Labour Student Debt Lies BUSTED

[Update at end of post]

Those who know of old the falsehood and misinformation peddled by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog also know that anything coming from the diseased mind of newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham is not to be trusted, especially if the post has no citation to back it up. So it was with Wickham’s claims about Labour’s student debt commitments yesterday.

Claims to be a journalist - that's not true, either

Under the heading “McDonnell Backtracks On Vow To Write Off Student Debt”, the Fawkes folks tell “During the election Jeremy Corbyn vowed ‘I will deal with’ those who had the ‘historical misfortune’ of large student debts, promising he would ‘ameliorate’ their situation and write it off”. Keep an eye on the “and write it off” - that is the Wickham lie.

The Great Guido’s teaboy then asserts “Last week Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner confirmed the policy, admitting: ‘It is a huge amount, it is £100 billion. I like a challenge, but we’ve got to start dealing with this debt crisis that we’re foisting on our young people. It’s not acceptable’”. This is merely selective, rather than dishonest.

So let’s see what Jezza and Ms Rayner actually said, which, to no surprise at all, does not match the Fawkes claims. Corbyn was talking to the NME before the election, and said “there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I'm looking at ways we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing the debt burden”. And there was more.

“I don't have the simple answer for it at this stage. I don't think anybody would expect me to, because this election was called unexpectedly … We had two weeks to prepare all of this - but I'm very well aware of that problem”. He would deal with it - but clearly made no commitment to “write it off”. And then there is Angela Rayner’s Marr Show interview.

This was her reply to Andrew Marr’s question on student debt: “Jeremy said that that’s an ambition, it’s something that he’d like to do. It’s something that we will not announce we’re doing unless we can afford to do that”. She made no commitment to write it off, either.

Thus the lie that is now doing the rounds. Predictably, the Murdoch Sun has gone along with the charade, telling readers “Jeremy Corbyn accused of betraying voters after Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell all-but scraps vow to write off £100 billion student debt”. There was no vow, which may be why the Mail is restricting itself to “the seemingly off-the-cuff pledge made by Jeremy Corbyn during the election campaign”.

“Seemingly off the cuff pledge”. But the Fawkes lie has seeped, unchallenged, into the mainstream press, which is what both Staines and his rabble, and the right-wing part of the press establishment, wanted. Once again, had this been The Canary, Evolve Politics or Skwawkbox doing this, there would be howls of “Fake News”. But The Great Guido gets away with it, because the Fawkes blog is part of the press establishment.

Memo to any media outlet not yet up to speed on the Fawkes modus operandi: never, but never, take anything written by Alex Wickham on trust. When the Fawkes teaboy says something “was fantasy politics, a pack of lies all along”, it’s a pound to a penny that he is describing himself. Another fine mess, once again.

[UPDATE 1535 hours: tellingly, the Fawkes rabble have followed up their dishonest post on the Corbyn pledge that never was with a claim not that they were right, but that their claim has scored lots of clicks.

Under the heading "Labour's Broken Student Debt Promise Goes Viral", readers are told that "Labour's plan to double-cross students" has scored lots of pageviews at the Conservatives website, which most students wouldn't touch with the proverbial bargepole.

This was held to be a success as it scored more hits than the pre-election Diane Abbott LBC interview. But oh so revealing that "Billy Liar" Wickham still doesn't pony up a single citation to prove his claim, he just carries on lying and says it's OK because lots of people are viewing it.

So, once again, the reasoning that he and his pals in the press establishment use to rubbish The Canary, Evolve Politics and Skwawkbox.

Scoring lots of hits does not make this latest Wickham pack of lies true. And that's a fact]