, while at Davos, said he had a great deal in common with Titian who created his best work in later life, and lived to the age of 90.
Brown said: "I'm reminded of the story of Titian, the great painter who reached the age of 90, finished the last of his nearly 100 brilliant paintings, and said at the end of it, 'I'm finally beginning to learn how to paint,' and that is where we are."
Yesterday, Cameron took him up on this claim: "The prime minister never gets his facts right.
You told us the other day you were like Titian aged 90. The fact is Titian died at 86."
The stinging blow, however, did not last for long. After the leader of the opposition finished speaking, a little after 12.30, someone went to work editing the Titian Wiki entry to make him younger, bringing the birthdate forward.
The story was exposed in the Evening Standard after someone noticed that the IP address used to change the entry 194.203.158.97 was that of Conservative Central office in London.
Titian's original birth and death dates were set at 1485 and 1576, meaning Brown could have been correct, but these were changed to 1490 and 1572 swiping nine years off the painter's life.
Once the IP address was exposed the Conservatives admitted that it had been a party worker.
A spokesman said last night: "This was an over-eager member of staff putting right an incorrect entry on Wikipedia... they are hugely embarrassed."
The mystery remains over why the Tory party hack changed Titian's age to 82 instead of the 86 figure that Cameron used.
There seems to be no clear consensus on how old Titian lived to be. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York says 88, the Louvre 86, but other sources say he lived close to 100.
Another online source said: "For nearly three hundred years after Titian's death in 1576 nobody had any doubt that Titian was born in 1476 and died nearly one hundred years old.
"This date had been given inferentially some seven years after Titian's death by the well-informed Florentine antiquary, Raffaello Borghini."
Downing Street has offered no further comment on the matter.
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