Harry Cole Shills For Goldsmith

My good friend Peter Jukes made the observation some time ago that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog were, effectively, a wholly deniable subsidiary of Conservative Party HQ, something that has never been convincingly rebutted, despite the Fawkes folks’ best efforts. It will come as no surprise, then, to know that Staines’ former tame gofer Harry Cole is still at it.

An unprincipled sleazebag airs his views

Master Cole, now the Sun’s alleged “Westminster Correspondent”, has demonstrated this affiliation in no style at all as he has signalled that his paper will be backing Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith in the London Mayoral election this year - and, by definition, putting the boot into Labour challenger Sadiq Khan at every opportunity, the first of which has presented itself over the location of Labour’s campaign base.

“Sadiq Khan left red-faced after identity of his London mayoral HQ's landlord revealed … EXCLUSIVE: He rents his Westminster gaffe from the same fat-cat property developers he has attacked” screamed the headline, but sadly for Master Cole, this story unravelled as rapidly as so many of his others.

Here is the allegedly killer quote: “Sadiq Khan recently slammed new housing developments that have been ‘sold off to overseas investors - many of whom will never live in them - years before they are built’”. So Labour’s Mayoral candidate talked about new housing being sold off to overseas investors before it had been built. That is not an “attack”. It is not “slamming” anyone. It is a factual statement.

It gets worse: Cole also claims “This latest gaffe comes after The Sun revealed Mr Khan was previously running his campaign from offices owned by hardline trade unionists who were blocking London’s planned 24 hour tube service - a policy Khan claims he backs”. No trade unionists are “blocking London’s planned 24 hour tube service”. None of the unions representing Tube staff have a problem with the concept of a 24 hour service.

But the worst part of this attack is the claim that Sadiq Khan has been “naming and shaming” property developers, including Berkeley Homes (Cole’s copy actually says “But an investigation by The Sun reveals that five companies of that Khan named and shamed were built by Berkeley Homes”, which is dreadfully bad English. As usual). No evidence of this is provided. Finding anything to back the Sun claim is proving elusive.

And until Master Cole ponies up a reliable citation for his claim, his story is a dead duck. No amount of feeding compliant Tory MPs attack lines like “Khan publicly shamed his now Landlord to the press, while all the time cosying up behind closed doors to bag his swish new Westminster gaffe” will have any effect - or be worth any more than the hot air that generated them. Telling porkies about politicians he doesn’t like won’t save Cole.

But good of him to let the world know that, despite his protestations of having no party loyalty, he is still a deniable subsidiary of CCHQ. Another fine mess, once again.