Thursday, 7 April 2016

Alex Wickham - Pants On Fire

With only a month to go before the London Mayoral election, a new opinion poll shows that the frequently negative campaigning used by Tory hopeful Zac Goldsmith’s team is turning off the voters: in a run-off, Labour’s Sadiq Khan would beat Goldsmith by a whopping ten point margin, 55% to 45%. The smears are not working. If only someone had told the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog.
Fire extinguisher for the teaboy!

The Fawkes folks, who give the impression that they act as a disownable branch of CCHQ, have just kept on smearing, and yesterday their desperation boiled over into forthright dishonesty, as newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham all too clearly lived up to his nickname, resulting in a veritable inferno in the trouser department. Wickham took his cue from an interview Khan gave to LBC.

The subject under discussion was an event at which both Khan and Imam Suliman Gani spoke, and Khan is quoted thus: “Nick, you will know this because you’re a pro. You turn up at these events, often they’re two, three, four hours long. You’re the seventeenth speaker, there are three more after you”. That is the basis of Wickham’s attack, and my responses to his claims are based on what is quoted.
Er, no

Now come the whoppers: “Khan leads listeners to believe he didn’t know Gani was there because of the number of other speakers and the length of the event”. Wrong. Khan is saying only that such events feature a wide range of speakers, and last some hours.

“This is demonstrably untrue. The photo below shows Khan and Gani together, side by side”. Was that at the event under discussion? If not, it’s irrelevant.

“There weren’t seventeen other speakers between Khan and Gani”. Khan does not say there were.

“There wasn’t a four hour time difference”. Khan does not say there was.

“They stood right next to each other”. See previous observation.

“There is no way Khan wouldn’t have seen Gani, and there is no way he wouldn’t have known who Gani is”. Khan does not make that claim.

“To suggest to listeners he has only ever shared a platform with Gani unknowingly is a blatant and deliberate untruth”. He still does not make that claim.

“Sadiq Khan, bang to rights fibbing to voters about his links to an al-Qaeda sympathising Islamic extremist”. Wrong. Let me correct you there: it should read “Alex Wickham, bang to rights lying to readers of the Fawkes blog about Sadiq Khan’s links to a local Imam”.

Wickham then Tweeted out the post with the claim “Khan says he never knowingly shared a platform with Suliman Gani. The picture that shows he's not telling the truth”. Again, see above, and again, he did not make that claim in the quote shown.

Alex Wickham is once more full value for his nickname. Another fine mess, once again.
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2 comments:

  1. Andy McDonald7 April 2016 at 10:55

    Aaargh, "Sharing a platform" again. Weasel, weasel words. Implies that you're (metaphorically) in bed with someone even if you're not. Panellists on Question Time are all 'sharing a platform' with each other. Panellists on QI are too for that matter. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill 'shared a platform' or two with Stalin. Come to think of it, anyone who was on British TV back in the 1980s or 90s most likely 'shared a platform' with either Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris!

    In other words, it's a rubbish smear, indicating that the smearer has nothing of any real substance.

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  2. Anonymous7 April 2016 at 12:24

    Frankly, I couldn't give a brass shit about London. Long ago it became the world centre of corruption and theft. I hope the mayoral contestants kick the living shits out of each other...get up, then do it all over again.

    There has never been - not for a single moment - a single peep from that mobbed-up rat hole on ACTION concerning what was done to the rest of the country. And, as the proposed (further) decimation of South Wales shows, continues to be done. It's a one eyed city with a zeitgeist made and worked by spivs and gobshite "politicians" out to further their own "careers" on the backs of it all. The place should be cut out, towed to the Bering Straits and left there to rot, or used for missile practice by the itchy trigger finger Yanks or their hirelings at NATO.

    It won't make the slightest difference to this country whether Khan or Goldsmith gets elected. Both of them would sell out the next day to Canary Wharf......if they haven't already done so.

    It should be renamed Gobshite City.

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