Tory Bullying - The Sick Sun

While Simon Walters of the Mail On Sunday just keeps on unearthing more bad behaviour around sacked Tory activist and organiser Mark Clarke - an act of premeditated bullying from only last week has been reported in the paper this morning - and expands on the claim made in a Byline Media article last week that Clarke and many of his pals were members of the same masonic lodge, counter spin is under way elsewhere.

Elliott Johnson in happier times, with Mark Clarke ever-present

This has manifested itself in its crudest and most sickening form at - where else? - the Murdoch Sun, whose alleged “Westminster Correspondent”, the Most Worshipful Master Harry Cole, is coming under pressure over not only his links to Clarke, but also his lack of honesty in telling readers of his friendship, and also his membership of that same masonic lodge. No mention of Phoenix Lodge No 137 for Sun readers.

Instead, under the by-line of Ryan Sabey, we get “POLICE are investigating claims the young Tory activist who took his own life viewed an online ‘suicide’ video months before he died … Elliott Johnson, 21, who said he was bullied by Tatler Tory Mark Clarke, appears to have seen a clip called Thoughts of Committing Suicide”. You too can see the clip right HERE, and see that the Sun is over-egging this particular pudding.

But do go on: “British Transport Police were handed an exhibit thought to be a screen grab of Johnson’s YouTube ‘likes’”. Why a screen grab? The list is readily available. And what relevance does it have? “It is thought Elliott, who died in September, ‘liked’ the clip in April or May”. But the clip, by a well-known Stateside vlogger, although it mentions he attempted suicide after suffering a bout of depression, ends positively.

And, so what? Elliott Johnson only “liked” five YouTube clips. Why is the Sun fixated on this? Ah well. His father Ray has stressed time and again that Elliott’s death, and its manner, were a total shock to the family. What better way to discredit him than to dig out his son’s YouTube “likes” and shout “see, you were wrong”. And Sabey’s article has one more truly sickening slice of spin for its readers.

“More than 100 young Tory activists will ‘smoke a cigar’ in Elliott’s memory at the Young Britons’ Foundation conference in Cambridge this week”. That would be the same Young Britons Foundation whose founder Donal Blaney gave Mark Clarke the coveted Golden Dolphin award, the YBF’s highest accolade. The same Blaney whose legal practice sent Elliott Johnson his Conservative Way Forward redundancy letter.

The same Blaney who is named in the MoS today as another Phoenix Lodge freemason, to add to Master Cole, Paul Abbott, and … Mark Clarke. The YBF and its founder are in potentially deep shit over the Elliott Johnson affair, but the Sun is letting its readers know they are claiming Johnson’s memory with a heartwarming tribute.

Then, at the same time, they are preparing the ground to rubbish the dead man’s father. You have to be particularly sick to indulge in that kind of thing. That’s the Sun for you.