After the Domestic between London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds was splashed across every newspaper yesterday morning, those in the right-leaning part of the press, for which read most of it, decided that the story had to be spun in a way that made Bozza look less of an absolute cad and bounder. This would be achieved by going after the neighbours.
Yes, yes, I know - a Domestic is still a Domestic, whoever recorded the row and whoever reported it to the Police. Plates being smashed do not mend themselves depending on the political allegiance of whoever lives in the next flat. But such is the twisted logic employed by our free and fearless press that they believe it will improve Bozza’s image if they put the boot in on the people who told the Rotten Lefties™ at the Guardian.
And so it came to pass that the Mail on Sunday told readers “'Leftist' millionaire's daughter whose playwright husband called police on Boris after recording screaming bust-up 'gave the finger' to PM-hopeful in the street - as it's revealed Johnson's girlfriend Carrie no longer feels safe at home”. Ms Symonds has been briefing the papers.
The MoS has gone full smear, too: “It says much about modern times that on hearing a commotion next door, Tom Penn - acting 'purely out of instinct' - reached for his smartphone and pressed record … Such a reaction had nothing to do, of course, with the fact that those engaged in the crockery-breaking barney just after midnight on Friday were none other than Boris Johnson and his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds - or that the sleuthing Mr Penn and his wife Eve Leigh are avowed Remain supporters”.
THEY SUPPORTED REMAIN SO IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Oh, and remember, they’re “Guardianista neighbours in £720,000 flat next to Carrie Symonds”. Also, “allies and friends of Mr Johnson and Miss Symonds pointed to their neighbours' anti-Brexit sentiment and 'hatred' of the Tory Party” (that last bit was made up, hence the quote marks).
Meanwhile, over at the Baby Shard bunker, the Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Sunday Sun were, to no surprise at all, on the same page - because Ms Symonds had been briefing them, too. “Boris Johnson’s furious partner Carrie Symonds brands cop call a ‘stitch-up’ by leftie, anti-Brexit neighbour … Carrie, 31, has told pals she is too scared to return to her £750,000 flat after being subjected to what she believes to be a hate campaign”. And she managed to tell the Sun and MoS too, purely by coincidence.
Then we get “politically motivated … left-wing Guardian newspaper” and a whole section on “Who is lefty neighbour Eve?” who wrote something that attracted EU funding. She criticised the Government over its response to the Grenfell Tower fire, and her Twitter feed includes an RT of something by Owen Jones. SO SHE’S A BADDIE.
There is even the casual smear from the “Boris camp” that “They know Eve and her partner - and Eve has given Boris the finger on at least one occasion in the street”. Ms Symonds didn’t get where she is today without kicking a few lefties.
It’s sickening: the idea that smearing the neighbours who were concerned about their safety will make things better for Bozza and Ms Symonds. Or that judgmental articles written by several men is a sensible way of tackling potential domestic violence.
The grotesque lack of self-awareness was summed up by the loathsome Toby Young, who smirked “I got a lot of grief yesterday after describing Boris’s ear-wigging neighbours as members of the Left. No, no, I was told. They were just concerned citizens who felt a moral duty to record the row and give the tape to @guardian. Turns out, they’re members of the Left. Shock!” LEFTIES AND CONCERNED CITIZENS ARE DIFFERENT SAYS TOBES.
That further slice of tone-deaf idiocy was condemned by former prosecutor Nazir Afzal: “Stop party politicking … We spent decades encouraging victims to come fwd & witnesses to see it as a civic duty to report concerns … All this does is discourage victims, 2 of whom will be murdered this week 10 will kill themselves due to abuse … It’s an Epidemic”.
“Don’t you dare call the cops if you hear a Domestic because it might be one of our pals, and never tell the Guardian because we’ll track you down and smear the shit out of you” is today’s press message. Just how sick is our media class? Read and weep.
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22 comments:
Tim - have you seen the Mail on Sunday today? They've even gone after Carrie Symonds herself, accusing her of (amongst other things) being a good actress, having ambition, not being responsible for Boris being slimmer and having a (probably fake) Hermes clutch bag. They finish it all off by saying how Boris regrets leaving his wife.
It appears the neighbours where trying to get Boris. Do yours give you the finger for just being you?
Taping conversations through walls, sending it in to the Graun, calling in the stasi, (in that order!) Welcome to the liberal, progressive Corbynite future British Democratic Republic of the EU. Which thanks to the exposure of these types will not come to pass.
These are the "clever" rich "socialists" that Orwell warned us about, those that know what is good for us and feel democracy is something only the lower orders should indulge in.
Yawn. Nothing new here. Standard ranting rightie tabloid smears.
Ask Sara Keays and Carmen Proetta.
There they are, the usual propaganda clerks, Murdoch's Scum, Murdoch's Slimes and of course the Heil, all spitting poison, fluttering behind them the rabid moth Toby Jug.
Goebbels and Streicher had nothing on these cowardly jobsworths.
Have the r souls blamed Theresa "rotten lefty" May for throwing Johnson out of his grace and favour home where he had all the privacy that he needed for domestic life?
Anonymous 11.50
Don't know why I'm wasting my time, but:
1.'Do yours give you the finger for just being you?'
I certainly hope they would if the 'me' I was 'just being' was a narcissistic, spoiled bully with an established record of being a lying shit
2. Orwell deserves better than being inappropriately referred to by someone who can produce fetid crap like 'Welcome to the liberal, progressive Corbynite future British Democratic Republic of the EU'
Enjoy your Sunday
No matter how you vote, if you hear a neighbour in trouble, you raise the alarm. Reaching for your smartphone to record it says nothing about 'modern times' what it actually says is the neighbour recorded evidence which could have easily proved useful to the police. I agree with Afzal, these right wing pundits are deliberately covering for their bezzie Boris' arse so much that they're likely to discourage reporting incidents to the police. Well done.
Calling the police 'the stasi' in this instance @11;50 is nothing short of ridiculous. I bet you wouldn't should you ever need them. Grow up.
Hey anonymous 11.50: Orwell was a socialist himself. He would have despised people like you.
If you know your neighbours hate you and would love to get you into trouble, you must be really thick to give them ammunition, mustn't you?
Seeing as it was on the weekend of Father's Day, was it possibly a row about that?
I think I read earlier how Symons is now scared to go home.
Who's fault is that?
Oh Yes @14.46
I'd be bloody terrified to go home if I knew that Fat Boris was lying in bed waiting to swathe me in his blubber
I AM the socialist, you lot are federalist stooges. Of course the police are the stasi, have you forgotten Orgreave?
You may willingly accede the dead hand of federal conformity required by the EU and those who claim to be "socialists" who will tell you what you should do and think, but real socialists born out of years of being downtrodden by governments of all hues know it isn't socialism, any more than the GDR was!
ORWELL:-
"The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which 'we', the clever ones, are going to impose upon 'them', the Lower Orders."
You stooges are letting your hatred of Boris blind you to the truth of purpose, these toffs and the Graun look down on you and see you has useful stooges in their mission of control over our lives. Democracy and the will of the masses are an anathema to them.
@ 16:30.
Ah.
The ol' double blind troll.
It won't work, "pal".
@12
The 'will of the masses' = mob rule.
You know, the ones who want Magna Carta (Gawd bless her) instead of Human Rights.
You highlight Orgreave, without any sense of irony, as an indicator of the dead hand of federal conformity required by the EU and cheer on Watermelon Letterbox Johnson as Britain's saviour.
I bet you think that Angela Merkel is left wing.
"Whose fault is it she is afraid to go home? "
The neighbours and other locals who have been doing frankly unpleasant things of questionable legality to force her from her home.
A local has been pictured stood outside Miss Symonds's flat yesterday holding a poster. When asked whether they thought the poster would make Miss Symonds feel uncomfortable living in her flat the reply was: 'Well, move'.
Other posters have been seen in the locale.
I would suggest that is harassment. Over to you plod!
These "lefties" are just strengthening Boris's hand. Decent people see that all this is plain wrong, whoever you are.
Looks like you got this one wrong Tim.
@15
"Locale"? "Decent people"?
Bit of a giveaway.
And can we have a citation for that claim, please?
Is there anything more tiresome than seeing, as we often do these days, the right wing attempting to appropriate for themselves George Orwell?
No need to ask me if I remember Orgreave, I had family there. Whilst I can never truly trust the police as a result, I would still want them there should a woman feel threatened in her own home. Calling them the stasi for responding to neighbourly concerns that have been (and I think this is getting lost in the right's attempt to shift the blame right now) proven justified, is a lame move.
@15
Yer. Slap a D Notice on anything connected to Watermelon Letterbox Johnson.
Anonymous at 17.54
Spot on, surprised that others were fooled.
Tim, there is a picture of the "well move" women outside the flat with the poster. She is also named. Clear case of harassment I'd say.
Surely you read the Mail?
Like I say not the sort of thing decent people do, nor like to see others doing.
Sorry old chap, Boris is not the reason for anyone being scared to go home!
@ 02:39.
Maybe, maybe not.
But Yellow Johnson IS one tiny reason this country is fucked. He's one symptom of a national cancer.
Ken Bigley's brother got it right when he told Johnson to get out of public life. He could take all the other tories with him too.
You missed out the bit where they knocked on the door three times to see if they were Ok, before doing anything else.
Also, just because the Scum and Mail said she gave Boris the finger, doesn’t mean it actually happened, neither have a good record for factual reporting, if anything quite the opposite.
Go and indulge your Orwellian fantasys where more appropriate Tory cabinet office would be a good start.
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