Michael Gove - No Deal Pants On Fire

Michael “Oiky” Gove, now officially Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which means he is the minister responsible for a possible No Deal Brexit, is regarded as honest and courteous by those prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. But two recent events show that he is anything but: Gove has now been caught twice making claims that have turned out not to be true, and which he knew were not true.

His first slip came when rebutting now Lib Dem MP Luciana Berger, who had made claims about the Operation Yellowhammer documents on Robert Peston’s ITV show. “I have a lot of admiration for [Luciana Berger] but on this occasion she’s wrong - Yellowhammer is a reasonable worst case scenario NOT our base case of what will happen”, he told.

And, sure enough, when the Yellowhammer documents were finally prised out of the Government’s grasp this week, they did indeed talk of a worst case scenario. But then, news from Gove’s native Scotland broke through his façade of honesty, as the Scotsman has reported. “The UK government has been accused of ‘doctoring’ its Operation Yellowhammer documents to downplay the risk of a no-deal Brexit”. How so?

“Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the Conservative government had been ‘caught red handed’ after Nicola Sturgeon admitted that the Yellowhammer report the Scottish Government received was entitled ‘base scenario’”. That phrase was also on the copy of the document that had earlier been leaked. And now things have got worse.

Last month, Gove repeated that whopper and added another: “We don’t normally comment on leaks - but a few facts - Yellowhammer is a worst case scenario - v significant steps have been taken in the last 3 weeks to accelerate Brexit planning - and Black Swan is not an HMG doc but a film about a ballet dancer”. Who is this Black Swan?

Ah well. This is the REAL worst case scenario, and unfortunately for “Oiky” Gove, someone outside Government has got hold of it. A staff member for Liz Evenden Kenyon, who you can tell as she’s a Doctor, told yesterday “Thank you to everyone who is sending us parts of [Black Swan]. Dr Liz is going to review my briefing notes, and she will comment further soon”. She is also a Lib Dem PPC - for Bozo The Clown’s constituency.

She later explained why Black Swan is not just a film about a ballet dancer. "The [Black Swan] theory is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalised after the fact with the benefit of hindsight”.

Today she and her staff have told “[Black Swan]: *apparently* (in its redacted [Yellowhammer] version) there is mention of … Martial law … Significant fuel shortages … Unnecessary deaths re drugs & social care. After consideration, I will hand over our findings to mainstream media contact *soon*”. And there was more.

“We have mobile phone photos of a document. After a night of wrangling, Liz has decided to hand our findings over to a legit MSM contact. We are fairly sure what we are seeing is genuine, but Liz won't spread misinformation. We will leave our findings with experts”.

Michael Gove’s cover-up and disinformation is about to be busted. Good thing too.

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