Paul Flowers – Daily Mail Hoaxes Itself

[Update at end of post]

It was the kind of story made for the faux outrage machine that is the Daily Mail: the Reverend Paul Flowers, former head of the Co-Operative Bank, a body that is part of a great Labour-supporting movement, was found to have been unfit for office, as well as being a regular user of currently illegal drugs and procurer of rent boys. The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre was in his element.

What d'you mean I've f***ing hoaxed myself, c***?!?

“The rent boy and trysts in rooms paid for by the Co-op: Escort reveals Flowers sent him emails to organise drug-fuelled sex from his work account” thundered the headline as readers were told “The explosive allegations came as the Labour Party faced further damaging questions about its links with Flowers”. Yes, the rotten lefties were in it up to their necks!

“Pictures have emerged of a lavish reception hosted by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls at 10 Downing Street for Flowers and fellow Co-op grandees while Labour was in power” says the paper whose editor was the only figure from the press to get one-on-one interviews with Maria Miller, Oliver Letwin and Young Dave, the last being at, you guessed it, 10 Downing Street. I do hope it wasn’t too “lavish”.

So when a Twitter account purporting to belong to the Rev. Flowers was set up, the Mail was on to it like a flash. “'Crystal Methodist' apologises for his antics and promises to go to rehab as he appears to open new Twitter account ahead of police visit” told the Mail last Monday – and note that James Chapman was one of the follower shown in the screen grab published by Mail Online.

And, as the man said, there’s more: “'Crystal Methodist' says he is going to write a BOOK about his 'recent exploits' as it emerges he is STILL being paid church salary of £11,000” followed the next day, with “Extraordinary Twitter confession of the Crystal Methodist: 'I got Co-op job only because of friends in high places'” in today’s Mail on Sunday. But there was a problem.

The Tweets were littered with shonky punctuation and grammar, with “I’m” missing its apostrophe, capitalising after commas, and using an apostrophe to denote a plural. Either Flowers had managed to hold down a string of jobs while not being totally literate, or someone was taking the piss. Today, we found out that it was the latter. Flowers’ lawyer declared the Twitter account to be a fake.

“Rev Paul Flowers’ Twitter account is FAKE, his lawyer tells me. 'Anyone who believes that is real needs psychiatric attention'” reported Julian Druker at 5 News, following up with “Rev Flowers’ lawyer tells me the fake Twitter account is 'at best mischief; at worst a perversion of the course of justice'”. Oh dear, Dacre doggies, you’ve not so much as been hoaxed, as hoaxed yourselves.

It couldn’t happen to more deserving hacks. Now try a nice slice of humble pie.

[UPDATE 1745 hours: the Tweeter behind the Paul Flowers fake account has 'fessed up to Julian Druker, telling "OK you blew my cover, yes the account is a fake but I did it to show up certain media & lazy journalism & that the whole system is corrupt".

One to bear in mind the next time the Dacre doggies try kicking the BBC, or indeed anyone else, for getting a story not quite right. No reply thus far from the Mail. What a surprise]