Guido Says Letts Not Talk Sacking

Although the newish-look Daily Mail, under the editorship of Geordie Greig, has not become a Remain-backing title as yet - despite some of the right-wing Leavers’ ranting, the paper is still backing Brexit, even if it is Theresa May’s allegedly softer version - this is the idea put about when pundits leave Northcliffe House for pastures new.

Harry Potter and the Gobshite of Arslikhan

It is the line peddled by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog after it became known that the odious Quentin Letts (let’s not) would soon be departing the Mail and joining the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker, where he will write for all three of the Sun, Times and Sunday Times. And The Great Guido had another excuse ready and waiting, which will please his real boss Rebekah Brooks.

Under the headline “Quentin Letts Gone From Mail”, the Fawkes massive tells readers “Technically Quentin Letts was a freelancer, so he has not really been fired or resigned. His sketches for the Daily Mail were famously and brilliantly poisonous. Quentin’s not a fan of Theresa May and is an ardent Brexiteer – so very much out of tune with the new editor Geordie Greig”. Brilliant my arse. They were slanted and tedious.

Whatever happened at PMQs, Theresa May would be adjudged the victor (on most occasions, Jeremy Corbyn takes that honour). Letts rains abuse on MPs who are not Tories, while generally being noticeably kinder to The Blue Team. There’s nothing famous or brilliant about that. Letts is an increasingly cheap and desperate propagandist.

Then comes the news “Guido understands Quentin will be doing a fortnightly column for The Sun, sketching for The Times and theatre reviews for the Sunday Times” before the News UK statement is dutifully quoted. Rebekah will like that, too.

This is, though, dishonesty on a pretty crude scale. Anyone who’s a freelance knows that declining to extend one’s contract is the same thing as resigning. And not getting another contract offer is a clean break version of being fired. Worse is the Fawkes spin “Quentin is one of the hardest working and highest paid hacks in the business”.

Highly paid he might have been, but as to “hardest working”, Zelo Street readers who have been with the blog from earlier days will know that he passed before my inspection at the presentation of the Leveson Inquiry report. While many of those present on that day just six years ago took notes and paid attention to what the good Lord Justice was saying, Letts did not. He spent most of the presentation talking to another attendee.

Before the presentation started, someone sat down behind Letts and engaged him in conversation. That conversation carried on through Leveson’s exposition. This may have explained the lack of detail in the analysis Letts wrote later for the Mail.

What has happened is that the Murdoch press has given Quent a berth, and it has fallen to  The Great Guido to spin for his supper. And looking at the industrial scale brass neck on offer from the Fawkes rabble, it must have been a pretty big supper.

Still, helps to pay the bar bills, I expect. Another fine mess, once again.

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Tommy Robinson Facing Legal Action

The moment of truth for Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, came yesterday. The non-journalist, serial criminal, and even more serial liar found that his attempt to stick his bugle into the case of a teenage Syrian refugee attacked on a school playing field in Huddersfield had come back to bite him, as the boy’s family decided enough was enough, and that they were instructing solicitors to begin a defamation action.

As Qasim Rashid put it, “Jamal’s family to sue convicted violent felon Tommy Robinson for his public lies accusing Jamal of committing ‘Muslim violence’ against white British kids Robinson’s lies are causing physical harm. That’s not free speech - that’s radicalizing youth”. One Tweeter responded “Great news. A fully grown man libelling a 15 y/o refugee to try and legitimise the actions of a kid that strangled him. Nasty little racist”.

He won’t like that. Perhaps he’ll try and have one of his “polite conversations” with her. But the solicitor’s letter, delivered via email, is real enough, telling Lennon “We have been made aware of two videos posted to your Facebook page, one on 28 November 2018 and a further video posted today 29 November 2018. These videos contain a number of false and defamatory allegations in respect of our client”. And there is more.

“We wish to place you on notice that our client intends to pursue legal action against you in respect of the contents of these publications and you will shortly be receiving formal pre-action correspondence in this respect … In the meantime, we request that the publications concerned are removed immediately, as they are causing ongoing damage to our client”.

Lennon’s videos have been removed. He has suggested Facebook Done It, but then, to admit otherwise would be to lose face with all his adoring followers. He has been otherwise defiant, attempting to smear the solicitors’ firm involved - that will get him precisely nowhere in court - and claim he was right all along.

He has now told those followers “If you’re the solicitor that’s suing me, I don’t give a shit. I’ve got the messages, I’ve got the conversations, for all of the log, with the Mum, Dad, who told me clearly that their daughter was violently attacked by Jamal. I also have another pupil, as well as another brother from that school that told me exactly the same story, and this is the information that I shared”. This is total crap.

The Zelo Street post from yesterday shows just how little Lennon had to go on. But he had more to tell his audience. “Solicitor’s letters may silence, and you may wish for a whole country to only hear one side of the story [this from the person who said he was suing a number of targets for defamation] … that won’t work here”.

Well, Stephen, you just have to hope that those sources you claim to have are actually real people, and are prepared to appear in your defence. Because if they aren’t, you’re screwed. Slagging off the solicitors’ firm just constitutes time wasting. Telling your audience that Jamal’s attacker has been subjected to all manner of privations has no relevance to that legal action. And you can’t just ignore it.

Just remember what happened to your pal Katie Hopkins. Then say sorry.

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Newsnight Vicar - Stop Digging, BBC

The BBC’s choice of guests has been under scrutiny for some time now, whether it is the closed loop of right-wing rant merchants chosen as paper reviewers for The Andy Marr Show™, that array of Astroturf lobby groups worming its way on to any and every political discussion, or who gets into the Question Time audience, the suspicion remains that the Corporation’s judgment has been less than ideal at times.

This view was not helped by the appearance on Newsnight of someone called Lynn Hayter. As i News has reported, “A ‘vicar’ who has appeared on Newsnight to voice support for Theresa May also works as an actress. Lynn Hayter, who performs on screen using her middle name, Marina, has spoken out in favour of Brexit and the Prime Minister on the BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme sporting a dog collar”.

Well, look on the bright side, it wasn’t Bounce the dog, was it? On a serious note, though, Ms Hayter is not really a vicar. Her “ministry”, such as it is, exists only in online form. She hasn’t, as far as is known, been ordained, and certainly not by any Church that would be considered mainstream. Or even fringe. Some were unimpressed.

Andrew Adonis was one of them. “Is it true that @BBCNewsnight engaged actors to put the Leave argument in a recent studio discussion because they wanted the Leave case put more strongly?” he mused. At which point the Beeb, instead of owning up that they had put someone who was not a real vicar on Newsnight, dug themselves in deeper.

This is projection on a jaw-dropping scale ...

Host Emily Maitlis was one of those digging as she responded to Adonis. “Andrew - don't become a peddler of fake news. Not in this day and age. Not when we need our parliamentarians to be better and more trusted than ever. To have got to a place where you could chose to believe that enough to write it - is deeply worrying”.

... while this is plain dishonest

Yeah, right. He’s not peddling anything. He’s asking a question. To which Ms Maitlis’ answer is worryingly evasive. So was the official Newsnight response: “Claims that Lynn appeared on #newsnight as a paid actor are false. Lynn is a pastor and was a genuine participant of our Brexit debate. She carries out work as an extra using her middle name but this is not relevant to the capacity in which she appeared”.

She appeared looking like a vicar. She isn’t one. The outfit she chose to wear suggests an authority she does not possess. So the thought inevitably enters that some kind of deceit has been practised upon the viewing public. That is down entirely to the BBC (Tom Pride has suggested someone should resign over this. I can see his point).

As to the idea she is a pastor, Jim Waterson observed “I'm not entirely sure of the size of her church. It largely seems to consist of her preaching to an unknown audience about how to get rich, while being blessed by a self-declared bishop from Hickory, North Carolina. But you know, each to their own”. Who’s “faking”, Ms Maitlis?

The BBC has form for putting less than disinterested guests in the Question Time audience. Some of their subject “experts” don’t know their specialist area from a hole in the ground. And now we have a fake “vicar” defended to the hilt by Newsnight.

Someone at the Beeb needs to get a grip before this gets worse. Full stop, end of story.

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Tommy Robinson Lies To Incite Hatred

After the attack on a teenage Syrian refugee at a school in Huddersfield became news yesterday, Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, became seriously agitated at the thought that his name was being associated with the incident. But rather than keep his head down, or simply deny involvement - and ask his followers to lay off the usual Muslim hatred - he has decided to fire back.

The problem for Lennon, who loves to call “liar” on others, while slipping out a series of statements on a variety of issues which are not true, is that his first foray into the getting-the-retaliation-in-first arena has backfired badly. He made a series of claims about an attack on a girl pupil at Almondbury Community School which have already been shown to be wrong. And you know what that makes him.

This is what he said yesterday evening. “I now have it as absolute fact … I’ve seen images … of the young girl that he was involved in beating up. This is Jamal, the innocent refugee that you people - or people out there - have raised £100,000 for. A young girl was beaten badly by Muslim girls. While those Muslim girls were beating her up, Jamal was involved”.

There was more. Rather a lot more. “In kicking, in biting her, she was bitten, she was black and blue. She had to be taken out of school and home schooled. She had to leave that school, the same school. Her family have been to the Huddersfield Examiner with all of this. But guess what? They’ve refused to report it”. Then he doubles down.

“This Jamal, now that we know he’s not innocent, and he violently attacks young English girls in his school … Jamal isn’t that innocent. After beating up a girl at the school … I would ask what I would have done as a 16-year-old English kid, with this boy terrorising [!] girls in my school. This boy Jamal … threatened to stab him. This Jamal isn’t innocent. He beat a girl black and blue. How come no-one’s telling this?”

Well, Stephen, one reason no-one’s telling this is that it’s not true. The mother of the girl has said “It wasn’t him, it was the three girls” … “It was not him, I’m the girl’s mother. It was the girls” … “Look, he didn’t touch [her], I was talking to Tommy about it cos my girl didn’t get the media when she was horrifically attacked. That’s all, end of”. The person making those comments has now deleted her Facebook profile. Along with Lennon’s evidence.

Worse, her comments don’t say the girls who beat up her daughter were Muslims. Nor was there any comment about her daughter being taken out of the school and home schooled. Stephen Lennon’s only source didn’t stand up his claims even before she said it wasn’t the Syrian refugee. There are even claims circulating that the images he saw were fake.

So why is Stephen Yaxley Lennon making, and continuing to make, those claims? Simples. Because it riles up his base. He knows this. He knows what he’s doing. And he ought to know that this is incitement to violence. Nailed on. “The truth” my arse.

I’ve said before that the Tommy Robinson wild west show needs to be taken off social media once and for all. Do we have to wait for another Darren Osborne first?

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Lobby Group Is Definitely A Lobby Group

There have been numerous protests from the IEA, which claims to be an educational charity, when it is labelled a lobby group, the most recent coming when the group’s talking head Kate Andrews tried to cause LBC host James O’Brien to stop calling them, er, a lobby group. This was not successful.  And recent outpourings from the IEA only serve to confirm that the charity status is no more than an fig-leaf.

Kate Andrews - not really about education

Ms Andrews demonstrates this excellently, as when she told her followers “On @CNN just after 7pm GMT/2pm EST to discuss the #BrexitDeal. EU good will is in limited supply these days. In reality, this deal seriously risks UK regulatory and trade policy still being set by Brussels”. This is not an educational charity speaking: the subjective and citation-free claims put paid to that. This is blatant propagandising.

It was the same when she Tweeted “Turn up @IainDale's show on @LBC tonight, where the IEA's @nissych5 will be making the case for a #Brexit that returns tax, regulatory and trade policy to the UK!” Propagandising. Not educating. Again.

Or how about the IEA’s Christopher Snowdon taking a Guardian headline telling “One in four pubs in UK have closed since financial crisis”, and amending the last two words to read “smoking ban”. “Fixed this for you” claims Snowdon, but this is a group that has advocated against plain packaging for cigarettes, and whose Director Mark Littlewood lied about the effect of plain packaging in Australia. And it gets worse.

The Guardian’s George Monbiot pointed out recently that “British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International have been funding the institute - in BAT's case since 1963. British American Tobacco has admitted that it gave the institute £20,000 last year and that it's ‘planning to increase our contribution in 2013 and 2014’”. Not education. Propagandising. Taking Big Tobacco money and effectively lobbying for them.

Littlewood has also been gifted a platform by the Murdoch Sun, as the IEA Twitter feed confirmed. “‘Over the next decade, 90 pc of all global economic growth is predicted to come from outside the EU. If you see Brexit as a historic opportunity to make Britain a global trading nation, you will have a lot of sympathy with Trump,’ writes @MarkJLittlewood”. Spin. Many of those countries have FTAs with the EU.

Meanwhile, Ms Andrews was busy propagandising once more. “From @thetimes today: Cancer patients wait more than a year for diagnosis, about twice as long as the best performing countries #OurNHS”. Effectively lobbying against the NHS.

And that’s before we get to the IEA’s schools propaganda. As Open Democracy has now revealed, “The Institute of Economic Affairs’ magazine distributed to tens of thousands of British schoolchildren promotes tobacco tax cuts, climate change denial, tax havens, and privatising the NHS - but doesn’t say where its money comes from”.

This is not education. It is falsehood and misinformation on an industrial scale. It is unashamed propagandising, and is lobbying in all but name.

The IEA should be stripped of its charity status. Full stop, end of story.

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Uber Terror Driver HAD NO INSURANCE

Last year, yet another terror alert was sparked after a car drove into pedestrians on London’s Exhibition Road. It is thought the driver had executed an illegal left turn from the Cromwell Road and become disorientated at the “shared space” layout of Exhibition Road. He was driving a Toyota Prius, which meant the immediate suspicion was that he was driving for driver and rider matching service Uber. And he was indeed driving for them.

Moreover, he had three punters in the back of the Prius. The terror alert went off when he tried to leave the scene after the collision, and had to be restrained. At the time, I asked “Why [leg it]? If it was his vehicle, and he was a registered Uber ‘partner’, with his licence and insurance up to date, then why do something that would only ensure the Met would throw the book at him just that little bit harder?” Now we know why.

As the Mail has reported, “An Uber driver who sparked a major terror alert when he ploughed into a crowd of tourists had been driving around London uninsured and without a licence for two years … Tanzanian Juma Omar, 48, floored the throttle of his Toyota Prius outside the Natural History Museum and careered over the pavement, sending pedestrians flying into the air as others ran screaming from his path”. No insurance for two years.

Then comes the part that Uber cheerleaders will find hard to excuse. “He claimed the brakes had failed, but he was convicted of dangerous driving by a jury at the Old Bailey … The court heard Omar came to Britain as an asylum seeker in 1995, but was told to get out [of] the country in 1998 … Omar applied for a replacement passport in another man's name and used that identity to pass his driving test”. And it gets worse.

“He got a job with Uber using the fake documents and did not have insurance when hit the pedestrians in on October 7 last year … Up to 11 people suffered non-life threatening injuries and Omar was wrestled to the floor and detained by members of the public”. Omar has been jailed for 15 months. He may well be deported after that. But in the meantime, there are more of those difficult questions for Uber to answer.

Over two years before the Exhibition Road crash, we read “The Guardian demonstrated that a driver was able to pick up a paying customer having provided fake insurance paperwork via i[Uber’s] computerised system. Some drivers fear that breaches in the technology could put customers’ safety at risk”. Well, Omar breached it. And it certainly put others’ safety at risk. Also, the Met has warned about this, as I’ve told previously.

Uber vehicles have been used for illegal activity. Their drivers feature disproportionately in accident statistics. There have been a series of sex attacks by their drivers, some of which the company has failed to report to Police. And as the LCDC has discovered, Uber threw 199 drivers off its London roster in less than a month this Summer. 199 of them during the first three week period of the company’s new licence.

All of which begs the question as to why Uber managed to get that new licence in the first place. The established cab and private hire trades deserve to have that answered. And ultimately, so do all Londoners. Where is the control being exercised here?

The bad news keeps coming up Uber. It can no longer be dismissed as a coincidence.

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Piers Morgan Eats Andrew Norfolk’s Turkey

Much heat - and very little light - has been generated during the last few days as a result of another story from the Times’ Andrew Norfolk. Clearly not fazed by the speed at which his “Muslim fostering” story fell apart, Norfolk has once again pointed at the Scary Muslims™ as he presses all the usual hate-generating buttons: grooming gangs, rape, victims, Rotherham Council (in the wrong by default, just like Tower Hamlets).

Andrew Norfolk - another demonising effort gone wrong

But let's hand over to Transparency Project for a moment: as they told yesterday, “Today sees another Andrew Norfolk front page article in The Times about the wrongs committed in the Family Court and by social services. Sadly, just like last time, this is a sensationalised headline and article which ignores some important facts and legal context”. The headline read “Jailed rapist given chance to see his victim’s child”.

As TP notes, “The Times seems barely able to bring itself to say that the rapist was the child’s father - in the absence of that connection being pointed out, any reader of the headline will probably have boggled at what it seemed to suggest, that he would have access to an unrelated child”. Norfolk then makes a significant error.

He claimed “A government spokesman said court rules made it ‘very clear that applicants in care proceedings should only ever notify people who have parental responsibility for the child’”. But TP advises “We suggest that the shadow police and crime minister, the Victims Commissioner, the unnamed MoJ / government sources and Norfolk himself should take a look at Practice Direction 12C to the Family Procedure Rules 2010” (relevant part HERE).

There is more: “[this] makes it mandatory for a local authority applying for care orders (as it appears this local authority was) to formally notify a father of the existence of proceedings”. Even a convicted rapist who is doing a 35 stretch. So did Rotherham Council offer the jailed father access to the child? TP is not so sure about that.

“[This reference] appears that this is actually no more than another reference to the local authority having given the father notice of the court case, through which (if he had chosen to become involved) he could have sought contact or parental responsibility. This is supported by a video that the mother of the child posted online today in which she says that the local authority ‘offered him to apply for parental rights’”.

They conclude “It would have been perfectly legitimate for the mother or for Norfolk (or the various people quoted) to complain that the rule itself is wrong, or that on the facts of this case the local authority should have argued for the rule to be disapplied – but that is not what this article does (and one suspects that would have made a less compelling lead item)”. Although they do cite one successful case where the local authority did not have to notify the father, one wonders how a cash strapped council would approach that.

Then, the child’s mother identified herself, and it was abuse survivor Sammy Woodhouse. She is clearly not only concerned, but also Norfolk’s source. This was done just in time for the story to become Open Season on all those rubbish local authorities, and who else should stick his bugle in and declare that he knows more than everyone else put together than former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan.

Morgan, using the bully pulpit given him by ITV’s Good Morning Britain, went off the end of the pier in no style at all. Moreover, his co-host Susanna Reid is not blameless.

Ms Reid read out Rotherham Council’s statement, which pointed out that they had to comply with legal requirements, including Practice Directions (see above). The manner in which she read it out sounded dismissive, and it was clear that neither she, nor Morgan, had been briefed on the legal requirements with which the Council was complying.

Morgan, in fact, then sneered “What a load of crap. Really, Rotherham Council? That's your response, that's your defence, for allowing a serial rapist who impregnated a young girl... what a disgrace”. Rotherham Council aren’t allowing anything. They’re doing what the law tells them to do. Piers Morgan has the responsibility of being knowledgeable, to the extent that he gives viewers the true story, and not misinformed ranting.

He then made matters worse, frothing that there was another statement, but that he wasn’t going to read it. By now, the grandstanding was so bad that Charlotte Hawkins had to try and read the Ministry of Justice’s statement - which had some significant information in it - despite Morgan trying to wave it away. Here’s the relevant MoJ line.

“Local authorities can apply to courts to request permission not to notify parents without parental responsibility about care proceedings, courts should consider the potential harm to the child and the mother when making this decision”. Rotherham Council’s only mistake was not to request permission not to notify the father. Would that have been for cost reasons, or did someone just foul up? But Morgan wasn’t interested.

“What a load of crap, seriously we should never have read that” he sneered. Wrong, Piers. Not only should you have read it, you owe it to all your viewers to get sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject and explain what happened. Except that isn’t Piers Morgan’s game. His game is a combination of self-aggrandisement and misinformation.

Yes, Ms Woodhouse is absolutely right to be not merely concerned, but even alarmed. Yes, this could have been done differently. But Rotherham Council were doing exactly what the law says they have to do in the circumstances. They don’t make the law. And nor can they amend it - or choose to ignore it. As to whether they considered going to court to apply not to notify the father, it would be interesting to hear their response. But no way should it be done in front of a clown like Piers Morgan.

Piers Morgan ate Andrew Norfolk’s turkey whole. Pity it didn’t choke the SOB.

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Syrian Refugee Teen Attack - Culprits Silent

The village of Almondbury near Huddersfield has, overnight, become not so much famous as infamous, thanks to the actions of one pupil at the local Community School last month, although the news has only just been put out there. Put directly, a teenage Syrian refugee, already nursing a broken limb from a previous attack, was kicked to the ground and then subjected to an amateur waterboarding-style stunt. He managed to get away.

While he shares responsibility for attacks like this ...

Someone was foolhardy enough to video the incident, which has highlighted the bullying this teenager, and apparently his sister, have suffered since arriving in the UK after fleeing the now-destroyed city of Homs. The attacker has had his address published (not acceptable, folks) and had threats of retaliation made against him and his family (also not acceptable). But those who brought us to this point have remained silent.

In any case, the Police are now involved, as the Guardian has reported. “West Yorkshire police are investigating a report of a ‘racially aggravated assault’ against a 15-year-old boy after a violent video was shared on social media … The victim, with his arm in a cast, is seen to be dragged to the floor by his neck before his attacker says ‘I’ll drown you’ while forcing water from a bottle into his mouth”. Where did he get that idea?

The Independent gives us a hint. “On social media, people from Huddersfield identified a 16-year-old they said was the attacker. His Facebook page showed far-right links, support for Tommy Robinson and backing for Boris Johnson’s refusal to apologise for saying women in burkas look like letterboxes”. He had, apparently, shared at least one video from Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson.

... don't forget that he did the groundwork ...

So what has Lennon told his followers about the incident? So far, nothing at all. He’s more interested in whipping up support for his “Brexit betrayal march” in London next month. But he needs to say something: after all, he denies any involvement, but is widely considered to have been a radicalising influence on Darren Osborne, the Finsbury Park attacker.

No doubt when the media catch up with Lennon, he’ll be screaming “Fake News”, calling them all liars, and threatening legal action for the heinous crime of asking him questions. But what he likes to call THE TRUTH is that he has had a part in spreading anti-Muslim prejudice and bigotry. His persistent frightening of his followers has an inevitable end point, and that is what has now happened in Huddersfield.

... and he helped to mainstream hatred

Nor is Lennon the sole contributor to this incident: today, the Daily Mail and Sun have feigned outrage, but they too have peddled Islamophobic drivel for years. Who can forget faithful Murdoch retainer Trevor Kavanagh discussing “The Muslim Problem”? Who can forget that the Sunday Sun gave a platform to Katie Hopkins? And before then, it gave a platform to the equally strident and dishonest Louise Mensch.

Yes, Stephen Lennon needs to be called out for his part in demonising Muslims. But the mainstream press has been at it longer than he has. The roll of shame includes the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, as well as new media outlets like Breitbart. None of them have clean hands. They have facilitated Stephen Lennon [The alleged attacker has now been charged with assault and will appear at Leeds Youth Court].

In turn, he has facilitated and normalised Islamophobia. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Daily Mail Brexit Poll Deceit EXPOSED

The reign of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre may be over, but the Daily Mail has not lost its penchant for falsehood and misinformation, as today’s front page splash shows all too clearly. New editor Geordie Greig has maintained the slavish support for Theresa May which the Vagina Monologue had previously established, and now has come an opinion poll to back up that support. Except … it doesn’t.

After the routinely ghastly sight of Sarah “Vain” Vine sort of backing Ms May - she clearly still needs the money - readers are told “Exclusive bombshell poll reveals Britons back May’s deal … Public say it’s best on offer by a huge margin … And voters insist staying in EU would be a humiliation … SO NOW WILL MPs LISTEN?”

Leaving aside that even those respondents who claim some knowledge of what’s in the deal will not have read any of it, what a perusal of the numbers in the Mail’s supporting article shows is that the paper has been highly selective in its conclusions.

Here’s the Top Line: “Voters want Tory MPs to rally behind Theresa May’s Brexit deal, a poll shows today … According to the Survation survey for the Daily Mail, 52 per cent say her plan is the best on the table. Only 19 per cent disagreed … And 41 per cent said the Commons should back the withdrawal agreement – compared with 38 per cent who want it voted down.” Sounds conclusive. And there is more.

“Asked to choose between Mrs May’s plan and the prospect of a Labour government, voters favoured the Prime Minister by 46 per cent to 31 per cent. Reversing Brexit would damage our national standing, according to 47 per cent”. Got that? Now let’s look at the less convenient numbers, starting with those the Mail article admits to.

To the question “Should there be a People’s Vote - a referendum - on Mrs May’s deal?” the answer is YES by a 14 point margin. Worse, “When asked to choose between the Prime Minister’s plan and staying in the EU, voters opt to remain by 46 to 37. And faced with leaving with no deal and staying in the EU, voters opt to remain by 50 to 40”.

Moreover, to the question “Which of the following scenarios do you think would be best for the UK economy?”, not only does the Government’s deal lose out to Remaining in the EU (the Survation poll data can be seen HERE), but if a referendum had three choices on the ballot paper, Remain would secure the largest vote share (44%) against the Government’s deal (22%) and No Deal on 29%. More than 9% chose Remain as their second preference, which would mean a clear Remain win.

On top of all that, if the Government loses the vote on their deal, the poll has a 7.6% lead for the choice “Theresa May should resign as Prime Minister”. For some reason, the Mail’s article does not mention that. But it does contain the sinew-stiffening exhortation “Changing tack now will only make things worse”.

The Daily Mail still doesn’t want to frighten its readers, but instead convince them that they, and their preferred newspaper, were right all along. The problem is that the poll they commissioned suggests the public are becoming wise to the propagandising.

What you will not read in the Daily Mail. No change there, then.

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