After the document codenamed Operation Yellowhammer was leaked to the press a week ago, the spin began. This manifested itself in two ways: one, attempting to play down the significance of food and medicine shortage warnings by claiming that the document was not up to date, and two, pretending that whoever leaked it was a disgruntled former minister. Both claims have now been proved to be completely false.
Harwood - lying again
And they have been proved false because the document was not an old one: it was dated this month. It could not possibly, therefore, have been leaked by a former minister, and certainly not Philip Hammond. This point was acknowledged by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog. Well, eventually.
Hammond - smeared wrongly
The Media Guido Twitter feed told its followers last week “My money is on a sacked SpAd not Hammond being the source of the Yellowhammer leak, partly because it is an old dossier that we got to read about in other Sunday papers earlier in the summer, partly because the same ex-SpAd who's daddy is a remain backing City tycoon is so gobby”. Media Guido does not dispute the August date on the leaked document.
The Hammond point was then reinforced by the man himself. Spreadsheet Phil (for it was he) has now written to alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to request that the “Number 10 source”, who suggested the leak had come from a former minister, is caused to retract and apologise. His letter has been sent on behalf of all those former ministers who had been erroneously smeared.
That puts one person in one of those Very Difficult Positions. Tom Harwood, replacement teaboy to the Fawkes massive, features in a Stand Up For Brexit Tweet, sent out more than three hours after Media Guido did not dispute the August date, can be seen claiming otherwise, and more than once. Or, as is usually called, lying.
“This is a very old document … I agree with some of the suggestions that if we were to leave immediately with no planning, with no plan at all, there could be problems. But the point is that we’re assessing what those problems might be, planning for them so they don’t happen. This seems to be a storm in a tea cup because it’s entirely out of date”.
The document wasn’t a very old one, though. It wasn’t entirely out of date. Worse for teaboy Tom, The Great Guido had been told as much and had not argued otherwise. On top of that, Spreadsheet Phil has now underscored the point. Not for the first time, Tom Harwood has been caught on video blatantly and premeditatedly lying.
Paul Staines, in his interview with Esquire magazine, claimed “The lying in politics is on an industrial scale”. What he didn’t say, but knew all too well, was that his blog was a significant contributor to that lying. Now his teaboy’s been caught bang to rights.
And the lying is so easily spotted and debunked. So how about giving it a rest, eh?
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2 comments:
Suddenly, "condemnation of politician lying" has become a cause celebre.
Even Byrne, Head of C4 "News", joined the chorus. Which hypocrisy is little short of mind-boggling considering that programme's record of deception and censorship by omission (aka lying) - particularly in the twisted "foreign reporting" of Hilsum, Rugman and Miller. So which corporate media apparatchik (Byrne for example) is going to have the guts to call out media lying? Or will they, as usual, get heads down in their cowardly mortgage-first bunker? One guess at their choice......
So here's a suggestion: Make it illegal for anyone in or seeking public office to lie or mislead the public. Hefty jail sentences for the guilty parties. And while we're at it immediately introduce Leveson 2 for both print and broadcast media.
The fact is, lying politicians and lying propaganda clerks (take note, Byrne et al) are cut from the same hypocritical cloth. Which is why free thinkers everywhere hold them in utter contempt.
Great point Anonymous!
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