In the months leading up to the contest between Miliband and David Cameron, he flooded Twitter with aggressive anti-Tory tweets and text-on-image memes — the content remarkably similar now to @Rachael_Swindon’s — under his own account @jon_swindon. “I achieved nowhere near what Rachael has achieved, to be fair,” he said.

Yet, at the time, with the teen fandom around Ed Miliband still months away, Jon Cousins’ aggressive pro-Miliband tweeting grabbed the attention of mainstream media outlets. In February 2015, the Spectator called him the “king of this niche online subculture” of pro-Miliband tweeters.

But after Miliband’s loss at the election, he claims, his account was shut down, with no explanation given by Twitter. “All I ever got was ‘You violated Twitter rules,’” he said. “They wouldn’t explain what rules I violated despite email after email to them.” He briefly opened another account, with the handle @swindon81, but says he abandoned it when he became ill.

“That lasted about six months and my fibromyalgia kicked in,” he said. “I was having problems using my hands, even my arms. We were homeless as well, living in temporary accommodation. I had to step aside from social media — I lost the will for it.”

Twitter declined to comment on why Jon Cousins’ original Ed Miliband fan account was apparently closed down. Despite him openly admitting that he still keeps a close eye on Twitter, he and his wife didn’t want to answer any further questions as to why he never returned to posting tweets.

It was during her husband’s period in the limelight that Rachael Cousins posted a series of tweets that have now become fuel for her most ardent detractors. Across five tweets in a thread on Jan. 21, 2015, @Rachael_Swindon said her husband was the source of “most” of her political tweets.

“Lol most of them come from Jon,” one read. Another read: “I don’t get involved in much as I know nothing about politics and would look like a dick!”

The tweets have since been deleted but a screenshot of them now flies around Twitter every time someone wants to mount the argument that she isn’t tweeting herself.